Have you ever found yourself craving honest, soul-deep connection—with others, with your community, and with God—but not quite knowing how to get there?
On this week’s episode of The Love Offering Podcast, I had the privilege of talking with Tom Bennardo, author of Open-Hearted People, Soul-Connected Church: How Courageous Authenticity Can Transform Your Relationships, Your Community, and Your Life.
Tom’s message is one so many of us need to hear: we were made for more than surface-level friendships and guarded conversations. We were created for heart-level honesty, vulnerable community, and spiritual connection that can truly transform us.
In our conversation, we talk about:
- Why we hide behind masks of pride and fear—and how to let them fall
- What it really means to be part of a soul-connected church
- How to lead with courageous authenticity in a world full of artificiality
- And why the very things we’re afraid to reveal are often the gateway to deeper love and acceptance
If you’ve ever felt lonely, disconnected, or unsure how to create deeper relationships in your life or church, I encourage you to tune in. Let’s take a step toward living open-hearted today.
Summary
In this episode of the Love Offering Podcast, host Rachael Adams speaks with Tom Bennardo about his book ‘Open-Hearted People, Soul-Connected Church.’ They explore the importance of authentic connections, the barriers that prevent true vulnerability, and the transformative power of community. Tom shares insights from his decades of ministry experience, emphasizing the need for open-heartedness and courageous honesty in relationships. The conversation highlights biblical teachings on love and connection, encouraging listeners to pursue deeper relationships and engage with the world authentically.
Takeaways
- Authentic connections are essential for spiritual growth.
- Fear and pride often prevent us from being vulnerable.
- Community is vital for overcoming loneliness.
- We must model honesty and openness as leaders.
- Jesus exemplified vulnerability in his relationships.
- True connection requires intentionality and effort.
- Start with one or two people to build deeper relationships.
- Love should be expressed through grace and truth.
- Isolation is a tactic of the enemy; we need each other.
- The journey towards authenticity begins with openness to God.
Sound Bites
- “We were made for open-hearted courageous honesty.”
- “There’s an epidemic of loneliness in our world.”
- “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”
- “The life of God is channeled through our connections.”
- “We can walk through life with vibrancy and connectedness.”
- “Jesus modeled vulnerability in the garden of Gethsemane.”
- “Start small, see what God brings.”
- “Love each other from the heart.”
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Love and Connection
01:30 The Heart Behind Open-Hearted People
05:08 Barriers to True Connection
09:47 Navigating Vulnerability and Trust
13:01 The Importance of Community
19:34 Engaging the World with Open Hearts
22:37 Transformative Power of Authentic Relationships
25:16 Biblical Models of Authenticity
28:15 Taking Steps Towards Deeper Connections
31:33 The Role of Love in Community
35:08 Closing Thoughts and Prayer
Transcript (AI generated)
Rachael Adams (00:01.514)
Welcome to the Love Offering Podcast. I’m your host, Rachel Adams, author of Everyday Prayers for Love, learning to love God, others, and even yourself. Each week we dive into meaningful conversations about how to live out the greatest commandment, loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving our neighbors as ourselves. Whether through inspiring stories, practical tips, or biblical truths, I hope to encourage you to love boldly, live faithfully, and reflect God’s love in your everyday life.
My guest today is Tom Bernardo. Tom is a four decade veteran of ministry and spiritual formation. He’s served as a church planter, lead pastor, mentor, coach, speaker, and denominational leader. Currently, he’s the executive director of church multiplication and leadership for the fellowship of evangelical churches, as well as the Synergy Church Planting Network.
Tom is the author of open-hearted people, soul-connected church, how courageous authenticity can transform your relationships, your community, and your life. In this powerful and timely book, he challenges us to move beyond surface-level connection and toward the kind of soul-level authenticity that truly transforms. Well, hello Tom and welcome to the Level Brain Podcast. It’s an honor to have you here with us today.
Tom Bennardo (01:22.436)
Thank you, Rachel. So good to be with you and thank you for what you do with the podcast. I love the concept, I love what the goal of it is and I’m glad to be part of it.
Rachael Adams (01:30.646)
Well, thank you. So let’s start with the heart behind your new book. What inspired you to write open hearted people, soul connected church? Was there maybe a personal experience that sparked your passion for this message?
Tom Bennardo (01:40.88)
Oh yeah, you know, I’ve been a pastor for, like you said, for decades. And so it’s been a focus of life to always pursue what the Bible says about having heart level connectivity with people. But the environment I came from, I don’t know that I really understood what that was as a young follower of Jesus, because a lot of the focus was on, let’s learn the Bible, all good things, let’s obey, that’s all good things.
