#110: Steve Poe: Breaking Bad Habits
In this conversation, I get to sit down with pastor, author, and movement leader - Steve Poe. Steve shares his heart, his story, and some of the tools he has used to break bad habits in his life. This is a good conversation if you want to wrestle with your own behaviors!
Read the full transcripts here.
Links:
stevepoe.org
EP. 110 Steve Poe
Tony: Hey everybody welcome back to the Reclamation Podcast, where our goal is to help you reclaim good practices for faith and life. My name is Tony and I get to host the podcast. Today. We are a ministry of spirit in truth. Learn more about spirit and truth. Check them out spirit in truth.life, man, I love bringing you, you guys fresh content every single week today is episode one 10, and I get down with the lead pastor of Northview church, Steve Paul, Steve, and I talk about his resource creatures of habit.
What that means what it looks like. How to figure out your habits, what to do with them, how to grow them. There are so many incredible things in this conversation, practical things about breaking bad habits. We talk about anxiety level. We talk about how to, to kind of fight off some of the strongholds in your life that may not be where you want them to be.
It's really a great conversation. To make sure you don't miss this or any of our other conversations. Go ahead and hit that subscribe button right now. And also if you could do me a huge favor, we're trying to get to a hundred reviews on iTunes reviews, help people find the podcast. When they're searching things.
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We love to hear from all of you, and we're so thankful to be on this journey with you now that any further ado, here's my conversation with Steve Poe.
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm here today with pastor speaker and author Steve Poe, coming to us from Indiana. So Steve, I'd like to start with some something controversial.
Are you going? I, you or Purdue?
Steve: Oh gosh, that is controversial in my home.
But since this is going out over the year, I'm not sure. I want to say well, okay.
Tony: I'll protect you. I'll protect you. I would imagine in your church, you've got a really good and now I'm a Purdue fan. I'm just going to put it out there. Mostly because a dear friend of mine has taken me to a couple of Purdue basketball games and there's nothing like it in the world, but I've never been to one.
Are you game? So who knows?
Steve: Well, have I, I've got Half a dozen of my staff are IQ grads and another half dozen are Purdue grads. And so you know, it's a lot of times I'll make a joke about them, but it it's I've made sure that I hit both ends before now.
Tony: I went to Indiana Wesleyan online.
That's where I went for my undergrad and I loved loved it. And love Indiana. Could you tell everybody a little about your background? You. You're kind of leading a movement there. Reaching lots of people from in the name of Jesus, give us kinda, you know, the origin story.
Steve: Well which is north view church.
And we started in Carmel, Indiana. And it started back in 1980. I was pastoring in Missouri at the time but the guy that founded Northview church, Tommy Paino got Lou Gehrig's disease. And he ended up dying three years after he got Lou Gehrig's disease. And so they reached out to me and I moved out and became the senior pastor in 1999, the church was running about, it was not a healthy church at the time because they went through that with him.
And so they were pretty broken at the point, but it was a church of about 500 people. And it slowly grew and saw God do some things, but about, oh, maybe Seven eight years ago, we really saw God really began to bless the church in a major way. And we really saw a lot of growth and it's been exciting to be a part of it.
We, we now are a multi-site campus and so we have 12 locations. Four of those locations are actually in prisons. Wow. I love that. I absolutely love that, but we've got about a thousand inmates that attend those four campuses. We're seeing salvation and we're seeing them grow and spiritually. And of course they've not been able to meet since the pandemic, but they still are watching on tablets.
And so they're still connected to us through that. And then we have nine physical campuses as well. And so, yeah, God's really been blessed. The church has pre COVID was running about 12, 13,000 people. And we're seeing over a thousand salvations a year and about 800 baptisms every year. And really feel like God's up to something big.
Tony: So you're obviously high-level leader you've been around in ministry for, Y you told me before we hit record, you know, 21 years of ministry. I love to ask this question to people who have clearly been through some stuff. W what has God taught you in COVID that maybe new for you?
Steve: I don't know. I don't know if there's anything Tony knew as much as a lot of reminders.
God's got this, you know there was so much that hit us with COVID. I mean, all of a sudden we wake up one day and we've got to close our doors, which we'd never done before. And I remember, I remember thinking I was really aggressive and we announced that we were going to close our doors for four weeks and I was Extremely concerned about how are we going to, nobody's going to continue to give financially how are we going to keep, keep the expenses, pay the staff, paying the buildings open without money coming in.
