The Expansionist Podcast

Compassionate Leadership and Everyday Spirituality: a conversation with LaurieBeth Jones

• Shelly Shepherd, Heather Drake and Laurie Beth Jones • Season 1 • Episode 21

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Discover the profound lessons of faith and leadership with the insightful Laurie Beth Jones, celebrated author of "Jesus CEO," "The Path," and "Jesus in Blue Jeans." Join us as we explore Laurie Beth's innovative perspectives on Jesus, moving beyond traditional portrayals to uncover his compassionate and revolutionary nature. Through an engaging conversation, we delve into the themes of her book "Jesus in Blue Jeans," emphasizing the significance of small actions and Jesus as a liberator who championed freedom and kindness. Laurie Beth's reflections offer a unique lens on how we can incorporate Jesus's wisdom into our daily lives.

Uncover the essence of a deep spiritual connection and the transformative power of viewing the Bible as a love story. We share personal stories of experiencing Jesus in intimate, everyday settings and reflect on how these moments free us from societal expectations and judgments. Our discussion also touches on the commitment and journey of bringing "Jesus in Blue Jeans" to life, illustrating the importance of living a faith-driven life and diving into one's personal truths.

Consider the mystical and therapeutic connections between humans and animals as we explore divine communication through uncommon paths. From racehorses to pets, animals bring comfort and healing into our lives, reminding us of the omnipresent divine love. In our final chapter, we celebrate themes of gratitude and theological expansion, encouraging listeners to embody wisdom and love in their own journeys. 

Heather Drake:

Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake. In each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit and love. Hello, shelley, it is my absolute joy to be with you today podcasting because we have such a special guest.

Shelly Shepherd:

Yes, we do Lori.

Heather Drake:

Beth Jones is here and I am so excited that we get to be in the presence and to be able to access the wisdom and ask questions, but really just to have a really powerful conversation with Lori Beth and with you, and I'm just thrilled. I've been hardly able to sleep thinking about all the questions that I want to ask. So again, you promised this may not be the last interview, so I'm looking forward to a part B already, but help me tell all the wonderful things that Lori Beth is and has done.

Shelly Shepherd:

Yes, and thank you. Thank you for that introduction is and has done. Yes, and thank you. Thank you for that introduction, heather. It is great to be here in this studio space with you and Lori Beth. Lori Beth, welcome to this show, this podcast of the Expansionist Podcast. It's a delight to have you in this space with us and I, too, am very excited about not just this moment but the years that your work has had, the impact it has had on so many people, and Heather and I were talking in the pre-show how we're not sure how many people know the name Lori Beth Jones, but we thought let's start changing that, let's get Lori Beth Jones out there, and so people can read these amazing books and and understand this philosophy that you bring um to the world. Really, so thank you for your presence here with us today.

Laurie Beth Jones:

It's great to have you I'm thrilled to be on your show. I listen to your podcast. You all bring fresh light and life and your thoughtful dialogue is so needed today around the concept of love and wisdom and joy. So I'm an honored guest, honored to be here.

Shelly Shepherd:

Excellent. So do you want to kick off with one of your questions, Heather, or would you like me to dive in?

Heather Drake:

Well, yeah, and I want to tell because maybe the listeners don't know Lori Beth yet, but I think that they should. I often prescribe Lori Beth yet, but I think that they should.

Heather Drake:

I often prescribe Lori Beth's books, and there are, they might know her works right, they might know her works right, they might not always know the name, but yes, I wonder if maybe a much younger crowd maybe doesn't, or people have and I'm sure there's, because there are so many books many people probably have, but in the maybe in the community that we're speaking to, a lot they may not be as widely known, and so it has been such a source of joy and of expansion for me personally and for my husband and for the little family that we were growing, because we started reading Lori Beth's book in 1987. 97, sorry, I was graduating high school in 87. But in 97, I got Jesus CEO and the Path and Jesus in Blue Jeans. I think Jesus in Blue Jeans was first for me, but those three books were so impactful in shaping of the way that I was given permission, I think, by the books, to see Jesus outside of the gospels of Matthew, mark, Luke and John, and then what that permission did for my life, to be able to say there is a personal invitation to a wisdom that is applicable for me right now.

Heather Drake:

And so I was mentioning earlier too that there's one of the things that you mentioned in Jesus CEO and you talk a lot about incredible, brilliant things, but that he troubled himself on behalf of others. That was so huge for us to be able to see that about Jesus. That was so huge for us to be able to see that about Jesus. And then there's another one that was talking about he didn't dismiss the small things, and that was so important to me as a mom of tiny people, when it seemed like everybody else was doing great things. And then there were these tiny things that needed to be cared for, that needed to be done, and it just became such an expansion of my understanding of everything is sacred the tiny people that I could talk about some of those and that I wouldn't ramble, because I could read the whole book to people and then that could be a whole podcast, or maybe you could just like read them.

