What does it mean to intentionally “dwell” in God’s presence? In this episode, Gina has a conversation with Teea Martin and Priscilla Conner. Listen as they share the story of gathering women in Teea’s home to intentionally be in God’s presence, the significance of this gathering and the surprising places it led. What could Jesus be inviting you into?
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Listen below to follow along starting at 32:23
Multiplying Talents
Teea:
So we were talking about that multiplication peice. Like, “What are you going to do to multiply what I’ve given you?” And for Cill, she went back to her family and her friends. There were some other women that just took the practice of journaling. They weren’t journaling before. I know not everybody’s a journalist.
Some people are going to listen to this and be like, “I hate journaling. I don’t do that.” This is different. This isn’t journaling, it’s not tracking your life. This is a written conversation between you and the Holy Spirit. So some people just took that practice into their quiet time.
You read Scripture for the day, and then you finish your time with simply writing things down, you ask “What do you want me to remember today?” What am I chewing on today? What am I going over in my mind throughout the day? What am I not going to let go of and forget 10 minutes from now?
I don’t know about you guys, but I can read a whole lot and then walk away and not remember a darn thing. So if there’s one thing that I can take away from my quiet time, what do you want me to take away today, Lord? That’s how we transform our mind into a new way of thinking. That’s how we renew our minds, by chewing on the Word and letting it get in us.
So some of the women did that. And for me, I felt like the Holy Spirit said, “I want you to do this again, but you need to bring in more people.” So as a group we got together around Christmas to just check in, and see each other and love on each other. It was like the hunger was there.
Everyone was like, “What are we doing next? I miss it. I want in. I want what we had over the summer.” So we said, “All right, let’s do it at our church.” There’s your fall semester and spring semester, and we had like a three week break off in January, post Christmas and before the new semester started.
We were like, what if we just did a quick mini three week kind of fresh start. A fresh faith sort of thing. All eleven of us invited a few people in. So we met at our girlfriend’s house and she has this beautiful home that hosted plenty of people. The first week we focused on looking back a little bit and letting the Lord speak to us about what had happened.
We focused one week on just being present with the Lord and abiding in Him and being still. Then the third week we prayed into the next year, and it was a very similar model to, “Okay, we’re going to hold space for you Lord.” And we’ve got some pillars in place. We know we’re going to worship, we know we’re going to sit with these Scriptures.
We know we’re going to take time to pray, but we’re just kind of holding this space and we’re going to let you guide us through this time. It was so good again. The hunger just kept building and building. This last winter, we unfortunately lost our pastor really suddenly. Our church is just grieving so heavily, and we’re so sad, and we miss him.
Of course, it’s all about Jesus, but we miss him. He was a pillar of faith for us and a deep, incredible mentor for many of us. I think his passing just added fuel to the coals that were already so hot. The word that I keep thinking of is it’s just ravenous. Like, we’re ravenous to be nourished, we’re ravenous to be fed by the Lord.
So we said, “All right, let’s do this this summer and we’ll open invite it to people.” And I don’t know, we thought it would be about twenty people at the end of the day. I think we officially have seventy one registered for this group. It’s quite a large small group.
Priscilla:
We had three caps that we kept moving. Okay, 50. Okay, let’s do 60. Okay. Maybe we can have 70. And we still had people trying to register after.
Dwell Here
Teea:
So this group, we’re calling Dwell. I had read Scriptures one day and just let us kind of chew on and meditate on Him. Priscilla was my prayer partner that day. She was like, “I have a podcast for you, my friend. You need to listen to it.” It’s the same thing you just did. She was like, “You got to listen to these.” So we all started just devouring the Dwell meditations. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to them. Are there six of them? Is it a podcast?
Gina:
It’s not a podcast. I know, this is the problem that I have. It’s just a collection of guided Scripture meditations. I think the challenge is they’re audio, so you release them like they are on iTunes and all that stuff, but people don’t necessarily correlate it with music. So that’s been a little bit of the challenge. People get confused, but yes there are currently six meditations, and more to come.
