Welcome to Dorsey Ross Show!
Dorsey Ross Show
Dorsey Ross Show
Hello, my name is Dorsey Ross, and I am the host of the Dorsey Ross Show. I started the Dorsey Ross Show to interview people of faith who have stories of faith and overcoming trials and difficulties. In this podcast, you will hear stories of all kinds. Some will make you laugh, cry, and even say I can connect with that story or that person. I would love to encourage you to check out these stories of faith, encouragement, and inspiration my guests share on the show. I hope these stories give you hope, to get you through your week and your life. Please share them with your family, friends, co-workers, and anyone who needs a little touch of encouragement today.
Why Identity in Christ Changes How We See Race
November 11, 2026

Why Identity in Christ Changes How We See Race

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Why Identity in Christ Changes How We See Race
Dorsey Ross Show
Why Identity in Christ Changes How We See Race

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Racial division, church conflict, and cultural burnout do not have to define your faith. Rev. Dr. B. Keith Haney shares the biblical habits, hard-earned leadership lessons, and grace-filled tools that help believers become true bridge builders in a fractured world.With more than 30 years in ministry, Haney draws from real congregational conflict, personal formation in Louisiana, and his work leading churches through change to show why identity, curiosity, and spiritual resilience matter more than ever. He explains how spiritual leaders can lower the temperature without watering down truth, why division is often deeper than politics, and what it takes to lead people through change without losing them along the way.You'll discover:

  • Why leading with Christian identity changes the way you handle race, politics, and disagreement

  • How burnout is often a spiritual problem, and the habits that replenish your faith

  • The Milwaukee church conflict that taught Haney how to address racism as a heart issue, not a power issue

  • Why change feels like grief, and how great leaders reduce resistance by including people in the process

  • The difference between truth and grace when talking about painful topics

Haney also unpacks his books, including One Nation Under God, Healing Racial Divides and Guided by Grace, where storytelling becomes a powerful way to navigate organizational change. He reveals why Jesus' example as a master storyteller still shapes the way leaders can communicate difficult truths with clarity and compassion.This episode is essential listening if you care about healthy churches, constructive conversations, and becoming the kind of Christian who brings hope into tense rooms. If you are a pastor, ministry leader, or believer trying to stay faithful in an angry age, this conversation will challenge you, steady you, and send you back out with a clearer sense of calling.Rev. Dr. B. Keith Haney is a pastor, author, and advocate for unity and transformation in the church. He serves as Assistant to the President for Missions, Human Care, and Stewardship in the Iowa District West of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, hosts Becoming Bridge Builders, and wrote Guided by Grace: A Narrative to Lead Organizational Change.

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SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Dorsey Ross Show, where real faith meets real stories. Hosted by Dorsey Ross, here we share encouraging and inspiring stories. And today we're diving into another incredible testimony of overcoming trials and experiencing the faithfulness of God. Whether you're facing your own battles or just need some encouragement, you're in the right place. So let's get started. Because your story matters, and God's grace is bigger than any obstacle.

SPEAKER_02

Hello everyone, thank you again for joining me on another episode of the Dos Hills show. On today's episode, we have Reverend Dr. B. Keith Haney. He is a pastor, author, and advocate for unity and transformation in the source with over thirty years of ministry experience. He serves as assistant to the president for missions, human care and stewardship in Iowa district west of the Lutheran Church, Missouri and hosts a podcast, Becoming Big Builders. His latest book, Guided by Grace, a narrative to lead organizational things, follows a young pastor navigating search renewal through storytelling, rooting real life experience with the heart of a pastor and insight of a strategist. That Dahaney brings wisdom and practical tools to help congregations thrive. That Dahaney, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

SPEAKER_01

Well, thank you for having me. I'm so honored to be on your show.