And yet God's people have been faithful not only for four weeks. We ended up being closed about nine months. And during that nine months giving never dropped. And that was a huge reminder from God, or I've got this, you know, it's not about what we can figure out or manipulate or, or make happen.
It's really all about him.
Tony: Do you think that you've seen H how have you seen your community change in the midst of all that? I mean, you mentioned. Giving. I mean, that's just one of the metrics of engagement that most churches use, but as we think about like the community itself, how have you kinda, I mean, it's gotta feel like it's more fun in front of your eyes.
I know mine does. I mean, have you seen a change?
Steve: You know, the anxiety level has just gone through the ceiling and it's really had an impact on people and it's. You know, we're living in a cancel culture and which has really, I think, all driven by anxiety. The whole idea of people not being able to socialize, not being able to fellowship or be together, just created such a such a level of anxiety that people were lashing out at anybody and everybody.
And we've also, you know, I think also Tony, it's created a lot of bad habits in people's lives. There's certainly been some good things that have come out of it. Don't get me wrong. I mean, I love it. Forced families to. Be together. It forced families to be families again. And I think that was a positive thing and I love that.
And but it's just it's been a difficult time and hopefully we're coming out of that. As things are getting back together, I don't know what it's going to look like on the other side, but I still feel there's a good feeling. Now, when people gathered together in the build building, it's like, oh my gosh, we've needed this.
We've looked forward to this.
Tony: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I went to the I went to a birthday party the other day with my family because everybody's been vaccinated and it was, you know, it was safe and it was like, oh my gosh, you know, I just missed it so much. I missed it so much.
Steve: And when we came back the first time in September I was just weeping the whole service.
And just because it was like, I didn't realize how much I had missed the fellowship of the body of Christ and worship being able to worship together and gathered together and just be with people. It was an emotional experience for me. Yeah.
Tony: Yeah. And I loved what you said about how COVID has developed some bad habits in there.
And we're going to dive into this new resource that you've created about habits. One of the things that we love to say around here is that if you're not dedicated to your disciplines, you'll be destroyed by your distractions. That's good. And so a lot of my listeners have heard me say that multiple times.
And, and I, I feel like what you're talking about with creatures of habit, this, this new resource you've got coming out is along those same lines, but maybe we should start first with the definition of, of the word habits. Like how do you, how do you define that in the book? And I know there's a writing in there about.
How habits are kind of a brilliant gift from God. I can, you tie all that together for me?
Steve: I mean, a habit is basically a decision that we make. And we make it and we then repeat it enough times that it almost becomes second nature. We didn't, we stopped thinking about it. And Tony, I, I really do believe that's a God-given gift.
I think God gave us that so that we don't have to think through or process every single decision or make it as a decision every time, you know, basically we're the sum total. We're the sum total of the decisions we make and the habits that we formed. And so there was a duke research done that said that 40% of the things that we do every day of our life are habits.
Wow. And I think that's a God thing it's like, so that way I don't have to stop and make a decision to do everything. I do. Some things are just getting done out of habit, out of repetition. I've done it so much. I don't have to think about it. I, when I drive home, I don't have to stop and think about every left or right turn.
It just does automatic. And there's just so many things in my life that had been playing an instrument typing. All those things are things we never think about anymore. They've just become habits in our life. And so I think that was a God thing.
Tony: Now, do you think that how do we, how do we know if habits are good or bad?
Like, how do we begin as we begin to look at this and, you know, in your writing, you kind of talk about different habits and where they come from and the forming of them, but how, how do we begin to evaluate. The 40% of our life that's automatic and what's not. Cause cause I'm sitting here thinking 40%. I don't know, but Hey.
Steve: Yeah, it feels right now. That's a great question because, because even though 40% of our day is made up of habits, not all of them are good habits. No. A lot of my habits are bad. Exactly. And so your question is a great question and, and it's like, we want those habits to further who we want to become.
We want those habits to further. Who God wants us to become. And if those advance that goal or that end, then those typically are spiritual disciplines. So it's like habits that become stepping stones in my life are typically spiritual. Disciplines where bad habits are literally taking me away from God's purpose in my life.
And those are spiritual. Oftentimes become spiritual strongholds or addictions, you know, basically a habit. It can become an addiction in our life. Or a spiritual stronghold in our life. And so, and that becomes a tombstone. So those bad habits in our life keep us from God's best. Keep us from God's plan were good habits help us, us to focus on the identity that God wants us to be.
Our identity obviously is in Christ and good habits help to form that. Does that make sense?