Teea:
They’re amazing. We just started to devour. I literally cannot tell you how many times I listened to them, and they just started speaking to us. You know that of course rabbit trailed me to the Sacred Space Podcast. And I’m the biggest fan girl in the world. I started episode one and just ate every episode. It was speaking to my heart. I love good, meaty, heavenly-focused conversations with normal people.
It’s my favorite. I love it. So we listened to the Dwell meditations, and one of the Scriptures that the Lord had given me early this year, just for my own self, was Psalm 37, which is a Dwell meditation. When I got to that one, I felt like the Lord was like “This is it. This is what we’re doing. We are going to learn to sit still to be countercultural.
What does it mean to live permanently in my presence? What does it mean to ponder and think and write about my Word? What does it mean to sit still and listen to My voice? And so that’s what we’re going to do.” So I was panicking and I kept basically yelling at our girls that were part of this group.
“I don’t want to do this by myself. I can’t! Who’s doing this with me? I’m not doing it.” They were like, “We’re here. Just tell us what you want.” I’m like, “I don’t want to do this.” And they were so sweet and encouraging and finally we got together and I said, “Hey, I want to call it Dwell.” This is what I want to focus on and I want to use these meditations.
At this point I didn’t know the two of you were good friends. I just thought you were somebody Priscilla knew. And she whips out her phone, and she’s like, “Oh my goodness. Yes. This is so great. Gina’s gonna be so happy.” So it’s been incredible. We just finished our second week.
Like I said, we’ve got over 70 women. We are focusing on worship. We listen to a couple testimonies each week, and then we sit and we listen to one of the meditations. The Lord’s been giving us some beautiful questions to ponder individually. Everyone has their own solo time with the Lord, and then we pray and it’s been powerful.
We’re so quick in our culture to speak in a “Christianese” sort of way, to say yes to a life group or a small group, and yes to this Bible study, and yes to a worship night, and yes to church on Sunday. But we are so slow to say, “Yes Lord, I’m going to sit with you for an hour.” To slow down to sit with Him. This is kind of providing a space that is allowing an easy “Yes” for others, a forced sitting still, which has been great.
Gina:
So good. I mean, what do you say to that? It’s just awesome. It’s just so significant to see you both just being obedient, just spending time with Him, responding to Him, and hearing Him. Then the community that you have, the spiritual community that’s been developed differently, and you were like, “Wes, we’re in it. We’re going to be the watchman while we’re building the wall.”
You know what I mean? Like, “Here’s what God’s calling us to do. We’re all in it, we’re all interceding, and we’re all doing battle in the Spirit. We’re all now setting the table, and guarding that table for others to come and taste and see that He’s good.” And just the beauty of that. And the thing is, God shows up. I think we just make it so complicated sometimes, and we’re so fearful that He’s not going to show up, that we feel like we need to manufacture something.
So in case He doesn’t, at least somebody will get something out of it. It’s just such a good reminder. I think especially now in this post-covid world where so much of how we do church, and the things that we’ve made it into have kind of been shaken and upended a little bit. A lot of people are trying to get back to the way it was.
I think the Lord’s going, “Okay, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but what if there is more? Would you consider something different? Would you consider coming away with me?” That Song is Solomon, “Come away with me.” Or “Your voice is sweet and your face is lovely. I want to be with you and I love you and I have things to tell you. I have things to call you to. I have things for you.”
Then to just loosen our grip of that expectation. I love that you were like, “Well maybe we’ll get 20 people.” The Lord’s like actually, “Never you mind, just show up. I’ll take care of that.” You know what I mean? It’s just so good.
Will God Show Up?
