EP315 - Mentoring and Disciple-Making in a Digital Age feat. Katie Bulmer

Welcome to the Church Digital Podcast.

Through this podcast, we'll talk about the technological innovations within the church.

But more than tech for tech itself, we'll address deeper questions.

Is disciple making possible digitally?

How should we approach the digital mission field?

Can a biblically grounded church operate in digital space?

Oh, and where does the metaverse and artificial intelligence fit into all of this?

Whether you're a big or small church,

the Church Digital's goal is to help churches like yours learn to be a multiplying church,

digitally and physically.

And now here's your host, Jeff Reed.

Hey everybody, welcome to episode 315 of the Church Digital Podcast.

My name is Andy.

Of course, I am not Jeff Reed here.

And we were giving Jeff another week off to recover from everything that happened in Korea

at the Lausanne Conference.

And I'm sure he's going to be full of stories and connections

and networking opportunities.

And, you know, the things that happen at major, major conferences like this,

especially a global conference like Lausanne was.

But actually today, we are taking over the podcast yet again,

just like we did last week when we got a chance to talk with Ian Simpkins,

who if you do not know Ian Simpkins,

please go give him a follow on all of the socials.

That dude is doing digital in a minimal and simplistic way.

And yet it is anything but minimal and simplistic in its message.

And my goodness, go listen to the episode.

Go follow Ian Simpkins.

That's episode 314.

It'll be in the doodly-doos below.

If you're watching this on YouTube or if you're listening on podcasts,

it'll also be in the show notes.

But this is episode 315.

And we, as the hybrid disciple, are taking over.

And one of the things that Ashley and I really were doing when we were recording these episodes,

we recorded them all in batches, and that's just kind of little tricks of the podcasting trait.

And one of the things that happened was, as we did a bunch of our interviews in season 2,

we noticed that there was kind of a common theme happening.

And that theme was discipleship happening in unlikely scenarios.

And this episode with Katie Ballmer, who you're going to meet in just a few seconds,

is unlike any other episode that you're going to hear.

Katie is a podcaster, she is an author, she is a motivational speaker.

She does, you know, she runs the Truth in Your 20s.

Like, it is a very women and female-centric thing.

But don't let that kind of shut the episode off and just be like,

well, this is only for women and yada, yada, yada.

There's so much truth that Katie brings to the idea of digital discipleship.

And more than just digital discipleship, doing discipleship in different spaces and places

than we're used to.

And she's incredibly encouraging.

She is one of the coolest people you ever get the chance to meet.

And Ashley and I enjoyed our time so, so much with Katie.

So, okay, enough about me and all of the things that are happening all around, all of that.

I need to get you to this episode here.

You're going to hear a little bit of intro, and then we are going to be off and running.

So here we go, episode 315 of the Church Digital Podcast.

Let's dig in.

Well, we're back, and we are opening episode five here,

much like I have been opening the rest of our episodes in season two so far,

with the saying, this is a fun one, but it is.

This is a fun one.

Ashley and I here on The Hybrid Disciple are joined by Katie Ballmer,

the host of The Truth For Your 20s Podcast.

And she's got books and speaking gigs and all sorts of things all over the place.

She's a mentor.

She's really passionate about helping college-age women figure out their place in the world.

And it is such a kind of a niche, but it's a broad niche.

It's something that is also desperately, desperately needed.

And so in this episode, Ashley and I kind of get into the history of where Katie was

and how the woman at the well story changed her life and changed her outlook on ministry

and really affected her deeply and really has been affecting her ministry.

And the stories that she's able to tell about the women, the young women that she's affecting,

and also the young men and sometimes the dads like myself that she's affecting is just fantastic.

I can't wait for you to hear a lot of this, but I also can't wait to hear some of your follow-up.

We've been getting a lot more engagement and follower stuff, traction on YouTube and on Instagram.

And if you're not actually following us on YouTube or Instagram or on TikTok,

and if you're not one of those that has actually hit the old subscribe button or thumbs up or anything like that,

please go and do so.

We'd love to hear from you.

Obviously, it helps get our numbers up and all that, and we're really cool with getting numbers up.

But more than that, we get a chance to actually converse with you.

We want to create this hybrid disciple community wherever we are at.

So go and do those things.

All of the links are in the doodly-doos below if you're watching on YouTube and if you're on TikTok or on Instagram or anywhere else that you can find us.

They will be in the show notes of this podcast as well as in our bio.

Okay, enough of me blathering on.

Let's get to Katie Ballmer here on the Hybrid Disciple.

Well, our next guest here on the Hybrid Disciple, if you are watching on YouTube or any other places that we are streaming this

or that you can watch this on demand, she seems to be in some sort of Florida room, except I don't think that she's actually in Florida.

Katie Ballmer, thanks for joining us on the show.

Where are you in the world?

Thanks for having me.

I am in the mountains of Chattanooga, Tennessee, so not Florida, but I am a plant nerd.

So what I'm not doing, what we're going to talk about today, I'm fiddling in the garden and with my plants.

So here's my other children behind me.

I like that.

Okay, I was going to ask if you had named them, you know, Fernie and, you know, Rodriguez or something along those lines.

The mountains of Chattanooga, actually, I used to live just north of Atlanta.

So, you know, Chattanooga was less than an hour for us.

And I'd always get up there.