Tony: Yeah. And I think that, that feels like it's Probably resonates with a lot of the listeners right now, and they're, they're sitting there and they're evaluating their habits. Right. And so here's a good example from my life.
So I oftentimes get accused by my family of eating all the Oreos. Right.
So here's the deal though, right? I always say, no, I don't, I don't eat all the Oreos. Right. I limit myself to five Oreos a day. But I never miss a day right now. So that, that's kinda what you're talking about though, right? Is that it's become like, I come home, I grabbed five Oreos, every, you know, is that that's kind of the idea, right?
Steve: It is, it is it's again, you've done it so much. You don't even think about it now. It's just automatic for you.
Tony: So explain to me the idea of a stronghold, because I think I, I think oftentimes that line between habit addiction and stronghold gets really blurry. And I want to talk about breaking some of those habits when we need to, but maybe we should talk about strongholds first.
Steve: Yeah. I mean, the scripture talks a lot about spiritual strongholds in our life. And I think that's exactly what it's talking about. It's talking about those bad habits or addictions in our life that are keeping us from God's best. And basically it's, you know, let me back up just a second and say, Tony, I think we all underestimate.
We all underestimate habits. We, you know, we think about a habit as a EDD Oreos every day, or we think about a habit as sitting in the same seat or ordering the same thing at a restaurant. And it's like, we don't think of it as that big of a deal. But the reality is, is that things that really matter in our life that really are going to shape who we become.
Can become good or bad habits. And so they're a bigger deal. We're all creatures of habit, every one of us. And so we just, it's helping people to understand that you've got to break these bad habits, or you're not going to be able to grow spiritually. And of course the enemy. He, he doesn't want you to break those habits.
He's taking full advantage of those habits in your life. And that's why I think scripture calls them spiritual strongholds. You know, he's a liar he's out to steal, kill, and destroy, and he wants to, he wants to get a grip on you and keep you from God's best.
Tony: So when we talk about God's best, how do we begin to build a foundation of, of godly habits?
Where do we take us on that journey? Where do we get those from? What does that look like? How do we begin to put those in a way that it's just not us going through the motions? Right. Because in one sense, I, I really hear what you're saying. Like, we need these good habits, but in the other sense, it's like, oh, I don't really want my relationship to God to just be, you know, A routine, right?
How do we live in that tension?
Steve: You know, you said to me, before we went on the air, that your passion is discipleship and your love to, to help disciple people. Well, the way you disciple people and confident is that you're encouraging them to form spiritual. Habits in their life. And that's basically good habits.
And the reason you're trying to do that is because, you know, the more spiritual disciplines that they develop in their life, the more likely it is that they're going to model Christ and that they're going to look like Jesus, you know, Tony our habits become our identity. Our habits become our identity and a good example.
That would be after we got to know each other well you would, and maybe you're off and you're talking to somebody about me and they say, well, describe Tony. Describe Steve to me. You're going to say, well, you know I think he's a, I think he's a pretty honest guy, so he's you know, he's a man of integrity.
You just described a good habit in my life, but then you might say, but at the same time, he's a bit of a complainer. Now you just described a bad habit in my life. And so the way we describe people are by our habits because our habits become our identity. They become who we are, which is why it's so important that we develop spiritual disciplines that are going to help us to identify or, or emulate Christ to look like Jesus.
Tony: Oh, that's really good. And first of all, I would never say that you're a complainer. I didn't get that at all. Well, I, I, so, so let's go back to COVID for just a second, because I think one of the things that happened in COVID is that a lot of us got an identity crisis. Is that connected to the lack of our habits being ripped away from us.
Steve: Well, I think so if I'm, if I'm going where you're what you mean by that. I mean, it's like, you know, in Hebrews chapter 10, it says, for example, it says forsake, not the assembling of ourselves together as is the habit of some. So what's happening is that the, the writer of Hebrews is trying to say, look, there are a lot of people that have gotten in a bad habit of not gathering together as the body of Christ.
And so you don't want to do that. You want to gather together, that's the habit that you want to create in your life is fellowship. You want that good habit of fellowship, which is just automatic. It's like, so, so to your point, You you've got all these people, that man, they were a part of the church, if not weekly, at least three times a month.
And they were there. They didn't even think about it. It was the weekend. It was either Saturday night or Sunday morning and they didn't even talk about it or discuss it. They just got up and got dressed and they went to church. Why it's a habit in their life, but through COVID we broke those habits. And all of a sudden those great habits that we were so much doing every, every single week.