Heather Drake:

But can we talk for a minute about Jesus in blue jeans? And one of the things that was so impactful to me is when you started talking about Jesus and sharing revelation that you had from Christ. Not only did it give me permission as a pastor and as a person who was leading other people into discipleship, but you presented wisdoms that I had not seen before, and when I used the lens of what you showed me, I was able to see things myself so much differently and so much more intentionally and lovingly. And so can you talk to us a little bit about the Jesus in blue jeans? I'll, I'll. It's an entire book, but can I? Can I put a quarter in you? Can I put a quarter in you for the one that you talked about?

Heather Drake:

where you said he thrust his hand through the door.

Laurie Beth Jones:

Oh yeah, that is a powerful one and it's from the Song of Solomon, the reference. But so often, well, I think there's kind of two schools of thought on Jesus broadly. One is he's the militant angry, throw him into hell for those that don't look like us, act like us, believe like us. And then there's the very compassionate, the good shepherd, the kind, and so the challenge with those two are sometimes he was passionate and he was not a doormat and you know, I grew up seeing the picture of him holding a lantern, knocking on the door, you know with the shepherd's robe and knocking gently on the door and waiting and behold, I stand at the door and knock.

Laurie Beth Jones:

Also, the concept of truth that relates to when he said to Lazarus the people standing around Lazarus unbind him and set him free Because the core value I think that he had was freedom. A core value was freedom and the notion of seeing someone bound up or seeing something happening on the other side of a door that you know is wrong and just saying, well, let the elders take care of it or, oh, you know, it'll all be solved in the sweet by and by. That is not the nature of Jesus. In blue jeans, I mean thrusting his hand through the door and also into our hearts. You know that that concept of I will not let you go uh, ann lamont talks about that, how he pursued her for so long. Finally, she said a cuss word and said, okay, come on in. You know, yeah, um, so that that reference is to me so powerful that there is a time when niceties and protocol and rules and all those other things, he will go through that to grab what's essential, and so must we.

Heather Drake:

Yeah, one of the things that I gleaned from that. So you wrote that chapter. He thrust his hand through the door and what happened for me was I felt like I saw a Jesus that was different than I had ever been told about, and that passion to be able to say I will come and get you. Because in the verses previous to that, the woman is saying I'm not, my hair is washed and my feet are clean. I can't get out of the bed.

Heather Drake:

And so many people find themselves in a place where they can't go any further. They can't, I mean, they've done what they know to do. And Jesus seems far away from that. And the beauty of that invitation that says will you let him thrust his hand to the door and come in himself, that became such a beautiful, especially to people who have been traumatized or who are in relationships that make them feel, you know, with church and with other things, that it's just too difficult to keep trying that. Can we open ourselves, consent to the loving spirit of God who will say I'll come and get you. It's okay, hold on, I'm coming for you, right? It doesn't have to be such hard work to follow Jesus. It doesn't have to be now get your hair done and your boots on, and now we're all marching to onward. Christian soldiers, I mean, sometimes you can lay in your bed and wait for love to come to you.

Laurie Beth Jones:

Yes, yes, there is that, there is that.

Shelly Shepherd:

I had a similar notation to talk about, which also had to do with knocking, and I think it might have been in yeah, it's in Teach your Teen to Fish, your book Teach your Teen to Fish, which I think was around 2000, I don't know, 2002, or sometime 2002 or 2003,. That book came out. Um, but you, you made a point to um, you, you start the book. I mean, you start that chapter. Um, he went deep in order to go wide. So it's almost like reaching through the door. He's going, he's going deeper, wide for someone.

Shelly Shepherd:

Right, you start that particular chapter with a Rumi quote which I want to give to you. Here it's you must always carry an unsolvable problem in your heart, and that's a Rumi quote. Right, that's how you start the chapter. But then, as you get into this, you remind us that we no longer need to stand at the door and knock. We now dwell in the castle, and I don't know why. It was just this beautiful imagery, almost like the door reaching through. Right, I'm going to come for you. I'm going to come and get you for you, I'm going to come and get you. But here in this book, you're like inspiring me particular, and us who have read this book. Wow, we are, we're, we're dwelling in this castle.

Shelly Shepherd:

You know we're no longer, you know, maybe thinking that we need to bust the door down you know uh you know to to get in, um, but I've often heard you refer to or speak about going deep and going wide Like. This is a philosophy that you have, not just in your writing, but also with people. Right, you'd rather do a one-on-one than get in front of an audience of 6,000. Talk to us a little bit about that. That deep you know. Going deep to go wide, what does that actually mean for you?