Chattanooga has this one thing that I don't know if you're familiar with.

It's called fiber internet.

You guys have fiber internet everywhere up there.

We do.

And I didn't realize it.

It's called Gig City.

So my internet's faster than yours, probably.

I don't know.

I didn't know this, but this is a thing.

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

I am insanely jealous.

I actually, I petitioned my wife to move up there.

She said no, because that's where we can't go there just for the internet.

Like you'd need to give me some sort of other reason.

And I couldn't.

So, hey, Katie, throughout this, throughout the show, if you can give me a reason to move up to Chattanooga,

like I'll be there in some moments.

Notice.

I'll be glad to show you the mountains in the distance.

They're gorgeous.

Awesome.

Love it.

Love it.

Love it.

Well, Ashley actually introduced me to Katie through, yet again, we were talking off camera

and behind the scenes and a lot of people talking about the fact that you can't make real relationships

online and do all these other things.

And Ashley and I have never been online, even though we've done a thousand podcasts together.

And both Ashley and I feel like we could just go hang with each other's families for days

and be comfortable.

Ashley, you actually met Katie online as well.

Can you walk me through all of that and how you got introduced to her?

Yeah.

So, Katie and I both have TikTok and we both, I would say our target audience is the opposite side of the same coin.

So, young women predominantly, I would say 18 to 26 or so.

And she, the women that I kind of target are women who have gone through really grimy situations,

may still be in really grimy situations, whether it's through sex work or sex trafficking or strippers or,

or, you know, just people, young women whose society is a whole kind of set aside because of my testimony.

And Katie works very closely with young women who just are more, I would say, mainstream,

but who really may struggle with self-worth because that's a common thread among young women today.

And so, I, the FYP, which if the, it's, I don't know how, it's just the way that TikTok determines who

you want to see and who should see you.

I don't know if she saw me first or I saw her first, but I, we, I started seeing her content

and followed her and she started seeing my content and followed me.

And then we just, she has a podcast, which we'll get into, and she asked me to hop on her podcast.

And so, I did that probably a year or so ago.

And ever since then, we've just kind of, you know, made sure and stayed in touch a lot of TikTok back

and forth. TikTok sometimes will do this wacky thing where it, for whatever reason, won't push

your content out unless somebody's viewed it a certain number of times. And so, we've like got this

cheat code where I'll be like, hey, I just posted this. It's not doing anything. Will you please go

do all of the things that it like pushes it out of purgatory on TikTok and she'll do the same with

me. Um, and I listened to her podcast now, um, as a single woman, a lot of the things that she talks

about actually applies to me, even though I'm much like double the age of the girls that she's, uh,

targeting, you know? And so, yeah, that's how we met. And, um, she loves Jesus and I love Jesus.

And so that's been just the commonality there.

Hey, uh, yeah, Katie, the, the host of Truth For Your 20s podcast, uh, again, thanks for being

here. So first off, tell us all about the podcast, how you got all that started, like how you got

ministering to women that are in your 20s. Cause like none of us on this podcast are in our 20s

anymore. Uh, and so where, where did you kind of get the genesis of that idea and all of those

things? Yeah, there's several different genesis. So I, depending on which roadmap we're going to

take here to explain how I got there, but yeah, so I, my husband was in youth ministry. So when we

first got married, he was in youth ministry, which kind of naturally you become a big sister.

You know, we were in our twenties, but just naturally kind of became a big sister to,

to young women. But even before then when I was in college, so I got saved as a senior in college.

So like kind of walking out of that, but through those days, definitely living for,

I say boys in Bacardi, you know, like all the things the world have to looking, looking for love

and all the wrong fraternity boys, all the things. And the woman at the well story. Thank you. Um,

John chapter four is what changed my life. Uh, the longest recorded conversation with a heartbroken

girl. I just love it with all of my hope, all of my soul. And it shook me in all the best ways.

And I was like, does, does everyone know about this woman at the well? This is the coolest thing

ever. So, you know, I started talking about it and for sure, very early as a baby Christian,

I heard God was like, I want you to go share this with sorority women. And you know, as we do fingers

in the ears, what? Nope. Don't hear that moving on. So ignored that call. Um, get married, find my

husband, we get married youth pastor. So I'm doing the good Christian things. I'm a big sister to,

to youth girls. I, I dive into homeless ministry. This was just a long, you know, look at me. I'm such a

Christian. I'm saving all the homeless people in the world. Find myself depleted. I had put my heart

and soul and everything into helping this one particular girl. She was going to be a success

story. Like we had pulled out all the stops, got her a part. She was living in a car, but we got her

an apartment. We got her a job like, yay. Until I realized I wanted a better life for her much more

than she did. She let all the pieces fall. I'm in the closet having a hissy fit. God, can't you see,

you know, what a good person? Like, what are you doing? Like, are you asleep up there?

And again, he was like, when did I ever ask you to do any of this? Share your story with sorority

women. And I was like, oh yeah, I remember that. So this is how stubborn I am and how God has to be

like slap slap for real. So there's a lot of story to that too. But long story short, I started getting

involved in my sorority. I was at 80 pie. So I, you know, it was a kind of an easy door to get back

involved with that. Like, you know, Hey, I'd like to be an advisor. I'd like to serve. And

very shyly was like, Hey, so I kind of have this passion. My background is in marketing this whole

time. I've worked in TV, print, radio advertising. Saw how, as Ashley talked about 18 to 24 year old

women really do have trendsetting power. And there's so much good that they could do in the

world. If they realized how powerful they are when it comes to marketing, I learned this through

marketing and then realize, you know, why don't we use this power for good? So I shyly mentioned to

these girls like, Hey, I see sorority women have cool influence if we can use it for good. And they're

like, well, why don't you come talk to our chapter about that next Sunday, 225 girls, the mic is yours.