SPEAKER_02

Your journey into ministry spanks over three decades. What pivotal moment shaped your calling to become a big builder?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I think I always had that as part of my background growing up because I grew up in Louisiana. And so I grew up in a time in Louisiana history, the history of our nation where there was a lot of racial tension, especially down south. But my parents were not people, my grandparents are not people who focused on what makes us different, but tried to see people as individuals. And so I never wanted to prejudge people. And so it led me to go, you know, look for the best in people. My theory in life was I'll trust, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt until you prove me otherwise. And so it kind of helped me not to not to prejudge people or even prejudge their intention.

SPEAKER_02

How can ordinary believers confront division without bringing out spiritually?

SPEAKER_01

I think for individuals who are trying to navigate this world, and this world right now is very, very tense. There's a lot of division. I mean, you if you turn on your computer at all for a little bit, you'll see angry people yelling and shouting and screaming. And I noticed this really starting to happen back in about 2006. And I'm like, we have to find spiritual leaders who are, I would say, taking down the temperature. And what I mean by that is not that we ignore that there are problems in the world, but we're called as spiritual leaders to sh point people to God. And so for us to do that, we have to have a calm spirit. We have to bring truth, we have to bring hope, we have to bring healing. I mean, Jesus, I mean, Paul calls us actually ambassadors of reconciliation. So if we're going to live up to that high calling, then we're always trying to figure out how do we bridge gaps, how do we reconcile whether there's differences, whether there's hurt, whether there's pain. And so for the spiritual leader, we have to look at a lot of our division is not us versus them, but it's a spiritual warfare. And if you're dealing with spiritual warfare, especially when it comes to race or tensions in the world, you don't address those with human solutions. You have to address those with scripture, with the word of God. And so for the spiritual leader, you have to pour into what you believe, what you teach, what you confess every single day of the week. And use that as a guide to kind of guide you through the malaise of the racial tensions and problems around you.

SPEAKER_02

And why why do you think it started back in 2006? What do you think caused it?

SPEAKER_01

You know, uh forces, like now, as the Bible says, you know, we've we're fighting against we don't fight against flesh and blood, we fight against the spiritual forces and well, I think what happened was, and and I take this as when I look back at history, I mean, first of all, I don't want to say everything was perfect between before 2006 because it wasn't. But what I noticed in America was with the election of Obama, and I think that was 2006, but around that time, I think I think America had hoped that by electing a black president, we would finally be able to move past the racial tensions in the world and say, hey, look, we've we've accomplished this, let's all just get along. Unfortunately, I think like many things that are that are human-based, people were disappointed that we didn't all of a sudden stop talking about race and focused on, you know, kumbaya and have this utopia feeling in America. Matter of fact, I think the tensions got more, more got more exaggerated. And so I think that disappointment of we were hoping this was a turning point in our nation, and it wasn't that. So I think frustration locked into that. People got locked into their, uh went into their corners more, there was more division, and we just came out fighting. And so I think that that was a turning point where I think people had a moment of hope, and that hope was kind of snatched away by reality, the fact that sin still exists in the world.

SPEAKER_02

What advice would you give to us Christians today to, you know, be a little gap?

