Sharing Your Faith as a Family

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Just go to aioclub.org slash radio. But we said, wherever God puts us, we just deeply desire that he would use us there and that whoever is nearest, whether it's an apartment, a trailer park, a neighborhood, to say, God, could you let your light shine in natural ways? And that is the key is natural. You're going to be learning some great avenues for sharing your faith in simple, natural ways from Kevin Harney and his wife Sheri on today's episode of Focus on the Family. Thanks for joining us, your host as Focus President and author Jim Daly, and I'm John Fuller. John, I think we as Christians sometimes overthink evangelism. We want to be lights for Christ in this dark world, of course, but there are so many reasons we don't. Maybe we're busy with kids at home, or our weekdays are long and draining, or we simply feel like we don't have the gift of evangelism. And that's why I love Kevin and Sheri's approach to sharing the gospel. As you'll hear in the conversation today, Sheri doesn't feel like evangelism comes naturally to her, but their family has found ways to use simple, everyday things like refrigerators and swimming pools as ways to share the love of Christ with their friends and neighbors. We'll explain more in a minute, but we recorded this broadcast a number of years ago, and I wanted to share it again to help you team up with your spouse and kids and, as Paul says in Ephesians, make the most of every opportunity.

Absolutely. And Kevin and Sheri serve on staff at Shoreline Community Church in California. They've been married for over 30 years and have three adult sons and two grandchildren, and together they've written a book called Organic Outreach for Families, Turning Your Home Into a Lighthouse. And we have that, of course.

Just click the link in the episode show notes. Let's go ahead and join that conversation as Sheri answered Jim's question about how, although evangelism may come easily to her husband, it feels like quite a stretch for her. Well, I think that between the two of us, that happened. Kevin is an evangelist. I'm not.

That's not one of my gifts. But that's one of the things that we talk about in the book is how those of us who maybe don't consider ourselves as the gift of evangelism, that we're all called to be the light in the world. In Matthew 5, it says that you are the light of the world. Jesus said that about us. And so all of us are called to shine that light.

And so we hope that through our book, we're encouraging families on how to be that light. Sheri, let me ask you this, because I so appreciate that vulnerability. Because people go, whoa, you're not comfortable with evangelism? It's almost like code blue in Christian talk. But how did you work that out early in your marriage?

Were you ever uncomfortable? Very much so. And I think that that is actually where our passion to write this series of books on organic outreach came, realizing that there are some people who are gifted evangelists, and some are not. And how do we train people like myself to have this passion and this ability to, in a natural way, share the love of Jesus? And so basically, this is what moved us is the gap between the two of us to write the series. And to bring comfort to your listeners about studies which show that 95 to 97% of Christians don't have the gift of evangelism.

95 to 97%. But we can all love. We can all listen and care. Well, it's even when you look at the spiritual gifts, some people have the gift of generosity, but we're all called to give. And some people have gifts of service, but we're all called to serve.

And it's very much like that with evangelism, that there's some people have the gift of evangelism, but we're all called to share Jesus. Well, let's bend into the book then and the content in organic outreach, because in there, you're talking about how to make your home that lighthouse. Did you decide that on your honeymoon? Did the two of you as a young couple say, let's make our house that's a beacon for the lost and bring people in? How did that get going?

Where did you get traction, saying, okay, this is what we want to do? I think, honestly, it started when we were engaged, don't you think, Kevin? And we have an interesting story because Kevin just had this big heart to serve God, do anything for him at any cost. And I was more cautious. And so actually, what had happened was we were engaged, I was living in Ontario, California, and he was living in Pasadena. And he called me one night and he said, Hey, Sherry, I just want you to know I've been able to minister to this guy off the streets.

And Kevin, I'll let you finish it because you remember it better. And this wasn't unusual for me, I was still a somewhat new Christian. And I didn't grow up with faith. So when I read the Bible, I just tried to do whatever it said. So people came and knocked on my door and wanted money, I'd give money if they wanted food, I'd bring them in, I feed them if they want to close it up in my closet, I'd say take whatever you want. And I wasn't thinking about how this might impact when you're married someday.