And then when it came to connecting with each other, there were certain levels that I noticed that which people did. I found myself saying, why do I still feel lonely? Why do I still feel like I’m not known? Why do I feel like I’m guarded all the time? And we would act like we were being honest with each other, but we weren’t. And so that started years and years ago on a journey for me to really understand what did Jesus mean when he talked about loving one another and when the New Testament talks about having what the word is koinonia with each other, is that what I was experiencing? And so my ministry kind of steered that direction, was focused on that for decades and really saw some amazing contrast happen that gave life to that for me personally and was intending to shepherd people that direction. What’s happened in the last, even more recently, is as we’re all aware, social media has come in and it’s completely kind of tilted the playing field on what we mean when we talk about connecting and on what level people connect with each other. So there’s a so much more heightened artificiality about it. There’s personas that get, everything’s curated, everything’s guarded, everything is, we have time to write our texts before we send them. have conversations in like this one that’s two dimensional, know, we don’t really see each other. We don’t know what’s really going on in each other’s lives. And, and so the Instagram age has kind of, it’s given a whole ecosystem to pseudo connection and pseudo community. and then here’s the other thing I’ve noticed is that for the last decade, I’ve worked as a mentor to pastors and leaders.
Tom Bennardo (03:58.446)
And I’ve discovered something that I maybe didn’t know how pronounced it was, even among those who are calling on people to be honest and openhearted with each other, we as leaders don’t really do that either. We talk about it, but we don’t necessarily, I’m not saying all of them, but a whole lot more than I would have thought, or have their own measured, calculated ways of presenting an image to their world so that we really aren’t modeling it, we’re not experiencing it, but there is such a depth and call to where life comes from when we do it with each other that it’s like, we’ve got to give language to this. We’ve got to say, we’re not really pursuing it like we could, but there’s such opportunity to be a contrast to that and to have life evoked in our own souls by how we connect honestly with each other.
Rachael Adams (04:52.49)
I can’t wait to continue this conversation, but we’re going to take a brief break to hear a word from today’s sponsor. And when we come back, we will talk about the fears and barriers that keep us from true connection and how we can begin to move past them.
Rachael Adams (05:08.862)
Welcome back. am talking with Tom Bernardo about his book and Tom in your book you write that we were made for open hearted courageous honesty, but often fear and pride keep us from it. So what do those walls look like in real life and why are they so hard to tear down?
Tom Bennardo (05:29.454)
Yeah, there are that we all have and that we’ve accumulated since we were really young because we learn really early that vulnerability, you pay a price for it. That because people are sinners and because we fail, we betray each other, we disappoint each other. And so we begin to build up these walls of protection around ourselves that say, you know, there’s a certain level that I can be safe with. And then there’s the real part of me that says, you know, I can’t really trust people because they’re not trustworthy. So fear does that, pride does it, the intensity of the world around us, says it’s just safer and better for people not to know what’s really, really going on at my core. Because if they do, they will either reject me or they will betray me or I will pay a price for that. And we’re right when we say that there is that risk. So it just keeps us on a certain level with each other where we say, let’s call that community. So here’s what happens a whole lot in even in church circles. We have fellowship halls and we stand in those fellowship halls and we drink coffee and we talk about our family and we talk about the things that everybody might be able to see. But we’re walking away from that not having been known and not knowing each other. And so we think, I’ve done it, but I’m still very, very guarded. And that’s what leads us, I mean, we have an epidemic of loneliness in our world and in our country. I think that even in churches, people walk away feeling that because the guards are so high that we never really even feel like we’ve got permission, nor do we see a model around us to enter into that level that really would expose who we really are so that we could care for each other on the heart, soul level.
Rachael Adams (07:23.662)
Yeah, I’m just thinking we just hosted a women’s conference and we had a lot of volunteers and one specific woman that I had reached out to to ask if she would volunteer. She immediately said yes and she was one of the most servant hearted people that I’ve ever been around and afterwards she said, Rachel, thank you so much for asking me. This is the first time I’ve ever felt like I belonged and she’s been going to our church for many years because she just had not made those connections. And I know everything you’re saying resonates so much with me too. I’ve been a church member for a very long time, but until you really start to live life with people and open yourself up, you can feel like you’re just maybe a member and not part of the family. And so I’m so thankful that you’re, bringing this to light.
