Being intentional with your influence

Twanna Henderson: Welcome to T Time: Spiritual Conversations For, With And About Women. I'm your host, Twana Henderson and I want to remind you to take a moment and like this podcast and share it with your friends and other women in your life. Well, I'm excited about today's guest. Our guest is Pastor Stephanie Williams O'Brien. Pastor O'Brien, affectionately known as pastor Steph is a dynamic woman who wears a lot of hats. She is the pastor of Mill City Church, which is in the heart of Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is also an adjunct faculty member at Bethel University and Seminary in the area of preaching and communication. And she hosts a leadership podcast and writes for various web magazines and blogs. And I thought I have my hands full. Pastor Steph, Welcome to Tea Time.

Stephanie O'Brien: Oh, Twanna, thank you so much for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Twanna Henderson: Thank you. Thank you. Well, as I stated, you wear a lot of hats. Tell us first how you became pastor Steph and the lead pastor of Mill City Church?

Stephanie O'Brien: Oh, man. Well, you know, I think most people who are in ministry would say, "well, only the Lord knows how I ended up doing this call". But you know, it's true that I really, it really was the Holy Spirit moving in my life and giving me a vision for what it could look like to be a leader in a local church. I didn't grow up in a church where women were leading. And so I didn't see a lot of women leading in any space in the church. But I have a lot of amazing women leaders and mentors in my life, and other spaces. And so it really took a call that God had in my life to see what leadership could be like in the local church space, and some really important women that came into my life as mentors who were pastors and local churches. And it became really clear to me that, especially in the area of church planting and starting something new, I've got a really entrepreneurial spirit, that there was an option for me to use the leadership gifts that God had given me to raise up a local body. And so I joined him with some other friends I met in seminary at Bethel Seminary, here in St. Paul. So if people aren't familiar with the Twin Cities, we've got Minneapolis and St. Paul, we call them the Twin Cities, but they're not twins at all. They're just next to each other. They are very different. And my church is in Minneapolis and Bethel seminaries and St. Paul, but they're very close together. And I met some friends who were thinking and praying about church planting and so a team of us got together and started a new faith community. And that was 14 years ago. Well, I was, I was too young to know about how hard that was gonna be. That was probably for the best. But that there was just a real sense of, you know, the area that we were planting in north, northeast Minneapolis, there just hadn't been any new churches for years. And there was a lot of established churches, and we thought, what would it look like to come in and be a gift to the established churches, but also to have a new faith community because we know that people come to faith or come back to church and be recharged when there's new faith communities and so that really has been true for us. And so I started off and it's been amazing. It's been hard and wonderful. And you know, all the things. Most things in life that are meaningful are also really challenging.

Twanna Henderson: Absolutely, absolutely.

Stephanie O'Brien: Exactly. And I, and I think I developed a love for preaching when I was working in college ministry, when I just graduated from college and was going to seminary, you know, Pastor school, getting my Master of Divinity and was interning with a campus pastor. And she kind of tricked me into preaching. And I realized, man, I've never felt more created to do something in my life. And then I also thought, Man, I really need some training in this. I have no training. So then I went on to focus my studies on preaching and biblical communication, which is what I teach now at the seminary, so yeah, so it's been it's been amazing. It's been such a gift. And the people of Mill City church are incredible people. They are super thoughtful, super passionate, action oriented people and we've been able to make a real cool difference in our in our city, because of their willingness to follow Jesus.

Twanna Henderson: That is amazing. That is amazing. Well, I know you have a passion just for women in leadership, and obviously you are a leader in your own right. When did you first know that you are a leader?