Now, all of a sudden the habits to sit home. Watch it online. And I know that I love online campus. I love online church because it provides, it provides such a, an incredible tool for people that are sick or people that can't get to a church for, for physical handicap or something, or people that are traveling.
There's all kinds of good reasons. But at the same time, I go back to that passage of how important it is that we gathered together. We were intended for fellowship. We were created for fellowship. And so but the enemy, which is something we talked about earlier, the enemy has used COVID to create these bad habits of, of not fellowshipping together.
Tony: So, so kind of we've developed these bad habits and we've done. So because the enemy is kind of just has really done some work lately in my life. I'm sure in a lot of people's lives H, how do we begin to break the process? Right. I mean, I'm curious from your, your experience when you get into a bad habit.
First of all, I know it's hard to see, but then how do we, how do we see it and then get out of it?
Steve: Well, that's the that's really good question because in every single chapter of this book, when I get over to the section that talks about the steps to break these bad habits, the first thing I say, I said, step one, regardless of what your bad habit is, step one is you have to own it.
You have to own it. Like I can tell you Tony, that there's 12 chapters in this book, 12 habits, bad habits in this book. And the reason they're there is because these are 12 habits that I've struggled with. And so when I was trying to determine what the chapters should be, I just honestly started making a list and believe me, there were more than 12, but these were, these were at the top of the list.
And so I said, okay, these are 12 areas I've struggled with. I battled with at different times in my life. So I'm going to write about it. I've got some experience with these bad habits, so I'm going to write about them. So the first thing you have to do is own it. I have to be able to, to identify it and say, okay, You know what workaholism, that's been a problem for me and I, and I'm going to stop denying it.
And I'm going to own the fact that I'm a workaholic and then I can begin to take some steps to deal with it, but unless I'm own it I'll never deal with it. And, you know, No, here's a problem that I saw in the very beginning. One of the reasons I was motivated to write this, Tony is because, you know, I've done a lot.
Like you I've done a lot of counseling throughout the year, so I've counseled a lot of people and, and they, they get stuck. And the reason they get stuck is that people will, they'll pray to invite Christ into their life. And, you know, the scripture makes it clear if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation, old things passed away, all things become new.
And so people like, oh, now I'm now I'm saved. Now I'm a new creature in Christ and they, and yet they go right back into the same patterns. That they were in before and they don't understand why. And the reason is I believe, and that's what motivated me to write. This is I thought somebody has to help them understand that.
Yes, you're saved. Yes, you're on your way to heaven, but you've got to break these bad habits. You've been doing these things most of your life, and you can't just wake up one day and say, I'm not going to do them anymore. It takes effort. It takes intention to break through some of these bad habits.
Tony: Yeah.
So w once we begin to own it, kind of, what are, what are the next couple of steps? You know, I mean, we can work through workoholism if you want, but I, I imagine there's some general frameworks for all of them in terms of like, figuring out how to break through, like, okay, I, you know, I'm a 12 step guy and you know, I've worked, I've worked the 12 steps of recovery.
I've got a little guy, eight years sober. Love it. It's big part of my life, you know, admitting it is always the first step. You know, w what do we do next?
Steve: Well, again, in the, in the book every chapter there's steps are different for everyone. But I would say if you, if you were to back up to a hundred thousand foot view and say, okay, what are some things that you can do?
That's true with all habits in our life. I would say one, one step is making it invisible. And what I mean by making it invisible is you've got to get rid of the temptation. You know, as suites for instance is a bad habit. If Oreos are a bad habit in your life. Now you're talking to some people.
Tony: Sorry about that.
No, it's good. I'm here for it. I'm here for it.
Steve: So if Orioles are bad habit in your life, then you got to get the Oreos out of your house. Now let's my wife does the shopping.
Tony: Am I led to blame her for that?
Steve: Well, you might want to ask her to be a mentor in this area. Yeah. Well, same thing. If it's if it's, if it's lost in the tool that you've been using is your computer I'm.
I told him, man that had been struggling with pornography and lost, and I told him to put some safety precautions on his computer, some hardware software on his computer. And that's still wasn't working. And finally, one day I just said, man, you need to throw that computer out the window. He laughed.
And he said, I can't do that. And I said, well, then I don't think you're really serious about breaking this habit in your life. It's become an addiction and, and four, you're going to have to make it invisible. You're going to have to take some serious steps to get rid of this addiction, or it's going to continually bring you down and hurt the people you love the most.