Laurie Beth Jones:

Well, you know Jesus spoke to Mary Magdalene at the well right. Wasn't she the woman at the well, or was it? You all are experts in that, but forgive my ignorance on that.

Shelly Shepherd:

That's debatable. Debatable, okay, but anyway, that's debatable, all right.

Laurie Beth Jones:

So let's use that imagery of him waiting by a well and the woman. You go deep to draw water from the well. And I think in our culture, with all the distractions and all of the the noise around us, it is very hard to go deep, particularly when the emphasis is how many followers do you have, how many? How many TikTok followers do you have? How many hits did you get All of this stuff? And you see these people, sometimes these influencers, with millions of followers, and they jump off a building. You know, because that is not the answer.

Laurie Beth Jones:

The answer is, if you have, like the image of the cross, is god and jesus connected, you connected to god? And then your arms outstretched to other people, but you only have two hands. So it's almost to me, I would rather have three deep friends than three thousand who click on me and then go to the next person to click on right. So going deep is it's also in ourselves right If you can connect with something that means so much to you. And I know that you as a pastor, heather and Shelly, you also as a pastor, and having been doing this work around ministry and theology for most of your adult life, you are constantly winnowing down what is the essence, right? I mean, what are the filters that you use? Heather, you mentioned you and Dennis saying you know that mantra we trouble ourselves on other people's behalf when it comes to decision time. You make a decision based on that one thing, right. So going deep means what does this matter ultimately between me and God, and the impact to the world doesn't really matter as much, and I think we worry too much about what other people think. This was so freeing to me.

Laurie Beth Jones:

Let me tell you in writing when I realized, and having come from an abusive marriage where this whole system was telling me what I could say, what I could wear, what I could not do, and all that, and when I realized that I only had one person to answer to and that was Jesus, and I have lived my life consciously making it that way, trying to remember that there's one relationship, one person, that I need to sit down and say how did I do today, how was today? And I don't even that conversation of how did I do that implies a judgment of you know, how did you do on the Christian score or any of those things. Now, it's kind of like just sitting and looking outside and watching the dog walkers go by Isn't that the cutest little French bulldog you ever saw? And then just feeling the presence of just his laughter or something like that. So I'm kind of rambling here.

Laurie Beth Jones:

But the sense of depth, of connection and, Heather, I was thinking about you with Tiny People when I was writing Jesus, ceo, having cut away my advertising agency and my marriage and all those other things, and I went out to the desert to write and I actually felt like I was nursing a child desert to write and I actually felt like I was nursing a child that I imagine I've never done that, but that flow of there's nothing in the world more important than this connection me and the words, me and that trailer in the desert that was going deep.

Laurie Beth Jones:

I had no idea it would go wide and so if you start out thinking you're going to go wide, you're probably not going to go deep. But if you go deep and go as deep as you can to who you are and what the truth is of your meaning in this world, it may go wide. It may not go wide, you don't know, but it won't matter because you will have connected, you will have pulled up the living water from the well of your own being and you'll never be thirsty again.

Heather Drake:

Do you have a single memory, or a few memories that connect to you, of how you came to be aware of the presence of Jesus in your life? Because the way that you talk about Jesus, I've been to Sunday school for a really long time. I've been to lots of them. I've been to church. I've been I mean it was I've got a lot of church and nobody other than Lori Beth Jones told me that Jesus was wearing blue jeans and that he was ready to talk to me now and live my life with me.

Heather Drake:

And so how does a person or how did you, I mean again, and then your living it gave me permission to experience life with the presence of Jesus every day, not the Jesus in a robe that lives in Galilee by the seashore, but a very real Jesus, present, love, present right now.

Laurie Beth Jones:

Right, exactly, exactly, well, when I began, when I gave my life to Jesus consciously, and I've always seen the Bible not always, but the theme. It's a love story, right, if you take it, it's a love story between our understanding of the divine and who we are. And so if you love somebody, you want to learn everything about them, right? So I'm reading all these things, every love letter, every circling the words, like it was a valentine to me. You know that it was not only just out there, but this was a love story, a love note to me.

Laurie Beth Jones:

And so one day I was out taking my horse in the field and I was, and I would write while the horse would graze beside me and I had two dogs and it was in a meadow I mean, just beautiful scene. And I saw this man in the field, across the field. It was maybe, I don't know, 40 feet away, 30 feet away, and I looked up. I was startled because I was in the forest and I got closer and it was Jesus wearing blue jeans, as clear as if you know, someone had walked out of the woods and I just looked at him and said why are you wearing blue jeans? And he said well, I wore a robe because they wore a robe and I'm wearing blue jeans because you're wearing blue jeans.

