In this episode of Coffee With Phil “Connection Brings Me Life,” host Phil explores the transformative impact of authentic connections. Through engaging anecdotes, Phil emphasizes the value of long-term friendships, the importance of friends who listen without trying to fix problems, and the profound impact of being present in the lives of those in need. The episode also delves into the significance of prophetic words and encouragement within a supportive community. Phil encourages listeners to reflect on their own connections, stressing the life-giving nature of genuine relationships. The episode concludes with a heartfelt blessing for the audience.
BONUS CONTENT
- Bible Reference: 2 Corinthians 12:5-10 │ Psalm 23 │Matthew 10 │Mark 16:17
- Previous Episode: Episode 49
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Introduction
Well, welcome to the podcast. Welcome to coffee with Phil. It’s all about faith made real. When we talked together. And look, I’ve just enjoyed my coffee this morning. But before I get into talking about coffee, I just really want to set the scene for this episode. I just had an amazing week or two, connecting with people.
So, the topic of this podcast today, episode 51 is Connection brings me Life. Connection brings me life. And I just say this right at the outset, and I’ll probably repeat it at the end, but we get life and by life, I mean fulfilment by life. I mean the ability to move forward with momentum. We get life, we get strength, we get sustenance, we get comfort, we get joy. We get support from each other. Begin from each other.
I remember years ago a preacher gave an example of the Californian redwoods, or the sometimes called the coastal redwoods. They grow up their West Coast of the United States. So that’s Oregon S through California. They’re Redwood trees. They’re magnificent, Gloria. This statues and they rise up out of the ground in some cases over 100 metres tall. Some websites I looked at said that it would be like 30 story skyscraper.
So, you know your house might be one or two stories. These trees grow 30 stories high. They’re quite dense. They grow close together. But what’s interesting about them, and I wanted to mention them, was that they have a very shallow root system. And if you could imagine a 30-story tree that has a shallow root system, it’s not going to have, you know, much strength, is it? Except, except that their root system, whilst shallow, goes 100 metres wide. And you can imagine because these trees are densely together that their root system is interlocked with all the other trees.
So as this preacher was telling me one day in a sermon when the winds and the storms blow, these trees literally hold each other up. They literally hold each other up and I will always remember that. And I just think it’s such a powerful demonstration of the connection that we need with each other, because we get life and strength and sustenance, comfort, joy and support from each other and I was writing about this recently for the newspaper, and I posed this question in the middle of the article I asked. “Why do we choose to live our lives inside our comfort zone? Pandering to our obsessions and our disorders? Remaining completely disconnected from the life, health and happiness that could come from community?”
And so, I want to talk to you today about connection, because the truth is connection brings me life and I’ve got four stories I want to share with you. Just some stories from recently, and we’ll get into those. But before we do, I just have to boast about my coffee this morning, freshly roasted beans. The smell, the aroma. I’ve mentioned this before, guys, but when you roast coffee, you’re essentially cooking the moisture out of the coffee bean and the sugars that grow naturally in the fruit and the berry, which becomes a coffee bean that’s dried.
So, coffee tree grows a berry, berry gets picked and is washed and dried, which then becomes the bean inside right? And that’s what we make the Coffee out of. Well, these have natural sugars in them. Isn’t God amazing how he creates these things when you cook the coffee bean, the heat causes the sugar to cook, and it’s got this caramelization that happens. And the smell is divine.
So, there’s a stage in the cooking process of the coffee that we literally call caramelization. And that is like a small window on the curve of cooking, you know, as the heat increases that we call that the curve of cooking, which is what you’re managing to get the flavour that you want. But there’s a there’s a short period near the beginning, it’s from 20% to 40% cooked, I think. Was going to be totally geeky, but it’s the caramelization stage and it’s my favourite stage of the cooking, because the sweetness of the caramelisation is the aroma that you get through the house.
Well, I enjoy it. Kathy might not, but certainly that’s my boasting for this morning. Coffee with Phil. You’re welcome. I was able to roast a couple of fresh batches for the coming weekend and I will be enjoying my coffee. I’m not sure about you. Enough geeking out about coffee. Isn’t that why you come here? To have coffee with Phil?
First story
Look let’s talk about connection. I want to share some stories with you today. Like I said, I’ve got four stories. And the first. Was just completely random, completely random. I was in Hamilton, so it’s about half an hour’s drive away from here (Te Awamutu), and I was in a cafe meeting somewhere and I’ll talk about that in a minute.
