Lecture with Randy Larson on Neighboring and the Bless App

I want to invite you to this great conversation with Randy Larson. Randy tells this amazing story of how he has loved his neighbor and walked with his neighbor through a very challenging time in his marriage and in his life and what Jesus has done. It's an incredible story. He also shares about how to use the Bless app and how to love and know your neighbors and pray for them by name. And then at the very end, he shares a great little sweet story about a 17-year-old daughter. and how he was loved by her. You are going to want to listen to this conversation. You'll love Randy, and you'll be a better neighbor because of what God is doing through you and through us here at Christ Church on Harvard. What we want to welcome everybody today is we just have a little conversation about what it means to have the art of neighboring, how to love our neighbors well. And so today my guest is Randy Larson. He's with the Bless Act. Bless Every Home app, and just has some great stuff for us to share today. So Randy, why don't you introduce yourself, tell us about kind of who you are, where you came from, and something you love about your own neighborhood. Yeah, thanks for having me, Larson. I live out in Denver, Colorado. I've been in ministry ever since college. I really love the church, love the good news of Jesus, and I think my favorite thing is walking alongside someone that doesn't know anything about God. It's like I get to discover him all over again. So what I what I love about Bless, the Bless app is just getting to see my neighbors to go from this is someone I used to wave at when I drove by to now someone that I can talk about spiritual things with and kind of just meet them and watch them encounter Jesus is is amazing. So, yeah. What else do you want to know? Well, you gave me this great image because I was thinking, I've got two boys, they're 14 and 12. So they are way past like the preschool stage. But I remember like when they were going through the preschool stage, like everything was like brand new again. And it was like Christmas lights. It was like, oh my gosh, any Christmas light was amazing. And how easy it is for those of us who've been in the church for a while to like lose, like, wait, Jesus did what? Like, and then Jesus, not just out there in the story, which, you know, people reading and hearing those things, but also like right here, like. This is that feeling you get as just you just feel something is great. And so you were a pastor in a variety of different ways, right? Is that kind of previous world? Yeah, I started working with at-risk teenagers, fell in love with that. I was like, man, I want these kids to know hope. And so did youth ministry for about a decade. Then I did worship leading at our church and community outreach. And that's kind of where I fell in love with this neighboring concept. It was crazy. I was so, and you might be able to relate to this. I'm a socially gifted person, but introverted. And because I worked at a church, I was interacting with people all the time. So when I got home into my neighborhood, I just wanted people to wave at me and keep their yard clean and leave me alone because I didn't have any relational energy left. Then as I was reading. a lot of like neighboring books and pastors that were leading in this, that the great commandment calls us to love God and love our neighbor. And I think that actually means the people across the street for me. So I was very convicted early on. I was like, I don't even know my neighbor's names, let alone how to love them, where they're at spiritually. So I just kind of about 12, 13 years ago, started to see my, my neighborhood as my mission field and made sure that I had some margin left in my life, both energy, time, that type of thing, and just started to invest in my neighbors. Yeah. Well, and I think that time piece is so important because yeah, just that time and energy. I, I sometimes refer to it like church could be the great sucking. Like we suck parents out of their homes. We suck neighbors out of their neighborhoods to come and do great things. And we should have things right. But, but we can really ask a lot of people instead of like, yeah, what if you are just like. the best thing you could do today is not to come to a finance meeting. So we need people who are great at finance, but the best thing you can do is like have dinner with your family or, you know, help your yard, help your neighbor with their yard work. And so, yeah, I completely, I do, I completely get it. And I think that it's just, it is so convicting. Like how do we, when you think about somebody said, you know, loving your neighbor could certainly mean more than your next door neighbor, but it can never mean anything less. And so, yeah. So how did you get connected with like the Bless app and kind of that whole group? Yeah. So I actually came out to Denver nine years ago to be a teaching pastor out here. And we had a bunch of Boulder, Colorado is kind of like a tech capital of the world, a lot of tech leaders there. So I had had all these tech leaders that were part of my church kingdom people that just started telling me about some of the the tech that was being built for churches and nonprofits and ended up. getting an opportunity to jump on board with them and start building out resources for church leaders. That was right before the pandemic hit and churches were forced to figure out technology. We're very slow adopters to technology, but we all had to figure it out. So it was actually a really interesting time to come alongside pastors that were like, man, I love my church. I feel so disconnected from them. how can we use technology um so really exciting to see some uh just uh creative leaders in the kingdom um come alongside it so uh stumbled upon um the bless app i've only been doing it for a couple months but i haven't known the authors of the bless practices for a couple years now so yeah so so for somebody who doesn't know anything about bless i mean uh could you just kind of walk us through the the acronym and kind of what What about that process? Because I think so often we think about loving our neighbors. For some people, especially out of an evangelical tradition, it's like, you know, I've got to go tell them about Jesus. And that's true. Right. There's a part of that witness that matters. But I really like sort of the slow, again, crop top method that BLESS sort of has. So kind of walk people through that acronym. Sure. So the BLESS acronym, the BLESS practices was created by two brothers. that are co-pastors out in Chicago named Dave and John Ferguson. They wrote a book about it. A lot of people have adopted it, stole it, whatever you want to call it, because it's so good. And what they recognized is the mission of their church is to help people find their way back to God. And what they recognize is that most of the people in their church were pretty intimidated with the idea of sharing their faith. It felt to them like, one, it's super weighty. Like if I do this wrong, it has eternal differences in people's life. I could push people further away from Jesus than bring them to it. So people are like, I don't want to mess it up too. It's actually like the gospel of Jesus is pretty complex. And having to explain all of that in one sitting with someone feels a little overwhelming. So most what I've seen and what they saw is that most people, followers of Jesus feel like. So evangelism is something for the preachers, the pastors, the evangelists, the experts. But scripture does not paint that picture that all of us as disciples of Jesus are called to spread the good news. So they were like, man, we got to figure out some type of model, some type of practice that the average follower of Jesus can feel comfortable with. So they came up with this acronym. All of the letters make a whole lot of sense. The B is a little bit of a stretch and you'll see why. But it's begin with prayer. So begin with prayer, listen, eat, serve, story. What I love the beginning with prayer is that it's to say, Jesus, you know, my neighbor is better than I do. You know, their hearts, you know what they need. I also want