Tony: Yeah. Do you think that there's a tipping point when we're willing to, to make something that we think we need invisible? And I'm kind of thinking out loud here, but how does that work in our lives? Where we get to a place where the pain of change is, is Less intimidating than the pain of staying the same.
Is it, is it, is that rock bottom? What do you think that is?
Steve: Well, that's what they say. And again, you know, because of your experience, you probably know it even better than I do. But they say that you have to hit bottom and wherever that is, it's different for all of us. And it's different for me. It's different for you.
It's different for all of us, but whatever that is for you, you have to hit bottom and it's at that point. That you th the pain of change is worth it to get rid of the pain of what you're going through, the pain of you're experiencing in your life. And some people don't have to fall quite as hard or quite as far, but some people have to really hit rock bottom before that's going to ever happen.
Tony: So one of the things that I always love to dive into is Leaders and their, their personal habits. You, you know, you've obviously been leading a movement for a very long time. You're reaching thousands of people. What are some of the habits that you live by that you're like, no matter what happens, I have to do these things in order to stay in a good place.
What does, what does those habits look like in your life?
Steve: Well, that's good. Those are, those are, those are mainly spiritual disciplines. You know, I have to be, I have to be in the word of God every day. And you know, some people say, well, you're a pastor, obviously you're in the word of God, but I have to, I have to delineate between sermon prep.
In my own personal devotion time. I can't just fall on the idea. Well, I'm studying for sermons. So I was in the scripture. I need to be able to pull away from that and have a spiritual discipline where I allow the Lord to speak into my life through the word of God. Prayer is obviously a part of that routine.
No, the Bible says to pray without ceasing. And it's the idea of the idea of keeping the phone line open to where you're at least sensitive to the whispers of the holy spirit in your life. And that's important. I think rhythms for me, Tony You have to have weekly rhythms and then not everybody feels it's as important as some, for me, it's a big deal.
And so I have routines or I have rhythms that I create, because if I don't, it's easy for me to go right back into workaholism. No early before I was in ministry. When I was in the business world, I was a workaholic. And then when I went into ministry it followed me right into ministry. And I found myself working 70, 80 hours a week and justifying it and feeling okay about it because it was.
Ministry. Sure. So I, I was able to use it as an excuse that I'm doing this for God, so it's gotta be okay. Right. But the reality is it wasn't, you know, I was, I was putting I was putting my work or ministry before my family and I was putting it before God. And in some people say, well, how can a pastor put ministry before God?
But you can. And I was guilty of doing that very thing.
Tony: No, I mean, me too. I it's one of the, I tell people all the time I was in the army for a long time ministry is one of the very few places that reminds me of the army because it's really an endless amount of work for the mission. Right. And, and you can get righteous about doing it.
Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's like a built-in excuse exactly.
Steve: And here's the other thing that makes it one of the hardest habits to break the world, pats you on the back. Here's a bad habit in your life. And rather than anybody shaming you, or whether that rather than anybody come and telling you what's wrong, they're all patting you on the back saying, oh my gosh, isn't he a hard worker?
He has such a great work ethic. When in fact it's not, it's not honoring God. Yeah. And so, and so back to your original question for me with workaholism, it was essential that I created rhythms in my life. I had to I had to say I had to create boundaries in my life, which is step one in the chapter.
I had to be willing to say that establish a work schedule that I wasn't going to take phone calls during family meal that I was only going to work one. Some occasions two nights a week. But one is Y what I really like to stick to. So there was boundaries that I had to set and field idea that if I don't control my calendar, everybody else will establish some parameters there, but I just had to establish a rhythm for me.
It was I was taking, first of all, I took Fridays off work, six days a week, and I took every Friday off. And I, I told my wife, it was essential that I give that data to her. And so that was our day. That was our we did a date night. It was, and it has been that way. I've been in ministry actually for 35 years.
And this Friday has been our day. Most all of those years. So that rhythm had to be there. It had to, I had to create that into the same way with sermon prep and everything else. Because if you don't, for me, if you don't have those rhythms, then everything else starts crowding it out. And then I, I have to work extra to do the things that I'm supposed to be doing.
Tony: So that, that makes a ton of sense for me when we talk about rhythms and I think that's super important. It reminds me a lot of, some of the work that speeder Peter Scazzero does and emotionally healthy spiritually. We had to do some assignments when I was in seminary about that and a rule of life. And what, you know, kind of, what are the boundaries.