And I'm like, I'm sorry, what? So that was my very first speaking opportunity, which has now grown

to, I've gone to 70 colleges nationwide. That first time I had no idea what I was saying, but obviously it

grew and became what I do now. Yeah. And there's lots of other cat little rabbit trails along the

way that this path has taken me, but don't want to answer your question in three hours. So that's

the short of the story. No, that's what we do here. Three hour, three hour answers is good. I have one

last question before one more question before I turn it over to Ashley. Did it feel as you were going

back into a sorority to really offer your services as an advisor, did you, did you see any of the impact

you were actually going to have, or was it kind of, you were focusing on the day-to-day minute

by minute kind of discipleship pathway that you were going to be taking?

Yeah. I would say I had no idea. And really kind of to get me in that I was a, so this whole time

working in advertising also became a yoga instructor who saw that coming and had a young lady at my

church. So I hear this, I had this, you know, meltdown moment in the closet. God, can't you see

how hard I'm working? He's like, hello, share your story with sorority women. But then I'm like,

what does that even look like? I'm like 30 years old at this point. Do I go knock on the beautiful

sorority mansion? Hey, God told me to come talk to you guys. You know, that won't be awkward.

Call the police on me. But a young lady at church said, Hey, aren't you a yoga instructor? Can you

come do a yoga class for our sisterhood? And I'm like, can I ever? And this was an 80 pie and that's

what I was. So it was like a natural lead, started doing classes with them, started to get to know the

president. And then that's when she invited me to come speak. And so yes, no, no clue. 100%

God wanted me to get there more than I did. I did not have a vision for it. I stumbled like a

doofus along the way to get to where I am now. Yeah. It's amazing. I think all the time that when

I look at like the totality of my life, how even the weird, seemingly obscure things that you happen

to fall into, um, how those things even play a role in what your ultimate purpose and calling is.

And the concept that God wastes nothing is so, so true because even, even I say all the time,

like I grew up in the middle of nowhere, Northern New Mexico, like 15 miles from a town of 2000 people,

two hours from a single stoplight. Okay. I was obsessed with West coast gangster rap

in high school. Tupac. Yes. And my dad would be like,

my dad would be like, I don't understand how you identify with this at all. It just doesn't make

any kind of sense. Like F the police. Like there are no police here. Like, why are you even like,

she doesn't make sense. Right. Like nothing. Um, and you know, my church predominantly focuses on urban

spaces and we have a whole section now called hip hop hermeneutics and it's like lessons in hip hop.

And like the little, you know, the 13 year old kid in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico that should not

have been obsessed with, you know, all of the West coast hip hop things, it all plays into that. So

it's always interesting to me when I hear people's stories and they're like, well, I just happened to

start teaching yoga. It didn't really make sense. And, and then that one seemingly minute thing that you

just did because you enjoyed it can be something that, that completely launches an entire section of

ministry that you would have never, um, you know, even imagined doing. And so I think that that's,

that's just an interesting thing about God. Like as people, this is obviously a minor preaching moment,

but as people are going through life, you know, don't think that the obscure thing that you're

really interested in isn't one of the things that God wants to use. I mean, even gaming, like,

you know, you have people who are super obsessed with video games that are now able to minister to an

entire group of people that nobody else can reach just because they like to play call of duty. You

know, um, it's not a minor thing. Like God puts those, the things that we like and the things that

we just, we desire to do. I think that those are all intricate parts of who he creates us to be,

to reach the people that we need to be able to reach. So, um, whenever you decided to launch

the podcast specifically, what was your mindset behind that and what caused you to want to step into the

podcast space?

Yeah. So that's actually the youngest of the things I do, if you will. So, you know, I started,

well, I kind of dove into what I'm doing with the ministry to sorority women, but that wasn't really

a thing until I launched an ebook. This was the, they told you to do this back in the day, like to do an

ebook to get people to put, get on your email subscriber list. No idea what I was doing, but that

ebook, um, I had some sorority women. This is really good. We can, we can shoot the cover of it. We can

help lay out the graphics and it turned into an actual book just printed through Amazon. Like

the average person could do this. I had no followers. I was like, you know, no idea what

I was doing. So I had this actual printed book. I go to some conferences and I'm like, Hey, you know,

very shyly again, I have this book that I see the incredible trendsetting power of sorority girls,

but it's probably not good. And they're like, yeah, why don't you come speak to our chapter?