SPEAKER_01

I think people have to not know what your politics are. Number one. I think we we lead too much with our politics and not lead with our Christian values. And what I mean by that is not that you don't have a political party or a political affiliation or you follow a particular political team or side, but that can't be the first thing you identify yourself with. I don't identify myself as a Democrat or Republican. I identify myself as a Christian. And I think if we don't identify ourselves, first of all, as one who's been set apart, called by God, a child of God, a follower of Jesus Christ first, everything else kind of falls into place beyond this is my calling from God. And as Christians, we're called upon not to be, as Paul says in Romans 12, not to be of the world, you know, not to have the same mind as the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. And so our mind has to be not so caught up in the things of this world. Because as Paul points out, we're just we're just travelers here. We're nomads. And we have to live as nomads, and that the fact that I don't want to be too tied into the world, too tied into the world's beliefs, the world's systems, because that gets me caught up in not being a good witness to the gospel. How can ordinary believers confront division without burning out spiritually? Yeah, I think for us it's it's really important that we never get stay out, we never always keep ourselves in God's word. Because if we're not replenishing ourselves with God's word, yes, the world will burn us out. The tensions will burn us out, sin will burn us out. So, as Jesus says, remain connected to the vine, and you'll always be connected to living branches, and you'll be a living, breathing, growing organism because you're connected to Jesus Christ. And so for Christians, while we're gonna run into problems in the world, we replenish ourselves with God's word. We get strength from God's word. We get strength for us every Sunday when we take communion. We get that there's a beautiful part in our liturgy where it says, um, you this body and blood broken and shed for you for the renewal of your faith. I mean, we get to renew our faith and be refreshed by the word of God on Sunday morning, by the Lord's Supper, by the fellowship of the believers around us. So all those things kind of feed into our spiritual life and makes us stronger as Christians. When did activity first collide with your hint of calling? The moment I accepted what God when God said, go be a pastor, um, that's when you start realizing just how hard it will be. Um, because you're stepping into something that is a particularly high calling. I found out that the seminary was harder than I thought it was going to be, so my education was more difficult. I walked into a situation where I had to learn Greek. I had never learned Greek before. So right away I'm I'm learning this difficult language and this really intensive summer session. And the summer I took it in Fort Wayne, it was the hottest summer on record. So I'm, and we had no air conditioning in the dorm. So there were no air conditioning in the dorms. It was the hottest summer on record. I'm trying to study a difficult language, and I'm like, this is just hard. It's like, does it get any easier? And, you know, for the next four years, it was, it was, it was a struggle because you're trying to be the best well-trained person you could be to represent God and his people. And so, yeah, everything about it. Then I go to a congregation uh that was that was dealing with some some past pain and past hurt. Um, and so that was difficult to try to lead a congregation that was hurting. One that came in and said, okay, we called you to save the church. Um, so we got this young pastor that he's gonna bring all these young people in from the community, and you're gonna you're gonna help us grow, but we don't want to change. So, you know, everything about ministry can be difficult if you only focus on the heart.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I can relate with the uh Hebrew and Greek part because I went to um Bible college as well too, and I started youth ministry. So I did the basic, you know, had to learn the basic Greek and Hebrew, and I had to take that three different times because of how how tough, you know, it actually is to learn it and to memorize it and to fully understand it. Right.

SPEAKER_01

And nothing prepares you for it, because you know, you don't, you know, you may know some of the Greek words in our in our language, but you don't think about the fact that that you're translating and and you're trying to translate something that's so important, you want to get it right. And so there's just so many different things you gotta learn. So yeah, then I took Greek and Hebrew at the same time one year, had to drop out of one because, like you said, it was difficult to do both because my brain couldn't switch from Greek to Hebrew and then English, and so I'm like, okay, let's just focus on one. So what made you, when you were younger, what made you decide to become a pastor? That's an interesting story. So I was a young teenager going to a conference, and one of the speakers, I remember to this day, his name was Joseph Lobelay. He got up and said, There is a shortage of black pastors in our church body, and we need to challenge our young men to go into the ministry and to take on this high calling of being a servant of God in that capacity. And I was like, wow, I think, I think God's talking to me. So I I was so excited. I grew, I run when I got back home, I applied right away to seminary, only to find out that in our church body, you can't go from high school into seminary. Um, so we had to had to go off to college and get a four-year degree and then apply for seminary. But I was all excited. I'm like, this is what I should do. And I and the seminary wrote me back a very nice letter and said, that's not how the process works. So you have to get an undergrad degree first, and then you can reapply. But yeah, I was I was just so enamored with the possibility of doing this work and being one of those people that God could use in this church and to serve in that way. Because I grew up being a Sunday school teacher when I was like 12. Um, then I was a uh final secretary in my church when I was 18, and then I was treasurer in my church when I was 19. So I was already kind of learning to lead early in life, but the pastor thing was just people always said in my church, I can see you one day being a pastor, I'm like, no, not me.

SPEAKER_03

And then God said, No, I agree with him. What personal wounds most hate how you see divided?