Tom Bennardo (08:09.06)
I have a really, really good friend who tells a story that actually shared in the book with her permission, where she stopped going to her small group at her church. And she said, she didn’t even know why, but she said all the people were great. The Bible study part was good. That people would laugh, they would joke, they would talk, know, they kind of knew the basics. But she would walk away and just feel so empty. She said she almost felt worse than when she went. Now that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. And she had to take some responsibility for that. But she said, you know, no one really asked me the kinds of questions, nor did I ask them. The kinds of questions would say, how are you doing? How are you really doing right now? What is affecting your heart and your soul right now? What are the things you ache over? They would talk about, they would say they were being honest, but here’s what we talk about. The difference is the honesty is about the past. It’s the stuff here’s what I used to deal with, but here’s how I overcame. Here’s what I used to struggle with. Here’s some things we say, see, I’m being honest with you, but we’re not talking about what I did this week, how I felt this week, what temptations I struggled with this week, where I crossed the lines this week or today, how the state of my heart or soul is right now. And that contrast led her to say, you know, it just doesn’t work. But it does work if we would say, let’s give ourselves permission to say we can define this differently. And let’s see what it looks like to move toward each other in a way that actually takes that step with each other.
Rachael Adams (09:47.446)
Yeah. And I think what’s really difficult is when we have been open and honest, like you’re talking about many times people have heard us and have, maybe we, we shouldn’t have trust the people that we, that we did open up to. And so for, for somebody listening, it’s like, yeah, I’ve tried that. It didn’t work. What would you tell them?
Tom Bennardo (10:07.994)
Yeah, and I think God is very clear about this. know, Henry Cloud and John Townsend, kind of their seminal work on boundaries established some things from the Bible about this, that God is very, very, you know, he wants our hearts to be in a place of safety and care. He knows it, he’s asking us to entrust our hearts to each other, and that makes us vulnerable. So there are some things where God’s word says, Hey, keep this in mind. And there are three groups in particular that he says, be discerning about this. One is, he would call the weak, those who are not really equipped to be able to handle that truth. They don’t know, it might lead them into sin to hear thus confess a sin. It might lead them to not be able to know what to do with that information. And when we’re around weak folks, we need to be careful for them, for their sake that we don’t put them in a position where that gets misused or mishandled. The second group is what he calls the fool. Now we’re not supposed to call people fools, but we’re supposed to discern because the Book of Proverbs says, when you’re around a fool, sometimes you answer them according to their folly, sometimes you don’t answer them according to their folly. Two verses right after each other showing there’s times you have to discern what’s the case. And a fool is somebody who can take advantage of a situation, leverage it for their own advance, and they betray you for that purpose. And we don’t answer fools according to the folly when we discern that’s the case. And the third group, of course, is those who abuse. And those of us who have really been wounded deeply, God says very, very clearly that he establishes boundaries to say abusers aren’t allowed to have that kind of control over someone. Justice is supposed to be done for the sake of an abuser.
So we need to watch out for those things and say, we’re not talking here about, hey, you know what, just walk down the street and tell everybody everything about yourself. The question is, do we have anybody anywhere we do that with? And so we can put out clear feelers with people to say, I’m gonna entrust a little bit to you to see if we can have that kind of relationship with each other. Now we need to know that given enough time and contact, everybody will eventually let you down.
Tom Bennardo (12:25.704)
You know, I will let you down. You will let me down if we’re in relationship with each other. So that means that’s why the scripture is always saying be quick to forgive each other, pursue forgiveness with each other and know that there’s still risk involved. But for those who have really, really suffered with this, it would be important to say, keep the boundaries in place, but don’t, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Don’t say I must never allow anyone in a position to have an effect on my soul because the life that God wants to pour into us through each other is cut off when we do that.
Rachael Adams (13:01.996)
Yeah, it’s coming to my mind how many times the scripture talks about one another, bear with one another, love one another, you know, he has given us community for a reason and on purpose. And so we do need each other. And when we live in isolation, that’s probably where the enemy wants to keep us rather than in community. you think?
Tom Bennardo (13:22.148)
Well, yeah, and think about this. I mean, you’re referencing Jesus, the new commandment, he says, in the upper room, right before he goes across. This is last instructions to his followers about how he’s gonna, how he wants them to function. And he does this progression where he says, I’m gonna give you the Holy Spirit inside your soul. It’s a new concept for them. I’m sending the Holy Spirit to take up residence in your nephesh, is the Hebrew word for that. It’s a control center of your heart.