That's how I got speaking opportunities. That's how it started. And so anyway, the pod, that was

the book and then the speaking opportunities, the podcast happened, it's probably about four years old

now. And so that happened just really wanting to talk, have longer conversations about things I was

saying on social media. As we know, our attention spans are getting shorter and there's only so much

you can say in 15 second tech talks or even, you know, a minute long. And there was just so much

more to be said and so many more conversations I want to have. And the podcast, I was actually being

interviewed on several other people's podcasts, which is wonderful. And I was like, I have a lot

more to say. So I did that. And then I thankfully have had the opportunity to interview a lot of people

too. A lot of it is interview style, but I get to, I'm on the list for a lot of publishers. So people,

interesting people who have books coming out, I get to meet them. And I always say, ask them at the end

of every interview, if you could have coffee with your 20 year old self, what would you say? And that's

so fun. Cause I get to hear from really cool people who are doing good in the world, what they would

say. And yeah, so that's kind of how that all came to be. And how do you feel? Because we give advice

a lot to, to spiritual leaders and pastors and people in nonprofits, et cetera, about the digital

space specifically. And you hear gurus, like I jokingly say, don't come at me in the comments,

but my patron saint is Gary V. So the patron saint of marketing, Gary V, you know, he says that he

thinks everyone should have a podcast, that there's literally no one on earth that should not have one

because one, you can chop it up into short form content, but two, that we all know at least

several interesting people that don't ever get their stories out there or whatever the case may be.

So as you stepped into the podcast space, what are your thoughts about ministries having a podcast

outside of just their general ministry stuff, like outside of preaching, outside of, you know,

social media, outside of that? What are your thoughts on that?

Okay. About a podcast. I don't know that I would say everyone needs a podcast. It's a lot of work.

I mean, Gary V is great. And maybe I can certainly open to be argued with that, but I will say that

everyone needs to be showing up online. That is such a low hanging fruit. Literally like before we got on

this call, I got a comment on one of my posts and I get this all the time. You guys, are there any men

talking about healthy dating culture? Like Katie is, I get that all the time. And I'll talk to guys every now

and then, and I'm sure there are, but I just don't hear it. If there were a thousand, there needs to

be a thousand and one because especially Christian voices, like how crazy for you to be thinking I'm

not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I don't know how to do TikToks good enough. Just say something,

fail, get it wrong, learn, delete the stupid posts. Once you see it's better in a year, but you have to

start somewhere. I mean, some of my first TikToks were stupid, but I had to start to figure it out.

And yeah, I'll get on my soapbox about this, but your listeners are the target audience for me to

strangle with love and tell you and shake you behind the shoulders, like show up online. Your voice is

needed. There are a million loud voices out there. There are not enough true voices. And as someone

who speaks to young people, there's a lot of confusion. Again, even if you see three people on

your, you know, your brows that are saying something similar to you, your voice is still needed because

you might be into gaming. Like you said, you might live in a different part of the country. You might

have brown hair or blue. People are going to relate to you differently than Joe Blow, who's saying the

same thing. Say it, say good things on the internet, please. This is me begging.

I think that it's interesting that I have recently become friends on TikTok with a lady who she was

in pornography for seven years. And now she's very active in anti-pornography initiatives and she's

loves Jesus and married, has kids. And she and I got into a conversation about that very thing that

from certain vantage points, people might would say that she and I talk about the same thing. We

actually talk about very different things because pornography and prostitution while they're on the

same road or in different lanes. And so somebody had told her, well, I already follow this girl over

here and she says, blah, blah, blah. And we were kind of chuckling about it because if you were to scroll

through the people that follow me versus the people that follow her, they are drastically different

people. They are not even remotely the same people. And it's not because both of our audiences don't

understand or relate to the other person's stuff. It's just the way that I package things and deliver

things is a completely different way than the way she talks about things and packages things. And I think

that we have to wrap our heads around that the gospel is the same way. Whenever you are in faith circles,

there are ways that, I mean, you can take mega famous pastors like, you know, TD Jakes, who is a phenomenal

preacher, obviously known all over the world, is nothing like Stephen Furtick, nothing. Now, he did mentor

Stephen Furtick. I think that they have a pretty solid relationship, but stylistically, visually,

there's no, so would you tell either one of those men to stop preaching because they weren't like

the other man? That's just completely insane. Like, of course we wouldn't say that. Like, you know, and you

could, I mean, you could compare Mike Todd to Billy Graham, like they're both, you would never tell either one of

them to stop sharing the gospel because they just identify with a completely different group of people

than, you know. I do sometimes wonder what Billy Graham would say about each individual, like new

up-and-coming pastor. Like, I'd really like to hear his thoughts sometimes, but that's a rabbit trail we

don't have to go down. So, yeah, I think that you're right. I think that, I do believe, though, that if you

are in a medium to large size church and you have the staff for it, I think that they should have podcasts

outside of just traditional church. Because sometimes, for instance, Impact Church, I am in

Phoenix, Arizona in Scottsdale. That's a big church, and there are so many retired and current professional

sports team people that go there. That church is known for that. Like, people retire from the NFL,

they move to Arizona because the heat's better for their joints, and they all go to church at Impact.

And, you know, to sit down and have weekly conversations with these solid believers that are

men that have that presence in the world because of what their career has been could be game-changing.

So, it's kind of like, I think that, that ministers that are in that space that have the staff 100%

should do that. Yeah. Yeah. Their voice is needed for sure. Show up.

Show up. Yeah. Yes. So, I actually, following up on that, you're, you're, you're, you're,

your target audience is obviously women. Do you have, that's a two-part question. Number one,

do you have men that listen to your show? Number one. And number two, if they do, do you ever get

any feedback, positive, negative, otherwise, from men who are trying to actively partake in what

you're, what you're putting out into the universe? I know that they're there. Obviously, it's the

minority. I have heard through DMs or emails or whatever from a few. And it's funny, I got an email

one time it was like a 40 year old dad and he's like, I know I'm not your target market, but no,

I have daughters and just thank you for what you're doing. And, and so that was really kind.