But as I was leaving the cafe relatively briskly because conversation went long. I didn’t want it to stop. I’ve got a meeting to get to and I’m running behind schedule, which is not uncommon for me, and so I’m briskly exiting the cafe and I hear my name get called. And you know, I’m like, I’m in the zone, right. I’m late for a meeting. I’m only thinking about that meeting as I turned around.
And I must have looked really vague, and I cast my eyes across the room. It was like an outside room of the cafe. And there’s a couple of ladies over there, a couple ladies over there. There’s a lady by herself there and there is some behind. And I’m looking super vacant and I’m like who’s calling my name? And I must have looked so vacant that the person called my name out again. And so, as she called my name out, she stood up. So that obviously grabbed my attention and I moved. I stepped forward toward that, and I suddenly recognised it was Nicole. And she’s one of my best friends from high school. Back in Te Puke high school days.
So, I did three years there, finishing high school there. And Nicole was one of my first friends there. I was new to town, and she was in my class I think we called it in those days. And We’re just connected with a whole lot of fun. And I got to tell you this, she was one of my friends. My first one really, to get her licence. Her driver’s licence in the old days where you could get your licence basically by turning up. And so, she got a licence, and her dad bought her this Morris minor bright blue Morris minor. And she was the only one that had a car, really, for a long time.
And so, we would all get… And when I say all, we would all get in the car. I mean ten of us. And it’d be three or four across the front. Not a, not a bench, seat, bucket, seat. And she’d be trying to change gears. No restricted licence in those days get do what you want. This car couldn’t go that fast, but it wasn’t even safe, and I looked the five in the back and we’d go off to Tauranga. We would go bowling or some other crazy you’d be trying now, but man, we had so much fun and laughs in that car. And then one day we decided we were going to park in a different place for her because she had the keys, and we didn’t. So, the boys just lifted it and put it somewhere that wasn’t very convenient for her, you know?
So that’s kind of this friend, but look, she calls out to me, and I move across, and I create. I’m like that hug. And “how are you and haven’t seen you in ages. And how you are doing?” She was with a friend, so I don’t really have long, but I tell you what, it was like 3 or 4 minutes that I was talking with her, you know, we instantly connected. We were laughing. We were catching up on family. We were talking about a couple of moments; you know that came to mind. Memories and the laughter of the good times that we had together as this big group of friends.
And look, I just came away from that with this big smile on my face. It was so refreshing for me, even just in such a brief moment. You know, it’s like a 3-minute conversion. And we made sure we had each other’s number, which we did. So, we promised to catch up, you know, for lunch at some point. Now we wanted to have a longer conversation. And I came away with a smile on my face. And as I was reflecting on that on my drive, my brisk drive to my next appointment, I just thought, you know, long term friendships that have been, you know, 30-40 years in the making.
Now some of you are not old enough to have friendships that long but think about a percentage of your life. Think about friends from a long time ago. That you’re still connected with. Those friendships are gold and let me explain that very briefly. I want you to think of those friendships as how I think of them as like a deep well or a… Yeah. A Deep well that you can go and get the richness of the gold or the richness of the pure water from. I’m really starting to question and challenge myself around what I’ve dropped and not maintaining some of those long-term friendships.
So I’m really asking the Lord what he wants me to do in this next season around maybe we’re digging those wells or reestablishing those connections or reaching out because you know, as I’m saying this and you know, I’ve got friends that I flattered with and spent a lot of time with as a young guy before I met Kathy. We got friendships from church, you know when before we had kids, you know, there’s. And I remember, you know, after my dad died a couple of years ago, one of those friends reached out to me. We met for lunch and talked longer. And we just had this was really, really deep lunchtime conversation. And it was valuable.
And so, the first thing I just wanted to say was think about those long-term friendships. That’s what I’m doing. And what am I going to do? You know, we don’t have to catch up all the time. But maybe there’s some of them that really the Lord is leading me back to because deep wells provide pure water. And they refresh us. So that was the first story.