to make sure that my heart is in the right place. So I'm just going to start by connecting with you, Father, to give me some guidance and where to start. Okay. So beginning with prayer is a great place to start. Yeah. Yeah. The L stands for listen. And oftentimes... I think Christians, we talk way too much, right? We, we, we just start, you know, fire hose telling people what's wrong with them, what they need, you know, all of this. I think one of the best ways to show love and the times that I felt the most loved is when someone was really a good listener and being a good listener is not just sitting quietly and waiting for someone to talk. It's, it's showing curiosity and, and saying, Hey, tell me about what makes you come alive. What are your passions? What, what? What are you struggling with? And the more that you dig in and show someone like, I want to know you more than just the surface. I want to talk about things beyond the weather and sports. Like, I really want to connect with you. People go, oh, wow. Like, Larson really cares about me. So listening is a great way to show love. The E stands for eat because there is something about the table and you see Jesus do so much of his work around tables and around meals. you enter a table with someone as an acquaintance, but you leave as a friend. And it's a quick way to take your relationship to the next level. The first S stands for serve. And once you have kind of broke the ice on being an acquaintance, you start to see like, what are the burdens that people are carrying? Um, and, uh, you can see ways to help them out and help them carry that. And then the last S and to me, it makes sense that this is last is that, um, sometimes we have to earn the right to speak into people's lives. Um, if we just meet a stranger and, and just, um, really go to a deep place of where they what do they think about God? Where are they at spiritually? It can feel a little pushy, but if you've had a meal with someone, if you've listened to them, if you've interacted with them, and then you just say, Hey, I don't, I don't know what you believe about God, but I'd love to share with you something that's really important to me. And I'd love to be able to talk about things beyond sports and weather. Um, and what's the meaning of life. What's important. Um, you know, these types of things, what, uh, issues of morality and ethics and all those things. People are actually really hungry for deeper conversations, but they just don't know who's a safe person to have those conversations with. So the last S stands for story. Share your story, share the story of Jesus, and then discover their story. So that's the best practices. There you go. Well, that's, I mean, I do, I just, I do love it because I think, you know, so often we do ask people like dive into the, through the deep end, right? It's just like, no, let's just walk, begin with prayer, you know, start there knowing God's already at work. I heard somebody say, and I wish I were down something to the extent of, you know, to feel listened to almost feels exactly the same as feeling loved. Like if you've been really listened to, just your body feels the exact same as being loved. Obviously, we've all, you know, I think about when I when I say, hey, we should catch up. You know, it's like we're going to either drink coffee or we're going to have lunch together. That's what you know, like maybe I'll play golf with somebody. But most of the time it is like a meal that, like you said, just kind of brings and submits together. And there are a few things better than like a non-rushed meal in life. I think about so much of my life being structured. But whenever it's just like, wait, this is like we finished dinner, but yet we're still sitting here an hour later. Oh, that's good stuff. And I do think, as I was thinking about the last test, sharing your story, is, you know, people can argue theology, you know. ethics, you know, we can argue all these kinds of things, but they can't really argue with your own experiences. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And so I just think that, yeah, to be able to share your story, this is what Jesus has done for me. It's hard for somebody to say, you know, at best they would say, well, that's true for you. I'm glad that's true for you. I haven't had the same, but it still gets them to think a little bit. Yeah. Well, and there's some Barna did some research here a couple of years ago around this. idea of evangelism and what they they found a lot of really interesting things one they found that uh christians are uh feel um way less comfortable sharing their faith than non-christians are willing to talk about it wow we feel like oh people don't want to hear about our faith but people outside of the faith are like yes i do i actually do want to talk about faith but there's a couple things that they said these are the these are the things that I'm looking for in someone that I would talk about faith. And the top one was, it needs to be someone that's not going to force me to a conclusion before I'm ready. So I'm willing to talk about faith, but if you're like going to force me to have to make a decision on the spot or before I'm ready, like, no, no thanks. I don't want to feel pressured into the kingdom of God. I don't want to feel pressured into a relationship with Jesus. Um, so I have found when I'm interacting with people, I like to open the door to talk about spiritual things and see if they'll walk through it. Like the other day, we host our youth group here at our church on Wednesday nights. The Denver Nuggets were in the NBA playoffs on a Wednesday night. So I was like, what am I going to do? Every room is used. So I went to a local sports bar, sat down, and we were... there was this young guy, 28 year old guy sat down, we're doing small talk. Um, and, uh, I was talking about kids having kids and he's like, Oh, I don't think I ever want kids. And I'm like, I'm like, it is hard, but I'll tell you this. I don't, I don't know what you think about God, but having children has helped me understand how God feels about me. And then I, I stopped and I was like, let's see if this guy wants to talk about that. And he didn't. He went back to surface level stuff. But then five minutes later, he was like, you know, you mentioned God. You know what I think about God? And then and then went on. And then we ended up having this really deep conversation about faith. but i think if i would have right away been like what do you think about it he'd be like oh man what did i i just stepped in it with one of these these really pushy christians you know yeah yeah so leave the door open see if people are curious about it um and see what happens well that's that's great i mean so much of that i love because what is just that yeah leave the door open um and be okay that it just lingers there right or moves on and then they come back to it later Also, you had to leave your house, forced by the church to leave your house. And I think that, you know, that's part of the thing that, again, getting out of your safety to go out to where people are. And then obviously, I mean, we're in Oklahoma, we're Thunder fans around here. But, you know, it's like you find this commonality and then at least you have something together. And so I just. That's just such a gift as well. So let's talk about the app a little bit, because I was just so impressed with the usability of the app and just the way that it works. So we've had over 50 people in our church download it. So if you haven't downloaded it, you need to download it. Select Christ Church on Harvard, because we get to do some cool things on our end. But just for the person who's downloaded it for the first time, what do they kind of need to know about using it and how does it work? Yeah. So what the app does is it just helps you see your neighborhood as your mission field. So by default, it will select the 40 closest families to you. So if you're in an apartment, it'll be an apartment. If you're in a traditional neighborhood, it'll be that, right? You can customize those people. So if you want more than 40, you can go in and you can add more. If you want to just focus on just my street. You