Right. And so this guy comes to my door, and he was in a rough time, a young guy, and he knocked on my door, and he asked if he could have some food, and I gave him some food. And I ate mostly Top Ramen and Bologna those days, I was broke. And so it was easy to say take my food. So we had a meal together, and he hung out at my house for a while, and then he actually asked if he could stay the night. And I said sure, I'll be here tonight, and I'll let you stay the night. And I think, did I call you before or after that? All I remember is I got the call that this young man was going to be spending the night with Kevin. That was not a good moment for me. Because it was the first time in our engagement or our dating that I actually thought to myself, can I marry a man who just lets anybody off the street into our home overnight? I had images of our, you know, raising a family, having kids, and we have all these people just coming that we don't even know. And I questioned whether that was safe, if we don't know.

That's a fair question. It was. And it was such a big concern for me that night because I loved Kevin. I wanted to marry him. I remember it actually, I'm just going to say it, I ended up throwing up. I was so sick to my stomach because I thought, I know we want to be this family. We had already been talking about it.

We want to be a family that reaches out, but is this part of that? And so anyways, I spent the night sick. Kevin spent the night. So the guy stayed the night and I was alive in the morning. And so then I had to go to class. I was a student going to seminary, had to go to class. And so I told him I was going to head to class.

He said, well, I'll just stay here while you're gone. And I had enough sense to say, well, that's probably not, I could probably come back and everything could be gone. I didn't have a lot, but I thought, you know, so I said, well, listen, you know, and it was actually a triplex that my grandmother owned. And I was in the front one.

She was in the back one. I was in Pasadena. This was a little old lady from Pasadena. That was both my grandmother's. True story.

My grandma and my granny lived in Pasadena my whole life growing up. So I said to her, well, why don't you go do something else for a while and then come back in about four hours when my class is done and you can come back and we'll have some dinner or something. And he said, okay, great. So I headed off to school.

He left. I got to tell you, I pulled in from school and there were two police cars in the back of the triplex at my grandmother's place. And I thought, wow, I wonder if she had a heart attack or something. I don't know what's going on. And it never crossed my mind.

I didn't put any pieces together. I went to the back and she's sitting there with the police officer kind of kneeling by her. And she's, you know, pale and sheet white and upset. And and another officer comes out to me and he said, I need to talk with you. One of your friends assaulted and robbed your grandmother.

I still didn't put the pieces together. One of my friends, one of my friends would do that. They said, yeah, the gentleman who's been staying with you.

He used your name and said he was staying with you and he was a friend of yours. And he asked her if he could use the bathroom. And when he came in, he stole a bunch of her things. And then I think by God's grace, he hugged her and kissed her. And she felt very it was very inappropriate. And then he left.

He didn't do anything else. So I was so thankful for that. And I stood there and I had to rethink what it means to be a lighthouse home. Does it mean you open your door to everybody at all times, no matter what the cost?

Or is there a place of wisdom and discernment and prayer and boundaries? And I'd never thought about that before. And that changed the trajectory of our journey together.

We still were committed to this, but we had to think about how do you do this when you're going to be married, when you have children? And how do you still lay it all out for Jesus, but also stay alive to lay it out tomorrow, too? Let me ask you this.

It is very transparent. I appreciate that. And I think just about every Christian couple will have this discussion, especially when kids arrive. And if you've been in that modality of wanting to be Christ to those around you and bringing people home for dinner and things like that, you start every wise wife and mother will start thinking, wait a minute. I'm putting my little ones at risk, especially in this day and age where the culture, the value system is changing.

And, you know, it's not Mayberry RFD. Let's talk about that. What are some of the practical ways over the 30 years that you've done this that you've learned that it works best? So what do you do that does minister to people that doesn't put you at too great a risk and that gets the point across in terms of the gospel? So when we look at whatever we have and whatever we do out of our home, how can we leverage that for the gospel? And so, for instance, when we were raising three boys, one of the things that we found out is that boys love to eat pretty much eat and sleep.

So how could we leverage that for the gospel? And one of the ways that we did it was we had a basement in Michigan. And when we were raising our boys in Michigan, we had a basement and it was just an open area for the kids to play. But we bought a refrigerator and we put a refrigerator downstairs and we put food in. We didn't spend a lot of money, but we had a line item in our budget, food for neighbor boys, you know, for the kids. And sometimes it'd be 20 or 30 kids at once.

It's like locusts just standing on the land and then when they leave it'd be gone. It sounds like a Sam's Club moment. But we found this to be a great way to reach out to the community because word got out you could get free food at the Harney's. And we had a cabinet too that we stocked.

Not a huge amount of food, but cans of soup and different things like that. And the thing that was, I think, so neat for the boys and their friends was the refrigerator in the basement was theirs. And anybody could go into it at any time and eat what was ever there. And that, for some reason, that was a huge draw for the boys.