I can't think of ever having pushback from guys. So that's nice. Now, what's funny is I'm a speaker

to sorority. So I traveled to all these sororities and more often than not, there's at least one or two

guys in the audience, even if they're just doing sound or he's the fraternity sorority life director

or whatever. And I'll say, you know, like, um, women's empowerment gets a bad rap because then

that gets until the feminist rabbit train. And that's not what I'm about, but I'll say things

like raise the bar and dating, don't date dirtbags, stuff like this. But 10 out of 10 times, the guys

are always like, thank you for saying that. Um, these are good guys who, uh, you know, agree with what

I'm saying about stop putting up with guys treating you like crap. I mean, most good hearted guys are

like, yes, thank you. So I guess the short of the story is I don't have a lot of guys in the

audience. I know, but the ones that I do, I've always heard good things about, and I have had

probably the most common guy related comment I get is that like, are there guys out there saying

what you're saying, Katie? And I'm like, maybe, I guess, I don't know, but if you know who they

are, tag them and I would love to be friends and help cheer them on and share their stuff. And I'm on

your side. I love that. You're that listeners. You're in your, you know, if you know about

males, if you want to step in and have a wide open niche, like Katie's handing it to you on

a platter, like getting solid relationship advice. Yes. We can set up a phone call. Basically what I'm

asking guys who, who want to talk about what it looks like to date with integrity, what it looks like

to, Hey, you know what? It turns out God's design is best. He isn't trying to hold out on you because

he's mean. He loves you and he wants what's best for you. Um, grace with truth. Uh, these are

conversations that need to be had because I can tell you Cardi B and a lot of other people are just

saying a lot of other things in the world and there's confusion if nothing else. And there might

be lack of conversations at home and their 19 year old friends are much help. So they need positive

voices in the world. And we always say I'm a mentor. I do online mentoring as well, but sometimes the

people who mentor me and the people who mentor the people on the other side of this, uh, conversation,

you might not have met them in real life, but you thanks to this world that we live in this modern

day, you can be a mentor to potentially thousands of young men or young women by picking up your

smartphone. It was in your pocket. It's just amazing. So with that in mind, whenever it comes

specifically to discipleship, because we really want people to understand, you know, mentorship,

discipleship, those are very synonymous things. Um, I think mentorship is a more broad term used in a

more secular society. Discipleship, I think is mentorship, um, with just a deeply spiritual element

that is obviously focal. Um, what would you say, how would you say discipleship plays into what you're

doing? Because you're in an interesting place where you don't necessarily know what someone's

spiritual walk is. Like they might be believers in Christ. They may not, you know, they could be

agnostic or there's so many, a myriad of things. Um, and, and I think it was our second episode.

I talked about the difference between covert and overt discipleship. So there's overt discipleship

where someone knows you really well. You absolutely know they're a believer. And they may even ask you

like, Hey, you know, Katie, I see you and your husband have an amazing marriage. You have healthy

dynamics. I know that you love Jesus. This is something I want. Will you disciple me? Like,

can I purposely step under you? That's like overt discipleship, right? Like it's overtly,

you're clearly discipling them. There's no secret. Then I said there, I believe that there's something

that's called covert discipleship, which is when people want to be around you for whatever reason.

And you're not necessarily full on, like giving them like biblical truth with the, with the proper

jargon, right? Like Jesus said, or the Bible says, or, but you're very definitely giving them

biblical and scriptural principles. And they walk away with a seed planted in them. And I think that

that's, I call that covert discipleship. Like you're discipling, you're just like under the radar.

So I would, my question is whenever it comes to discipleship and what you do, how would you,

how do you kind of define the two? Um, and do you believe that covert discipleship is a thing?

Covert's the more under the radar one, right?

Yeah. I haven't thought a lot about it, but my hot take is yes. I say, I do that when I go to colleges

because I, when I speak to, you know, I'm booked by universities to speak to 400 girls that they're,

you know, their sorority, like they're a Panhellenic or whatever it may be. I am speaking the truth.

I am doing a lot of things, pointing them to good habits, good, healthy behavior,

but it is not like a Christian message. Now my podcast is definitely faith-based, my social media,

that kind of stuff. Um, when I do online mentoring, a lot of people will book a call with me and I

almost always there. And I asked like, do you want faith-based advice? And they know me enough

before they book a call and spend money. Like they probably know what I'm going to say. Right.

Um, for the six week mentoring, I say like, if you are not interested in biblical advice,

I'm not your girl because I can't do that deep dive and not point you to Jesus. Cause I'm not doing

either one of us any favors. Um, I can think of very few conversations I've had with just the one

time call that they were like, yeah, I'm not really interested in that. Most of the time they are. So

I guess the sort of the answer is when I go, when I'm, you know, going to a college, I do have a more

like under the radar, if you will, um, type of conversation. And then hopefully pointing them down

to a more intimate here. Okay. Hopefully you liked what I said. Hopefully I gave you some good

advice, but I can't do any magic. The only one who can is Jesus. And here's some more information

about him. And here is what changed my life. The woman, the well story, if that pertains to them

or whatever. But, um, yeah. And then like, I guess coming back to our earlier conversation,

the woman, the well, this story has been around for a while. Right. And it was like brand new to me.