can shrink it down. If you're a type of person where you're like, man, I see where I work as my mission field more than my neighborhood, you can add any people into this list of people that you're going to be trying to use the blessed practices with. From there, every morning, you can actually set up when these notifications come. For most people, it's in the morning. You'll get reminded and you'll get a prompt both by email and by push notifications on your phone. to say, here's the names of five neighbors. Here is a prayer that you can pray for them. And then we have like a two minute video that is either from a thought leader or an author like me or someone from my team that'll kind of give you tips and tricks on how to interact with your neighbors. Or it'll be from one of our users. So oftentimes our users will have an interaction with a neighbor that they're excited about. And they'll be like, man, I went to my favorite bread store. I got this loaf of bread, but then I had this idea. Why don't I get two more and hand them out to my neighbors? A really simple, easy deal. So we're all kind of, as we're trying to bless our neighbors, we're learning what works and what doesn't. Sometimes I'll put up videos of like, hey, I tried this with my neighbor and I failed miserably. Don't do what I did. So it's just, it's a chance every day to be reminded. I have this mission field. Blessing my neighbors is simple, but it takes courage and creativity. So. Those tips kind of help. And then you can take notes in the app. For example, if I walk across the street and my neighbor Tony tells me that his wife has surgery in three weeks, I may want to write that down and remind myself of when it is, what she's having. I don't, so that next time I interact with them, I want to know what's going on. You can also track your progress just to see like, how many times have I prayed for my neighbors? How many times have I listened? How many times have I eaten, served? those types of things just kind of see what type of impact that you're having there so over time you can see like man i've been doing this for six months um and this is great um to just see what where i'm tracking you might even see like i feel really comfortable with listening and praying but sir i haven't served any of my neighbors um i'm gonna challenge myself i'm gonna ask people to pray for me to to be a little bit more bold or whatever that is so yeah Well, and it's so neat because it just, again, and you use only third priority data. So it's not like you're like getting into people's house and like, you know, I mean, it's all things that are already out there. We just gather it for you. And it really, the names of your neighbors helps because I don't know if you do this, but I'll meet my neighbor for the fourth time, fifth time. And I'm like, I don't remember his name, but I'm too embarrassed to ask again because I should know. And it's nice that it's right there in the app. Yeah. So that was one of the best things. I mean, when I did it the first time, I was like, ah, I mean, there's a guy named Terry who I've met multiple times. I mean, I've lived there since, I guess, last August, so almost a year now. And it's like, oh, Terry, finally, like it's locked in because for me, I need to see it. It helps me when somebody tells me their name. I don't know what it is in my brain, but it's just like, oh, they're just telling me their name. Let's get to the important stuff. Yes. Yes. The names are important things. And if you call somebody by name, I mean, I just, I mean, that's what Jesus does, right? I mean, I preached a sermon last week about like Jesus saying My's name, and that's what opened her eyes at the resurrection. And so I think, yeah, being able to call people by name and the note feature, because I was talking with some neighbors and they're part of the Tulsa Shakespeare Company, actually started the Tulsa Shakespeare Company. I didn't know we had a Shakespeare Company. I don't really know what a Shakespeare Company does, but I'm learning. And so. Like, I remember it because I jotted it down after we met, hey, you know, do this. And so to be able to go back through that list, whether it's, you know, dog's names or like you said, surgery coming up, you know, whatever it might be to be able to have that. And so it just, I think it's just been so helpful. And, you know, we've already, like I said, we've already gotten a good number of people to download it. Then, you know, now it's them practicing using it. Um, and, and I just, again, I think that. discipline of it and the, this is what matters. We do want you to give to the church always, right? Well, you know, that's how we track, you know, if you come to worship, that's how we track discipleship, but to be able to track it this way is another really good thing. What is your single favorite story from the Bless App? Hmm. There's a lot. I think the one that encourages me the most, and this is me with my pastor hat on. I grew up in a family, all the men in my family did construction. I was the first one to go to college and do something different. And I absolutely love ministry. I love the church. But one of the hardest things of being a pastor is that all the work that we do and the impact that we have is done on people's souls and souls are hidden, right? So oftentimes past, and maybe you don't feel this like I did, but I would put 15 hours into a sermon, preach it, and then wonder, did anyone, did this resonate with anyone? Did this put, did anyone put this into practice? Did this affect how people love their neighbors? Did this affect how people love their wives, their children, that type of thing? And there's just no way to see the feedback where, you know, my dad could go to work and. the house would have no walls. And by the end of the week, there would be walls, you know? So my favorite story is a story out of a church out in Orlando. The pastor realized, I don't know my neighbors. My church doesn't know their neighbors. I want to change that. So he did just like you guys did a neighboring series. And still 18 months later, if you look at the dashboard of the church, they've prayed for their neighbors over half a million times. They've adopted 3,200 houses. They've shared their faith and shared their story with neighbors over a thousand times. So I think what really excites me is for pastors and leaders to see, man, their church is really following Jesus. Not just coming to church, but following Jesus and doing the hard things that Jesus calls us to. So, yeah, that's probably my favorite story. Okay. Well, that's great. I feel the same way. Like, yeah, I'll preach, you know, it's like, hey, you know, it's like you can come to the altar and pray and being part of like the Methodist tradition. Like there's a charismatic bent occasionally in some Methodist world, but for the most part, not, you know. So a lot of times it's like, why would I come to the altar and pray? You know, their hearts may have been touched or maybe not, but I sure didn't see it. And then are people just being nice and say that was a great sermon? And what does great even mean to you, right? Like. did you agree with it? Did it challenge you, right? To not be able to see, but then to hear that. I mean, I was encouraged just when I was looking at the dashboard right before we came, you know, we do have people, we've adopted a bunch of homes. I saw some people listened, and even one person had shared their story. And it's like somebody took the time, right? To not just do one thing, download the app, but to then also like utilize it enough, and then be prompted to share their story. It is. it is for me so encouraging um can i tell you one more story this is absolutely not necessarily from the bless app but it's from my own life personally um when we moved to denver nine years ago we moved into a neighborhood where everyone just drove into their garage closed the door and didn't interact with each other a clicker neighborhood that's what somebody called it and i thought that makes sense yep so we we decided hey our biggest challenge is just getting people to interact with us. So we decided on Friday nights we're going to pull a fire pit out into the