And then he says, then I want you to abide in me, which is to open your heart to me, Jesus says, so that the flow of life happens between your heart and my heart, your open, vulnerable, exposed soul in its true condition to him. Then he says, and now a new commandment I give you, which is that you love one another, you just referenced that. You go, well, wait a minute, why?
I mean, your theme verse is the great commandment, which is love the Lord your God with all your heart and then love your neighbor. So why is it a new commandment to love one another? And if we explore that, what we find is he’s saying there’s now a new connection that I want you to have with each other that you haven’t had at this point where you open up your Holy Spirit indwelled soul with each other. You expose the true condition of your life with each other and I’m going to fill that. I’m going to channel my life through you into each other. So that’s why having authenticity isn’t just, that sounds like a good character quality. It is actually a source of the vibrancy of the life Jesus wants us to have with each other by saying, when I connect with another person in that way, it is God’s agape love that’s flowing from him into me and it’s a two-way street that’s happening simultaneously. So there is vibrancy to be had and if we don’t do that we’re going to miss out. It’s a whole lot more than just being on task together. It’s a whole lot more than just worshiping together. It’s having who do I have that kind of connection with because the life of God is channeled through. It’s his system until he comes back for how he’s going to channel his life into our souls.
Rachael Adams (15:36.93)
Wow, that’s beautiful. And so I want to go deeper into what you just said. We have to be open hearted and vulnerable with the Lord first. You know, I think there’s a maybe a trustworthiness of, you know, believing that God is who he says he is and he’s going to do what he says he’s going to do. And so does it start there being open hearted with the Lord?
Tom Bennardo (15:59.024)
It absolutely does. It’s a foundational part of what we’re talking about for authenticity. See, a whole lot of us, and I’ll put myself in this category, we were kind of weaned, our relationship with God was weaned on knowledge and obedience. So, you we learned who God is, we learned the gospel, we respond to it. And in my life, my early life with him was oriented toward, okay, trust and obey, right?
Because there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus. So I’m gonna trust him for my salvation and then I’m gonna obey him because he wants me to obey him. And so we define ourselves that way to say, you tell me how to live, I’m gonna live it. You call me, I’ll report for duty. The intimacy factor where Paul the apostle says, you can approach him as your Abba father, the intimacy factor is often lost in that obedience thing.
And it was for me. So what that means is to picture and think about the fact that there is a very real person who is in my life, in my world, in this room with me right now that wants to be close to me. wants to be in, he want, he already knows what’s in my soul, but he wants me to, on my own volition, open it up and say, okay, I might be obeying you, but here’s what’s really going on inside me and, and see.
Rachel, this is where the shadow side shows up. This is why we don’t, keep that close because I can obey him. mean, Jesus said, these people honor you with their lips. They worship you with their lips, but their hearts are far from me because I know that in my heart, I know the things that have gone in that place. If we had a screen above our heads that showed what’s going on in our hearts, none of us would show our face in public. And that’s as followers of Jesus who are trying to obey him because that dark side of me, I don’t want it to show. I don’t even want him to see it. But he holds out loving hands and looks at us with compassion and absolute love and says, I know who you are anyway. Would you just open it to me? When you do that, I will continue to cleanse you with my righteousness. I’m gonna draw you close to myself.
Tom Bennardo (18:22.904)
I’m going to show you that your worth and your identity doesn’t depend on the obedience or not stuff. It depends on whether your heart has been entrusted to me and can we be that close? When that happens, it begins to clear out the dark smoke of what’s going on in my soul and it frees me to say if he can accept me and he can love me unendingly,
When he sees exactly what I’ve been thinking about that person or what I said to that person or the resentments I’m carrying, he forgives me and cleanses me. Maybe it’s okay for me to say my identity is intact if I then kind of expose that to somebody else who can just be his instrument to help me grow from that place.
Rachael Adams (19:09.25)
We’re going to take a another brief break to hear a word from today’s sponsor. And when we come back, we will talk about engaging the world with our soul wide open. Welcome back. So Tom, in your book, you write about engaging the world with our souls wide open. What does this look like practically in our friendships, family, small groups and ministries?
Tom Bennardo (19:34.276)
Yeah, know, most of us walk around, we talk in the book about level one honesty, level two honesty, level three honesty. Some people refer back to a lot of counselors and psychologists use the iceberg picture to show there’s a part above the water line that’s the visible part. And then there’s a part below the water line. And they tend to talk about the secret parts, the parts that aren’t exposed.