Now? One of the things I'm interested though, is, is that in your writing, you talk about some more of the, the. Things of life that are a little bit harder to hold onto, right? Like workaholism makes a lot of sense to me because I can set rhythms around workaholism to prevent me from that. But I'm a prideful person, Steve,
how do I how do I build rhythms around something like pride that is not and why just isn't it's, it's hard to hold on to, right? Like.
Steve: You know, I think the first thing you have to, I think the first thing that people have to acknowledge is first of all, most people think of humility and pride as an attitude, and it's actually a habit.
So it's like I fall into the same. So like, let's say humility, I make a decision today that I'm going to respond to something that happened with humility. I then do it again tomorrow. And I continue to do that. Now I've done it enough times. I've created a habit that just becomes who I am. It's it's second nature for me to respond in humility.
The same. Thing's true with pride. No. It's like if I respond arrogantly and maybe I think that's funny. And then, but then I started doing it more and more and more to where it becomes so much a part of me that I just automatically respond with arrogance or pride. I don't even think about it anymore. I don't, I don't think about the fact that it's making everybody around me sick and turning them off because it's just second nature now.
And so things like pride. Is a bad habit. And and a lot of people have asked that question. It's like, well, how has pride? I haven't, but it actually is. And really a lot of all these others, I started with that one in the book, because a lot of these other things we're talking about are birthed out of that pride.
No because pride becomes the habit of pride is creating a self-centeredness. It's all about me. My wants my needs, my desires, and that's where so many of these bad habits get burst out of the selfish, pride. Self-centered pride.
Tony: How much is a community? Part of the breaking the habit process. Right?
Cause I could see I can see a ton of the work that we're talking about here is like very slippery work in the sense that you can take three steps forward and four steps backwards or, you know, so how do you, how have you in your life as you've thought about changing and reshaping habits, how have you made sure to surround yourself with people that won't let you slide back into old habits?
Steve: You know you, you, I think you have to be Tony, you have to be intentional about creating that accountability because especially not for everybody, but like in my role and in your role, you know, when you're the pastor of a church, It's hard because since you're the senior pastor, it's hard to have that accountability.
And so the only way you're going to be able to creep create that type of relationship is by just saying, okay, I've got to determine who loves me, who really cares about my success. And, and they're not going to be turned off by my failures and my weaknesses. And then I just have to sit down and I've got a couple people in my life that do that for me.
And but I had to be intentional about it. I had to go to them and ask them if they would do that. Because you know, you know, we all know that pastors have feet of clay, but we don't want anybody to see our feet. Right. And so you gotta be willing to show your feet, you know, you gotta be willing to allow somebody to look inside and to say, okay, so that, because they love me enough to call me out.
They love me enough to ask the hard questions, the difficult questions, and I've got to have somebody like that, but it's not going to happen unless I'm intentional. And I think that's true probably of most people, you know, we all have people that love us, but have we asked them. To hold us accountable.
Have we asked them to, to ask us the tough questions? Because I think accountability almost in every chapter I've talked about that I think accountability is a huge piece of your success in breaking this particular route.
Tony: So let me dive into another part of this that I was curious about. How long have you been married?
Steve: Well, my guys you're going to put me right on the spot. I've been married for 46 years coming on 46 years. Wow.
Tony: First of all, that's awesome. And you've probably done you've probably done hundreds. If not thousands of weddings in your lifetime,
Steve: I've done a lot of weddings.
Tony: What are we to do when the people that we're closest with have a bad habit that we can see, but they can't.
Steve: Yeah, that's that's, that's tough, you know? But if you're in a marriage relationship, that's where, you know, I always say the, the basis of any healthy relationship is three things, communication, communication, communication. And so, you know, it's like you have got to get there. And if, and I always tell couples, if you're not communicating and you don't know, what's really going on inside your.
You're a partner's heart and mind, you need to seek out help whether it's counseling or a pastor or somebody that can help you break down that wall, because you're not going to have a healthy relationship unless you've got healthy communication. And, and part of that, you know, part of that is trust. You're not, your love is not going to grow for someone.
And if you don't trust them, because you're not gonna, you know, you're gonna have this wall. And that wall is not going to come down until you trust that person. That's true in any relationship, but it's really true in a marriage relationship. And so in order for that to come down, I've got to be willing to allow my wife to speak into my life and she's gotta be willing to let me speak into her life.
And part of that is being willing to say, can I just share with you what I see, you know, will you accept that? And, and hopefully she gives me permission to do that.
Tony: When again, going back to your idea of habits, right? If you have been, if you've nurtured the communication, if you've nurtured the honesty, then that message can be well-received because there's a habit of trust and care there.
