Transcript
Speaker: This is your host, Vernon Terrell with Grace Ministries International, and it's time for Walking Free! And welcome back, or perhaps I should say to myself, welcome back!
Speaker: For those of you who follow along weekly, there's been a little break and I think most of the reason for the break is been my hectic schedule from traveling and working on this launch, which I will mention to you in a moment. But I'm going to welcome myself back to walking free and
Speaker: That's, there's so much going on and there's always something going on, right? Especially for those of us who enjoy creating and ministering and serving, there's always something happening, right? And it's no different for me and for Grace Ministries International. We've got a lot of stuff going on. In addition to our regular counseling that we do
Speaker: and we have counselors in multiple states and there seems unfortunately to often be a wait list and we really try to work that down and we refer to other sister ministries because the most important thing is helping people walk free. That's what we're all about.
Speaker: And that's the focus really of this podcast too. It's to stop talking and start walking, walking in the freedom where Christ has set you free. And we talk a lot and that's important. It's important to
Speaker: understand what we believe and to reflect and to affirm even out loud. But there comes a point where we really need to stop talking and start walking. We talk about being holy and about victory and about overcoming
Speaker: And yet we seem to be walking sometimes in defeat and walking in unkindness and walking unlovingly. And I believe the Lord would have us to stop talking about it and start walking because He has empowered us. It's all because of what He has done. It's because of the transformation that has happened
Speaker: We are transformed. We are being transformed, yes, but a radical transformation has taken place when you receive Christ as your savior. You are holy. You are no longer a slave to sin. In fact, you are a slave to righteousness. That is your new default. That is who you are.
Speaker: You are by nature kind. You are by nature forgiving. You are by nature holy and blameless and righteous. That is the truth of who you are. And we don't act that way often because we're deceived, the enemy, the world, and unfortunately sometimes other Christians in organizations want to convince you otherwise.
Speaker: They want to convince you that you're wicked and you need to do your best not to be wicked and not to be hateful. Folks, you've been transformed. You've got a brand new heart, a brand new spirit. You're radically changed. And the enemy knows when you know that, life is just different. It is.
Speaker: Don't let others or the enemy keep you down in the mire of who you once were, in the mire of your old sin, of your past. God has transformed you and
Speaker: something that I noticed working in the corporate world for 30 years. You know, I did. I worked in the corporate world for 30 years and I had my own side gig. It was a ministry. I created it myself back in the 90s when I first began to understand this transformational message of grace.
Speaker: The ministry was free in him ministries, started it in what, 94, 95. I had just got finished training in my, what was known then as the late counseling certification program. And I finished that and I said, I'm gonna start my own ministry. I was working full time and I'm gonna fund it myself and I did and I created it.
Speaker: and I began writing and speaking and teaching and mentoring and counseling. It was awesome. I did it on the side. And by the way, you can do that. That's amazing. You don't have to be in, quote, full -time ministry to minister. You are a full -time minister right where you are. And I was in the corporate world.
Speaker: For 30 years I was in some other jobs and I landed at AT &T and then AT &T split and I went with Lucent Technologies and then Lucent Technologies merged with Alcatel and it became Alcatel Lucent and then for about 30 years I was there.
Speaker: And then Alcatale Lucent split off their enterprise business. And for three years, I went with the enterprise business, Alcatale Lucent Enterprise. I had retired early from Alcatale Lucent after an awesome career and ran the sales operations for North America for this enterprise business. I've been in it. I know it. The workplace is a passion of mine.
Speaker: I was talking with the staff and I had been praying. I came on with Grace Ministries full time in 2021, in March, 2021. And I had a lot of goals as I came on in 2021. And there was a lot of infrastructure that really needed to be updated and fixed. And I was also a techie or am a techie guy. I left technology.
Speaker: and building that. So I spent really the first year or so really focused on getting that, you know, changing and really refocusing a little bit, not changing. Grace Ministries has been around for 40 years. It didn't meet, you know, there's a lot of experience there and it's an incredible organization. I tweaked the vision to make it a little more focused. That's where we get the helping people walk free. That's our mission.
Speaker: That is what we are about is helping people walk free. It's our niche. It's what I think we're good at. There's a lot of ways to do that. Our primary way is through counseling. But with my business background, I was thinking, you know, why do I want to wait for that crisis call?
Speaker: And I don't mean necessarily the life crisis, like we have the suicide national crisis prevention line. Some might know it as a suicide hotline. 988 is now a national federal number. And it's carried out a little differently in different states and routed out. So I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about
Speaker: that crisis call that we get when someone's hurting and they're looking for counseling and we're sitting, we have a number that folks can call and we have a website they can go to when they're seeking help, but I call that the crisis call. When folks are in crisis, they're really hurting enough to push them over the edge to make a phone call or to get on a website.
Speaker: and call us. I would have told the staff, why are we waiting for that? Why aren't we being proactive? And they had, I mean, the Grace Ministries has done a lot of different conferences and churches and such. But I wanted, I had this passion for the workplace, so.