SPEAKER_01

That actually goes back to my time in Milwaukee. What happened was I I walked into a congregation in Milwaukee that was 70% African American and 30% white. And I walked into a church that was very, very divided racially. We had a school, all of our teachers were white, all of our students were black, there was a lot of racial tension, and what was, and I was trying to help the church navigate that and realize that there was a problem here. What I ran into was a lot of my black members had this mindset that we can't be racist. And because they believed that, they didn't see that any of the actions that they did were problematic. It's like, well, since we can't be racist, our actions are acceptable. They're good, they're righteous. And I had to go back and basically tear all that theory down, teach scripture about it's not about, because they thought you can only be racist if you have power. And because they never had power, they couldn't be racist. But I said, no, racism is an issue of the heart, not an issue of power. And it's what's in your heart that makes you have negative thoughts about somebody else. And so we had to go break it down and talk about God does not judge the outward appearance of people looking at Galatians, but he judges the heart. And so I started breaking down what does it mean to be a child of God according to scripture? Who can be racist, I mean, or have racist thoughts or negative thoughts about another race. And we began to heal because we taught what scripture said about the heart and how we adjust that. But in that process, I learned a lot about how not just my congregation thought, but how the world thought about our division. And I started hearing the same kind of talking points or same kind of philosophy or theory in the world. So my first book, One Nation under God, Healing Racial Divides, was the lessons I learned from that first church about how you heal race and using scripture to do that. And tell us more about your book and what it is about again. So my first book, my first book is a Bible study, and it's called One Nation under God, Healing Racial Divides. And I take the scriptures and I go through and I start out talking about, first of all, our identity. What's often missing in our discussion about race is our identity is wrong. We we see ourselves as black, white, Republican, Democrat, male, female, but our identity really doesn't start. Their identity starts as a Christian in the fact that I'm a child of God. And the person that's sitting across from us, no matter what color they are, is also a child of God. And then I got into, you know, the real issue behind racism is Satan. Satan is driving all of this. And what he does is, in chapter two, we talk about the fact that Satan uses half-truths to distract us and get us fighting with each other. So you'll hear people say things on television or in just in conversation, that all black people are ex or all white people are this. Like you'll hear people say, all white people are racist, or all black people are criminals. And it's like, as a husband, whenever I learned earlier that if I ever say to my wife, you always do this, or you never do this, you're asking for a fight because nobody always does something, and nobody never does something. But Satan will use those absolute terms to get people arguing with people, and then he'll show you just enough evidence in the world around you to go, yeah, you know, looks like every time I turn on TV, the person getting arrested is black, or every time I turn on TV, the person saying, you know, detrimental things or criticizing people is white. So yeah, maybe all white people are racist, or all black people are this. And so Satan gets you thinking, well, maybe those things I heard are true. And then you it kind of feeds into your psychosis about the other person. And so I talk about that and I and I kind of go through different things about how we what does it mean to be a neighbor? What does it mean to learn to listen actively and to be a person who is curious about another group? And then I end the Bible study with, you know, what do we go, how do we go from here? And that is, what does it mean to be someone who is seeking to build bridges across races, being being curious, being open to learning from other people, alerted to have conversations with other people. So we talk about all those things um in the in the Bible study.

SPEAKER_02

You mentioned about identity, and you know, I I've done several interviews lately on different topics, and you know, the the word identity and what it means to have an identity have has come up. You know, it seems like you know, you know, more and more people don't seem to know or understand what identity is and who uh who our identity needs to need to be in.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Because we we take our identity from what the world around us says about us, and we let other people shape that identity. And you you won't find an identity in what your neighbor says about you or what your family says about you. Your identity is not formed by people's perceptions of what you have said or done or how you think or how you look. Your identity is shaped in either the new person that's been defined by Christ and his death on the cross for us. And so that's not something that's revealed to us, obviously. It's something that's revealed to us by the work of the Holy Spirit. And so, because we it's not something that's obvious, like I can't look at you and Dorsey and say, Dorsey is this. I can just, I can make assumptions about you, but I don't know you other than the fact that I can look at you and say, this is somebody that God has uniquely gifted, God uniquely created, and this is someone who is precious to God. That I can tell about you without knowing anything else about you. But we don't always see each other that way. And I think when we don't see each other that we miss out on the fact that this is your true identity. I love the package, it's in um Ephesians 2, where um Paul says that you are God's masterpiece. And that word in the Greek means you are God's one-of-a-kind work of art. And it says about each of us. Each of us is God's one-of-a-kind, unique Picasso painting that God has created, and it's his unique, beautiful gift that he's given to the world, and each of us.