Stephanie O'Brien: Oh, that's a great question. I on one hand, I don't think I can remember not thinking I was a leader. So that's like a double negative, I guess like I can't remember a day that I didn't know I was a leader. I think I give a lot of that credit to my parents. They talked to my brother and I about being leaders since we were little. And they also made sure that we understood that that meant being good followers. That meant being people who respected other leaders if you want to have the right to be a leader. They just really instilled that in us. You know, I have memories of being a little girl and and thinking, you know, if I give people some ideas, we can all do something cool together.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Stephanie O'Brien: And that meant, like, you know, maybe playing a game on the playground, I don't know. But I remember that. So, you know, I don't remember a time when that was kind of, you know, stepping into that. And having coached women leaders for so long, I realized that's not most of us, right? Most of us had to have a little bit of a reckoning with what it meant to be a leader, partly because of gender. But I mean, that's not the only reason, I think a lot of people are reluctant to step into their leadership gifts. And, you know, I think for me, I define leadership as being intentional with your influence. Everybody has the opportunity to choose to be intentional with their influence, because everybody has it. And so I don't think it's just a role or a position or a title, or even a calling that some people have, I really think that we can all choose to step into leadership by being somebody who's intentional in the spaces, we have influence. And that's, you know, for me, that's a church, for a lot of people that's some some little kiddos who are very influenced by your life, you know, for some people, that's their extended family, that's their neighborhood, that's the PTA. That's a role they have at church, a role in the workplace. That might not be, they might not supervise anybody at work, but they've got influence with their peers and their co workers, especially as a Jesus follower, because people come to them for advice. You know, I think when you step into that, that's when you're really stepping into what it means to be a leader. The title may or may not come, but it's the it's the posture in which you approach everything in life.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah. And I think the key is being intentional with that influence. I mean, I think that is definitely the difference that makes it. You know, many times is challenging for women to obtain the leadership support that they need. And you write about being a support of women in leadership, what is a sponsor? Or a sponsor of women in leadership? What is a sponsor? And what does that entail?

Stephanie O'Brien: Yeah, that's a great question. So I think that women, because there hasn't been as much resources invested in our leadership as there has been for men. But I think that's just a fact. We're under resourced in that way. And so then the question is, how do we get more resources? Because we can keep the question of, well, why don't we have them? We can ask that question all day long. I'd like to move on to, okay, well, we didn't get as many, now let's move on and get some. Let's get some resources.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Stephanie O'Brien: So I think women need support, they need cheerleaders, they need encouragers, they need mentors. But a sponsor is someone who's really intentional to say, not only do I want to cheer you on from the sidelines, not only will I give you sage advice as a mentor, but I'm going to use my influence and my stage and my platform and my, you know, privilege to create space for you as a leader by doing very practical things like mentioning your name, when you have not, you know, when people are wondering who could lead that event, or who could speak on that topic, or being somebody who says, I'll come to that event, and I'll speak at that if this woman can also come who's learning or who needs a chance to learn. Being a sponsor gives somebody access to their life and an ability to apprentice maybe more than just be somebody who gets to have coffee with them, being someone who is invited into that leadership space. And I think that men can do that for women can be a sponsor. And women can do that for other women. And so I've had both in my life, I've had men who have said, Hey, I know I could lead this by myself, but I think it will be better together. I think if we do this together, and there's both a man and a woman leading, it's going to be better for people. And I genuinely think that both goes better. And so those men have have very well known that they didn't need to have me there, because society was going to accept their being a man, that's for sure. But when we lead together, we get the chance to show that that is really great, and a really gift to the world to for men and women to co-lead. But also it's sponsoring my voice and making space for that, and moving over, so to speak, to create space for me to step into that. And so that can look like a lot of different things and women have done that for me to where they've said, you know, I could speak at that event but you know who you really need to get is this person or this sponsoring can happen in any type of field, or any type of area, you know, it's when maybe you've been teaching Sunday school for a while, and you have that intern and you give her a chance to say to speak and teach and then you'd coach them or when you're working in a you know, a nonprofit workspace and you realize, you know, that person that's that's got a job, doing some menial tasks, they've got a lot of potential, I wonder if we could get them, you know, involved in some of the more influential work that we're doing here while they're still doing some of the filing as interns you know, you you can apply that sponsorship idea to any space that you're in. Even with with little kiddos, you know, giving them a chance to step up into things that they maybe wouldn't normally do because it's faster if an adult does it, but you give a kid a chance to step into that. You're sponsoring them and they're getting a chance to do something that they wouldn't otherwise get to do and so they're the stakes get pretty high when it comes to sponsorship at you know really high level. So, you know, President Scott Ridout of Converge, invited me on to the board of Converge and that was his decision and his sponsorship. And he has an opportunity to make some choices for the for those positions, not most of them, but some of them. And that was a choice he made in order to give me a chance to be at that table and sit on his executive team. And so that was an example of a man who gets a chance to pick some of the people at the table, not all of them because it's, you know, the whole group gets to pick. And he made a choice to say, I see leadership in you, I'd like to have a woman's voice here and I think that the passions you have a church planting and racial justice, are things that we care about as a denomination so I think it makes sense not just to have a woman, but who you are as a person, you know? That is the kind of sponsorship that people can have. The stakes get high at those high levels, like being president of a denomination. But we get a chance to do that in any space that we find ourselves in, if we're thinking about how to do that. And we can be people who seek out sponsors as well.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, that is so true. I mean, it's so I like that concept of just having a sponsor and being a sponsor, because it really doesn't take a whole lot. And a lot of times, it's just about just really seeing, you know, seeing those people who are around, you know, there are women who are seeking to step into their purpose and mission so that they can really live their lives to the fullest. What do you see as the traits necessary to do this?