Laurie Beth Jones:

And the moment of just the two of us with the horse and the dogs and maybe the deer in the distance, it was like, oh, I want this feeling all the time and the sense was, well, you have it, you can have it because I'm here. And I said I will someday write a book called Jesus in Blue Jeans, and I was 19 years old at the time and that didn't happen until I was 43. But so that's kind of my. That was my vow, my pledge vow that I had to do the first two books first. But I said I'm going to do this. And so when I got the published copy, I lifted it up and I said here's my offering.

Laurie Beth Jones:

I did it you know I closed the circle.

Heather Drake:

Oh, that's so beautiful, that's so beautiful.

Laurie Beth Jones:

Thank you.

Heather Drake:

I don't know how many books you've actually written. Do you know that number? Do you keep count Fifteen? But those are published books.

Shelly Shepherd:

You probably have other books that are not published.

Heather Drake:

Yes, yes, that I have kind of lived by. They've kind of shaped my faith and the way that I have. Again, you've given me some lenses to do that. One of them, the Jesus in blue jeans, the Jesus CEO. Ancient wisdom that was so revolutionary for me, and just recognizing that a wisdom was not just something to be learned but something to be lived by.

Heather Drake:

That was so incredible for me and then became something that was a bedrock. Now, many of the things that you talked about in that book, as far as the same scriptures, were scriptures that I had been taught and been reading for years, but you offered them in such a way that they were illumined, almost like a prism in me, to show me things that I actually knew but didn't even know that I knew. And when I would read those things I would be like, yes, that is what I know. That is the words around what.

Heather Drake:

I know to be true, and that was so incredible. Also the path, just remarkable that there's so many things in it that were so beautiful. And in fact, dennis and I pastor a church and the reason that we feel like we were able to even pull this out of the ground a church that we launched was because we took the path. And I wanted to talk a minute about that because I know there are a lot of people with really big dreams and really wonderful things they want to do for the world. But the idea of how do I take what's in my person or in my thought and actually live in that thought? And I think the path is. I mean, people laugh all the time at us. They're like, well, what should we do after we do that book? I'm like nothing, because you'll be doing it. So that is the path. Just walk it, just walk the path, walk it, just walk the path. But there's so much just incredible goodness in there. Talk to me a little bit about who you think could benefit from the path.

Laurie Beth Jones:

The path is like a harness. Getting your mission statement and being able to say it in a single sentence is both a harness and a sword. It harnesses you into the work that you feel called to do and it cuts away everything that is false. So learning where and when and how to say no is vital to an intentional life. If you just say yes to everything, you're going to turn into a swamp, a stagnant swamp, and that's not going to support any kind of living water right in that swamp and that's not going to support any kind of living water right. So being able to say no, but in order to do that, you have to be clear.

Laurie Beth Jones:

What did I come here to do? And I believe that each of us are born with a calling within us and, as we've done the path with kids as young as five, they have a sense of what they want to do in the world, and I'm not talking oh, I want to be a ballerina or a fireman or something like that. I mean, when you get to it, there's an innate sense of justice, or there's an innate sense of making people feel welcome or having a calling about it. And, as we've done the path with first offenders and prison systems 16 and 17-year-olds. First offenders and prison systems 16 and 17 year olds.

Shelly Shepherd:

It's, the questions in the path are literally a recipe for life. I was going to ask you to share your mission statement because a little bit ago you used the word connection. Divine connection is really how the path you know unfurled for you was getting clear about your own mission statement. So so maybe share that and and a little bit of your story about how you, you change from divine excellence to divine connection. And and now that you got clear, when you got clear about it being divine connection as compared to divine excellence, that this whole you know array of understanding that has been given to all of us that have read your work has also helped shaped us. Your divine connection has helped to shape you. Living your mission has helped many people shape their own connection as well, yes, thank you, shelley.

Laurie Beth Jones:

That's. That's the going deep in order to go wide. And this is something that I thought about as I thought about this podcast. I wanted to stress if you, if and when you are living your mission, you may or may not know it's going to go wide, but you will feel that sense of connection no matter where you are or what you're doing. So my mission is to recognize, promote and inspire divine connection in myself and others. So it's three verbs, a core value and the tribe, which is myself and others, and it was divine excellence. And my mentor, catherine, challenged me and she said what is excellence? Oh, you know, it's like something really good. Well, who defines it? You know, but really so, if you look at it, I want to.