We would say, we suggest in this that there’s actually a third level. Level three honesty is the part within our truest selves that we don’t expose to anybody. But the more we can find the freedom to say, am, my life is intact and I can still say, hey, this is true for me. I can move into my world in a way that says there are plenty of people, almost everybody you meet your level one honest with. You can say, here’s the Wikipedia page of my life. Here’s what I think, here’s where I’ve been, here’s what I’ve done. And then level two, we can say, hey, you know what? If you really want to know me, here’s some things that are true about me that not everybody gets to see. Then there’s the part that says, okay, I’m going to show you that I am willing to move toward you in a way that says I’ve been completely accepted for who I am.
And I can tell you and disclose the things that are true about my life that I’m not happy about or that I might even feel some shame about, but I’m gonna show you those things. And not just the negative things, but the positive things, the things that thrill me, the things that fill me, the things that it leads to us being able to share the gospel with people because we say, I have been so cleansed and so made alive. Do you know that this is true about me and I’m still loved?
This is true about me and I can still share with you. When we begin to do that, I’m not saying you’re walking around just exposing all the darkness of your life to everybody you meet, but there’s something amazing that happens where if people see that we can be free enough and secure enough to say, hey, this is true for me as a human being, it unlocks a door for a whole lot of people to say, I never knew anybody else felt that way.
Tom Bennardo (21:53.006)
I didn’t know that it was okay to say that. Maybe it’s okay to do that with you. And relationships deepen by that, trust deepens. And a whole lot of times it’ll lead to people saying, how is it that you’re so free with that? And I can point to a God who loves me and accepts me and says, he’s the one who’s freed me to do that. And he’ll do that for you too, if you let him.
Rachael Adams (22:16.942)
So that you may have just answered that but I wonder to my next question. I wonder if you have anything else to add to it. What is the result when we live this way? said relationships are deepened. Maybe the gospel is known and people come to know the Lord. What do you hope when people live in this way that what do hope that happens?
Tom Bennardo (22:37.294)
Yeah, and I think this is what can transform the church.
Tom Bennardo (22:43.984)
The Bible’s got a word it uses for life, life vibrancy. When Jesus said, I’ve come that they could have life and life to the fullest, there’s a word is zoe in the Greek. And it means this vibrant life. means an empowered life, energized to go out and to do, just be able to suck the marrow out of life a little bit more. There’s a sense of fulfillment that comes from it. Aliveness comes from it. When we live this way, that kind of life vibrancy,
It gives us a different perspective on our world. also has a radical effect on our relationships. I think it has a radical effect on our marriages if we can live this way. Some of us don’t live this way with our own spouse. It can have in our parenting, what we do with our children. It can have a radical effect on what kind of connections I have and friendships I have, where it’s not just affinity based. It’s not just, do we get along or do we have the same political views or whatever else?
No, there’s a bonding that happens. In wartime, they talk about how a bond happens when people dig foxholes. they call it foxhole buddies. life and death, you’re experiencing life and death in a very real time with somebody and bonds form that go on the rest of people’s lives. On a soul level, we can have that with other people so that those bonds go.
We say loneliness is then it dissipates because I’ve got people who know me and care about me. can turn to sometimes they’re called 2 a.m. friends, people who can call you anytime and say, hey, I just need to talk to somebody. Those kinds of connections we have. We don’t have anywhere else in our world, but it’ll revolutionize the kinds of relationships we have and the kind of freedom that gets the other thing is just the capacity to be free and honest.
If you’re the town fool and you’re trying to act like you’re not the town fool, everybody just laughs at you because you’re faking it. If I’m the town fool and everybody knows it, well then I can act the fool and I don’t lose any reputation. So if we just do that with each other and say, look, you know what? It’s okay. I want to tell you, I’m a complete mess. And here’s your secret. You’re a complete mess too. Can we just get that out of the way? Great. Let’s just be a mess together and we can walk through life with a vibrancy and a connectedness that we wouldn’t have otherwise.
Rachael Adams (25:16.76)
Yeah. Is there a biblical concept in scripture, somebody that really acted this way that you feel like was a good model for us?
Tom Bennardo (25:26.67)
Well, the easy one, the low hanging fruit on this is Jesus himself. Because right after he taught in the upper room, and he said, you know, open up your hearts to each other and care for each other. That’s what loving, loving when he says love another, he’s not just saying put your arms around each other and sing kumbaya. He’s saying enter into this with each other. He goes from there, he goes to the garden of Gethsemane. And the next, and what he does is he goes off and he pulls three guys with him, Peter, James and John.