They felt loved. It's kind of that idea of that refrigerator rights. You know, if you let someone into your refrigerator, you're saying to them, you're part of our family. But I'll say a word about boundaries. We had a refrigerator upstairs, which they did not have rights to. Right.

Because if they did, all of our food for our share would go grocery shopping and then it would all disappear. So we said, this is your refrigerator. This is your cabinet.

Whatever's in it, you can have. And that's living in Michigan. You're in the same cul-de-sac for 17 years. I think that's pretty cool. Yeah. That's a little unusual.

But yeah, what were some of the... So another thing that we were able to leverage for the gospel was when we decided to get an above the ground pool, not a fancy, it was low cost. And this was a time, you have to understand, this was 20 years ago and a lot of people didn't have above the ground pools. So when we got ours in our neighborhood, it became the spot that everybody wanted to come to.

It had to be. And again, that creates a dilemma. So how do I share this?

How do I leverage this for the gospel, but maintain safety? You know, because I can't spend all my days watching kids swim. And that was a struggle for me. I have to say, I sought the Lord.

I didn't have books like this to go to. And as I prayed, I said, Lord, you know my heart. You know I want to have certain boundaries, but I want to use this for you.

The Lord gave me this idea. We had one day, we designated one day, and this was during the summer months. We made it Tuesday. And we told all our neighbors that from one to five, anybody was invited. As long as they brought a babysitter or a parent, another adult, that would be responsible for them. But what happened is, word spread that Tuesday afternoons, you could go swimming at the Harneys, but it wasn't a big pool. But lots of people came and they brought their parents, they brought their babysitter. And every Tuesday afternoon during the summer months, we sat together watching our kids play, swim, and conversations about God came up. If we are going to be the presence of Jesus, if our home is going to shine with the light of Jesus, number one, we have to be around occasionally because we're gone from our home so much these days. We have to be around occasionally. And then when we're around, we have to have an open spirit even when we're tired.

And there were times where Sherry and I would, where we just, it was kind of, you know, part of it was, boy, we love doing this. Sometimes it was just flat out ministry. It's that this is our calling. And you go, well, you've been ministering all day long.

Yeah. And now we're going to minister all night long. And one of the things that we talk about is the fact that, and we're good about a rhythm of Sabbath once a week, but we talk about we're going to really get to rest someday where we really get to rest, probably when we get to heaven.

I'm exhausted. That's true. That's part of our journey. I'll tell you one more neat issue of where we learned about boundaries and serving is that when I would go out in front of our house with our boys, a little front lawn, not a big lawn, but a little front lawn. And there were how many boys in our cul-de-sac? Eleven under eleven.

Eleven under eleven, early on. And then the kids from the other streets would start to, they'd see us doing something, they'd come over. So I'd go out with my three boys to play. And before you knew it, there'd be eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen boys there. And I'm a big kid, so I'd organize soccer games and basketball games.

I'd come with all different fun things to do. And that was fun for me. And again, usually after a busy full day, but I'd come home in the summers, usually in the evenings, time to play. But one day after we'd hung out and played with all the neighborhood boys, one of my boys, I don't remember which one, pulled me aside. And he asked this question, he said, Dad, could we ever just play with you?

Huh. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, every time we go outside to play, it's like ten or fifteen kids. And it's great, but could we ever just play with you?

And I was like, okay, yeah, good, boundaries again, loving, serving boundaries. And so I said, the next time all the boys came over from the neighborhood, I said, hey listen, I said, every so often, we're going to have a Harney family time. When it's Harney family time, you can't come over. But after Harney family time is done, then you can come over. And I was worried, like, they'd feel all bad and hurt and stuff, they're like, oh, okay, great, is this a Harney family time?

Yes it is, they all took off. So a couple days later, I'm out with the boys, they come running over, like halfway across the street, they stop and they go, is this a Harney family time? I'm like, I look at my boys and they're like, yes it is, and then they go, okay, we'll come over later. And they didn't feel bad at all, they just heard the boundaries. But what happened with my boys then, is that they knew there were times that were just for them, and then times to play with the neighbors. It communicated a lot to the sons. Yeah, it did, to our boys, and to the neighbors, they learned something about boundaries too, I think.