Laurie Beth Jones:

No matter how people encounter me or my work, did I help them plug in to the divine? Something I said gave them a new lens, like you said, heather, for how to see Jesus and the presence in this world. That's what I want to be about, and it's not about being liked or being the most popular or being the most anything else. If I can help people connect into the, it's like you know, reboot your machine, or, if you don't plug it in. If you plug it in, the power comes on. If the people aren't plugged in, it doesn't matter how much you preach to them, because they're not connected and that's what they need to do. It's an individual connection of getting connected to the divine. So I don't know if that answers your question, shelley, but it is the deep going deep to go wide.

Heather Drake:

We want to pause and take a moment and let you know how glad we are that you've joined us. If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend, and if you found the conversation intriguing and want to know more about what we're learning or how you can join our online community, visit our website at expansionistheologycom.

Laurie Beth Jones:

I give the example of. I had the privilege, as the book became a bestseller and all those things of preaching and teaching and talking and praying with generals in the Pentagon and prisoners women prisoners in Colorado and nuns in New Orleans and CEOs in Cincinnati. I mean it was just a huge thing. But one time I was called to speak in December in New York and it was the combined meeting of the ATF and the United Postal Service and this was not a happy crowd and this was not a happy time and it was raining and it was cold and I spoke. My all of my jokes fell flat and my exercise of now lean over to your neighbor and tell them what was your parents unlived life, and I mean those people sit ramrod straight and I it was the longest two and a half hours I have ever a seminar. And then I started thinking am I right now doing my very best to recognize, promote and inspire divine connection in myself and others? Am I doing that? Yes, then this is where I need to be. I could have been home by the Christmas tree with hot chocolate and my nieces and nephews, but no, no, I'm in New York speaking to a, you know, just a flat-faced crowd. And then I knew that you know like, nobody bought books and I packed it up and I just thought, okay, that was done.

Laurie Beth Jones:

A week later we got a letter, an anonymous letter, and it said regarding your talk, december, it was like the 22nd or something like that, december 22nd I heard you unsigned. So could I have been sent to New York City in the middle of December in a snowstorm to reach one person out of the 60 that were there? Yes, yes. So that's the knowing. I'm getting goosebumps thinking about it. It doesn't matter what it looks like externally, whether it's a crowd of, how big your crowd is, it doesn't matter. That's not the issue. When Jesus was on the cross, he had a crowd of how many? Three, four Mm. Hmm, it's not the crowd size, that is about connection, it's going deep, as deep as eternity.

Laurie Beth Jones:

And this life, I believe, is really, you know, I don't want to say a sideshow, but it's not everything, it's not all of it. I was joking with some friends of mine and they were talking about where they're going to be buried and all this and I said oh, so that's your preparation H? They said preparation H. I said so, that's your preparation age. He said preparation age. I said that's your preparation for heaven. Everybody gets so sad thinking about wheels and coffins and all this other stuff and it's, you know it's. The veil will be lifted and right now we're sort of in a cloud, but not alone never alone, thank you.

Shelly Shepherd:

Thank you for living your mission Wow.

Heather Drake:

Yes, those of us who are living in a world kind of that you created by allowing us to create worlds that are deeply meaningful and intentional and I think very deep and that's a really beautiful thing. You were talking about connection with God and the idea of an intimate connection, not just broadband, but to have a daily conversational type of relationship. Can you talk a little bit about how I think that one of the things that I have observed is sometimes people who are afraid of God or who have been only told that God is there to judge them are not very interested in having a conversation or a life in, in in that kind of presence. Can you talk about that for a minute and how we can maybe adjust what we know or how we've seen or what we viewed?

Laurie Beth Jones:

Well, if you and I know you've read my book Contessa Chronicles and I had this vision that Jesus was raised on a ranch, has a twin sister named Contessa, who is the Holy Spirit. His parents were Al and Meg. You know Alpha and Omega, and they were all busy on the ranch and there was a vineyard and the ranch hands were named in spanish, pause, which means peace, um order, which means love. All the ranch hands names were the seven fruits of the spirit and so jess would go for a ride or test, would saddle up the horse and say I think I'm going to go out with pause and do the vineyards today. So peace saddles up with the Holy Spirit and they go through the vineyards.

