[: 00:04

Thibodeaux

What’s up, everybody? I’m Wanda Thibodeaux, your host, and you’re listening to Faithful on the Clock, the podcast for Christian professionals where every cloud floats in the sky to get your faith and work aligned. And I’m wondering today, how easy it is for you to ask questions? Maybe you need your boss to be clearer about something, or maybe you read the Bible and you’re like, “What does that mean? I don’t get it.” Well, today, I’m welcoming guest Catherine Cowell to help you see how making space for all kinds of questions can strengthen opportunity, your sense of self, and the way you serve God. Let’s jump in.

[: 00:47

Thibodeaux

Welcome, everybody, to today's episode of Faithful on the Clock. You are in for a treat today, because my guest is Catherine Cowell, all the way from England. Catherine is a personal development and leadership coach, spiritual director, and author who has worked to provide workshops to businesses, churches, and voluntary organizations. For several years, Catherine was a leader at Church Without Walls. As an adoptive parent, Catherine supports and mentors parents of children with additional needs, and is studying for a PhD to help them to integrate relational therapeutic parenting and spirituality. She is also the host of the Loved Called Gifted podcast, which explores stories and ideas on the themes of spirituality, identity, and purpose. Her latest book, Finding God's Feminine Side, explores the often overlooked feminine imagery of God in the Bible, seeking to help people connect with aspects of God that we sometimes miss. She currently lives in England with her husband Steven and her two boys. So, Catherine, thank you so much for being on the show. Welcome.

Cowell

Thank you. It's lovely to be here.

[: 01:50

Thibodeaux

Well, so, just to jump off all that bio information that I had given, you — your — your bio that you gave me also says this, and I'll just read it. “She often finds herself accompanying people whose spiritual lives have taken unexpected twists and turns, and who need space to be honest about their doubts and questions and about where their journey is leading them.” And that is really why you are on the show today, because so many of us as leaders, whether it's in our professional lives or just in our families, we have so many questions. And, you know, I think there's a lot of overlap in the spiritual questions and the way that we run organizations, but sometimes I think that we can get the message as leaders that we're not supposed to have questions, or that that is not okay. And so, today, I just want to lean on your expertise and your leadership to just acknowledge that it is okay to have questions and to just really embrace how the questions are, they're not a bad thing at all. So, with all that said, I always give people the chance, and I ask them, if people couldn't Google, what is there that you would want my listeners to know about you that I haven't already said kind of in the bio?

Cowell

Okay, so, sort of relevant to our — tangentially relevant to what we're talking about today, I have always been really fascinated by communication. And so, that led me to train as a speech and language therapist. I did a degree in speech science at university, and then became a speech and language therapist with a particular interest in how conversations work. That was sort of the thing that kind of got me there in the first place and continued to fascinate me all the way through. And then, as a speech and language therapist, I did quite a bit of leading teams and doing some management. So, my last, what I sometimes refer to as my last proper job, was managing a speech and language therapy department in the NHS. So I became really, really interested in the art of leadership, both having done some leading of teams and a department, and having had some really dodgy experiences of leadership, as many of us do. You know, you get a boss at work is really difficult, or you get a church leader who's just — who makes life quite difficult and quite painful. And what I was really interested in is, how do we lead well, and how do we lead in a way that helps people to be themselves. And what I had seen within leadership that was less than perfect, stroke, toxic, depending how rough it is, is that often people are leading out of a place of fear and concern for their own position, and also concerned to sort of hide parts of themselves that they think maybe not — parts of themselves that they think maybe won't be acceptable to others. And — and there is within that a tendency to avoid asking questions of yourself, and also to avoid asking questions of other people, that you think, “I don't want to know the answer to that. I'm not going to give people space to speak.” And I think often when people talk about leadership and communication, often what they're talking about is, how do you get your message across. Whereas actually, what I have come to believe really, really quite deeply and quite firmly is that much, much more key to leadership communication is, how do you listen? And listening in terms of our topic today, I think, has two elements to it. One is, what are the questions that you can ask that will give people permission to speak and to be themselves. And how can you create an environment where other people feel really, really free to ask questions, both of themselves and one another and of you? So, yeah, that would be my not Google-able bio.

[: 05:54

Thibodeaux

Well, you know, as I said, you know, your experience in this — this leadership realm, and the way, the way that you blend that with the spiritual side, that's really, you know, why you are on the show today. So, I really appreciate all that experience that you have. But we had talked before, and you know, we had mentioned in our previous chat that you had worked with groups that encouraged people to ask those deeper questions. So, can you tell me a little bit more about how you got involved, just with that?