And I remember doing a Bible study at our local college and sharing that this was another girl.

She's like, wait, did you know that like, she left her water jar there and went to go speak to the

town? I'm like, I mean, yeah, that's kind of like the main part of the story. Like, of course I know

that, but she's, she's 20. This is brand new to her, you know? And so back to our conversation of

like, you think everything's already been said. You think that all the main stories, like maybe

someone out there doesn't know that David killed Goliath and why that's important. Right. And if

that's a story that like totally is important to you, share it, share it, why it applies.

Yeah. I have a, I have a very similar love affair with the story of Rahab because in the story of

Rahab and I grew up in church, you know, I had obviously read it many times in the story of

Rahab, she hangs a red cord out the window. And, um, I actually teach a lot when I preach about

things in the Bible. Um, because I feel like if, if the story felt the need to mention that object,

that there's probably a lesson tied to the object. And so anyone who understands the historical

significance of that red rope, it was something that she would have had to hang over her door to

let people know that she was a prostitute. And in order for her and her entire family to be saved,

she had to hang what she was out the window. She had to fully own who she was to first let her

saviors know that she was this thing so that they could rescue her. It was like a way of identifying

her, right. That's how they knew not to kill her, but also the amount of freedom that brings. And if

she had hidden it, they would have all been killed. And for me, symbolically, you know, it's very much

a, a, if you, if you've been through something grimy in order to bring salvation to yourself and

generations of people after you, you need to own what it is that you've done and who you are.

Don't be ashamed of it because that's how salvation comes. And that's how freedom comes is by hanging

this thing out the window. And I have preached that at multiple women's conferences, obviously

longer and more articulately than that. Um, and over and over people are like, I have never,

ever, ever, ever in my life, like correlated those things. And so you're right. And it goes back to

what we're saying about how something that I say will hit one particular group of people,

even if it's the same story. I mean, you would probably teach the story of Rahab from a different

vantage point. Uh, Andy, you would teach the story of Rahab from a different vantage point.

And so it's the necessity for being very present online, I think is really kind of the, the,

the main thing that people need to hear. I think is just, it's not about, oh, there's already 500,000

pastors that are preaching. And it's funny because, so Andy and I have been on a podcast recording

like grind. We recorded several last week. We've recorded several this week. We're basically recording

a whole season in two weeks. And so we've had lots of conversations. Um, and so, but what I'm

noticing is in every single conversation, what comes up is it really, you cannot focus on the size of

the audience, rather the impact that you could potentially have on a single individual. And that

has come up, Andy, I think in like every single, like all of them, it's like every single one of

them is like, we, if you, you can't be focused on, well, I may not have as large of an audience

on my podcast as Katie has on her podcast, or, you know, you may not have as big of a following

on Tik TOK as I have on Tik TOK, but does it really matter though? Because that one person that

needs to hear it, God's going to make sure that that one person hears it. But if your voice can't

be found, then it becomes a problem. And so I think that that's interesting, Andy, that

I mean, and we've had people, you, then we interviewed Ken Arrington, who's in Puerto

Rico planting gardens. You know, do you follow him on Tik TOK?

No, it sounds fascinating though.

He's, he's amazing, but you should follow him. Um, but he's like a biblical historian and

like does crazy, amazing things with him and his wife, but you two are very, very different

and you are saying the same thing. And then Ian Simpkins, we interviewed him. He said the

same thing. Like, it's just been like person after person. So I think this, this season is

like, and it's the same thing that God's been putting on my heart since December that I've

been posting about on Tik TOK and my Instagram, which is impact over accolades. Like God is a

hundred percent more concerned with your willingness to show up and, and be impactful than, than he is

with whether or not you have a zillion people that are listening to you.

Yeah. I have a quote in my little quotes that inspire me thing. Anyways, uh, obedience doesn't

require an audience. And so it's just showing up. And now of course there are ways to show

up better. Like people listening are obviously people who have great things to say. And you

YouTube that all day long for just different ways to, to film your videos, to make it effective,

but don't, don't let perfection stop you because it's better to take some action than wait for

perfection. Cause that's never going to happen. But yeah, I mean, make your video a little

engaging if you can do a little bit of work, but mostly just hit publish.

Yeah. When I first started, and even now kind of my Tik TOKs and I mean, I film like cinematic

commercials for professionally, like that's what I do. And my Tik TOKs, I am like, meh,

I'm just going to talk into this phone. Cause originally I kind of like whenever God was like,

well, it wasn't God. Well, it was, I guess it's probably God through my daughter. My daughter's

like, mom, you need a Tik TOK. And I'm like, I'm not doing that. And so I did it very begrudgingly,

you know? Um, and so I definitely didn't put any effort into it. And now I try to do more and I

just find that my lane seems to be just film what you film and put it out. Um, but I agree. Like

there are so many ways to learn how to be more engaging. So Andy, what were you going to say?

I was going to ask you. So Katie, you are relentlessly positive. And I mean that in a good

way. Um, like there, there is a, sometimes you meet people that, uh, the positivity is forced.