Laurie Beth Jones:

Or Meg was in her design studio and she heard Jess and Tess drawing and seeing little squiggles about a horse with a long neck and the next morning, outside their window they see a giraffe peeking in. That their mother designed overnight out of their doodles in the sand and that's the presence of. It's a family. You know God said let us. There is an us there and it is a family and people have tried to describe it as angels and demons and you know it's an attempt to understand what's on the other side of the veil, but for me, if you make it really real and, of course, growing up with horses and everything, it's like what could be better than going to the lake with jess and tess and just diving into crystal lake off the pier and he suggests such a show-off. He says watch this, you know. Oh, I'm going to walk on water, watch this, you know. And tessa being the Holy Spirit, she wants to watch the fish underneath playing in the seaweed. So the personalities of it's really joy. It's really about joy and creation and creativity. That's what we were meant to do and anything that hinders that, that's what needs to be cut away the name-calling, the demonizing of other people, all of this other stuff that needs to be cut away. Are you riding the vineyards? Or are you drawing in the studio with Meg, or have you walked out with Chata Nango, who was their nanny that helped take care of Jess and Tess, who went with them everywhere, going out to the waterfalls to just sit and listen? You know, it's just this. It's just an overwhelming personality of family and I have said in other conversations that Jesus was a family man and people say, oh, how could he?

Laurie Beth Jones:

He was a single you know, single cat guy, right. What stake does he have in the future? A lot, a lot, because he did everything, everything to please his father. His dying words were take care of my mother and he called us all brothers and sisters and he wanted us to come home and have supper. And if that is not the essence of the gospel, I don't know what is. He was a family man, calling us to come home.

Laurie Beth Jones:

So any of the sorrow, any of all the things that the bad happened, the things that happened were because we just didn't know who he was and what he was trying to say and didn't feel worthy, right, that's why he turned to the guy God, you know my youth, you see me, my dad would love to meet you. Come home tonight, I'll see you at dinner tonight. Home tonight, I'll see you at dinner tonight. The dying hurts, but just for a minute, you know.

Laurie Beth Jones:

So it's just if people could experience this joy and this is what I wanted with all of my work was to be able to see Jesus through a different lens as a CEO, as wearing blue jeans. As a coach Jesus Life coach, having a recipe there's a way to figure out what you're called to do. And as you go through the ages and having the time to go through and study as I have through all my life Scripture and all those things, you begin to see patterns. It's pattern recognition. And, like you say, once you get that filter, you start to say, wow, I didn't know, red was everywhere, you know. Or I love the color orange right now. And just like, wow, look at the orange, orange hats, orange umbrellas, orange swim trunks, orange kayaks, you know it's. You probably do that with silas, you know your son, just when you put that filter on, then suddenly you see and and that's what I wanted my work to be, not the religiosity dogma, restrictive, boring um crypto mania can we jump in there?

Laurie Beth Jones:

for a second go ahead.

Shelly Shepherd:

Many of your, many of your books were positioned as business books. In fact, business Week cited you as a woman author. You can talk to us about that Having two bestselling books on the list of the Business Week bestselling list at one time. Can you share a little bit about what that's like? A little bit about what that's like your thoughts of how you saw Jesus as this team person, t-e-a-m.

Shelly Shepherd:

Right, the business side of Jesus, inserting that at a time in history where nobody wanted anything to do with your work and somebody saw the potential of that. Yeah, it's like I heard something the other day and I can't remember who said it, but it's like all first ideas are blasphemy, right, it's like this idea is so crazy that I just heard you say this must be blasphemy because there's no truth in this, and so it must have been like that for you like to be the first person to write to pair Jesus in business. So talk to us just for a few minutes about that. I don't know how much more time we have today here. I know we're going to have to have you back on this expansionist podcast, but I think it's significant because you did something very unique in bringing Jesus to the marketplace and now everybody talks about that. But you were the first person, as a woman, to maybe bring it in the way that you did.

Laurie Beth Jones:

Well, I was a businesswoman at the time and I was looking for leadership books on how to work with a creative. I had an advertising agency and all the best selling books. These were the names in business looking out for number one, winning through fear and intimidation, the art of war in business and the leadership secrets of Attila the Hun. And that sent me over the edge because he raped and pillaged for a living. And yet business leaders, the whole culture, when you step back, pattern recognition and you look at the culture they were creating, it was hostility, triumph of one over many, using other people to get where you want to go. It was very Machiavellian and it was like whoa and I thought that's not how Jesus led. He didn't throw people under the bus, he stood in front of the bus even when they messed up. And so, for me, business and I love business because that is where most people spend most of their time they don't you know at the time going to church, maybe two hours, or, unless you're a pastor, you're always there right In the business of life. But from my perspective, how is this going to help me in my day-to-day working needs of how to deal with a marketing person and a designer and an accountant and I wanted to write the copy. You know, how is that going to help me pull it all together? And so, watching Jesus how he got his team to be willing to work for free and die for him, I was like, wow, he did. They worked for free and they were willing to die for him. Who wouldn't want a team like that? Well, how did he do that? And it wasn't through preaching. He walked with them and he loved them and he loved them and he loved them even as they walked away. That's the challenge of leadership in business. So it was just a fascinating lens.