street. We're going to set up lawn chairs. and just invite a couple neighbors and just say, hey, let's celebrate the end of the work week, bring over whatever beverages you want. We'll have s'mores, that type of thing. And it just started with a couple. And then as people would drive by, we'd be like, hey, park your car, come on over. It got to the point where it became just the rhythm of our neighborhood where people look forward to Friday nights to just decompress, share what's going on. Uh, the kids would just kind of ride their bikes and run around. And, uh, probably for six months, um, we had no spiritual conversations at all. It was just getting to know each other. And then I had one neighbor, uh, come up to me. We had hardly had any interactions at all, but he was like, Hey, I just, I just realized that, uh, my wife is having an affair and I'm super mad. I'm super hurt. Oh. I don't want my family to fall apart, but I do not know how to deal with all the emotions that I'm feeling right now. And he said, I know that you're a person of faith, and I don't know if that would work or how that works, but can you tell me how? And I said, I can't explain that over one beer. So why don't we start meeting every Tuesday, and we'll just talk about where you're at. I'll share with you. kind of my experiences with jesus and we'll see what happens we met every tuesday for about two and a half years um and he went through and and there was counseling involved there's all kinds of things involved um him and his wife could not stand each other um like it was so prickly to be in their presence for probably a year and a half my wife and i and and they and we went out with them on a date this last weekend and they could not keep their hands off each other. Like just like they love each other. They forgive each other. I've, I watched my friend go from being so angry to Jesus changing his heart towards life to understand how they got into the place that they were to where he like adores her now. And she's like, man, I've seen my husband become gentle and kind and, and he's never been more attractive to me now. Um, and, and she's not a person of faith yet, but on this date, uh, she was like, Hey, I, I hear everybody talk about these encounters with Jesus and I don't, and I haven't had one and I'm waiting for it. And we just got to have this great conversation. But this, this has been like a, a five-year process from. setting out a fire pit five years ago to him just being curious about, Hey, I have this broken area of my life. I don't know if Jesus could help or not to two and a half years of him wrestling through all these doubts and questions. And we just, we went through about every single one of them to him. One at one of those Tuesday night things saying, Randy, I think I believe in, I want to get baptized. Um, so, and, and just to see like the way that Jesus transformed that. broken couple in both individual and towards one another it's probably my favorite favorite story yeah well and like and you could have been living there been pastoring been doing all the things that you are doing in your call and and he would have never known had you not taken some initiative and been a safe person and and so I mean thanks for just being patient right and just walking down that road uh for him and And I would say for people who are watching this who aren't pastors, like that, just because Randy's a pastor or just because I'm a pastor doesn't mean that that's who our neighbor is. But it may be who your neighbor is. Right. And my guess is, I mean, we have, you know, about half the people in America experience loneliness, you know, regularly. So if you're living on a street with other people, there's multiples who are lonely, who are. Who's their safe person? And so I just want to encourage people to, you don't have to be a pastor. You are just a person. We're all placed for a purpose. And so you might have that story. And I was reading an article the other day. I'm trying to find the thing, but it talked about this idea of the obvious truth was the phrase they used. And basically, the obvious truth was, you're happier if you live close to your friends. And it was like, just that simple. Like you're happier if you live close to your friends. I can't find where it says that right now, but it just, it was like, duh. That's so obvious, right? Like if you're on your same block with your friends, what a better life you have to be able to experience that. So, yeah. Well, Randy, I know you've got some things going on. I have a few rapid fire questions I just like to ask some people. Are you are you up for like kind of just top of your mind, whatever, whatever comes out for the most part? We can edit if need be, but just whatever comes out. Absolutely. OK, what is the most unusual or unique thing in your house? I have a cold plunge. Oh, do you use it? Every day. Every day. I mean, I've heard people and I've never done it because I'm a wimp, but like it worked for you, huh? Yes. Every day it's hard. I sit, I have a sauna. I do like 20 minutes in the sauna and then I'll do seven minutes in the cold plunge. And every, every day I'm like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? And I mentally fight myself to get into the water. And then it does wake me up. I'm not a morning person. It takes me a while to get going. But that wakes you up. Okay. Okay. What is something you are currently rethinking? There's a lot of things. I spend a lot of time rethinking like what is, what's the best. structure for churches okay we see we keep seeing these mega churches and pastors falling like is there a better way for us to be the body of christ yeah yeah not so pastor-centric yeah no i i will say yeah it seems like every week there's another pastor who's resigned in disgrace um and uh i mean as a pastor like i don't believe my call is any higher than others. I believe my consequences of falling are greater than others. But I do, I mean, as a person, like I've had to go through my own transformation. If I used to want to be a famous preacher and now I just want to be a faithful pastor. And those two things are so radically different all the way around. So interesting. I'll be curious to kind of, as we think about like moving forward, like what does it look like to be not so pastor centric in a world that. celebrity or influencing seems to be the thing out there. All right. I got two more for you. Who or what regularly inspires you? My wife has always inspired me. The's got this passion for life, a passion for life. Like she does not want to waste a moment. The wants to, and then her, her desire to do the right thing, no matter how much courage it takes. Like she, she's just called me to be a better man. That's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. All right. Last question. I'm stealing this one. Are you familiar with Steve Cuss at all? I am. I love Steve Cuss, listen to his podcast, read his books, all that kind of stuff. This is his, one of his favorite questions. So when have you most recently felt the most? loved? That's a good question. I think it was my daughter yesterday. The was just like, Hey, will you just hang out with me? I want to, I'm going to need to go to target and run some errands. And I thought she wanted me to pay, but she didn't want me to pay. The just wanted my presence. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. How old is she? The's 17. Okay. Okay. My, a teenager wants to hang out with their dad. That's a win for sure. It's, it's a little rare, but I'll take it when I get it. Yeah. Awesome. Well, well, I just want to thank you for your time today. And you know, we're, we're in the series, the art of neighboring. You just want to help people to love their neighbors well. And I just, again, I hope people feel like, you know, I can do something if it is. bring out the fire pit in the front yard on a Friday. That just sounds like a great, like who wouldn't want to live in that neighborhood and to be a part of that. So Randy, just thank you again. And we'll keep blessing our neighbors and just have you and your team to help us to do that. So thank you so much. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Yep. Thank you.