Second Story
The second story, as I mentioned to you that I was in this cafe and I was coming from a meeting well, that conversation was also amazing and it contributed to the grin on my face because I had lunch with Josh and he’s a long-term friend of mine in fact. I met him at church and in the early 2000s, so timestamp that, that’s over 20 years ago now and he was newly married, and it was connected, and we helped you know them a bit and then he worked for me for… I don’t know, like maybe five years or something and we travelled together in the old days of for those who don’t know my story, you know, in the season of wise money and we were travelling, doing community seminars and you know, I was there. I suppose I was the energy at the front of the room, and he was the brains at the back of the room and like just a laugh for those of you who are listening that. No, Josh, you’ll laugh at this. But you know I’d be doing the seminars in the early days, you know, full of enthusiasm and I got so many stories I want to tell to help people with their money and their finances. And you put me in front of a large crowd and their energy level in me goes up and probably gets a little bit more animated and the stories get a bit longer.
And you know, we had this long seminar as it was, but Josh would always try and manage the clock and manage Me to the clock and he’s at the back of the room and he’s managing the audio and the tech stuff, and we would record everything and PowerPoints and computers and all that sort of stuff, relatively advanced. I must boast for such early stages anyway, but not so much me. But I’m up the front and I’m telling stories and I’m just getting into it and Josh can see I’m getting more and more animated. And I’m getting more and more off topic, and he’d be signalling and waving and jumping up and down. And, you know, there was one time I literally saw him run his hand across his throat like a cutthroat symbol. He was like “cut cut. Stop what you’re doing. You’re just getting too far off track”.
And so, we had so much fun, and it was a great connection and he just reached out to me recently. He saw some stuff that was going on the social and he just texted me and he said, “hey, bro, I see there’s a bunch of stuff happening. Can we have lunch? I want to shout you lunch. I want to catch up with you.” And we met. And I just want to say this and I’m boasting on him, but I’ve got other friends like this, you know, some people, they are just genuinely here. And I want to ask, have you got Friends connections that you would think of, and you go you know what, they just care about me?
And I’ve been challenged recently, personally, and I’ve spoken in other podcasts about emotional health and some of the quotes of Pete Gazzerro content from emotionally healthy discipleship series that we work through the Group. And I’ve talked to you about some of the journeys that I’ve been on around emotional health. And you know, you’ll want to catch some of those episodes on the podcast. The recordings are all there. The transcripts are there. They’re there for you to go and binge it. Look for the headings. The headings will give you a clue, but if you’re not sure, read the description. Read the beginning of the transcript. You’ll find the ones that you need, but here’s my point.
In that journey, what I was challenged by was trying to be the friend, the person in someone’s life that would listen without trying to fix the person or the problem. And that’s my marker for a friend that would just genuinely. Yeah, asking questions. Josh is great. He’s a great friend. I just really respect him for what he’s doing in life and family and business and faith and community. But also, I really value and respect him because when we sat down, he didn’t try and fix any of the problems that we talked about in my world. He didn’t. He could see things and he was insightful. You have to ask really, really good questions. But regardless of how I answered the question, there was no judgement. There was no correction. There was no. Hey, let me give you a way that you could fix that you just wanted to be in connection and I just you know, back to the subject of the podcast connection brings life to me.
It brings me life and. And I just. I’m telling you these stories, I suppose, because I’m reflecting on the value of those connections in my life and and always. You know, challenge people that if we get ourselves too isolated, then we get ourselves into danger and we say this in church circles. I was saying this all through COVID season. Sorry to bring that up again. But you know, when we were in mandated isolation, I said to everyone, let’s not be disconnected. Because there’s a difference between isolation and disconnection, and I think a lot of people when they go through trouble when they go through dark seasons or challenges, what they do is they hide, they move back to their small circle of their home or their safe space. And we perceive that we’re in a safe space where actually, we are in a dangerous place because the number one trick that the devil wants to do is convince you to be isolated. Because when you’re alone, you’re vulnerable. And he likes to attack vulnerable people.
Third Story
And so, the whole point I’m telling you these stories is about connection. I want to tell you about another story. I’m going to filter some of the details because it’s a really sensitive situation, but. Got a random encounter the other day. Someone rang me and said hey, are you home? And I was like, yep. And he’s like, well, can you come and see me? And I was like, yeah, bro, what’s happening? And he said, I just ran into someone and she’s yelling and screaming and she’s saying she’s going to kill herself. I’m like, What. He’s like yeah, look, I managed to convince her to come and sit in the lounge with the family. She’s distraught. I don’t know what to do. Can you come and help? And you know the short version of the story is this young girl, 16. She just, you know, sobs and tears and shakes as we chat. She’s like no one. No one loves me. I’m so alone. No one cares about me. I’ve got a boyfriend. He doesn’t even care that I told him I’m going to take my life. My family seems to hate me. They don’t want me around and I don’t know That there’s any other option?