Um, but everything that I've seen from you on social media, I've, I admit I have listened to

probably a number of your episodes, uh, covertly. Yeah. Uh, I have a 17 year old daughter. And so,

um, I'm, I'm, she's my girl. She's going to college next year. We have a 19 year old son and

I was fine kicking him out of the house, but the 17 year old girl, uh, I don't, I think she's

actually currently like right above me sleeping, taking a nap before she has to go to work or track

practice or something. Like, I don't want her to leave the house ever. I want to like, you know,

just, just, no, she's not going to leave. Boys are idiots and stupid. And I, you, the world is bad.

And so what you're saying is relentlessly positive to women. And I super appreciate that. Do you ever

find yourself getting into a rut because of that? Do you ever find yourself like repeating the same

thing over and over and over and then going back to the Lord and saying like, Hey, I need something new

here. Or are you just like that superhero single-minded? I'm charging this thing down and I'm

running it down. Come hell or high water. Great question. And thank you. I, I, we love our young

women. I have two daughters as well. Uh, I always say, you know, having two daughters makes me very

passionate about the next generation of young women. So that's another thing that God did. It's funny.

I would have told you as we pretend like I know that I was going to have three boys. And again,

God's like, that's cute. But let me, let me show you what you need. Um, so to answer your question,

um, okay, well, one funny story, it is actually a perfect example of this. I have a video that I did.

It's not even my audio. I said, just a reminder, he's not your soulmate. Why your soulmate would

actually want to date you. Okay. I've posted it twice. It performed all right. I was in this TikTok rut,

as you alluded to earlier, Ashley, where none of my videos were getting any, so it's like, whatever,

let me just post this again. I posted it before we'll post it again and see what happens. It is

still going crazy with over a half a million views at this point. I've had people, how dare you? My

soulmate is going to date me. He loves me. Wow. Thank you so much for saying this. It's just the same

exact video that I posted before. So I've been very encouraged to do the same thing. I have reposted some

content. I've said the same thing different ways there. I talked to something about how,

when our grandparents dated, they had less options, but the marriage, you know, usually had a longer

longevity in those days. Now there's a million different factors we can unpack, but are we really

better for having thousands of options that we swipe through on the internet? I said this whole thing

in about a minute video. I said the whole lot better, right? And then I, I kind of unpacked that and it said the same

thing in seven seconds. So it's just so interesting that you can kind of say the same thing. And especially if you've been on

or, you know, any form of social media for a while, you said the same thing six months ago, say it again. You can post the

same exact video like I did with that soulmate thing, or you can just unpack it in a different way, you know,

different song, different video, different, whatever. So I don't think, I guess I have social proof that

saying the same thing doesn't get old. And I think about the way we are, you know, like we scrolling

through, Oh, wow, that's really good. But even when I see the same persons post the same thing, thank you, because I

needed to hear it again. Or maybe I missed it the first time, or maybe I wasn't following you a year ago when that went

viral. I don't know, but I've never had someone say, how dare you post the same thing? You know, like, so I don't think it

ever gets old, especially when we're doing what we're doing and we're saying what we're saying. And your audience is the

same. Like none, no one listening is like going to be, I don't know, selling snake oil or saying

unuseful content into the world. They're saying positive things that need to be said and need to be

repeated. So I don't know. Thank you for the comment about positivity. But I do think I, and I'm a very

tenacious person. My background is in marketing and sales. And so maybe I guess I, maybe I see things a

little differently, but I am very excited about maybe a little bit blindly optimistic about the next

generation of young people. And I do see the good. Yes, there's bad. There's, but you know,

every person in their fifties looks back and say, Oh, the younger generation there,

they, since the beginning of time, people have done that. And I disagree. Like, of course there's

bad, but of course there's so much good too. And if we focus and call out the good in these younger

people, that's what they need. They need a permission slip. They need someone a little bit

ahead of them in life. Seeing I see good in you and I'm cheering you on. And here's how I want to help

you. Like, that's what we can do as not 20 somethings anymore. And I just want to be a voice

and an encourager. I have a lot of conversations with people. They book me for calls, not necessarily

for mentoring, but they want to do what I'm doing. They want to be a speaker. They want to do social

media. And again, it's not competition. Let me help you. Let me share your stuff. Let me support you.

So yeah, as you can tell, I have strong feelings about all of that.

Yeah. And I don't, I don't mean to, I don't mean to say that, you know, you are, your, your message

is the same over and over. So forgive me if it came off that way. What I, what I mean is in the,

the translation I was trying to jump there is that the discipleship is literally saying the same thing

over and over and over and over. And for me, I was pastor for, I've been a pastor for 15 years

and there are times even in my pastoral ministry, I'm saying the same thing over and over and over

and over and over. Same, same, same rhythm, same everything. Obviously you got to try to make it

fresh and try to do all the things there. But, but there are times in when I'm discipling somebody,

it's like, man, can you just, can you not get it? Can you just not get it? And that's me being a

hardheaded, like I'm a, I'm a one and a three on the Enneagram. Like I'm, I'm very braggadocious

and I, that's your three as well. So that's, I think that there's a marketing thing there as well.