And he basically models this and he says really hard words. He says, you guys, I’m completely, my soul is, you it feels like it’s dying right now. And you go, this is the son of God. This is, this is God in the flesh. How, how can he, well, he’s being human and he’s opening his, condition of his heart. And he says, would you just hang with me here? Would you pray with me? Would you watch them to me? And so they fail the first exam.
You know the very I mean it’s just an hour after he’s given them the instructions and they fail and they go off He doesn’t they don’t do it. They fall asleep. He comes back and he says you guys please Could you just stay awake with me happens three different times and the third when he comes back the third time They’re asleep and he goes okay, and you know what he does. It’s funny. He says he doesn’t reject them He just he aches over and he goes alright. Well could you come with me now? Because my accuser’s here. He still invites them into the journey with him. He’s still offering them that opportunity, even though they failed him. I think that’s such a classic example. But it’s all through the scripture. got David and Jonathan in the Old Testament where it says, they had a connection where it says the soul of Jonathan and the soul of David were knit together. And that same word nephesh, is the what is what in Genesis two, where God breathed into Adam, the breath of life, he became a nephesh, a soul. It says those souls were knit together and that bond there took them through. then so the New Testament says, hey everybody, this is our calling to do with each other on a regular basis. This is supposed to be part of our lifestyle. Let’s do this together.
Rachael Adams (27:45.42)
I have good relationships, but I don’t know that I feel like that with somebody other than maybe my husband. And so for the woman listening right now thinking, I want that kind of bond. What’s step one? What’s something small that she can do today that seems achievable before? I cause if this is not, I imagine, I don’t want to put words in your mouth. You’re not just going to develop this kind of relationship overnight. This takes time and consistency.
Tom Bennardo (28:16.096)
Yeah, it takes intentionality too. And it’s a great question, Rachel. And I would say to that woman who’s listening right now, don’t think tomorrow you should be able to go to a Sunday school class or a women’s group and just say, hey everybody, let’s do this and expect them to understand it or go with you. But I would say, first connect with Jesus on this level and then ask Him, and I mean, tangibly ask him, say, would you show me one or two people and listen to him? Because again, if your heart is connecting with his, listen to the still small voice and pay attention who he brings to your mind. And it may be somebody that you wouldn’t expect. It may not be the first person who you think is your best friend. that so take that prompting and just go out for coffee with somebody and say, can I talk to you something that I really wanna share with you. Express the best way you can the desire of your heart. Say, don’t feel like I’ve got a place where my truest self, my honest heart about where I am and what’s happening right now can be safely expressed. I don’t know whether you would want that or not, but I’m gonna just ask you to think about it and say, is that something we could pursue together? Don’t even ask for an answer right then. Give them that out because they may not get it. They may not know what you’re talking about, but give them an opportunity and see what they say. if that person isn’t the person, keep praying and keep looking until you find somebody. What I have experienced is there are people who, as soon as you give language to this, something inside them says, yes, I don’t have that either. Yes, I’m longing for that also. Thank you for inviting this. And then you pursue it together. You start with one or two people and just see where it goes from there. It could be that what happens is it expands. And you’ve got other people who say, it’s okay if I do that with you too. But pursue it intentionally, ask overtly if somebody would be willing to do it and just start there. And here’s the thing that happens, Rachel. Once you taste this, once you experience it,
Tom Bennardo (30:40.162)
It’s like, I can’t live without this. Sometimes you think about babies who’ve never had sugar in their life and their parents, they see a video of them and the first time they give them sugar and their eyes just pop out of their head and they say, why have you been holding out on me? It’s fantastic. It’s kind of that same thing can happen in your soul where you say, I can’t be satisfied now with just going through the routines of what we call fellowship or community.
I need to have this happen and you will relentlessly pursue it from that point. But start small, see what God brings and then revel in the fact that he might, the cool thing is it may be somebody who doesn’t have any, you don’t have anything in common with other than the desire to see this happen in your life and in your soul. Take it and go with it.
Rachael Adams (31:33.452)
I’m just wondering and maybe there’s no rules to this. I tend to be legalistic even though I don’t mean to so forgive me. How many is too many or is there you know like is there an ideal number? Should we be satisfied with one if we get the one or a handful or is there the 12 disciples or is it you know what is that a question?