And you know that that was heartbreaking. And yet there was a moment there where there was an opportunity just to speak love, to speak life, to speak hope. Yeah, there’s a lot of problems here I can’t fix. And you know, also mindful about imposing myself or even inserting what I think, you know, around faith and life and answers to this girl who’s in an incredibly vulnerable state. But if I bring it back to me, let’s not try and get swept up by that situation. I’m sitting there and I’m going to my mate. I’m like “bro, you stepped in, and you stepped up and you’re awesome. You’re like a guardian angel.” And I was really challenged by that, you know, like in this next week. Afterwards there was some follow up and support and trying to be careful but trying to just be there. And I’m reminded of the parable that Jesus told in Matthew 25, and I’m not going to preach, so don’t skip.
But you know, the question was posed to Jesus. Who is my neighbour? You know you love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and. Love your neighbour as you love yourself, and then the smart alec says to Jesus. Yeah. Cool. But who’s my neighbour? And Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan. I’m assuming you know. And if you don’t? Just Google it because you can find it. The Good Samaritan wasn’t the Jewish rabbi. It wasn’t the priest. It was a guy who people would normally discredit and dislike. And yet he stepped in. Picked up the guy that was beaten and naked and he took him and took care of him and made sure that he was Healthy and whole. And I was reminded of that this week, as I reflected on this journey of connection and the situation with this young girl who wanted to take your life, who said she was alone and I really felt the Lord said to me, who’s your neighbour? And I honour the guy that Called me in to support the situation and the phrase that I’ve got is, you know, sometimes we do need to step closer. You know, it says in the parable that the Samaritan crossed the road to see the man who was beaten and naked. Sometimes we must cross the road, sometimes we have to step closer. Sometimes we have to step out of our comfort zone and step into a different realm in order to see the needs that people have, and that’s been incredibly challenging for me.
As a follow on to that story. I was chasing down some potential solutions and I ended up sitting outside another café. Sorry. You’re going to have this really bad picture of me, but I know the owner and I was sitting with the owner and chatting about the situation and that just gave me an opportunity to talk into her world, because her world doesn’t sound like it’s going great and I just think, you know, like we are supposed to be that light and that source of hope. And I confess I’m not preaching the Bible. I’m not preaching the gospel, but I’m definitely showing love and I think that’s what Jesus wants me to do in this season with regards to connecting with people who are in need like that. So sometimes the connection is not about me being blessed, but me being the blessing and that was the point of that. The final story, as promised.
Fourth Story
The fourth story is literally from yesterday. This week I’ve been away with the pastors and leaders retreat, which sounds glamorous and glorious, but literally we sit around drinking a lot of coffee and chatting because the number one aim of that retreat is connection. You know there were over 20 of us there this week. We’re all involved in church or ministry leadership and different capacities, some inside the church and some actually outside the church, which is awesome. And my point is this, that it’s life giving because the conversations were real and honest, because we’ve got history together. You know, we’ve been doing this for a large number of years now and people come, and people go and there’s new people in the group and that’s awesome. But they’re coming into a safe space because the majority of the group know each other well and there’s a real strong bond of trust. And you know, so many different situations, you know, like my church is different from your church, not trying to be the same, but recognising that we can support each other through that.
But the highlight for me more than the coffee was on the last day. You know, we would gather in one of the larger rooms that some were staying in and they had a lounge room. We would gather and we’d minister or there was a guest there who was from overseas, who was just speaking encouragement into our situation as one leader to another. But then there was this time of prayer. And I’ve written down in my notes the key for that connection was speaking life through prayers for each other. And, you know, we’re quite a prophetic word kind of group. You know, we believe that the Holy Spirit wants to edify, strengthen and encourage each other through the gift of prophecy. That’s first. 1314. And so, we kind of have this circle moment where you gather around a person, and you just pray and you say this is how I believe the Lord wants to encourage you.