And then at the very end, he shares a great little sweet story about a 17-year-old daughter. and how he was loved by her. You are going to want to listen to this conversation.

You'll love Randy, and you'll be a better neighbor because of what God is doing through you and through us here at Christ Church on Harvard. What we want to welcome everybody today is we just have a little conversation about what it means to have the art of neighboring, how to love our neighbors well. And so today my guest is Randy Larson.

He's with the Bless Act. Bless Every Home app, and just has some great stuff for us to share today. So Randy, why don't you introduce yourself, tell us about kind of who you are, where you came from, and something you love about your own neighborhood. Yeah, thanks for having me, Larson.

I live out in Denver, Colorado. I've been in ministry ever since college. I really love the church, love the good news of Jesus, and I think my favorite thing is walking alongside someone that doesn't know anything about God.

It's like I get to discover him all over again. So what I what I love about Bless, the Bless app is just getting to see my neighbors to go from this is someone I used to wave at when I drove by to now someone that I can talk about spiritual things with and kind of just meet them and watch them encounter Jesus is is amazing. So, yeah.

What else do you want to know? Well, you gave me this great image because I was thinking, I've got two boys, they're 14 and 12. So they are way past like the preschool stage. But I remember like when they were going through the preschool stage, like everything was like brand new again.

And it was like Christmas lights. It was like, oh my gosh, any Christmas light was amazing. And how easy it is for those of us who've been in the church for a while to like lose, like, wait, Jesus did what?

Like, and then Jesus, not just out there in the story, which, you know, people reading and hearing those things, but also like right here, like. This is that feeling you get as just you just feel something is great. And so you were a pastor in a variety of different ways, right?

Is that kind of previous world? Yeah, I started working with at-risk teenagers, fell in love with that. I was like, man, I want these kids to know hope.

And so did youth ministry for about a decade. Then I did worship leading at our church and community outreach. And that's kind of where I fell in love with this neighboring concept.

It was crazy. I was so, and you might be able to relate to this. I'm a socially gifted person, but introverted. And because I worked at a church, I was interacting with people all the time. So when I got home into my neighborhood, I just wanted people to wave at me and keep their yard clean and leave me alone because I didn't have any relational energy left.

Then as I was reading. a lot of like neighboring books and pastors that were leading in this, that the great commandment calls us to love God and love our neighbor. And I think that actually means the people across the street for me.

So I was very convicted early on. I was like, I don't even know my neighbor's names, let alone how to love them, where they're at spiritually. So I just kind of about 12, 13 years ago, started to see my, my neighborhood as my mission field and made sure that I had some margin left in my life, both energy, time, that type of thing, and just started to invest in my neighbors.

Yeah. Well, and I think that time piece is so important because yeah, just that time and energy. I, I sometimes refer to it like church could be the great sucking.

Like we suck parents out of their homes. We suck neighbors out of their neighborhoods to come and do great things. And we should have things right. But, but we can really ask a lot of people instead of like, yeah, what if you are just like. the best thing you could do today is not to come to a finance meeting.

So we need people who are great at finance, but the best thing you can do is like have dinner with your family or, you know, help your yard, help your neighbor with their yard work. And so, yeah, I completely, I do, I completely get it. And I think that it's just, it is so convicting. Like how do we, when you think about somebody said, you know, loving your neighbor could certainly mean more than your next door neighbor, but it can never mean anything less. And so, yeah.

So how did you get connected with like the Bless app and kind of that whole group? Yeah. So I actually came out to Denver nine years ago to be a teaching pastor out here.

And we had a bunch of Boulder, Colorado is kind of like a tech capital of the world, a lot of tech leaders there. So I had had all these tech leaders that were part of my church kingdom people that just started telling me about some of the the tech that was being built for churches and nonprofits and ended up. getting an opportunity to jump on board with them and start building out resources for church leaders.

That was right before the pandemic hit and churches were forced to figure out technology. We're very slow adopters to technology, but we all had to figure it out. So it was actually a really interesting time to come alongside pastors that were like, man, I love my church. I feel so disconnected from them. how can we use technology um so really exciting to see some uh just uh creative leaders in the kingdom um come alongside it so uh stumbled upon um the bless app i've only been doing it for a couple months but i haven't known the authors of the bless practices for a couple years now so yeah so so for somebody who doesn't know anything about bless i mean uh could you just kind of walk us through the the acronym and kind of what What about that process?

Because I think so often we think about loving our neighbors. For some people, especially out of an evangelical tradition, it's like, you know, I've got to go tell them about Jesus. And that's true. Right.

There's a part of that witness that matters. But I really like sort of the slow, again, crop top method that BLESS sort of has. So kind of walk people through that acronym.

Sure. So the BLESS acronym, the BLESS practices was created by two brothers. that are co-pastors out in Chicago named Dave and John Ferguson. They wrote a book about it.

A lot of people have adopted it, stole it, whatever you want to call it, because it's so good. And what they recognized is the mission of their church is to help people find their way back to God. And what they recognize is that most of the people in their church were pretty intimidated with the idea of sharing their faith.

It felt to them like, one, it's super weighty. Like if I do this wrong, it has eternal differences in people's life. I could push people further away from Jesus than bring them to it. So people are like, I don't want to mess it up too.

It's actually like the gospel of Jesus is pretty complex. And having to explain all of that in one sitting with someone feels a little overwhelming. So most what I've seen and what they saw is that most people, followers of Jesus feel like. So evangelism is something for the preachers, the pastors, the evangelists, the experts. But scripture does not paint that picture that all of us as disciples of Jesus are called to spread the good news.

So they were like, man, we got to figure out some type of model, some type of practice that the average follower of Jesus can feel comfortable with. So they came up with this acronym. All of the letters make a whole lot of sense. The B is a little bit of a stretch and you'll see why.

But it's begin with prayer. So begin with prayer, listen, eat, serve, story. What I love the beginning with prayer is that it's to say, Jesus, you know, my neighbor is better than I do. You know, their hearts, you know what they need. I also want to make sure that my heart is in the right place.

So I'm just going to start by connecting with you, Father, to give me some guidance and where to start. Okay. So beginning with prayer is a great place to start. Yeah. Yeah.

The L stands for listen. And oftentimes... I think Christians, we talk way too much, right?