Laurie Beth Jones:

Then, suddenly, you put that lens on. How did he do this? You know, when John the Baptist, his own cousin, was doubting him, jesus said who did you come out here to see A reed shaken by the wind? I tell you, no one born of woman is greater than John the Baptist. I thought he defended the man who was his own cousin, questioning him in front of a crowd. How humiliating could that be? He stepped right up. No one greater. You know, what did you? I love that phrase. What did you come out here to see a reed shaken by the wind. That's the deep. That's the deep when you know who you are and whose you are, you're not going to be moved by the tides and the opinions of others. So that was a very long answer to your question, but it became the lens and suddenly I was being reached out to people from business, health, government, faith and service organizations, the mass media, the disenfranchised, because I started getting all these.

Laurie Beth Jones:

This was back when letters, people would write letters and phone calls, they were pouring in, and so my wonderful assistant, she, was taking these notes and they were messages, and so I thought, for some reason, there's something in me that likes to organize and I started putting them in sacks.

Laurie Beth Jones:

Well, this one came from church, this one came from the government, this one came from and it was like seven, which I started calling the seven pillars of society, but these people weren't church people. They started calling the seven pillars of society, but these people weren't church people. They were all dealing with real-life issues in the world, in the church, in faith and service, in the Pentagon, in government, in education Thank you Business, health care, education. So many hospitals. I did a lot of work with hospitals and leaders in hospitals because they are the ones who are, on 24-7, dealing with not only the physical need but the emotional and financial need of that person in front of them, right, which is what Jesus did healing, teaching and preaching. So, yeah, I could talk all day about this, but I don't know if I answered your question that.

Shelly Shepherd:

That's beautiful.

Heather Drake:

I love that. I love that, I love it. It's so beautiful. Do we have a couple of minutes to talk about the power of positive prophecy?

Laurie Beth Jones:

Oh, I love that. Yes, yes.

Heather Drake:

Indeed, I love it too. I love it too. We mention often that I think that if people are going to go into the ministry, that should be required reading.

Heather Drake:

Beautiful Thank you and not just ministry, I think for people's lives and you touch on something that I don't feel like I have any other touch point for. But if we can talk for a moment about the prophecy of animals, I know this will probably be the most important part of our podcast, but you have a section in there about the prophecy of animals and I cannot tell you how many times not only have I received the prophecy of animals since that and recognized it as a holy prophecy, but also been able to bring such comfort to people when they, as a pastor, are saying I received so much help from my pet, you know, or from this animal, and then to be able to name it as oh, that's the power of the prophecy of animals. And then they're like well, where did you learn that? I'm like from this book. Here they want me to cite my source, but I'm like it's part of the creation, it's part of the witness.

Heather Drake:

It's part of the witness of what God has for us. So if you could spend a little bit of time talking about the power of the prophecy of animals to us, particularly now when people need, I think, more than ever, a prophet that is reliable.

Shelly Shepherd:

Maybe we should only go to the prophecy of animals right now. Exactly that was good.

Laurie Beth Jones:

Oh well, that was so good, yeah, we could talk so much about that. I don't know if you know that I recently got my groom license with my sister, and her husband have racehorses, they and they had this one that I just fell in love with, and in order to be there, I couldn't they always have to have an owner or trainer with them, and I grew up with horses, and so I said, what do I have to do to become to be around them? And they said, well, you could get your groom's license and I said, oh great, okay, what do I need to study anatomy? Da da da. They said it's a drug test. So, okay, I think I could pass a drug test.

Laurie Beth Jones:

So I are a common theme in religious art and some people call it auras, and that the human aura is typically about as far as you can reach with your hands. A horse's aura is 60 feet and they cannot talk. You know so the healing power of animals, the comfort of the dog, and you see the dogs and the way God is, the divine is always speaking to us, and yet our frequencies are so limited. If we can open up and see that a butterfly landing on our nose is a prophecy. You know that anything can talk to us at any time if we are open.

Laurie Beth Jones:

And you know, the biblical story is, uh, the, the prophet who was going to go curse the town just for money, probably and his donkey stopped and he got off and he's beating the donkey and he's saying I've got to get to that town, I'm not going to get paid to tell them they're going to die. And the donkey finally says you know, why are you hitting me? Why are you beating me? And he stops and this angel says you know that, donkey, if you had gone and done that, because you weren't doing it for the Lord, you were doing it for yourself. And a lot of negative prophets are not speaking for the Lord, I can tell you. They do it because it attracts people, scares them, makes them give money, you know. But he said that if, if you hadn't listened to that donkey, you would have been killed. I was sent here to kill you. That donkey just saved your life by balking, by balking, and so that was.