Like that's just, that's how it is. Uh, but, but, but for me, like I run out of energy and

the thing that amazes me about you is that you, you haven't, you, you, you're not running out of

that energy. Like you're continuing to, so, so I commend you for all of that. This is me patting

you on the back and saying like, well, okay. My mom is 70 and she does all the plays for the

middle, all the costumes for the middle school play. Like she's just a little ball of energy. So

I think I got it for her. Wow. But I do that for mentoring. I feel like I say the same thing on

calls. So I ended up recording the same things I go over for a digital course. And I encourage like,

Hey, why don't you buy this instead of booking a call? Cause it's cheaper. And I'm probably going

to answer your question. Well, we are pushing up on time. So I, I think the last question that I have

for you is something that's definitely happening across churches in America is there's just this

mass exodus of Gen Z from the church, from the traditional church specifically. They are very

hungry. I work with a ton of Gen Z. You do as well. Andy does too. There, it's not that they don't want

to have a relationship with God or they don't want to have a relationship with Jesus. They just feel some

kind of way about traditional church settings for a myriad of reasons. Some of them valid, some of

them are not valid, but you know, valid to them. Um, so if you were talking to a room full of,

of pastors that were wanting to figure out a way to re-engage Gen Z specifically in an impactful way,

what would your advice be to them? Yeah, there's, there's a lot to, I think the first thing is like

it or not. And again, every generation has done this. We don't want what our parents had. We think

that it's an uncool outdated. It doesn't apply to me. And we can argue that because the gospel is the

same and it's, and it's always good and it's always applicable, but I think that they are craving

something deeper. We love this about this generation that they do want. Um, you know,

we have that Asbury revival as an example of people. Yeah. Young people do want a deeper dive.

And so our church did something recently and it was, they encourage people to fast. They're encouraged,

like just some go up to the church and pray. It was open 7am to 7pm, just a more intense,

which sounds crazy. Cause a lot of people think, Oh, you know, Gen Z wants to sleep in all day and not

work. And I mean, I'm sure there's statistics on that too, but what I see is the thing, the people

who are interested in church, they want, they're searching for what's real. And if we can give them

a taste of here, you know, we don't have it all figured out and say that too, like here, I'm a

pastor who, you know, I, I don't, this is not a facade. This is just a broken man or woman trying to

figure it out. Here's what I've learned this week when I was studying scripture. Uh, I think this is

interesting. What do you think? Have a conversation. And I think that what I see is a lot of pastors

doing that, having a lot of great conversations. I see, I'm excited about what I see in the church,

that it's not just a, here I am in my suit and I don't like anyone who thinks otherwise. I think

that that's definitely not the trend anymore. I'm sure somewhere in Nowhereville, uh, there,

there is that happening, but again, maybe I'm just blindly optimistic, but I do see very good

things happening. I do see very good conversations happening. I would encourage them to ask. Maybe

they, surely they have a connection to some Gen Zs. We love you guys. We want to open the doors for

you. How can we make that possible in our zip code with our resources? Um, invite them to invite their

friends. What would that look like? What would you want to invite your friends to? And you got to be

realistic. You're not going to have a full band or whatever it may be. But I think that a lot of

pastors might be surprised by the answers because they may think that they have to have a passion,

you know, type of performance, but I don't see that. I see a lot of Gen Z just wanting and craving

something that's real. And, and I would say if there is a conversation with a young person or any

person, like I don't go to church because X, Y, and Z happened. I get that. But I would say,

don't judge, don't judge Jesus based on Christians. We get it wrong. The church gets it wrong. We're

all a bunch of broken people. And if we were all perfect, then it would be messed up when I attended

or when you attended, you know? So just conversations to have just some, you know, vulnerability to be

like, we're all figuring out. Would you like to join the party as we figured it out together?

Something like that.

I mean, that's like a, that's like a mic drop moment from Katie right there. Like we're all

broken. We're all messed up and broken people. She's just going to walk away with a clock on her

neck. I like Flava Flav.

Flava Flav, you made my day.

Yeah. Come on. Like nobody, nobody knows Flava Flav anymore. I guess that's the.

All three of us.

He's a Swift.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the.

Did you know this? Yeah.

Yeah. No, I saw you. I saw you lift up there. You're going to have to catch it on YouTube

if you didn't get a chance to do that. Katie, last, last question for me. What's, what's

going on in the future for you? What are the, what's the next weeks and months look like for

you in terms of podcasting and life and all the things there?

Oh, well, I have a dream for another book, baby, based on my home girl at the well.

So look for that. Hopefully I, yeah, I'm just loving the girl, the age of our daughters.

We're just very involved in their lives, soaking in those moments as they are getting older,

as you alluded to, I'm right there with you and, and just loving it, loving life, loving

all the things we're involved in all the sports and all the things going on. Um, and of course

my plant babies as well. And we have a puppy that made me question my life decisions. She's

almost a year old and she has a handful. It gets better with the puppy. Trust me. It's,

uh, we've gone through that a couple of times. They, they stopped chewing on the

my, my, my latest puppy. She chews on the baseboards every once in a while. And I just,

I can't figure it out. And that's going to be frustrating to fix. Is your puppy at that point

yet?

No, but get that apple spray. There's this bitter apple spray you can spray on stuff.

Okay. You have that.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

No, she's just psycho.

Okay.

You know, some of them are.

I love it.

Some of them are.

I love it.

But our daughter loves her. So.

Oh, of course, of course, of course. Uh, we are so appreciative of you joining us on the

Hybrid Disciple. We're going to have all your links and all of your, all of the, everything

for Katie in the show notes and in the description below. Katie, thank you so much.

Yes. Thanks for having me.

Thank you.