Cowell

d that. Probably — probably: 2010

Thibodeaux

l any better, if I go back to: 2010

Cowell

I think that particular group of people, we had become a community of people who had journeyed together for a while. So — so, my role in that really was saying, “Why don't we meet in the pub to ask some of these questions?”, rather than me sort of saying, “You should — you would find it marvelous to come to a space where this happened.” I think in — in more recent years, it's been more the case that I've deliberately created space. But I think actually, thinking back, the first time that I did it really was as a speech and language therapy manager. And as quite a new manager, I realized that there were — there were things that I was struggling with, and I wasn't quite sure where it was safe to have those conversations. So, there I am with a team of people. I was quite young. They were all sort of perimenopausal, middle aged, feisty women who felt that this — this youngster shouldn't be leading their department. Yeah, particularly this Christian youngster, because I was a bit, yeah, they found that — they found that a bit — a bit difficult to cope with. And so, they were quite often difficult. The NHS was quite difficult. Like any huge organization, the NHS was quite often, quite difficult to navigate. And I thought, I need space where I can talk about these things. And within our — within our hospital, there were — there was a meeting for other heads of therapeutic services, and we would get together. And I remember on one occasion, I ventured to ask some advice from everybody, or to sort of say, “There is this thing that I'm dealing with.” And that was not a safe space to do it. It was really interesting that what people did, people who I would have regarded as my peers, what they all did was that they used this as an opportunity to — to show me how much I needed their advice and how much more powerful and knowledgeable they were than me. And I remember coming away from that feeling quite wounded, and then thinking, “Ah, but I meet with speech and language therapy managers from across the region. So, that will be my space, you know, within my peer group of fellow professionals.” And that wasn't either. That was really interesting, because I thought, “Well, that this is — this is not a space where anybody feels safe to expose their questions and their vulnerability and the things that they're struggling with.” And then I thought, “But I do need this space.” So then I decided, well, leaders of adult speech and language therapy teams, nobody set up a meeting for us yet, so I will start that. And if it's — if I'm leading it, if I'm starting it, then I can set the tone. So — so, I invited everybody to come. I made sure we had donuts and interesting snacks. I welcomed everybody. I created space for people to sort of — to introduce themselves. And then the first thing that happened was that I spoke about something that I was struggling with. And because I was the person who was hosting that space and creating the environment I was create — I was modeling that kind of level of vulnerability. And what that meant was that this was not a place where people were waving their power around, unlike other spaces that I'd been. And because — because the first thing that people were able to do was to — was to provide their expertise to the person who was sort of hosting the space. And therefore, if you like, had the position, potentially the position of power, that just meant that we had set an atmosphere that then persisted, and that's one of the things that I'm proudest of, actually, that when I left that role, this group of people were still meeting, and they said how much they appreciated it. And I know that had I met those women in — in the kind of the — some of the other meetings that I'd been in, there would be a good chance that they would have been as defensive as everybody else had been. So, there was something about kind of creating a space and creating an atmosphere that — that comes from the way that you sort of lead things. So, being able to be honestly vulnerable, I think it has to be honestly vulnerable. So, I don't know if you've ever been in those situations where somebody is sort of, they think they're modeling vulnerability, but actually they're really not, because what they do is that they give you this little, tiny example of how they did have a little weakness, but now they've solved it completely. And you know., that's not, that's play vulnerability. You're not actually, you know, you're not — you're not actually exposing anything of yourself.

Thibodeaux

I think that's so interesting, the way that you put that, though. Because I think what you're getting at is that, and I think, you know, it's very true here in the United States, too, that we have that tendency to almost want to, like, inspire to say, “Okay, I did it, and you can too!” And that's very fast. But I think the vulnerability part, the value of that is that people actually want you to sit in the space with them, and that is what motivates them to then open up. If you don't take that time, they won't open up and ask the questions. So, the fact that you did that is brilliant, and I think that that, you know, we can actually take something from that, for sure.