We, we, we just start, you know, fire hose telling people what's wrong with them, what they need, you know, all of this. I think one of the best ways to show love and the times that I felt the most loved is when someone was really a good listener and being a good listener is not just sitting quietly and waiting for someone to talk. It's, it's showing curiosity and, and saying, Hey, tell me about what makes you come alive.

What are your passions? What, what? What are you struggling with? And the more that you dig in and show someone like, I want to know you more than just the surface. I want to talk about things beyond the weather and sports.

Like, I really want to connect with you. People go, oh, wow. Like, Larson really cares about me.

So listening is a great way to show love. The E stands for eat because there is something about the table and you see Jesus do so much of his work around tables and around meals. you enter a table with someone as an acquaintance, but you leave as a friend. And it's a quick way to take your relationship to the next level.

The first S stands for serve. And once you have kind of broke the ice on being an acquaintance, you start to see like, what are the burdens that people are carrying? Um, and, uh, you can see ways to help them out and help them carry that.

And then the last S and to me, it makes sense that this is last is that, um, sometimes we have to earn the right to speak into people's lives. Um, if we just meet a stranger and, and just, um, really go to a deep place of where they what do they think about God? Where are they at spiritually?

It can feel a little pushy, but if you've had a meal with someone, if you've listened to them, if you've interacted with them, and then you just say, Hey, I don't, I don't know what you believe about God, but I'd love to share with you something that's really important to me. And I'd love to be able to talk about things beyond sports and weather. Um, and what's the meaning of life.

What's important. Um, you know, these types of things, what, uh, issues of morality and ethics and all those things. People are actually really hungry for deeper conversations, but they just don't know who's a safe person to have those conversations with.

So the last S stands for story. Share your story, share the story of Jesus, and then discover their story. So that's the best practices. There you go. Well, that's, I mean, I do, I just, I do love it because I think, you know, so often we do ask people like dive into the, through the deep end, right?

It's just like, no, let's just walk, begin with prayer, you know, start there knowing God's already at work. I heard somebody say, and I wish I were down something to the extent of, you know, to feel listened to almost feels exactly the same as feeling loved. Like if you've been really listened to, just your body feels the exact same as being loved.

Obviously, we've all, you know, I think about when I when I say, hey, we should catch up. You know, it's like we're going to either drink coffee or we're going to have lunch together. That's what you know, like maybe I'll play golf with somebody. But most of the time it is like a meal that, like you said, just kind of brings and submits together. And there are a few things better than like a non-rushed meal in life.

I think about so much of my life being structured. But whenever it's just like, wait, this is like we finished dinner, but yet we're still sitting here an hour later. Oh, that's good stuff. And I do think, as I was thinking about the last test, sharing your story, is, you know, people can argue theology, you know.

ethics, you know, we can argue all these kinds of things, but they can't really argue with your own experiences. Right. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Yeah. And so I just think that, yeah, to be able to share your story, this is what Jesus has done for me. It's hard for somebody to say, you know, at best they would say, well, that's true for you.

I'm glad that's true for you. I haven't had the same, but it still gets them to think a little bit. Yeah. Well, and there's some Barna did some research here a couple of years ago around this.

idea of evangelism and what they they found a lot of really interesting things one they found that uh christians are uh feel um way less comfortable sharing their faith than non-christians are willing to talk about it wow we feel like oh people don't want to hear about our faith but people outside of the faith are like yes i do i actually do want to talk about faith but there's a couple things that they said these are the these are the things that I'm looking for in someone that I would talk about faith. And the top one was, it needs to be someone that's not going to force me to a conclusion before I'm ready. So I'm willing to talk about faith, but if you're like going to force me to have to make a decision on the spot or before I'm ready, like, no, no thanks.

I don't want to feel pressured into the kingdom of God. I don't want to feel pressured into a relationship with Jesus. Um, so I have found when I'm interacting with people, I like to open the door to talk about spiritual things and see if they'll walk through it. Like the other day, we host our youth group here at our church on Wednesday nights.

The Denver Nuggets were in the NBA playoffs on a Wednesday night. So I was like, what am I going to do? Every room is used.

So I went to a local sports bar, sat down, and we were... there was this young guy, 28 year old guy sat down, we're doing small talk. Um, and, uh, I was talking about kids having kids and he's like, Oh, I don't think I ever want kids. And I'm like, I'm like, it is hard, but I'll tell you this. I don't, I don't know what you think about God, but having children has helped me understand how God feels about me.

And then I, I stopped and I was like, let's see if this guy wants to talk about that. And he didn't. He went back to surface level stuff.

But then five minutes later, he was like, you know, you mentioned God. You know what I think about God? And then and then went on. And then we ended up having this really deep conversation about faith.

but i think if i would have right away been like what do you think about it he'd be like oh man what did i i just stepped in it with one of these these really pushy christians you know yeah yeah so leave the door open see if people are curious about it um and see what happens well that's that's great i mean so much of that i love because what is just that yeah leave the door open um and be okay that it just lingers there right or moves on and then they come back to it later Also, you had to leave your house, forced by the church to leave your house. And I think that, you know, that's part of the thing that, again, getting out of your safety to go out to where people are. And then obviously, I mean, we're in Oklahoma, we're Thunder fans around here. But, you know, it's like you find this commonality and then at least you have something together.

And so I just. That's just such a gift as well. So let's talk about the app a little bit, because I was just so impressed with the usability of the app and just the way that it works.

So we've had over 50 people in our church download it. So if you haven't downloaded it, you need to download it. Select Christ Church on Harvard, because we get to do some cool things on our end.

But just for the person who's downloaded it for the first time, what do they kind of need to know about using it and how does it work? Yeah. So what the app does is it just helps you see your neighborhood as your mission field.

So by default, it will select the 40 closest families to you. So if you're in an apartment, it'll be an apartment. If you're in a traditional neighborhood, it'll be that, right?

You can customize those people. So if you want more than 40, you can go in and you can add more. If you want to just focus on just my street. You can shrink it down. If you're a type of person where you're like, man, I see where I work as my mission field more than my neighborhood, you can add any people into this list of people that you're going to be trying to use the blessed practices with.

From there, every morning, you can actually set up when these notifications come. For most people, it's in the morning. You'll get reminded and you'll get a prompt both by email and by push notifications on your phone.

to say, here's the names of five neighbors. Here is a prayer that you can pray for them. And then we have like a two minute video that is either from a thought leader or an author like me or someone from my team that'll kind of give you tips and tricks on how to interact with your neighbors.