Well, I appreciate your honesty, because it is an uncomfortable part of living a life for Christ, is there's some risks. And you've really laid out some good stuff, some very practical steps for doing this naturally and authentically in your book, Organic Outreach for Families. We have that available at FocusOnTheFamily.com slash broadcast, as well as the CD or download of our conversation today.

We're talking to Kevin and Sherry Harney on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Does the story stick out for you? I mean, I could have easily been one of those boys coming to your house, because I, you know, it was broken. I came from a really dysfunctional situation, and so, you know, I would have loved to have known a neighbor that would let me swim in their pool and go over there. Would you intentionally look for that boy or girl who seems a little bit in trouble? They found us.

Oh, yes. What does that discussion look like? How would they open their heart to you? That was probably one of our biggest challenges, is ministering to children that were troubled. You know, for multiple reasons, wanting to help them, but also wanting to protect our children as well, because we know what influences do to children. That was probably our biggest challenge, is how do you love some of the kids that are troubled and are, from what we could tell, going in the wrong direction?

Sure. And now we are letting our kids with them. And inviting them into our home. And inviting them in our home. That's a faith step. And encouraging our boys to hang out with those kinds of kids.

Wow, that is very challenging. I could see that. It was.

Because we try to protect today. Yes. Absolutely. And that was, I would say, our biggest challenge. And one of the things, the way that we did it is we, early on, we let our children know that they could hang out with anybody they wanted. We would tell them that. Because we would tell them, we're the light of the world. We have good news to share. We want you to hang out with anybody. But you may hang out with anybody as long as you are light. As long as you're the influencer.

But we want you to know that when we see that their darkness may be influencing you, we will pull you out. Let me ask the million dollar question. Your kids are grown now. Your three boys. How are they doing?

Spiritually, how are they doing? I'll passionately love the Lord. Isn't that interesting? You take a risk. You put your kids and you coach them to launch.

I mean, that's what you really were doing. Because they're going to get into the world at some point. And they're going to experience people that use bad language. That use drugs. That use alcohol. That have premarital sex.

I mean, that is the environment. And yes, to the parents, that includes Christian campuses. Christian schools. And to prepare your kids to engage.

I like that. That takes courage though. Well, and I'll tell you, it was messy. It was challenging. Because one of our boys, the circle of friends he hung out with were, I think only two of those kids actually graduated from high school. One ended up in prison.

Not just jail, but in prison. And then there were some great stories of God's redemptive work in kids' lives as well. So it was a mixed bag. And there were times where we had to say, okay, we're drawing boundaries, we're pulling you out because we're seeing the influence hitting you.

So it wasn't always clean and easy. Yeah, and I want to respond to the gasp from the moms. And I can hear moms gasping out there going, that's ridiculous. Speak to that mom's heart. How do you, you know, how do you tread carefully yet courageously?

Sounds like an oxymoron. You have to put the time in. You need to be there in the home. There has to be some level of commitment to be watching if you're going to allow your kids to be in those places. Well, that speaks to the parents, right?

Cruise control doesn't work. So it starts making a lot of impact on you in terms of time and observation and being engaged. And so many of us as parents, we want autopilot. We don't want to be engaged if we're really honest with ourselves. Well, that goes back to your opening statement, Kevin, that too many of us have a bunker mentality and we silo ourselves off from the world. And you're saying, no, it's all about engaging with the world from a biblical perspective. We're not good with messy. The Christian church has become too efficient at being clean and pure.

And I would challenge that. But I mean, I think that's what we think we're achieving when what the Lord does, even with the disciples on the shores of the Decapolis, when you cast the demons out of the man into the swine. Think of that moment, because the disciples didn't want to get out of the boat. Because in a Jewish context, if they stepped foot on that soil, they became unclean and Jesus jumps out of the boat and engages the culture.

That is such a good picture for us. And that's what you've done through that activity. You've jumped out of the boat, put your foot down on the Decapolis, the outskirts of the known world at the time in a really ugly situation. And you brought Christ to them. And I found that praying on my knees.

I found myself in my bedroom on my knees being honest with God, saying, God, you know our heart. You know what we're trying. We're trying to proclaim the good news. But, you know, we don't want to sacrifice our child.

And we don't feel like you're asking us to do that. But as long as they can be that influencer, Lord, help us. I do have to say that for one of our sons, he was able actually to be the influencer. The other moms were thrilled.

They were happy to have him be the one hanging out with their own kids. These moms were struggling, too, with their boys' decisions. But I do recall one night that I could over, because I'm still listening, and I'm watching, and I overheard what was going on in the basement.