Laurie Beth Jones:

You know, one of the biblical stories of Elijah is just we think that God, the divine, only talks through words. Which words? And what about children who are nonverbal? You know? What about? How? How can an animal be a comforter and know exactly how to curl up when someone has died. When I lost my dog Rue after 17 years and I went to a friend's house and their dog she is a dog therapist and takes her dog with her to do healing therapy and her dog Colin, who usually would greet me with running and playing I sat down and he got up from his bed and he came and he stood in front of me and looked at me with if he, if a dog could cry, and he held my face in his gaze for 45 seconds and what he said to me was I know.

Laurie Beth Jones:

I know, I know. Let's be open to all the ways the divine communicates to us and not say only one person is a prophet, only one church has the truth, only one book has all the answers. It's a constant. Everything is a love letter. The palm trees I'm looking at right now, the moon coming up, the waves undulating it's all a love letter to us. We have been given everything on this planet, everything. What are we doing with it and who are we walking with while we look at it? And I think in the creation story, that's all God really wanted was someone to walk with in the garden and visit. Call it out. So yeah, I just get excited talking about this. Wow, thinking about it.

Shelly Shepherd:

Thank you for reminding us again today that we are in the castle. Yes, we are no longer just knocking at the door. Exactly Such a beautiful, beautiful time with you. Exactly, heather, anything else before we wrap this session with Lori Beth?

Heather Drake:

I know we're going to no, you're just going to have to stop me, because that would be, yeah, I would just ask more questions, but some other time. But thank you, thank you so much for sharing this space with us An absolute pleasure and joy and, again, just an enrichment, I think, to the things that you've already gifted us with and clearly in the show notes we'll put on there. You know the list of books and some of our favorite ones I um, I have. When we were first married, we had a very small house and a lot of people living with us and you had one of the chapters was he kept his altar clean and obviously that was metaphorical.

Heather Drake:

But there was for me this really important part of my life in the way that I was managing a tiny house and a lot of people was. I didn't want anyone to put anything on this front entry table, you know, otherwise it could get piled up with stuff, and then that became like a visual for me of going. That is like my own spirituality. I don't want just piles of stuff, I want intentional things that are here to make our paths easier.

Heather Drake:

And so, like this one tiny title that you have, he kept his altar clean. For me became this mantra of. This is how I gain some kind of essence, of a feeling of efficiency, not of control, but of saying it's inefficient just to put piles and piles of stuff here.

Shelly Shepherd:

Let's find another place.

Heather Drake:

Let's keep this altar clean.

Shelly Shepherd:

Keep these thoughts clear, very practical wisdom and it was.

Heather Drake:

so. There's so many things I could talk to you about my favorite one recently. I have a Nathaniel and he came and he goes. Hey, you know there's a lot of good science around humming and how important it is to be able to um, he's an athlete and to be able to help with anxiety and all this stuff. And I was like, yes, in fact, 20, more than 25 years ago, there was a chapter I read about Jesus humming and it was like resonating with me the whole time. So it's funny to me now to see he showed me this thing on Instagram. I'm like if they had read Lori Beth's book, they could have had this truth so long ago, but so again, I, just and that I think every part of it has been so beautiful.

Heather Drake:

But in the way that you have gifted us this wisdom, it has been life forming. I wouldn't only say life changing, but life forming in the life that we've been allowed by the wisdom that you have offered to see Jesus in. I think that if people are struggling with the way that they've seen God or Jesus or spirituality, I think it could be a really liberating experience to read the Contessa Chronicles or to read Jesus in Blue Jeans and be able to see your take on the beauty and the goodness and the kindness of God.

Laurie Beth Jones:

Yes, beautiful, thank you. Thank you both so much. Yes.

Shelly Shepherd:

Beautiful, thank you. Thank you both so much. Yes, lori, I'll close with this thought, and you've heard me say this for quite many years If Jesus were choosing 12 today and he was here among us, I'm confident that you would be one of those, and probably you as well. Heather, thank you for the add-on, and you too, shelley, I'm confident that you would be one of the 12, for sure.

Heather Drake:

But I definitely agree with your nomination. I second your nomination for Lord Jesus.

Shelly Shepherd:

Yes, yes, thank you, thank you, thank you for living your mission, thank you for sharing.

Heather Drake:

All right, it was a joy, thank you. It was a joy, thank you, thank you, thank you, go in peace.

Laurie Beth Jones:

Thank you for expanding theology and for the work that you're doing around wisdom and love in the world.

Heather Drake:

It was our joy to have you listen to our conversation today. If you would like further information or for more content, visit us at expansionisttheologycom.