And for me, you know, jump in the circle when I press record on The Voice record app on my phone. And there’s 8 minutes of other people just sharing encouragement from the Holy Spirit. What the Lord would say to me, and it was deeply impacting. And So what I did is I played it before I went to sleep. I listened to it again, but then the next morning I got up and I literally typed out the words of encouragement because significantly, for me, I think there’s a stirring going on that could only be revealed and confirmed by independent sources.
So, some of those people prayed and prophesied and spoke directly to stirrings that are going on inside me that no one else knows about. And it’s a great gift that the Holy Spirit brings through praise of encouragement, prophecy. But that only comes because I was connected with others. You know I can get on the mountaintop, and I can hear the voice of the Lord. And I do. But there’s something that’s so valuable to me, by the way other people choose to do that, and these words are given in love, and they’re given encouragement.
There’s just such a variety of mixtures. It’s like I’ve got this picture. It’s like you go and you buy an ice cream from the shop, and you get 5 scoops. I mean, who could eat there? But you get 5 scoops and they’re all different flavours. It’s kind of what that was for me. I got so much richness and variety and blessings as part of it. I’ll be able to process through conversation with the Lord and because of my context as a church leader, I’m going to submit that to my church board of elders, and we’re going to get together soon and I want them to be able to input and support, because that’s really my first circle of accountability and support as far as church leadership go.
And so, I’m looking forward to that. What’s the point for you perhaps is, you know, do you have a circle like that? Do you have a circle around you that would be learning to love you in prayer and bless you through connection with the Holy Spirit? Because if you don’t have that, I’d encourage you to find it. And one of the things that I suppose I’ve just had a long-term history of. You know, I can remember back when we, our kids, were really, really little. And sometimes Kathy wouldn’t come to our home group because, you know, the kids were in bed, or she was breastfeeding or something like that anyway. But I remember going because she’s like, you need to be connected with others and would go and we would spend time praying with each other and for each other and. And its life giving. So, we’ve always done that. We’ve always done that, and you know, Paul does say enforcement, there’s fourteen that we should. Really want that gift of prophecy. Because it’s such a blessing to others. And so those of you that are really close to me geographically, you want to talk more about that or get activated. And that, man, I just get alive. In that way. I just want to land the podcast by coming back to the point. And the point is this. We get life. Energy and strength. We get sustenance, we get comfort, we get joy. We get support from each other. And I think we’ve lost the art of community and by that, I mean. Doing community well. There’s a word in the Bible. Ohh my gosh, I don’t want to start another podcast or another soon. I’m just looking at the clock and going OK let’s land this koinonia. I want you to think about the word koinonia and maybe I’ll do a podcast on that in the future.
I’ll make a note of that. Yeah, I am. Making a note of it too. To speak about koinonia. And what does it mean? But in short, just think of it as another loving of other people, we call it other centred love. So you know, Father, son, Holy Spirit and each other love each other. They’ve got the symbiotic relationship of love. That’s a demonstration of the community that God wants us to have with each other. Other centred love where we’re just fully invested for the benefit and the blessing of others.
And What About You?
And that’s what fellowship means. It’s what koinonia means. It’s loving one another. And if you look in the New Testament, there’s just so much reference to one another being with one another, serving one another, giving to one another. And I think I counted in the book of Ephesians one day, I might have said this already to you before, but you know, 23 references just in the first four chapters of Ephesians. So, you know, think about connection, challenge yourself. What am I? Am I actually connected and life-giving relationships, you know, someone like me might have a wider circle because of my role or my personality. My network. You don’t have to do that, but you certainly do need a strong circle, a deep circle, a circle that loves you in a circle that invests in you. So, think about stepping forward into situations. Think about long term friendships that will be like gold.
Do you think about having a cup of tea or coffee or a lunch with? Or walk around the lake, think about finding a friend that wants to listen without fixing you. And don’t be afraid to step into someone else’s need to be the friend, the connection that brings life to as well.
I declare God’s richest blessing on you. May his favour go before you. May his love and Grace shine upon you. May it shine on you in such a way that it attracts others to be connected with you, that you can be the light and hope in their life. Hey, I’ve enjoyed this conversation with you. Check out the podcast. Subscribe to the podcast cause then you won’t miss it and check out the resources below. I just give thanks to my team who put this together and make sure their resources are available for you wherever you are. God bless you and I’ll look forward to having coffee with you sometime soon.