And the language was not good. And it had just gotten to the point where I started to wonder if my son really was influencing for good at this point. So I actually remember that night I got on my knees.

I could hear the language coming up through the register. And I literally prayed, how can it be this has been going on for a long time? And if my son is at a point right now where he is not being the influencer, Lord, please help him get caught. And I have to say that it wasn't long after that that we actually got a call from a police officer, and he got caught.

Midnight, Saturday night before Easter Sunday. And I've got to go pick my kid up from the police. And you're the pastor. Right.

Indeed I was. And he was 13. So Kevin and I have a basic parenting principle that we think kids should make mistakes early on. Give them some freedom so they're not 18 making that kind of mistake.

They're 13. And so I actually remembered when the call came, I said to Kevin, may I talk to the police officer? And he had the phone to me and I said, thank you.

Thank you. And so Kevin picked him up and we brought him home. And we got to have a real good conversation and real clear consequences. And he spent some time in front of a judge with dad and mom next to him and got some community service. And he also had a whole new set of boundaries. And we said, OK, you're not influencing, you're being influenced. And so we pulled him out of that group for a season. And that experience changed him. For the better. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. It was then shortly after that, he realized that he was making wrong decisions and we let him live with the consequences. The judge looked and saw this couple that seemed engaged and caring and pretty serious about discipline and started to back off. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't you back off. You give them everything you can. They said, really?

Yeah. Whatever you would normally give to any kid, you lay it on him. And our son looked at me and I looked at him and the judge laid it on him. And he did some community service of different things. On top of that, my yard never looked better.

I tell you, the next month he worked hard. Well, let me ask you this, though, because, you know, some parents may be in that same boat and they've got what they would describe in a Christian home as a prodigal or the beginnings of a prodigal. And they may have stood in front of a judge with their child, their 13 year old. And they got home that night and it didn't go so well. He didn't respond or she didn't respond in such a good way, a positive way. What does that parent do when that actually puts a bigger break in the relationship?

No easy answers to that, but I think you keep praying, you keep loving, you hold your ground. I've watched so many parents that say, OK, now you're going to do that. We're going to have this restriction. So you're on restriction for the rest of your life. Well, that's ridiculous.

What's more intimidating is a month, if you really mean it. And back it up. And back it up. And your cell phone gets put in a box and your computer's off and we're reading some books together and you're doing some yard work and you're not going to go to your room and play in your room. We're going to walk through. And as a pastor and as a couple in ministry, we walk with lots of couples and continue to who go through not just 13 year olds, but 23 year olds and 33 year olds who are still wandering. And being clear, articulating what you believe, where you stand.

And then just to follow through with love, but to follow through. So many parents, they matter of fact, out of that one situation, one of the parents told us their child was going to be on restriction for, I think, two or three weeks. Two days later, we saw him out kind of messing around in our town. And I actually called the parent. I said, did you know your son's? Well, yeah, he said he was really sorry. And he said he wouldn't do it again.

And I was like, are you serious? Do you love your kid or don't you? Now they weren't even a believer, but we had to have a conversation.

If you love your kid, you will follow through. And so those are good words. Kevin and Sherry Harney, authors of the book Organic Outreach for Families. I think this has been really stimulating. Just thinking through how to engage those around you, how to put a bit of risk into your life and in doing so, honoring the Lord and drawing people closer to him. It's gutsy, but it's the right thing to do. Thanks for being with us. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Committing to a life of evangelism is certainly never perfect or easy, but as Kevin and Sherry have shown us today on Focus on the Family, it is worth it. It's so true, John. And I want to go back to what Kevin said near the beginning of the broadcast. That studies show that 97 percent of us don't have the gift of evangelism. That's a big number.

But there isn't an escape clause in the Great Commission. Jesus said, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, not some of you. And if you're ready to take that next step as a family, a perfect place to start is Kevin and Sherry's book, Organic Outreach for Families, Turning Your Home into a Lighthouse. Love the title. And it has the inspiration and ideas you need to team up with your kids and your spouse and boldly share your faith, no matter what situation you're currently in. One way to be a light is by joining our support team here at Focus on the Family. Be part of the team. Through this broadcast, at least 800 people each day make a commitment or a recommitment to Christ. And that's what we're about. And if you can give a gift of any amount today, I'll send you a copy of Organic Outreach as our way of saying thank you. The number to call to donate and get your copy of that great book is 800-AFAMILY or stop by the episode notes for more. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.