[: 14:23

Cowell

Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes, I think you need rules and, kind of, guidelines. So, one of the most difficult things that's happened on a couple of occasions in faith groups, but I think it could equally happen in other in other spaces, is that if you are hosting an open space that requires — that requires a level of comfort from everybody with unanswered questions, with mystery, with things that you might not be able to solve, with differences of opinions and differences of perspective. And if you've got somebody who's got a very strong view that they know what the answer is and that everybody else should have the same answer, then they can sometimes take the role of, “Well, now I need to sort these people out.” So, we had a really difficult occasion when somebody's invited along to our pub sessions, someone who — who was a good friend of theirs, who was lovely in many ways. And at this particular meeting, there was someone who was actually a minister. But she was talking about her struggles with prayer, and talking about the way that it had been really important to her for a season to stop praying obviously. And what she discovered in that was that God was still with her, that God was still moving, that the Holy Spirit was still there, and the fact that she wasn't spending an hour every morning specifically praying didn't get in the way of that. And she was sharing really honestly, and I think really vulnerably about — about that season of her life and how she'd kind of journeyed through that. And this other person felt that she was — that she was not being a proper Christian and probably wasn't saved, and that, therefore his job in this meeting was to preach the gospel to her, which was really, really, really difficult for her to be confronted with and difficult for everybody else. And we found ourselves in this bind of, well, we are creating an open space for everybody to say what they want to say. But what he wants to say is hurtful and judgmental. So — so, how — are we being hypocritical if we —, if we, kind of, bring that to a close? And I think that incident has helped me to kind of think some things through. But having a set of values sometimes can be really helpful so that, you know, okay, this is a conversation where these are the things which we — which we are trying to stick to, and which we — and which we hold dear. And that would include things like, we — any question is — any question, any valid — any — any opinion is — that there is space for that within this, that we are not we're not going to censor one another, and neither are we going to give one another lots and lots of advice about how to live our lives. You know, we will in a faith situation, I would say we will trust the Holy Spirit to guide people. We don't have to take on that role. You know, there are other circumstances where people might be doing a very specific discipling, teaching role, but that's not what we're doing here today.

Thibodeaux

Yeah.

Cowell

So, that's been quite helpful, I think. Yeah.

Thibodeaux

Well, it reminds me, too, of, you know the verses that say, like, the knowledge of right and wrong, that's a gift from the Holy Spirit, and that even you know, when you don't have the words to pray, you know, the Holy Spirit will intercede on your behalf. So, the idea that, you know, of course, prayer is important, but there are so many other ways that God is with you and that you can connect to Him. So, all of these questions —I think you're absolutely right to kind of open it up and say, you know, the — the kind of questions are almost not the point. It's just the fact that we can even ask and be in that space together and be welcoming —, welcome — welcoming to it. But just to — to kind of explore that, you know, what kind of questions would you get, you know, just to kind of show the variety of, like, of openness that you were getting?

[: 18:31

Cowell

So, our most recent, our most recent conversation, somebody brought the question, “Is capitalism and compatible with Christianity?” All of the sort of, hot button kind of topics, like, what about — what does God feel about LGBTQ stuff? Is there a hell? Trying to think what else we've covered. So many different things we've looked at. Things around body image. I could probably — I could probably give you a list, but is the Bible, how do we view the Bible? What do we think about —what do we think about the fact that the Bible doesn't always agree with itself? Yeah. What about women in leadership?

Thibodeaux

Yeah. Well, I asked that question mainly because, again, you know, to come back to that should point, you know, I don't want people to restrict what they ask. And I think sometimes when we see that variety of what people are really questioning, it kind of makes us feel better, because we know that other people are just as confused on so many different issues. And that kind of gives us the space to then ask our question, because we know that we are not the only ones, and that there's a lot of different elements to cover, and we will get there, you know, and that we have that, you know, ability to participate in that, and the — our question has value, too, just the same as everybody else's. Yeah,