SPEAKER_02

On your podcast, Becoming Bridge Builders, you explore transformational leadership. What does a bridge builder mean to you personally and spiritually?

SPEAKER_01

For me, a bridge builder is someone who is curious about um the topics that I try to cover. So, like for me, I know that when I talk about race and what's what divides us, there are deeper conversations about the issues that most of us don't want to deal with, like education. There are situations that every school is not created this equal. When I was working in Milwaukee and Detroit, I saw classrooms that had 45 students in it, and students who came from very poor neighborhoods, who didn't have a breakfast before they got to school, who didn't have two parents in the home, who start out their day at a disadvantage from the student who may have been living in the suburbs of Detroit, who went to a well-will-lit school with smaller class sizes, with support staff. And to say that everybody has the same opportunity to succeed isn't exactly true. And so on my podcast, I say, you know, we need to really get curious about why it is that certain people have certain disadvantages or certain obstacles to overcome that others don't. And how do we have honest conversations about how do we fix some of the problems that are before us? And so for me, a bridge builder means I need to be open to listen to other people's point of view, even if I don't agree with them, because I can learn something from them that I did not know before. If I come into this with an arrogance of, hey, I know everything, I can solve everybody's problems, listen to me, I got a doctorate degree, so obviously I'm really, really smart. And I can tell you everything you need to know, or let me learn about the things I don't know so I can apply those to people who also don't know, and I can share that with them. So on the podcast, I try to figure out let me have people on my podcast who disagree with me, but may have really good ideas or insights that I don't have because I can learn from them and we can have a good, open, honest conversation. So I try to, for me, a bridge build is someone who's curious and who wants to learn and grow and continue to have conversations, even with people they don't agree with.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Your new book, Guided by Grace, uses storytelling to address organizational things. What inspired you to take a narrative of those? And what lessons can leaders draw from it?

SPEAKER_01

Well, for me, I because I I love scripture and I'm a pastor, I know that Jesus was a master storyteller. And the way he effectively communicated difficult truths was through stories. And so I thought, you know, why not take that same approach and take a very complicated thing like organizational change and turn it into a story that people can see themselves somewhere in that story. And what I've heard back from people who read the book so far is, hey, I know Eleanor, I know Pastor Terrence, I know this particular guy. He's in my church or she's in my church. And I never thought of it from her perspective. When you're just teaching theory to people, you don't always understand that there's something much deeper than just a theory. So the story allows me to kind of go behind the scenes and have you look at change from other people's perspective in the story who you may not have thought about otherwise. So people who are resistant to change in the story may be because there's a hurt that was attached to their own story or the change that they faced in a congregation before. And so I talk about, like with Eleanor, her dad died, who was the president of the congregation during a very tumultuous time when a young pastor came in and tried to change everything too quickly, and he died of a heart attack. And she blames the change, quickness of the change, on the pastor. And so when a new guy comes in, wants to do the same thing, she goes, no, no, no, this almost tore us apart the last time. And you got to go walk her through, you know, how change is necessary, but there's a good way and a and a positive way to do change without destroying a congregation.

SPEAKER_02

Do you use some of those your your own your own stories in the book or some of the resistance that you have faced in the book?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, some of the stories are mine. Some of them are stories that I've seen because I've been doing this work as a district official for almost 17 years. So some of them are stories that are mine. Some of them are ones I help lead congregations through, and I've incorporated kind of the things I've noticed over the time over time into the book. So they are there are some true stories. I changed the names to protect the innocent. So the people are not actual uh fictional characters who are not real people.