Tom Bennardo (31:52.91)
Yeah, it’s very legitimate question. I will tell you that I’ve got more than one set of circles where this is true. But most of those circles are smaller. And I don’t think it’s prescriptive, but I do think there’s a reason why Jesus had hundreds of disciples, but then he had 12 that he spent more time with than he poured himself into, and he trained as of rabbi and then he had three and some would say he even had one because you know then John is the one who the that the Lord loved he says you know it’s very interesting he uses the same phrasing so so there is a smaller circle that even Jesus had with that to say that this is these are my people these are the ones where I’m mostly gonna do that. And I do think it’s intentional that in Gethsemane, he just pulled three of them aside and offered that to them because I do think you need to have enough room for people to really unpack their hearts, have time to do that. You start getting a larger group, it starts to feel like a classroom, it starts to feel like a, you know, it feels like a team as opposed to just a family. So I do think, but I do think we need to do it with more than just our spouse. I think the call is very clear for believers to do this, for brotherhood and sisterhood. I work with pastors a lot, and we help them form what we call bands of brothers and then circles of sisters to say, need to at least have one of those. So don’t worry about how many, but just make sure you’ve got that group intact. And if it expands, you’ve got more than one, all the better, but there’s significant things that happen when it’s a smaller group.
Rachael Adams (33:42.102)
Yeah, and I think we have to be honest, especially in certain seasons of our lives, what what is our family requiring of us? What is our our what are our jobs require of us? We are limited in our energy and in our bandwidth to be present and be a good friend with somebody. So I think just even being honest with yourself is important to you.
Tom Bennardo (34:02.67)
Yeah, and that’s why we say start small. The benefit of this is that even if that’s all you, even if you have one or two people with whom this is happening, it has a residual effect on how you engage the rest of your world. You will find yourself more generally honest, more generally free, more generally connected with people, even if they’re not the closest ones, just because it’s like a muscle. You exercise an open heart and the more you do it, the more free you feel, the more alive and empowered you feel. And people just experience you differently, even if they’re just casual friends, even if they’re just acquaintances, you still, they will experience you differently. And you can just, but you can still focus on what your bandwidth allows you to have. The main thing is have a place for your heart, have an open heart with someone or a set of someone.
Rachael Adams (34:54.424)
Yeah. Well, you’ve already done such a good job of bringing Bible and scripture into our conversation. But is there a biblical concept of love in addition to what you’ve talked about that you think really applies to this topic?
Tom Bennardo (35:08.016)
Yeah, know, in First Peter, Peter writes to those who are in his audience and he says, okay, you’ve learned obedience. Great. He goes, but now I’m going to ask you, and he says, and I see that you love each other, but then he says, love each other all the more and love each other from the heart. It’s like, oh, okay.
There’s something significant. Why would he even need to add that phrase? If you’re already loving each other, but it’s almost like he says the word agape, which is a rich, rich word that was exclusively designated for God before Jesus revolutionized it by saying agape others. God was the only one who was thought that could even was capable of agape. And now he…
Now he calls on people to do it with each other. And then he says, agape each other from the heart. That passage in 1 Peter 1, 22 is a key moment to say there’s something significant there. And then I go back to Jesus. So he say, well, what does that look like? And I go back to Jesus’ description in John 1, where, so God is love. We know that from all throughout the scripture, 1 John and others.
John 1 says that Jesus comes to is the expression of God. He is the word of God. So he is God in the flesh. And then it describes him and he says, so we observed him, you know, and we watched him. So we are observing love in motion and says, and he’s full of, and the word is grace and truth. And it’s almost like grace and truth are the two active ingredients of agape love. So if I’m looking for practical ways to say, How do I love somebody? It’s not just warmth, it’s not just affection, it’s not just emotion. I’m giving doses of grace and truth, just like Jesus parceled out into other people’s lives. And when I give grace to people in appropriate ways and I give the truth of God in appropriate ways, I am agape-ing them. And then I’m receiving that from them, I’m being loved. And that is what energizes my soul with the active ingredients of agave.
Rachael Adams (37:31.726)
Kind of makes me think of even speaking the truth and love. A lot of our conversation has been so good. So tell me Tom, is there something you are loving right now?
Tom Bennardo (37:34.447)
Exactly.
Tom Bennardo (37:41.74)
Yeah, you know, I am about to celebrate my 40th wedding anniversary to the better part of the Bonardo of team Bonardo and Marsha is my wife. And, know, we have lived on the West coast now for eight years and I did not know, what, I’m loving is actually not just my wife, but watching what happens to her when she’s by the ocean. because we lived in the Midwest for years and I have seen that she comes alive at the ocean in ways that I don’t come alive for anything. If my Team Winter World series might be the closest thing and she will go down and we live, you know, within a few minutes of the coast now. And she’ll call me or she’ll text me and she’ll say, I’m at the office. And what she means is she’s sitting by the ocean worshiping. She does her quiet time down there. She’ll take walks down there. She doesn’t even have to get in the water senses the presence and power of God. fills her heart and her soul. And it’s amazing, as selfish as a man as I am, I never thought that I could have such delight in somebody else having something so filling. But I honestly, it fills my heart and I love it seeing what happens with her. So I get the benefit from that by watching her enjoy the way the gifts God gives and his presence there.