[: 20:23

Cowell

Yeah. And I think, as well, to get rid of this idea that questions only happen if your faith is weak or if you're right at the beginning of your Christian journey. So, I remember — I remember, as a Christian in my sort of late teens, early 20s, what I thought would happen is that, now that I've got my — now that I've got an understanding of my faith, the faith and the beliefs that I had then would become much, much stronger. They would become like a fortress, more and more impregnable. And so, maturity of faith would — would mean that — that I was more certain than ever of the things that I'd started off with. And what I have discovered, both in my own journey and in my journey with other people, is that that's not quite how it works. So, it's not like, I don't know if you have the Alpha course in the States. Is that a … no. Okay, no. Okay. So, it's an evangelistic tool where you invite a whole bunch of people to have dinner together and look at some topics around Christianity. These are people who are not Christians, and they — and there's a bit of a talk and then an opportunity for people to ask questions. And there is an expectation that you can do lots and lots of question asking at that time, when you're exploring faith and wondering whether you're going to become a Christian, and that then — and that then later on, as you — once you've signed on the dotted line and you've invited the Holy Spirit into your heart and you've become a Christian and you've said the prayer or whatever, then the questions will end. At that point, there won't be any more and you won't shift. But what I have — what I have discovered, is that a really normal part of what it means to grow as a Christian and to grow in relationship with the divine is that we — we continue to have questions, that things that we were really certain about a few years ago, our views on those shift and change, and we change our minds. And quite often, what happens is that things that we were really, really certain about, life throws us a curveball, and we find ourselves thinking, “Actually, I know that's what people have been telling me, but that doesn't — that doesn't fit to stick to. That would not be the most loving thing to do in this situation.” Or “I can't.” I am a divorcee. I'm remarried, which is delightful. I — I had held very firmly that marriage should be forever, and I understood that that didn't always work for everybody all of the time. But I had to work through that process of actually, for us, it needs not to be. You know, this — this relationship needs to end. And of course, that brings up all kinds of questions. And then you find yourself needing to renegotiate and think about that again. And my experience is that if people feel that they're in an environment where their faith and their integrity will be — will be seen to be lacking, if they are asking questions, then it's not that the questions entirely disappear, but you have to kind of squish them down. You know what I mean? So, you end up with a space in your heart which you can't — where you can't go, because there are things that you don't think other people will be willing to see. And if you're in an environment where it feels like all the Christians around you are saying, “We don't want to see that. Don't expose that to us,” then you feel, “Well, I can't expose that to God,” because you have that sense that, “Well, these people are reflecting, for me, the character and the opinions of God, and therefore God doesn't want to know this either. And if I want to be a good Christian, I've got to — I've got to squash all of that.” You know, and there are lots and lots of environments where feelings are seen in a very similar way, that if you've got negative feelings, you ought to be able to bring those under — under the authority of the Word, and this selection of slightly cheesy Bible verses. You can, sort of, you can — there might be a feeling, but you can bash it on the head with “All things work together for those who love God and are called according to His purposes,” for example.

Thibodeaux

Yeah.

Cowell

Yeah. God has good plans for you. So, I don't know what's happening. It's all right. I can bash that down with a with the right Bible verse. And that leaves us kind of stunted and stuck because we can't then work through the stuff that's in our heart. And particularly for people who have experienced situations where it hasn't been safe to talk about things and where their whole selves hasn't been acceptable and welcomed, it's really, really crucial, I think, to have spaces where you can, and where the person that you're talking to is not going to be scandalized —

Thibodeaux

Yeah.

Cowell

— by whatever it is that you are — that you are holding and needing to look at.

Thibodeaux

I think that is actually one of the biggest hurdles in Christianity, is that the feelings that we have, we make judgments about them. We want to put them in containers. And so, that leads to what I have sometimes referred to as cat-poster Christianity, where you take those good verses like you mentioned, and you put your cat up there, and it feels good, right? And then we should just be able to go on with our day. But if you look across Scripture, there are some hard, hard things that happen in Scripture. And you have to ask questions. And, you know, I know that you are a parent. You know, I have kids myself, and to me, it is just like parenting. It doesn't get better, it gets different. You just have different issues to deal with. So, to your point about it just kind of shifts and the questions become different, or you have to reevaluate things, I think that's spot on, as well. But I did want to share with you something that I had written that kind of makes it okay to ask those questions and see the kind of the progression that's there. But I had written this, I think it was last year, but it says, “It's okay if you have doubts in your faith. Doubts lead to questions. Questions lead to seeking. Seeking leads to learning. Learning leads to security. Security leads to boldness. Boldness need — leads to connection. Connection leads to hope, and hope leads to peace.” Because I think, you know, as we're talking about feelings, I think that's what we're all looking for, right?

Cowell

Yeah.

Thibodeaux

So, to understand that as we continuously ask these questions, whatever feelings come up are okay, but that's the goal, that's the destination, is that peace, and that is part of the journey of getting there, is all the mess in between, but that's where we're going. And —

Cowell

Yeah.

Thibodeaux

— God understands that we're not perfect. He understands that we're doubt — you're doubtful. We're human. And He can sit with us in that and be with us in that and beside it and tolerate it. He gets it, and He's not going to just run away because we have a question. He's gonna answer the question eventually. Maybe not in this lifetime, but you know, when we get there, He'll — He'll help us figure it out. You know, we'll get there and we'll have that peace. So, if we have the questions right now, that's okay, that's just part of the journey to me.