Speaker: I said, I really, really want to reach into the workplace and give some hope inside the workplace because I've been in the workplace. I was there 30 years. I know the workplace. That corporate space. And there's a lot of uniqueness in the various workplaces around. So I don't know all the workplace, but I've been in the workplace.
Speaker: I've been in an unsaved workplace in that environment where you feel like, you know, I'm a Christian and I'm trying to figure out how to navigate in here. I've had Christian bosses. I've had totally un -Christian bosses. Most of my bosses either way were actually really good. I learned so much from so many people in my corporate career, but I wanted to get ahead of the curve.
Speaker: not just wait for that crisis phone call, but get inside the workplace. So with our life untangled launch that they had done before I got there and we kind of revamped it and, and, uh, put it out a little bit more life untangled life untangled .com.
Speaker: which really reaches to the consumer segment and we're still just starting as we're building resources and some more helps. It's like a top of the wave of grace there for anyone. Well, with that same untangled branding, we are launching, depending on when you listen to this,
Speaker: podcast, but we've done a beta launch and we are launching June 5th with some email and social media campaigns. We're launching work untangled and work untangled is where we practice grace at work.
Speaker: How do you do that? And we're gonna have a free webinar on Grace Culture at Work on June 15th, I believe. I think it's that one Eastern, but we'll be doing that campaign starting on June 5th. And I am really excited about that. Work Untangled is really a community.
Speaker: It's for employees, whether you're in a Christian company or not, you're at work somewhere and you can join, no charge. Join the community. And we can help each other and encourage each other and have this community of work untangled. And we have resources that we will be adding into a resource or course area
Speaker: for work untangled? I mean, this is brand new. We're just starting this. We want to hear from folks on how to make it better, what is needed, what's important, what's not important. How can we really make this a robust community that will help you practice grace at work? And then if you're a C -level, if you will, CEO, CFO, COO,
Speaker: a corporate executive, an organization executive, where you have a company that you as a Christian leader are leading and you want that grace culture to really permeate your organization, we wanna work with you and help you do that and provide some resources. We're building a manager kit
Speaker: uh, to help some of that. And so this work untangled is really, uh, where we have a community of employees, employers, uh, leaders, employees coming together, uh, talking about and encouraging one another, how we can practice grace at work. And we'll have some, uh, the first again, webinar will be June 15th and we're going to have regular
Speaker: live session, some will just be office hours, kind of open -ended, here's what's going on. What do you think? What do you need? How can we make things better? So we'll have some live webinars, some live Zoom meetings, and just very excited for this. And that's kind of where my, that's been my focus for these last few weeks and months, actually.
Speaker: And when I see Paul writing, and of course with Grace Ministries, our focus is grace, right? Helping people walk free by God's grace, understanding our new identity in Christ and what that means, understanding forgiveness, what that entails, understanding this idea of brokenness. And we know God doesn't want to break us. He likes us just, I mean, he made us. Why would he break what he just made, right?
Speaker: But we, as hard -headed humans, often things need to break before we look up and say, thank you, Lord, for all that you've done. And I think the Lord uses what the earth and humans and things throw at us financially, career -wise, relationally, health -wise. The Lord uses that.
Speaker: to where we stop trying to make life work in our own strength and we release that and entrust ourselves to a loving Heavenly Father who has created us brand new and empowered us and given us His very life.
Speaker: That's what it's all about. And when I read Paul, just about every epistle, he starts out with grace to you and peace. To the Romans, grace to you and peace. To those in Colossae, grace to you and peace. In Ephesus, grace to you and peace.
Speaker: And that's what I want, work untangled. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It's an invitation to God's grace. And I think as a family, as a person in a family,
Speaker: We should be introducing grace to you and peace to those in our family. Grace to you and peace to our fellow employees. Grace to you and peace to those that we encounter. And exploring what that means. What is grace? The classic definition of God's unmerited favor. And Paul saying grace to you.
Speaker: that unmerited favor to you and peace. Don't we need peace? For those of you in the workplace, and if you're not in the workplace, by the way, we've got other environments that we are creating. Another one's coming up in the fall. And this particular one coming up in the fall is a paid environment. So I'll just let you know up front as we move forward.
Speaker: with that, but it is, and it's not much by the way, but it is dynamic. It's taking life entangled in the work and tango community and where you really want to drive it personal. It's going to have some deep personal resources for you in this environment in the fall. More coming on that piece.
Speaker: Don't we need peace in the workplace? Peace in our home? Aren't we looking, aren't you looking to experience God's peace? And what is it like when we're not at peace? When we're not at peace and we're perhaps anxious, uptight, frustrated, angry, worried,
Speaker: or heavily concerned, if you don't like the worry word. We get snappy and snitty. Those are southern words, I think.
Speaker: Did you know that Jesus Christ is your peace? You are at peace with God right now. There is nothing between you and your heavenly Father except love and acceptance and value. Nothing can separate you from his love. Nothing, not even you, in your worst moment, can separate you from the love that's in Christ Jesus.