Stephanie O'Brien: Yeah, that's a good question. You know, I think there's some traits that are learned and some that you have naturally. And I think that there's a combination of traits that you don't have to have all of them, you just have to look at which ones you have. So I really believe that the traits that you can grow in like courage and willingness to overcome mindsets that are unhelpful. So you know, one of the reasons that some women don't sponsor other women is a scarcity mindset. That, well, there's only so much space at this table for for women, and I want to I don't want to lose my spot. Or I love having the control over this women's ministry and I don't want to share that responsibility because I want to, you know, scarcity, like there's less ministry to do it. No, there's always enough, there's always enough for more people to step into it. And so I think another way of stepping into your purpose is to look at the mindsets you have about yourself, about other people, about your calling and to say, where are there unhelpful mindsets that are holding me back? Like a scarcity mindset. Another mindset that might be not helpful is, you know, just having a sense of looking for what you don't have, instead of what you have, as far as your gifting. So to have a mindset of looking at your strengths, and strengths based mindset to say, I'm gonna step more fully into my strengths, instead of like, some of us women are like, "well, I gotta work on all my weaknesses first," well, maybe you have strengths, so that they can become stronger, and then we just manage the weaknesses instead of trying to stronger them. There's things like that, but I think, you know, I think anybody can grow in their courage. I think, recognizing that you can't do it alone and having other people in your life as a trait that I think really matters. And I think really being willing to say, to be self reflective about who you are. I think that traits are important because one leader is not going to look like another. And leadership doesn't always look like, you know, someone like me, who's really outspoken and really loves to, you know, I'm pretty loud person and got a lot of personality. I know, some very soft spoken, powerful leaders that do not need to command a room the way I do, because when they choose to speak up, everybody leans in and listens to what they say. Because they might not have as powerful of a voice, but they're wise. And when they speak, it's got this sense of, you know, sincerity and, and meaning to it, that I got a lot of words, but they like using their words. So it's it's any personality, it's it's being self reflective, and to say, what's my leadership style, it doesn't need to look like that other woman or that man, it needs to look like who God made me to be. And opening ourselves up to that.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah. And you know, leadership for women, it can just be exhausting. You know, it really can be, what are some of the ways that women can manage the mental load of leadership?

Stephanie O'Brien: Yeah, absolutely. I will, I will say this forever, you've got to have your people, you've just got to have your people. I've got the people in my life who I offload some of that and they offload it with me, and I walk away from those conversations freer and lighter. And recognizing that you know what thinking overthinking this doesn't actually change the situation. So if I can like just process and leave it with the people in my life that I trust, that's huge. Certainly being able to come to the Lord with those things. I think that we have this opportunity as Jesus followers. You know, I've thought about the scripture that says, "cast your cares on Him because he cares for you." 1 Peter 4:7 And that's always been meaningful to me because I got a lot of cares. But you know, what I never thought of until recently was God cares about things on our behalf.

Twanna Henderson: Hmm, Yah.

Stephanie O'Brien: God doesn't just take those cares off of our shoulders but when I care about something, it doesn't actually do anything. When I pray it does. I believe prayer does, prayer does something. I believe actions and encouragement does. But just caring about it in my mind to my heart does not actually do anything to change the situations. So when I come to the Lord and I say, "You care, You care more about this person that I'm concerned about than I do. You love them more than I do. And I need you to care for me on my behalf, because I don't have the strength." And leaving that with Lord. I think that's really key and really important thing to do. But yeah, finding your finding your people and being intentional with them. I think sometimes the mental load is just really practical. I think every once in a while, and, you know, specifically us as women, we almost get kind of like, all this mental load has to be mine, nobody else will share it with me. I haven't even you know, I'm not even gonna let my husband touch this, you know, well wait a second, where's some of that coming from is there may be some pride. Some, "I think I'm the only person that can do this, or I'm going to do it the best. So I can't let anybody else... if you want it done, right, I got to do it myself." And perhaps some of us are our own worst enemies when it comes to the mental load. And other times it's true, there is a lot and women carry more of that for the family work and the kin work it's often called. And I think that that's part of our calling for a lot of us in our life. But sometimes when we recognize as part of our calling, we don't realize like it is, and it's also our husbands calling. How do we have that conversation and lovingly, and I think I've known plenty of men who have or men at work to sometimes the women take the social work, emotional and like caring for each other. And sometimes it's really powerful to invite the men into that, and they just didn't see that. That's like a blind spot. And, you know, I've I've had some really cool conversations with men who are like, Well, I wanted to be someone who planned the birthday party for the other staff member, but it seemed like I wasn't invited to do that. Oh, wow. Like, we need to think about that. And just be open, be open to who can share the mental load in your life?