Cowell

Yeah, and I don't think you need answers to get the peace. I think what you need is the connection and that sense that who you are is held and is held in love, whatever questions you have and wherever you are in your journey. There was somebody who once commented, who'd been a — he'd been a member of Church Without Walls for quite a while. And he once said, “Before I joined Church Without Walls, I thought that there were questions I could ask that would move me outside of God's love.” And I think lots of people have that sense, you know, this is a question which will kind of move me beyond the pale. I will be, I will be outside of God's will, outside of God's love, if I ask it. And what he had gained through being in those conversations was a sense that God's love was way big enough to hold his questions. He couldn't ask a question that would move him outside of God's love.

Thibodeaux

Right, right.

Cowell

But that wasn't possible. So, I think that that's part of what happens. And the other thing that happens as we have environments where it's okay to be ourselves and to ask questions and to — to explore who we are. Oh, I can't remember what's going to say then, which was very profound, Wanda, and now —

Thibodeaux

That's okay.

Cowell

Yeah. As we — as we ask those — those questions, then we become much, much more settled people and much more settled human beings, because — because we're not hiding stuff. And we're not kind of putting things in different — in boxes, and not showing people, that — when we can much more be ourselves, and it's when we can bring our whole self to the party, whether that's at church or our work, then we just perform better. And that's a slightly a slightly utilitarian view, but you just, you know, when you are able to — you're able to listen better. Your heart is more open. You've got more — you've got — you've got access to all of your emotional and your intellectual abilities. Because you're not sort of using energy subconsciously to kind of hide things away or to manage your image, which is the other thing that we end up doing. And I think particularly at work, there's a lot of image management that goes on.

Thibodeaux

For sure. For sure.

[: 29:28

Cowell

And actually — actually, as a leader and as a manager, what I wanted to do was to have enough time listening to people and understanding who they were, that everything that they were bringing would be welcome. And to just to take a slight sort of side journey for a moment, I think one of the things which we often are taught not to listen to is, what is my core passion and calling? What is it that I am best suited to do? So, very often, we end up in jobs or in ministry positions in church which are based on what other people think we ought to be doing, or somebody else's view, and then we don't spend time to listen to, okay, what is it that's in me? What is it that I would be dreaming of if somebody gave me space to think about that? So, I spent quite a lot of time over the years, helping people to think those things through. You know, who — who am I? What am I passionate about? And I — I sought to do that in my job as a manager, and I sought to do that when I was leading, facilitating Church Without Walls. So, I can remember one particular couple had joined us. And there — they were — they thought that who we were was lovely, and they wanted to help out. And they came to me and said, “Where can we serve?” And I know that usually that would be met with, well, here's a list of things we are looking for people to do. And I resisted. I resisted the temptation that there might have been to do that, because that wasn't really what I wanted. And I said, “Let's go for coffee.” And we went for coffee, and I wanted to know, what is it that you are passionate about? Forget what we might need. What is it that you are passionate about? What do you sense God is wanting you to do? And one of them really, really loved to cook. And we had — we had a homeless ministry at the time, and it was very, very useful to have somebody who loved to cook. I said, “Well, actually, if you — I wonder how you would feel about cooking for these people at this time.” And so, “Yeah, no. I'd really be up for that.” His — his wife had got a passion for — she'd had — she'd been bereaved, and she wanted to — to do workshops for people experiencing grief, and she's gone on to do that. And that was not something which was ever part of Church Without Walls, but I did kind of meet with her a couple of times to talk about, well, how might that work, and did what I could. I was very, very small. She was very competent to really need me.

Thibodeaux

Yeah, yeah.

Cowell

But my heart was, how can I support you to do this thing that God is calling you to do?

Thibodeaux

Yeah.

Cowell

And for some people, you know, their ministry is not to do with helping out a church. For many people, it's not — often, our calling is outside of that. It's into something which is entirely secular, or they don't like the kind of secular, sacred, secular, divide thing. But you know, you're not a lesser Christian if you're not helping out somewhere.

Thibodeaux

Right. Right. I like that you — you kind of flipped it from what it normally is. Because, like you said that, you know, we normally come in with the list

Cowell

Yeah.