Teea:
Well, you are speaking to the whole idea of sometimes we feel like, “What if He doesn’t show up and then I need to manufacture something?” And I feel like in preparation for this, I have been walking every day going, “Lord, that’s not what I’m trying to do. I don’t want to manufacture goosebumps. You are not a genie in a bottle. That’s not what I’m trying to do.”
“…But this is a lot of people, and what I’m doing wrong? But what if you want to show up?” He’s just this constant reminder. I don’t know if I shared this with you Gina, but when we chatted last week, you were talking about the loaves and the fishes.
Gina:
Yes. I was just going to talk about that.
Teea:
I literally cannot tell you how many times in the process of this that I would feel this sense of fear or anxiety or worry. Like, “Are people going to think this is a Teea show? I don’t want it to be about me, that’s not what I’m trying to do.” It would creep up in me or, or, “Are they going to get it? Do they understand what I’m proposing here? Are they going to get on board?” And I would feel it bubble up.
I cannot tell you how many times the Lord has brought up that story of the loaves and fishes through a podcast, through a sermon, through my scripture, reading through a random conversation with you. I got off that call and I was like, “Okay, I get it. My loaves and fishes are that I am to hold the space, and I’m to do my best to help set the heart posture. Everything else, Lord, that’s on you. So you better figure it out.”
Gina:
I’m so glad you brought that up because I was thinking that, and just to kind of bring the people who are listening back into that conversation, when Teea and I spoke last week, that is one of the things the Lord’s been really on. I’ve been reading Luke, and I got to the feeding of the 5,000, and then that whole conversation about presence. What does it mean to be in God’s presence? What we presume God’s presence is, and what it is actually.
Then, recognizing that the disciples were in Jesus’ presence practically. For three years they were in His presence. In His presence they were taught, they were coached, they were challenged, they were loved, they were seen, they were known, they were admonished, they were equipped, they were sent out.
Jesus calls them and then they watch Him healing people, and they watch Him have these pretty combative conversations with the religious leaders. They watch the sermon on the Mount, they watch the miracles, then he sends them out as the 12 to go heal the sick, to raise the dead. He gives these instructions, he sends them out, “Spread the gospel, the kingdom is here.”
Then while they’re gone, John the Baptist is beheaded. Then they come back and they’re debriefing. So it says in one of the gospels that they sit down and they’re telling Him everything that happened. They’re probably like, “Oh my gosh, this happened. Oh my gosh, and this happened.”
I’m sure they’re probably frustrated with each other but excited. Then the crowd shows up and they’re hungry. The disciples are like, “We’ll send them away to get food because we can’t feed them all. Or should we go buy food?” Then Jesus instructs them, “Sit them down in groups of 50.”
Then He asks, “What do you have?” And there was a boy with some fish and some loaves. So we all know the story, and for some reason it just struck me at that moment. Here’s the 12 and they bring this little bit of food and Jesus blesses it, and then He divides that little bit between the 12. Now they have to turn around and walk up to the first group of 50 with their basket with this much and say “Take.” You know what I mean? That is risky.
Teea:
You could make a fool of yourself out there.
The Risk of Looking Foolish
Gina:
Putting yourself out there. I wonder how many people just scoffed at them when they walked up to them with the little bit of food they had. Because it doesn’t say that Jesus blessed it and then it multiplied into a mound that they could keep filling. No, they had to turn around with what they had and just go back. That’s that feeling Teea, right? Like, “Oh crap, there’s 70 people. That’s a lot of people with a lot of expectations.”
Teea:
I am not in ministry, I am not a pastor. I have not been walking with the Lord my whole life. I am nobody special. I’m just like, “Can we just be intimate with the Lord? Can we just sit with Him? Can we be obedient to what He’s asking us to do? Can we learn the sound of His voice? That we can be quick to respond when he asks of us.
Gina:
So you turn around and you walk out with your basket with what little you have to offer and be obedient with that. That’s the beauty of it, because then the Lord’s like, “Awesome, I’m going to meet you right there.” Then He does the multiplication and He does miraculous things. Then you get to just watch it all and you get to have a front row seat to all the things He’s doing and how He’s moving.