Or it'll be from one of our users. So oftentimes our users will have an interaction with a neighbor that they're excited about. And they'll be like, man, I went to my favorite bread store.

I got this loaf of bread, but then I had this idea. Why don't I get two more and hand them out to my neighbors? A really simple, easy deal.

So we're all kind of, as we're trying to bless our neighbors, we're learning what works and what doesn't. Sometimes I'll put up videos of like, hey, I tried this with my neighbor and I failed miserably. Don't do what I did. So it's just, it's a chance every day to be reminded. I have this mission field.

Blessing my neighbors is simple, but it takes courage and creativity. So. Those tips kind of help. And then you can take notes in the app.

For example, if I walk across the street and my neighbor Tony tells me that his wife has surgery in three weeks, I may want to write that down and remind myself of when it is, what she's having. I don't, so that next time I interact with them, I want to know what's going on. You can also track your progress just to see like, how many times have I prayed for my neighbors?

How many times have I listened? How many times have I eaten, served? those types of things just kind of see what type of impact that you're having there so over time you can see like man i've been doing this for six months um and this is great um to just see what where i'm tracking you might even see like i feel really comfortable with listening and praying but sir i haven't served any of my neighbors um i'm gonna challenge myself i'm gonna ask people to pray for me to to be a little bit more bold or whatever that is so yeah Well, and it's so neat because it just, again, and you use only third priority data. So it's not like you're like getting into people's house and like, you know, I mean, it's all things that are already out there. We just gather it for you.

And it really, the names of your neighbors helps because I don't know if you do this, but I'll meet my neighbor for the fourth time, fifth time. And I'm like, I don't remember his name, but I'm too embarrassed to ask again because I should know. And it's nice that it's right there in the app.

Yeah. So that was one of the best things. I mean, when I did it the first time, I was like, ah, I mean, there's a guy named Terry who I've met multiple times. I mean, I've lived there since, I guess, last August, so almost a year now. And it's like, oh, Terry, finally, like it's locked in because for me, I need to see it.

It helps me when somebody tells me their name. I don't know what it is in my brain, but it's just like, oh, they're just telling me their name. Let's get to the important stuff. Yes. Yes.

The names are important things. And if you call somebody by name, I mean, I just, I mean, that's what Jesus does, right? I mean, I preached a sermon last week about like Jesus saying My's name, and that's what opened her eyes at the resurrection.

And so I think, yeah, being able to call people by name and the note feature, because I was talking with some neighbors and they're part of the Tulsa Shakespeare Company, actually started the Tulsa Shakespeare Company. I didn't know we had a Shakespeare Company. I don't really know what a Shakespeare Company does, but I'm learning. And so. Like, I remember it because I jotted it down after we met, hey, you know, do this.

And so to be able to go back through that list, whether it's, you know, dog's names or like you said, surgery coming up, you know, whatever it might be to be able to have that. And so it just, I think it's just been so helpful. And, you know, we've already, like I said, we've already gotten a good number of people to download it.

Then, you know, now it's them practicing using it. Um, and, and I just, again, I think that. discipline of it and the, this is what matters.

We do want you to give to the church always, right? Well, you know, that's how we track, you know, if you come to worship, that's how we track discipleship, but to be able to track it this way is another really good thing. What is your single favorite story from the Bless App?

Hmm. There's a lot. I think the one that encourages me the most, and this is me with my pastor hat on. I grew up in a family, all the men in my family did construction. I was the first one to go to college and do something different.

And I absolutely love ministry. I love the church. But one of the hardest things of being a pastor is that all the work that we do and the impact that we have is done on people's souls and souls are hidden, right?

So oftentimes past, and maybe you don't feel this like I did, but I would put 15 hours into a sermon, preach it, and then wonder, did anyone, did this resonate with anyone? Did this put, did anyone put this into practice? Did this affect how people love their neighbors?

Did this affect how people love their wives, their children, that type of thing? And there's just no way to see the feedback where, you know, my dad could go to work and. the house would have no walls.

And by the end of the week, there would be walls, you know? So my favorite story is a story out of a church out in Orlando. The pastor realized, I don't know my neighbors.

My church doesn't know their neighbors. I want to change that. So he did just like you guys did a neighboring series.

And still 18 months later, if you look at the dashboard of the church, they've prayed for their neighbors over half a million times. They've adopted 3,200 houses. They've shared their faith and shared their story with neighbors over a thousand times. So I think what really excites me is for pastors and leaders to see, man, their church is really following Jesus. Not just coming to church, but following Jesus and doing the hard things that Jesus calls us to.

So, yeah, that's probably my favorite story. Okay. Well, that's great. I feel the same way. Like, yeah, I'll preach, you know, it's like, hey, you know, it's like you can come to the altar and pray and being part of like the Methodist tradition.

Like there's a charismatic bent occasionally in some Methodist world, but for the most part, not, you know. So a lot of times it's like, why would I come to the altar and pray? You know, their hearts may have been touched or maybe not, but I sure didn't see it.

And then are people just being nice and say that was a great sermon? And what does great even mean to you, right? Like.

did you agree with it? Did it challenge you, right? To not be able to see, but then to hear that. I mean, I was encouraged just when I was looking at the dashboard right before we came, you know, we do have people, we've adopted a bunch of homes. I saw some people listened, and even one person had shared their story.

And it's like somebody took the time, right? To not just do one thing, download the app, but to then also like utilize it enough, and then be prompted to share their story. It is. it is for me so encouraging um can i tell you one more story this is absolutely not necessarily from the bless app but it's from my own life personally um when we moved to denver nine years ago we moved into a neighborhood where everyone just drove into their garage closed the door and didn't interact with each other a clicker neighborhood that's what somebody called it and i thought that makes sense yep so we we decided hey our biggest challenge is just getting people to interact with us. So we decided on Friday nights we're going to pull a fire pit out into the street.

We're going to set up lawn chairs. and just invite a couple neighbors and just say, hey, let's celebrate the end of the work week, bring over whatever beverages you want. We'll have s'mores, that type of thing.

And it just started with a couple. And then as people would drive by, we'd be like, hey, park your car, come on over. It got to the point where it became just the rhythm of our neighborhood where people look forward to Friday nights to just decompress, share what's going on.