Thibodeaux

But that focuses on the organization, you know, and their vision of what the organization is or should be, rather than saying we have these people in front of us with these gifts. How can we use what we have to become something that we might not even have imagined? You know? So, I love that that you just kind of figured out, how can we apply it, rather than what's the little box. That's great.

Cowell

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Cowell

So, I mean, that was — it was some of that sort of thinking and philosophy that led myself and a colleague called Sean Kennedy to write a book called Church Uncorked, which is really all about, how do you do leadership in a way that is not about having a preexisting idea of what your organization will look like, but is about listening to people and helping people to do the thing, to act — to recognize the thing that God is calling them to do, to find their own creative creativity and then to do the thing that they've been called to do. And that — that is quite messy, but it can also be a great relief. So, so somebody who leads a church locally, her and her husband had sort of read some of the stuff that I'd written and some of the things that we've been talking about, and they used to do a Community Day for their local community, kind of — and they'd have all sorts of stalls and activities and things. And she said, “Well, normally we would write a list of the kinds of things that we thought this Community Day ought to have in it, and then we would go around haranguing people and asking them to volunteer.” So it was always really hard work to get people to do these things. She said, “Well, after I'd read your book, I decided that what I would do is just say to people, do you have an idea? Do you have something you would like to do at the Community Day?” And she said, quite a few people did, and it was so easy, because they just came and did their thing.

Thibodeaux

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cowell

All she had to do was find them a space, you know, a space in the — in the church garden or in the building. Well, okay, you can do your thing here, and then Doris will do her thing over there. She's so much easier, so much lighter. She's not taking responsibility for it all.

Thibodeaux

Right? Well, I think sometimes, too, you know, when we talk about like finding talent, like it's right there, you just don't realize it, because you don't ask, right? And you don't know what the real talents are that people have, because you're looking again at what the business needs, rather than really what everything that people can offer. Because I think sometimes, too, people will try to show what they think the business needs, and so they're only showing this little slice of who they are, rather than everything that God has given them, or maybe, like the best thing that God has given them, because, you know, they need to pay their bills or whatever, and they think that's the way to do it. So I think if they have that pathway where they know that again, that there is that space to say, I can use this gift, it's okay, like that just opens up. And I think that's freedom to me. That really is freedom.