Rachael Adams (39:07.95)
Yeah. Oh, well, happy anniversary. 40 years is wonderful. We’re getting ready to celebrate 19 and actually getting ready to head to the beach ourselves for spring break. So that’s my happy place.
Tom Bennardo (39:10.372)
Thank you!
Tom Bennardo (39:17.904)
Well, congratulations. I’ll tell you this quick story. When we got married, it was 1985, a long time ago. And when we came out to California, neither of us had ever been out here before. And we went to Universal Studios and did their tour. And on the tour, they said, hey, look over there. You’ll see a clock tower over in the distance. That’s going to be featured in a movie this summer that’s about to come out. And we said, we should pay attention to that and see if we would ever find it. And the movie was Back to the Future. And so we always have bonded ourselves with 40 years by saying, by saying we came out about the same time back to the future came out. And now it’s more than even when he went into the future years later that we’re still together. We’re grateful for
Rachael Adams (40:00.302)
Yeah, I love that. What a great story. Well, Tom, I know I want to stay connected with you. I’m sure listeners are going to want to. They’re going to want to purchase your new books to tell us how we can do that.
Tom Bennardo (40:11.024)
Yeah, it’s with Baker Books. can go to BakerPublishing.com. It’s on Amazon, all the other places, open-hearted people, Soul Connected Church. I also have a website. My website is TomBennardo.com. That’s B-E-N-N-A-R-D-O. People can reach out to me. on social media. I’m at TomBennardo, I think at X and Instagram and at T.Bennardo at Facebook. I love to have communication, love to help people think about this and grow in it, and would welcome any of that.
Rachael Adams (40:45.11)
Well, good. We are going to put that in the show notes, but would you pray for us as we close? Thank you.
Tom Bennardo (40:49.859)
I would be honored to do that. Thank you.
Lord, even now, I want to ask you to help us experience what we’ve just been talking about. That we would sense, that I would sense and we would sense that you are sitting right next to us in the room. That our hearts can be opened to you in their exactly as their state as they are and that you don’t recoil from that. And you look at us with love and affection that you invite us to hand our hearts in their current state to you. And even now, Lord, would you allow us to do that? To present it to you and say, this is me in my true state. And to see you with the eyes of our hearts, take our souls and breathe your love and your life onto them and your acceptance and your forgiveness and cleansing. And then to hand them back to us, Lord, we wanna just picture that and know that we are complete and whole in you. We are fully, absolutely loved and now we’re freed to be able to open that heart to others. Lord, help us to do that. I pray for somebody who might be listening right now who does, it just feels so intently lonely or so wounded that they feel like they could never do that, that your healing and your wholeness on our hearts would allow us to open them to each other, to find someone or a group of someone’s who we could have this kind of koinonia community with. And it would be the channel for your life and your love moving forward to energize us to follow you with whole hearts. Thank you for being here with us. Thank you for this podcast and the reach of it and what you’re doing in so many people’s lives. We give you all the thanks in Jesus’ amen.
Rachael Adams (42:39.182)
Amen. Well, Tom, thank you for being with us today and calling us to greater authenticity and deeper community. This message I think is just so needed and I’m grateful for your voice.
Tom Bennardo (42:50.096)
Thank you. Good being with you, Rachel.
Rachael Adams (42:53.08)
Thank you for joining us today on the love offering podcast. hope you leave encouraged to open your heart, love boldly and pursue connection in a deeper way. If you were blessed by this episode, please share it with a friend and leave a review. It helps more people discover the show and the message of God’s love. To connect with me, visit rachelkadams.com. While you’re there, be sure to download the love offering calendar, a free resource filled with simple daily ways to love those around you. Don’t forget to pick up a copy of my new book, Everyday Prayers for Love, Learning to Love God, Others, and Even Yourself, and Tom’s book, Open-Hearted People, Soul-Connected Church, How Courageous Authenticity Can Transform Your Relationships, Your Community, and Your Life. It’s available now wherever books are sold, and I pray that it blesses you. A big thank you to the Life Audio team for supporting this podcast and making it possible. To find more faith-building podcasts, visit LifeAudio.com. Thanks again for listening. Until next time, let’s make our lives an offering of love.
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