Twanna Henderson: Yeah, it's so so important to have a village, you know, have people around you the right people around you who can kind of carry that. And I like how you said, that we've got to give that to the Lord. I mean, because that's the thing we give it to him, we allow him to carry it. What's been some of your greatest leadership wins?

Stephanie O'Brien: Oh, man. Well, I think honestly, a lot of the wins come from moments when I'm willing to just really be honest with myself about things, you know, to be able to say, I am a human being, I'm limited. With God, all things are possible. But not with Stephanie, are all things possible. What does it mean for me, and there's been just times in my life, when I realized, if I can really rely on the Lord, then more than we could ask or imagine can happen. And if I go in with my, you know, maybe good plan or neat strategy, it could be good. But it might not be as great as if we really were to follow the Lord. So I think about a few things like with my church, where we, we worship at a public school, and we've been there for 14 years, worshiping at the same school, beautiful auditorium, very comfortable, it's wonderful. But it's a struggling school. And when we came, you know, my thought right away was, let's make a list of all the things they need, and we will meet all their needs. And what I realized was, hold on, let's be honest, first of all, we can't meet all these needs. Second of all, we should make sure we're asked and invited. Third of all, what is God already doing here? We didn't we didn't bring God here. God's working here already. What if we slow down? And we said, God, what are you doing? And how can we join in with that? Instead of, "God, we're going to do all these things in your name and accomplish all this stuff and I really hope you bless it. Thank you. Amen." I mean, it's a very different thing. And so it's really been a win, whenever we've said, "God, what are you doing?Oopen up our eyes to what you're doing, give us ability to hear your voice and the and the courage to follow after you even if we don't know what we're doing." And so in that example, we came to the school and we just said, we're here to serve. But we don't want to stick our nose in where we're, you know, not invited. So please invite us. And we had to remind them multiple times that we wanted to be invited, you know, I think they had some experiences with churches saying, having more talk than walk, you know. And so we said, well, tell us what the needs are. So they gave us a couple little things. And we were able to do that. And that was really cool. And I think we proved that we meant it. And one day the teacher, one of the teachers came. Actually, the vice principal, and she said, we're having a big problem. And we've known about it for a while. And we decided we wanted to bring it to you and see if there's something you could do but we understand if it's too big. And they said you know we're seeing a lot of kids. You know the school has 500 kids. We're seeing a lot of kids acting out on Fridays by stealing food out of the lunch line, taking food out of the trash after it's already been thrown in there. Because they're facing food insecurity on the weekend. And they're just not sure that there's going to be food. And I mean, I was just like, coming from a middle class family, I just could not imagine the idea of you're not having food over the weekend and being so afraid of that, that you would steal from the lunch lady. Like that overcame us. And they said, "we're not really even sure what you could do. But when the kids come back on Mondays, and they've not eaten, well, they can't focus on Mondays, they, you know, it takes till Tuesday before they can kind of get their head back in the game. And they're losing educationally, the anxiety that they're facing is huge. And they're just kids. It's not their fault, that the situation is the way it is. Sometimes they're afraid of not having food, and there is food, but they just don't know, it's the anxiety that we're concerned about." And so, you know, long story short, we started praying about it, and found out there were some places in other parts of the country where people were basically creating little packages of food that were sustainable, that they could put in the kids backpacks. And so they could just take them home on the weekend. And the kids just knew every week, there's gonna be food to put in my backpack, I don't have to go to the lunch lady. I don't have to, you know, take food out of the trash. There's always going to be food in my backpack to take home. And if if there's food at home, they're great. If not, there's something to add to it. And we started doing that for the one classroom. And then we said, okay, I think we figured this out. Let's do it for as many kids in the school that want to and 300 kids family signed up. In a year, in a school year, we went from one classroom to 300 kids. And you know, just taking these bags and discreetly putting them in their backpacks, and their lockers so there's no shame in that. And they didn't have to prove that they were in poverty. They just had to say yes. No you know, score card, no government funding, just say we would be appreciative of this food. Thank you. That's all their parents had to say. And we started sending that food home. And now that was 10 years ago. And now, we ended up launching that program out of the church into a nonprofit, because other churches wanted to do that with their local schools. And it just started multiplying and multiplying. So we started a nonprofit, and it's called every meal. And now there's 280 schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin that have food being sent home with kids on the weekends, and they've delivered millions and millions of meals.