[: 35:50

Cowell

Yes. Yeah. And it's beautiful to be in that kind of setting as a leader, however, you have to have settled quite a lot of things in your heart, in your own self, because you're handing over power, you know, and you're letting go of that kind of traditional, well, as a leader, you need to hold a vision and then gather everybody else to come and serve your vision. And there's a certain amount of kudos that comes with that. So, to swap that for, actually, my job is to hold space. That would be my best definition of leadership, that as the leader of something, you're the person who wants to hold this space for whatever it is that God wants to do within that space. To give space to other people requires that you are not — that you are not overly focused on your own image and your own sort of, yeah, and your own — your own power. And that can be tough, because I think what we are — often what we're brought up with is this idea that a good leader is somebody who is in charge, which I would argue is quite a masculine view of leadership. Whereas — whereas I would say that leadership is primarily about holding space, whatever that space happens to be, and — and creating space for God to work and for the Holy Spirit to do whatever the Holy Spirit is — is going to do, and for people's creativity to — to have space to thrive. So, even within — even within the NHS, which is very institutional, where there were kind of targets and things, it was always in my heart to know, okay, so, what is it that this person is bringing? Because very often, you can creatively — you can creatively flex things around the unique talents and gifts and passions of the people who are there. But it requires you to ask those questions, and to ask those questions with the view that people do have an answer. And if — if people have been in a situation where they've not been asked those questions before, then they won't have an answer for you immediately. You know, it will take a while. I remember Sean, my colleague who I wrote the book with, and I were at — we were at — conferencing a workshop, I think, together once, and we were talking about the concept of our book. And that was greeted with great skepticism from people who say, “Well, no, no, no. You need to — we’re church leaders. We’re definitely in charge.” And we were talking about this inability that — that church leadership often has to listen to people and to hear what it is that God's bringing. And they said, “No, no, we are good at that. We had this guy who came to us once and told us that he wanted to do Street Pastors, which is a particular kind of mission out on the streets, to people he wanted to do street pastures. So, we said to him, no. Well, he went away and he — and a few months later, he came back. He said, ‘No, I really think God is calling me to do Street Pastors.’ And we said, ‘No, no, no. You — we don't think that that's — that's not, not what our church is doing. Well, he came back again, and we said, ‘Well, okay, then. If you think that this is something — really think that this is something that God is calling you to do, then — then, yes, you can give it a go. Do you know Street Pastors is the most successful ministry we've ever had in our church? We are good at releasing people.” I was just gobsmacked at the sort of lack of personal insight that was coming out of that. Because it's like, what about my question. And my heart was full — well, what about — what about the person who doesn't have that level of confidence? You know? What about the person who — who isn't gonna have the courage to ask twice? What about the person who isn't going to come to you and tell you what they're thinking, who you need to go and sit with and have a coffee with and ask, and for whom you need to ask the question creatively enough and non-threateningly enough that they get the courage to listen to their heart and to listen to themselves, to the — for the first time, possibly, and begin to get a sense of what it is that — that they might want to offer the world. Because many people don't, you know, many people don't have that space to ask. Somebody I know who has done all sorts of really fabulous stuff in her community first began to think about that when she came to a house group that Sean and I were running and we — we created a course a number of years ago, which is still floating around, called Loved Called Gifted, which is the thing that I ended up calling my podcast, because I thought that was quite cool. And that was based on the idea that actually, when we know that we are completely loved by God, then it becomes feasible to begin to think about who we are, because we don't have to do anything. We know that we are loved anyway. But as we — as we know that we're loved, we can begin to explore who we are, and what God's placed in our heart, and then from that authentic place of — of being loved and being authentically us, we can offer something to the world. And we were trying this course out, and this woman, she's called Mandy, and I named her in my book, so I don't feel too bad about naming her now, but she came along and we — our course consists of asking lots and lots of questions and giving people lots of space. And one of the questions that we asked everybody is, what are you dreaming of for God? And her previous experience had been being part of a really big church where she really wanted to serve, but she didn't know what to do, and she was kind of, sat at the back, but it was one of those places where all of the roles are filled already, actually, so really difficult to know what I — what you would have to offer. And she ended up moving from there to a much smaller church, which is where she was at when we had our conversation. But it was asking the question, what are you dreaming of for God, that gave her the space to begin to talk about wanting to bring together people in her community and people of faith, and being a Christian, being salt and light within her community. She's done all sorts of really cool stuff since then, but it was that beginning, but I don't think she had ever previously sat in a room where actually people were wanting to hear that.

Thibodeaux

Yeah.

Cowell

And I wonder how many people have not actually been in a room where somebody really wants to hear that. No, I

Thibodeaux

No, I think that's — that's almost part of the human condition, is that we want to know that other people want to know.

Cowell

Yeah.

Thibodeaux

So, when a leader like you or — or anyone else comes and actually asks us, I think that is what gives us the confidence to go out and do things. Because —

Cowell

Yeah.

Thibodeaux

If nobody has ever given us the chance to even explore that, of course, we're not going to know who we are, because we've never thought about it. Nobody's even inquired, right?

Cowell

Yeah.

Thibodeaux

And if we are in very structured organizations where you know, you have to show up and do the same thing every day, and that's just how it is, you are not going to be asking those questions of yourself necessarily, either. So, unless somebody comes to say, you know, who are you, essentially, who did God make you to be, you are just going to kind of sit in this space and sit in the back. But if somebody does ask, look what can happen, you know, and I think that's really the takeaway from this, is that if you ask the good questions, if you are not afraid to do that, you help people figure out who they are, who God made them to be, and then they can serve. Then they can go out and do things and — and have — understand what that purpose and value is, and that, to me, it's life changing when you know how you can serve God. You know?

Cowell

Yes. Yeah, and serve the world. You know, we — we are — we are part of a — we are part of an incredible, complex, beautiful world, human society. There is lots and lots of things to do, not all of them — most of the things, actually, are nothing to do with, on the surface, nothing to do with church.

Thibodeaux

Yeah.

Cowell

But our — but our beautiful, meaningful ways of — of expressing who — expressing God's image within the world. And I think — I think the other thing — the other question that often doesn't get asked is, how did you get called to do your current job? What is it about what you're doing — where are you — that is about expressing God's image in the world? Because quite often there's this fairly narrow view of, well, these are the Christian things. And my job at work is to — my job at work is — is to get through the tasks and pray for opportunities to share the gospel, rather than my job — my — you know, I'm here to express something unique of God in the world, whether that's, in your case, through words, isn't it?

Thibodeaux

Yes.