SPEAKER_03

Where have you seen the concludation move from theory to risk?

SPEAKER_01

Going back to my congregation in Milwaukee, we were able actually to begin to heal some of the lifelong hurts in that congregation. And people started having conversations, started seeing each other differently, but it took a while. And it wasn't without people leaving and people being upset, people having their feelings hurt. But in the end, we started to teach that, teach to the congregation that we are one big hat, we're one big family. And as a family, that means that sometimes we had issues with worship because there were different styles people wanted to hear. Some of the whiter members loved more classical music, some of the black members loved gospel, and the white members didn't particularly like gospel, and the black didn't particularly like classical music. And so we just kind of said, hey, think of worship as a family meal. And that is that sometimes you get your favorite meals, like on Taco Tuesday, if you love tacos, that's your maybe your favorite meal. But on Friday, you might get pizza where somebody else doesn't like pizza. But because we're family, we will let the person who wants their favorite meal have their favorite meal. We'll celebrate that meal with them because that's a meal that's satisfying to them. And I said to people, you know, for everybody, music is your heart language. But we don't have, we don't all have the same heart language. So we want to be in a place where we welcome all people's expression of worship and their expression of how to connect with God. And if it's not your particular cup of tea, your particular style, that's okay. It's somebody else's particular style and it connects with them. So we're gonna celebrate that as a family, and we're gonna support each other because we are all one family. And so we we had to teach people how do you do that, and we started to kind of see that our worship got very, very diverse. Our musical selections got very diverse, and we began, we could worship together because we were a family.

SPEAKER_02

What are some of the biggest challenges face when trying to embrace things? And how can leaders overcome resistance?

SPEAKER_01

One of the biggest challenges is people not understanding that for everybody, change is a sense of loss. And if you don't get that, when you do a change in people's life, you're creating a grief for people. And so you got to kind of be patient with that and leave opportunity for everybody to express that pain, for you as a leader to go by and meet people who you see are are struggling with the changes and dealing with the pain and continue to build and keep those relationships in place, even through the change process. So it means having a lot of conversation, maybe having a lot of coffee with people who are hurting. It means going by people's houses. It means staying in touch with your members when you see them pushing back. Don't just ignore it. Don't just try and push through it. But it's like, you know, let me go talk to Susan and see why she's upset. Um and you may find out that Susan has a very good reason why she's upset. And by you taking the time to go and ask her, you know, how can I support you? How can I pray with you? That she feels valued and she might be able to change her mind, also including her in the change process. The thing I tried to point out in the book was if change is happening to you and you're not part of the change process, you may be more resistant. But if you have an opportunity to help shape the direction that the change is happening, you're probably a little bit less resistant because it's not just someone making you change, but you're part of it. When you go to the doctor and he says, hey, if you don't change your diet, you're gonna die. And the doctor says, I want you to do that and I want you to lose X number of pounds by our next visit. And you go, Yeah, whatever that. But the doctor says, you know, how can we do this together? And doctors start to talk that way more. It's like, what can we do to get you healthy? Because we're we're partnering on this on this health journey together. Then you feel like, okay, he's not forcing me to do this, but he we're we're a team. He talks about, you know, your your care team. They don't talk about your doctor more. So this is your care team. You probably heard him say those sort of things. So, because that the goal is, it's like if if we're a team and I got a team around you to help you be successful at whatever that thing is, then it's like you're not on the, you're not on your own, but we're working together with you. And so they use that that inclusive language so that you feel like you're part of the change process.

SPEAKER_02

How do you balance truth and grace when addressing difficult topics like race, justice, and division in the hook?