Twanna Henderson: Wow, wow

Stephanie O'Brien: A couple of years ago, when, when George Floyd was murdered here in Minneapolis, the food insecurity problem was huge, because a lot of the grocery stores had to close. And every meal was the number one provider of food to families and kids during that season, because they were ready to respond. Now, let's talk about a leadership win. I mean, that's amazing that that's what came out of that. But what if I had made a strategic plan about how to serve the school 10 years ago, it would have been nothing compared to this.

Twanna Henderson: Yeah.

Stephanie O'Brien: It would have been small potatoes. And I just think like, it's a win, because we didn't go in with our best laid plan, we went in open to what God's plan was, for the situation. And in the end, God's glorified and, you know, every week in a different way, and people praying by name for these kids in their lockers as they put their food in there. So think of all those kids in all those schools that are being prayed for every single week. I believe that changes the reality. And so we're feeding mouths, and kids are full over the weekend but they're also prayed over. And I just think there's something about that, that, you know, that's a huge win, and it wouldn't have been the strategic plan.

Twanna Henderson: That is a huge win. Wow. That's, that's pretty amazing. And, you know, and I love it, those God stories, how he just, you know, allows these things to happen that we're not looking for. And, you know, he'll just open that door, and we just have to be obedient to just walk through it and say, "hey, God is doing this thing," you know, and we might not even see, you know, what it is he's doing, but we know he's doing something. But the fact that they asked and that you all prayed, but not pray too long. I mean, it didn't take that long. They don't have food, we need food. You know, I prayed for so long about that.

Stephanie O'Brien: It was more a how, not if, you know, how do we give?

Twanna Henderson: Yeah. But the fact that it would expand and that God would grow it, you know, he would just blow on it is just amazing. Amazing. I know that you, you know, have a lot of leadership resources for women. How can women take advantage of the resources that you offer? And what what are some of those resources that you offer?

is in the fall in November of: 2022

Twanna Henderson: I think that's great. I don't know about the November part in Minneapolis, though, isn't it cold? I'm like, No.

Stephanie O'Brien: You know what, here's the thing. People always have us coming down in Florida and California for conferences and trainings and then we're inside the whole time. And then you don't even get to enjoy California. So come to Minnesota. We'll be inside, we'll be inside the whole time. We have work to do. We got work to do. It's an intensive.

Twanna Henderson: Want to get outside though.

Stephanie O'Brien: We'll go to Florida to have a retreat. But we come to Minneapolis to advance.

Twanna Henderson: To work to work. Well, Stephanie, Pastor Steph, I know that you've been very encouraging to women, we could this could go on and on and on. But you have really been encouraging to women in leadership and those who are seeking to become intentional with their influence. As we close, can you just take a few moments and just pray for our listeners and as they seek to expand and flourish in their leadership giftings?

Stephanie O'Brien: Absolutely. Let's do that. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I thank you for who you are, that you are a God who is present with us. That you're a God who didn't stay far away, but you came down, you walked this earth, Jesus, and you lived a powerful life and you made made a way for all of us. And by all that you accomplished on the cross and coming back to life, we are so thankful for that promise of the presence of your Holy Spirit. And I just pray that every ear that's listening to this right now would have an awareness that you are with them right now. Holy Spirit, you are leading them, guiding them, comforting them. God, we thank you for being that kind of present God and I just pray that you'd would open up everyone's eyes to the ways that you are moving right around them. We confess that sometimes we get in a spot where we aren't aware of what you're doing, because there's so many other things pulling out our lives. But right now I just pray for an increased awareness for every woman that's listening to this. And that they would they would see what you're doing. They would hear your voice. And they would follow you in the everyday ways, in their everyday spaces with the various areas of influence that they have. And God if there's things that you want to call these women towards, and they need a they need a community, they need a village they need other sisters in their life. Would you just lead them towards those people in their life? Would you would you encourage and convict so that they aren't walking this road alone? But most importantly, that they would know they're never alone because you're always with them? I pray that blessing over them in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Twanna Henderson: Amen. Well pastor Steph. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for your ministry. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your passion. It has been great having you on T Time, and all of our listeners I'm Twanna Henderson and I look forward to connecting with you the next time. Be blessed of the Lord.