Cowell

Writing stuff. And you are just as much expressing God's image when you're writing something for a client who's got a business as you are when you're writing something which is faith related. It's all the same. I mean, there are different things, but it's all — it's all about expressing, expressing who you are and God's images within you and and will come out through that.

Thibodeaux

Yeah, absolutely. And I — to me, one of the best things is realizing just how many applications of those gifts there are. So, like, for me, you know, like, I consider myself an expressive person, you know, because, you know, I write and things like that. But even something like doing analysis, that is a gift by itself. I cannot do that. I cannot. I cannot math, right? I can't. But other people, that is the gift that God has given him. So, to your point, I would say, don't narrow it. Don't rule it out that it is a gift of God just because it doesn't seem, quote, Christian. It — everything is a gift of God that you can do well, and He will show you paths that can strengthen those gifts that He's giving you so that they are developed and you use them well. He’ll give you the wisdom, too, of where to apply them. But we are getting close on our time here, and I want to be respectful of that. So, my last question to you is, is there any kind of guiding scripture or philosophy that has really meant a lot to you that you would like to offer to my listeners?

[: 46:44

Cowell

Um, not that I can think of at this moment.

Thibodeaux

That is perfectly fine. You know, I — I always just ask, because sometimes, you know, when we have to stop and pause and think about that, we realize that there is one kernel that, and maybe this is your — yes,

Cowell

Yes. There is — yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think — I think there's probably — I think there's probably two. The first would be that we are called to live by the Spirit and not by the law. And Paul gave us some really good guidelines as to how we work out what is of the Spirit, because the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. So — so, actually, what that does is that gives us a huge amount of of freedom to be creative. And the — and the guiding principle and everything, I think, is love, asking people questions and really listening to the answer and giving people space to ask the questions that they're struggling with is an act of love, because you are — you are seeking to gaze lovingly upon the person in front of you, and love sees much, much more clearly than judgment does. You know, if we're coming to a situation with a set of — a set of aims for an organization or a set of mission goals for our church, we're not really looking at the person in front of us and seeing the incredible creation, brother and sister in Christ, fellow human being that is in front of us. Instead, we're kind of looking to tick things off a list. You know, are you a proper Christian? Or will you be able to help with the basketball outreach? No, you can't catch. Yeah. So, I think — I think that guiding principle of love and of being led by the Spirit, I think those would be the absolute key things that I carry with me most deeply. Yeah,

Thibodeaux

Yeah. I love that too. Because, I mean, we talk a lot about things like active listening and things in the business space, but I think we talk about that as active listening as an act of productivity, like, what's it going to give us if we listen, rather than, is — active listening as an act of love, as an act of service. What can we give to other people? What can we help them do for God, not for ourselves, not even for our business, but how can they serve if we hear them out. And sometimes I think if we hear people, we hear God, because they can —

Cowell

Absolutely.

Thibodeaux

You know what I mean? And just understanding that they are His children, and they deserve that space, because sometimes, they give messages that we — you know what I mean? So, I think that's very valuable to to look at it that way and have that guiding principle that love is everything. It really is.

Cowell

Yeah, yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

[: 49:47

Thibodeaux

Well, I have enjoyed my time with you so much, but I do want to give people a chance to connect with you. So, if people want to learn more about your work, your books, you know, how can they connect with you?

Cowell

Okay, the best way to look at my stuff is on the website, which is lovedcalledgifted.com.

Thibodeaux

Okay.

Cowell

And that's also the name of my podcast. And if people fancy dropping me an email, if there's something that's particularly struck them that they would like to communicate around, then that's lovedcalledgifted@gmail.com.

Thibodeaux

All right. I will make sure that I have some links and things for people to use in the show notes so listeners, you can look for that. Connect with Catherine. Thanks everybody. Take care. Bye.

Cowell

Thank you very much.

Thibodeaux

Thanks.

[: 50:38

Thibodeaux

Well, hopefully after listening to all this, you’re feeling a little better about confronting some of the confusion or doubts you have. I know for me, this show really helped me to understand that, you know, questions aren’t a sign of deficiency. They’re a tool God gives us to move forward on His behalf. So, I pray for Catherine as she continues her work, that it will continue to help people find real purpose, and I pray for you, listeners, that God will help you discern what’s right to ask at the right time. But understanding that asking questions sometimes can lead to difficult conversations, for the next episode, we’ll be looking at what the Bible says about handling the challenging interactions you might get yourself into. See you in two weeks, everybody. Be blessed.