So I think as I listen to you Did, you know, discuss some of that. I'm thinking to myself, man, have I been a good steward of that in terms of the habits and disciplines in our marriage? And I'm sure there are a lot of people out there listening then. And you know, maybe the question that we all should be asking ourselves is how have we developed the habit of honesty or is this, you know, you can't come in, you know, five years in and be like, Hey, let's talk about all the things you're doing wrong.
Right.
Steve: And yet at the same time, I mean, we all have blind spots every day, man. Right? And so when you come into a marriage, when you first come into a marriage relationship, you're both going to have blind spots. And if you've gone most of your life with a blind spot, that means that nobody's cared enough to tell you before.
So now it really does come to the spouse's responsibility. To tell you, but that's, but that's not going to happen until the trust level has grown to a place where you're willing to receive that. I want my wife to speak into my life and she wants me to speak into her life. That comes from years of building trust with each other.
Tony: I love that actually. And I think it's, I think it's super important. You know, I'm curious if, if you were going to make a creatures of habit, family edition I'm helping you with your next book passengers. What, what are, what are some of the family habits that you see that will help. Help all of us stay in tune with, you know, the spiritual family disciplines, you know, w what are some of those things that have worked for you, or as you think about people in your church or in your life that you're really pouring into, what are, what are some of the things like?
Yes, that's a habit that I strongly recommend for families.
Steve: Well, there's a bunch of them, like at least having an evening meal together, making that a discipline and a response to a requirement that, you know, it's like, we're all busy people. We're all going different ways, but we are all going to sit down at the dinner table together.
Our, our our foams and everything else are going to be shut off. They're going to be away from the table, no video games at the table. And this is our time. And may only be 30 minutes, but our, as a family, we're going to talk. We're going to find out about each other's day. That's that's a discipline.
I also think it's important if it's a Christian home. I just think it's it's absolutely should be requirement that the family pray together. I just, you know when a wall builds between a husband and wife or when when a communication gap builds in a family there's a lot of ways to tear that down one way is, you know, you can talk about it and you can go through that process.
But I oftentimes tell people the fastest way to tear down a wall, a communication gap, or a wall that's built between a husband and wife is to pray together is there's nothing. There's nothing more vulnerable than prayer. Nothing more transparent than prayer. And once we do that, we start to tear down our guard and we begin to trust each other.
We began to be more open with each other, and now we've allowed God to enter this relationship. Now it's not just my wife and I, but now it's God. And my wife and I. And so I always tell people, like, if you've got a decision to make, the first thing you should do is pray about it before you guys even discuss what you're going to do is take it to the Lord in prayer, because you've said, okay, we want the wisdom of the Lord in this decision.
So I'm going too long on that. But prayer as a family is really, really important. You know, my wife, when my kids were young, Every morning before they got on a bus. They memorized scripture together and they would literally just, they would go on a circle and they would just quote the scripture.
And then once they had it, she'd introduced another passage and they did that every morning and kudos to her. I didn't do it. She did it. But it developed I I'm confident my, my kids are both grown and have their own kids now, but I'm confident they can still quote many of those scriptures memorized as a child.
So that's an important spiritual discipline. I think
Tony: I love this. I love those eat dinner together at least one night a week. Pray together. Scripture memory. Yeah, no, those are, those are tremendous building blocks. Do you, do you think that intentionality around habits is probably most overlooked? I was thinking about this. I'm like, man, what's the difference between these three things and, you know, eating in front of the television and. Not praying together or scrolling on Instagram.
I, it does it ultimately just come down to intentionality.
Steve: I think so until you, until you've actually established the habit it does until you've established a good habit until you've established the bad habit, it comes down to intentionality. You know, it's like, prayerlessness is one of the chapters in the book and people look at that and they're like, well, how has not praying a bad habit?
Well, that's exactly what it is. I've gotten in the habit that I don't pray, you know? That I don't communicate with my heavenly father. I've just gotten in a habit of it. And I need to be intentional about breaking that habit. How, by the opposite, by creating a good habit of prayer and a lot of these, you know, it's like the same way with line people say, well, how do you break the habit of lying by intentionally doing the opposite, being trustworthy, being honest in developing that habit.
And that habit will now replace the bad habit of lying. So typically, almost all of these. Have an opposite thing that becomes a good habit that helps to form our identity. And we have to be intentional to create that habit, which takes sometimes some people say, you know, Troy, some people say it takes 21, one days to create a habit.