Then it’s never just about us, right? He’s always working on so many levels and in so many places. In the same way that I brought up the loaves and fishes and you heard it in all these other places, He’s doing that same level of wooing and speaking and leading for every person in that room, for every woman that’s there. How cool is that?
Teea:
It’s so amazing. He’s so detailed and so intimate, and it’s so humbling that He desires to have relationship with us and lets us experience this.
Gina:
Yes, so good.
Teea:
The first week, one of you said, “How cool that we get to have a front row?” Because my hands are in so many aspects of this, I really get a front row to all the stories, the connections, the testimonies that have already been pouring out of just two weeks of sitting with Him. They have been incredible.
The one that absolutely dropped me to my knees is I had a girl say to me, “Teea, I was for the first time in weeks, completely anxiety free for two and a half hours. And I had forgotten what that felt like.” That is what our God is capable of. In a moment He can breathe on you and say, “No, no, no, that’s not for you. Remember what this feels like. Let’s break this off. I mean it’s just incredible.”
Gina:
So good. Well I so appreciate each of you, and I’m just excited for people to hear your journey because my hope, and my prayer would be, that it encourages someone, it emboldens someone to take the things that they’ve maybe been dreaming of, those secret places in their heart that maybe they’ve even been scared to speak or they haven’t dared to believe that they could have influence, or they could encourage or bring light or hope or God’s presence or love somewhere.
Your story of just being normal moms, wives, people, believers going to church, doing your thing, but really having a desire to be obedient and hearing His voice, and wanting to invite others into that. The power of it is significant, and there is a necessity for it. We’re living in a time in history that the world needs the church to shed this need for some corporate thing, or waiting and sitting back and waiting for someone to have a program so I can step in and feel like I’ve checked my box.
But actually, sons and daughters step in and believe and trust their authority and their identity and believe that they’re uniquely gifted, they’re uniquely made, and God’s placed them uniquely in a place nobody can stand. Priscilla, nobody can stand where you’re standing.
Nobody can stand in the place that I’m standing, the way I can stand here and am I willing to in dependence and surrender, be obedient with the things that God’s entrusted to me. If we can do that again, if we can take that one step, He’s going to meet us there. When He meets us there, that’s going to give us the courage and strength to take that next step.
Teea:
That’s right. Well and I think too, the questions you could sit and ponder with the Lord even just after this, is asking him, “Father God, what is the desire that you’ve placed in my heart that I’m trying to squash? What is the dream that I’m too scared to even admit out aloud? What is the thought or idea that I have that is actually from you and not from me, that I’m not being obedient in? Then taking the next step and saying, “Okay, what are my loaves and fishes that I have to bring to the table?
It’s not up to me to orchestrate it all. All you’re asking is for my obedience. So Lord, what do I have that you want me to bring to the table? I’m going to do that. I really believe if we as kingdom builders, if we as sons and daughters of Christ could step into that level of obedience, we would change our world.
We all are called to go out and do. We’re not just here to sit and receive. “I go to church, I tithe, I serve, I give check, check, check, check, check. Okay, I’m a good Christian.” It’s like, “No, no, no, let’s wake up from accidental Christian living and step into what Lord has for us.”
Gina:
That’ll preach. So good!
Teea:
This was good. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for the work that you do. Thank you for the loaves and fishes that you bring because it has blessed us and we are so grateful for it!
Gina:
Thank you so much. It’s been an honor to meet you Teea, and to hear what God’s doing through you guys. And Priscilla, I love you, I miss you, you are one of my favorite people. God bless you both in the things that God has placed in you, your families, your homes, and pray for blessing and protection and favor and provision as you just stand open handed before Him, and get to watch what He does, because He does good things.
Check out the rest of this conversation: The Power of Intentionality, & Intentionally Seeking God
Check out the Dwell Meditations