Uh, the kids would just kind of ride their bikes and run around. And, uh, probably for six months, um, we had no spiritual conversations at all. It was just getting to know each other.

And then I had one neighbor, uh, come up to me. We had hardly had any interactions at all, but he was like, Hey, I just, I just realized that, uh, my wife is having an affair and I'm super mad. I'm super hurt.

Oh. I don't want my family to fall apart, but I do not know how to deal with all the emotions that I'm feeling right now. And he said, I know that you're a person of faith, and I don't know if that would work or how that works, but can you tell me how? And I said, I can't explain that over one beer.

So why don't we start meeting every Tuesday, and we'll just talk about where you're at. I'll share with you. kind of my experiences with jesus and we'll see what happens we met every tuesday for about two and a half years um and he went through and and there was counseling involved there's all kinds of things involved um him and his wife could not stand each other um like it was so prickly to be in their presence for probably a year and a half my wife and i and and they and we went out with them on a date this last weekend and they could not keep their hands off each other. Like just like they love each other. They forgive each other.

I've, I watched my friend go from being so angry to Jesus changing his heart towards life to understand how they got into the place that they were to where he like adores her now. And she's like, man, I've seen my husband become gentle and kind and, and he's never been more attractive to me now. Um, and, and she's not a person of faith yet, but on this date, uh, she was like, Hey, I, I hear everybody talk about these encounters with Jesus and I don't, and I haven't had one and I'm waiting for it.

And we just got to have this great conversation. But this, this has been like a, a five-year process from. setting out a fire pit five years ago to him just being curious about, Hey, I have this broken area of my life.

I don't know if Jesus could help or not to two and a half years of him wrestling through all these doubts and questions. And we just, we went through about every single one of them to him. One at one of those Tuesday night things saying, Randy, I think I believe in, I want to get baptized.

Um, so, and, and just to see like the way that Jesus transformed that. broken couple in both individual and towards one another it's probably my favorite favorite story yeah well and like and you could have been living there been pastoring been doing all the things that you are doing in your call and and he would have never known had you not taken some initiative and been a safe person and and so I mean thanks for just being patient right and just walking down that road uh for him and And I would say for people who are watching this who aren't pastors, like that, just because Randy's a pastor or just because I'm a pastor doesn't mean that that's who our neighbor is. But it may be who your neighbor is. Right.

And my guess is, I mean, we have, you know, about half the people in America experience loneliness, you know, regularly. So if you're living on a street with other people, there's multiples who are lonely, who are. Who's their safe person?

And so I just want to encourage people to, you don't have to be a pastor. You are just a person. We're all placed for a purpose.

And so you might have that story. And I was reading an article the other day. I'm trying to find the thing, but it talked about this idea of the obvious truth was the phrase they used.

And basically, the obvious truth was, you're happier if you live close to your friends. And it was like, just that simple. Like you're happier if you live close to your friends.

I can't find where it says that right now, but it just, it was like, duh. That's so obvious, right? Like if you're on your same block with your friends, what a better life you have to be able to experience that. So, yeah.

Well, Randy, I know you've got some things going on. I have a few rapid fire questions I just like to ask some people. Are you are you up for like kind of just top of your mind, whatever, whatever comes out for the most part? We can edit if need be, but just whatever comes out. Absolutely.

OK, what is the most unusual or unique thing in your house? I have a cold plunge. Oh, do you use it? Every day.

Every day. I mean, I've heard people and I've never done it because I'm a wimp, but like it worked for you, huh? Yes. Every day it's hard.

I sit, I have a sauna. I do like 20 minutes in the sauna and then I'll do seven minutes in the cold plunge. And every, every day I'm like, what am I doing?

Why am I doing this? And I mentally fight myself to get into the water. And then it does wake me up.

I'm not a morning person. It takes me a while to get going. But that wakes you up.

Okay. Okay. What is something you are currently rethinking? There's a lot of things.

I spend a lot of time rethinking like what is, what's the best. structure for churches okay we see we keep seeing these mega churches and pastors falling like is there a better way for us to be the body of christ yeah yeah not so pastor-centric yeah no i i will say yeah it seems like every week there's another pastor who's resigned in disgrace um and uh i mean as a pastor like i don't believe my call is any higher than others. I believe my consequences of falling are greater than others. But I do, I mean, as a person, like I've had to go through my own transformation.

If I used to want to be a famous preacher and now I just want to be a faithful pastor. And those two things are so radically different all the way around. So interesting.

I'll be curious to kind of, as we think about like moving forward, like what does it look like to be not so pastor centric in a world that. celebrity or influencing seems to be the thing out there. All right. I got two more for you.

Who or what regularly inspires you? My wife has always inspired me. The's got this passion for life, a passion for life. Like she does not want to waste a moment. The wants to, and then her, her desire to do the right thing, no matter how much courage it takes.

Like she, she's just called me to be a better man. That's awesome. Yeah.

That's awesome. All right. Last question. I'm stealing this one. Are you familiar with Steve Cuss at all?

I am. I love Steve Cuss, listen to his podcast, read his books, all that kind of stuff. This is his, one of his favorite questions. So when have you most recently felt the most? loved?

That's a good question. I think it was my daughter yesterday. The was just like, Hey, will you just hang out with me? I want to, I'm going to need to go to target and run some errands. And I thought she wanted me to pay, but she didn't want me to pay.

The just wanted my presence. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah.

How old is she? The's 17. Okay. Okay.

My, a teenager wants to hang out with their dad. That's a win for sure. It's, it's a little rare, but I'll take it when I get it. Yeah.

Awesome. Well, well, I just want to thank you for your time today. And you know, we're, we're in the series, the art of neighboring.

You just want to help people to love their neighbors well. And I just, again, I hope people feel like, you know, I can do something if it is. bring out the fire pit in the front yard on a Friday. That just sounds like a great, like who wouldn't want to live in that neighborhood and to be a part of that.

So Randy, just thank you again. And we'll keep blessing our neighbors and just have you and your team to help us to do that. So thank you so much. Awesome. Thanks for having me.

Yep. Thank you.

Transcript for:Lecture with Randy Larson on Neighboring and the Bless App

Transcript for:
Lecture with Randy Larson on Neighboring and the Bless App