I've heard that for many years, as some people say it takes you know, a month to do it. I don't know. But I do know it just takes some time where you got to daily be intentional that this is what I'm going to do every day. I'm going to pray every day. You know, normally I'm not thinking about it, but I'm going to do it.
You know, one of the habits I created years ago from a suggestion of a person that was in my church over 30 years ago is she told me, she said, you know, when I get up in the morning, the first thing I do. She just wanted to put my feet on the floor and I say, Lord, this is the day that you have made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.
And I committed to you. And I said, wow, that's very cool. I couldn't let that go. And so 35 years ago, I started that habit and I don't think I've, I bet I haven't missed three mornings in 35 years where. I put my feet on the floor and I say that, God, this is the day you have made. And I determined I'm going to rejoice and be glad in it.
Now, does that mean that's going to happen? No, but I've I've as I've been in the habit of doing that. And so I'm setting my focus, the very first thing of the day. So it helps me to live for him. It's not foolproof and I'm going to make mistakes during the day, but it establishes it right out of the gate the first moment of my day.
And so that's a habit that I created that helps me.
Tony: I love it. I love it. I love the idea about just the intentional acts of habits that can help us grow closer to Christ. One of the things that I know about my listeners is that they love to pray for people and for things. And so as this new resource gets released out into the world how can we pray with you for what it will do for the people who pick it up?
Steve: Well, one thing, my hope only is that pastors are going to discover this tool, you know, as, as a pastor, you know, we're always looking for great series topics, series of messages, and I've, I've done this in two series, six weeks series of preaching. I'm getting ready to actually start again this month.
But I really feel like if pastors will preach this. To their congregation, then it's going to spread faster, this idea of breaking bad habits in our life. I think to come back to your question, I think my prayer is that most people. Again, underestimate the power of a habit in their life. And so I'm hopeful that they'll see something like this and say, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to take the steps.
I'm going to do this. I'm going to break this habit, whatever it is, you know, it's like, maybe for me, maybe for me, it's worry. And I may need to read that chapter four or five times and just hang on that chapter because that one is that one's really a problem for me. And so my prayer is that people will identify own up to whatever their habit is.
And break it in 2021. That'll be the habit that I break, you know, when we come to the end of our life we want to be able to not regret that I didn't do something, but instead be thankful that I did. So you get to the end of your life and say, man, I wish I would've broke those habits. That really kept me from what God wanted.
Instead of be able to say, I'm so glad. As a young dad, as a young father, as a young husband that I worked on breaking that habit so that we became a praying couple or whatever the topic is.
Tony: Oh, that's great. That's great. Okay. I know my listeners are going to want to connect with you online. Where is the best place to find you and more information about your ministry on the interwebs?
Steve: Well, my website is just Steve poe.org. You can find my information there Northview church.us as our churches website, but There's information about the book on my website messages, every one of these I did I I've been encouraging people, buy this for your pastor. And cause in the book is the website to where he can go and get download every one of these sermons.
And that'll help him as you know. And yeah. So steve.org.
Tony: That's great. That's great. And last question. I always love to ask people. It's an advice question. I'm going to have you go back to your very first day at Northview church, near a young pastor, walking into a whole mess of new adventure. If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
Steve: Be bold. Be bold. I mean, that's the, the bold man that just, I just think that, you know, churches in America are struggling and we want to blame the congregation. We want to blame the people. But the reality is, is that as pastors too often, where we allow fear to keep us from being the men and women that God want us to be.
And we, we worry too much about pleasing people and not about pleasing God. And I just think looking for bold faith. Just be bold. And if you fail, you fail, but be bold for God. Amen.
Tony: Amen. That's a good word. That's a good word, pastor. Steve, thank you so much for being so generous with your time today.
Thank you for this resource and I'm praying along with you that God will do some incredible things. And and I'm, I'm thankful for you and your voice in this season.
Steve: Thank you, Tony. And thank you for your ministry. And I love your heart of discipleship and you've got a pastor's heart, but I love this. I love what you're doing through this podcast.
Way to go, man.
Tony: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I told you guys what a great conversation. I love this idea about habit being a decision, and then looking at God, giving gifts. I love the way he talks about. The reminders in his life that God's got this. And so, so many different ways to to grow in our daily habits.
Again, if you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor, leave a review on iTunes, share this episode with a friend, and don't forget to hit that subscribe button. We've got new. Content coming out every single week and we do it all to help each and every one of us grow closer to Jesus. Remember you can't follow Jesus if you aren't willing to move.