Speaker: That's how loved you are. And experiencing that peace, it's resting in the truth of that. You have peace. If you're not experiencing the peace, you don't need to pray that God gives you more peace. I think part of the action, and we've had other podcasts on that, and I don't want to give you a short pithy answer.
Speaker: But when it comes to our anxiety and our anger, often it's we're angry because something is out of control or we're angry because maybe it's a reaction. Anger is generally a secondary emotion. It could be a reaction to shame or hurt or something else and anger comes out. Well, what's behind the anger? Let's deal with that.
Speaker: What's breaking our peace? It's could it be shame? Could it be hurt? Grace to you and peace. You have his peace and you have his power. You have his grace. His grace is flowing abundantly, overflowing.
Speaker: in Christ and that's exactly where you are. That is your new location. That's your permanent home. It's in Christ. And I think this grace and peace can be practiced at the workplace where we have grace at work or the grace and the at sign
Speaker: work grace at work. So I hope that if you are interested in that as we begin our launch and it really doesn't officially launch until June 5th but I'm releasing this podcast early. Normally the podcasts are released on Tuesdays. I've been so behind I said you know I'm just getting this out
Speaker: today. I'm recording this on Friday and so it's pre -launch June 2nd but if you want to see what I'm talking about on this new environment you can head over early to workuntangled .com
Speaker: in the community. In fact, it had a, it had a name. In fact, the names is changing tomorrow. Um, and so I may release, uh, this actually on Saturday, but, um, our community, we're using a platform called community, C O M M U N I. And, um, it's a really robust platform and,
Speaker: That's where we host this community. It's not in Facebook, nothing against Facebook, but sometimes Facebook algorithms and the Facebook noise, so much going on in Facebook. This is outside of Facebook. And so it's a separate server, not in Facebook, so you're not gonna get all the ads and everything jumping around. It's just us. In this community,
Speaker: that's really on community .com, C -O -M -M -U -N -I. And so there's a registration, you can do that, you can register for it, it's free. All I ask is that we keep the conversations focused really around grace at work. We wanna encourage each other there around grace at work. So that's the update. I wanna let you know what's going on and it's been a journey.
Speaker: And we will have some more walking free podcasts. Well, I'm going to do my best to get that on a regular basis. I've got an interview coming up. I think you will enjoy and you'll hear his story. And it's, it's been a rough story.
Speaker: but we're gonna hear from him. And I don't know if I have it readied by next week, we'll see if I can get him on and we'll do that. But we've got interview, some more scripture around walking free where we really stop talking and start walking all of this stuff out. And that's my encouragement. It's not a condemning thing. I don't want you to feel condemned.
Speaker: I just want you to know you do have a choice. That God's done it. Jesus said it's finished. You are brand new. And you can choose to walk in your holiness or you can choose to walk in bondage. But you have to choose against your very nature when you choose to walk.
Speaker: in bondage when you choose to walk apart from who you are. Your nature has been radically changed. Do you see it? You're holy. You're righteous. That's why you feel bad when you don't act that way.
Speaker: You don't have to do anything to get more holy and righteous. You are. Now yes, you can learn what that means. You can see in the scripture what it looks like, but you can't do anything to get more of it. Your holy behavior doesn't make you more holy. It just confirms who you are, yep.
Speaker: That's him. Yep, that's her. She's so loving, yet God made her loving. She is so kind, yet God made her kind. He is so victorious in his walk and humble in his walk that God made him that way. And that doesn't diminish your unique personality. Absolutely not.
Speaker: It just defines the truth of who you are in Christ, brand new, new heart, new spirit. And did you know, even your body, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And the scripture says, and that temple is holy,
Speaker: Isn't that pretty cool? Yeah, I know. Me too. Lord, I would love a remodel on this temple. You're going to get one. You can get an incorruptible temple, Paul says, but your body is good.
Speaker: Now does sin still affect the body? Absolutely. That's why we get old and die, right? It's just kind of part of this human existence. But your body's not evil. Sin is evil. Your body's not. So don't rail on your body. If you can make it better, make it better. If there's things you just cannot change, well thank God that he says it's good.
Speaker: I'm using it. It's my temple. So let me encourage you with that today. And as I always say, as you go forward, if you're in a workplace, I hope you'll check out workuntangled .com and join the community. Again, we're just starting out and we had a beta to kick the tires, but we're still in early stages. Give us grace, but help us, please help us and spread the news.
Speaker: If you know of a company that you think, yeah, this would be good, it's at no charge, folks. Join up and participate. Don't just join and lurk, participate. You've got a unique perspective that nobody else has. Share it, encourage, pray for us, and pass it on. And in that one small way,
Speaker: You'll definitely be walking and not just talking. You've been listening to Walking Free, a production of Grace Ministries International in Marietta, Georgia. For more information, go to our website at gmint .org. That's gminc .org.