SPEAKER_01

I think grace and truth are extremely important. Truth in that you don't want to sugarcoat things, you don't want to water down the truth. Grace is what you do to make sure that you are sensitive to the fact that people are going to struggle with the realities of how difficult life can be. And when it comes to issues of race, division in the world, people need a lot of grace because they're hurting. When I was walking through this whole situation with a lot of congregations, there were a lot of people who didn't want to talk about race because they had been called names. And they didn't, you know, a lot of I knew a lot of white people who were like, they were, they saw themselves as being called racist all the time. So they didn't want to talk about race anymore. They were sick of having the conversation. And I said, it's okay. I don't think of you that way. And it's okay that you feel hurt. And and to have somebody validate those feelings is what grace is. But the truth is, is that because somebody else says it about you doesn't necessarily mean it's true. You need to hear that too. So you need to hear the truth. And if they were dealing with issues, I had to tell people, you know, well, you know, maybe it's not, I don't think you're a racist, but the comments that you make are not helpful in the discussion. Like I remember talking to a guy one day, I did a presentation, and he got up and he says, I am not a racist. And he says, I ask people two questions when I hire them. The first question is, am I a racist? And the second question is, no, am I a slave driver and are you a slave? Or something like that. I'm like, I'm like, well, first of all, those questions are loaded, and I wouldn't ask those questions. I'm like, I know what you're trying to get at, but that's not the way I'd approach it. I mean, there's a different way to let people know that your heart is not what people think it is, but I wouldn't start with that question. He needed to know that that was, those were not great questions to open a conversation. There are better questions, but if you don't tell him that, he'll go around using those questions as an interview process and get himself in trouble, probably get himself sued and boycotted by people because you didn't know what told him that those weren't great questions asked. So you gotta be truthful with people, but you also gotta be graceful and realize that a lot of people come with a lot of different things that are impacting their life and their opinion.

SPEAKER_02

So as I get rid of the end here, um we like to ask my guest for a word of encouragement or word of wisdom to my audience.

SPEAKER_01

I would say for your audience, I would say never give up on having conversations with people you disagree with. Never give up being curious. And if you if your audience is Christian, I would say, you know what, lead with your faith. Be people who display the love of Jesus everywhere you go, because everywhere you go, you take him with you into every situation, into every circumstance. And if we could just reflect the glory of God, the beauty of Jesus, the compassion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in every circumstance, I think we can change the way people perceive Christians and the way they perceive the world. Um, because what's missing in the world is kindness. What's missing in the world right now is forgiveness. We don't give people the ability to know that if you make a mistake, there is grace there, there's forgiveness there, there's hope there. And so I think we should be hope-filled, grace-filled people.

SPEAKER_02

And what would you say to young pastors or young leaders that are leading today that may be dealing with or feel overwhelmed by cultural spiritual counters?

SPEAKER_01

I would say to pastors, know that you're not alone. Know that you have the power of God behind you and the mission of God behind you. I would say make sure you have a good support system around you, that you have people that pray for you on a regular basis, and that you stay connected to God's word because you are living in some very difficult times. Uh, you're living in some very divisive times. And I'd always make sure that as a pastor, you're always pointing people back to God's word. Amen. Well, Dr.

SPEAKER_02

Keith, Hate me, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We greatly appreciate having you. Well, thanks for having me, Doris. It was a pleasure to be on your show. Absolutely. Well, guys and girls, thank you so much for tuning in and for joining us again. Please go and leave a review on Apple Podcasts and wherever you listen to this podcast, and please go and check out um Dr. Keith's book and his resources. We'll have that in the show notes. And until next time, God bless. Bye-bye. God bless.

SPEAKER_00

That's a wrap for today's episode of the Dorsey Ross Show. Thank you so much to our guests for sharing such a powerful story of faith, perseverance, and God's amazing grace. If this episode encouraged you, encourage someone else. Share it with a friend, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can find more episodes and ways to connect at www.dorseyrock show.com. And if you'd like to support the podcast, check out the links on the show notes or on Dorsey's social media. Remember, no trial is too big for God's love, and your story can point others to him. Until next time, keep trusting, keep sharing, and keep shining for Jesus. God bless you.