Lonely Less: Interview with Pastor Mike Novotny

welcome back to another episode of Christian Natural Health today I'm very pleased to have Mike nne back with us

Mike is an author pastor and speaker who holds a master of divinity from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary and a doctor

of ministry from Trinity EV Evangelical Divinity School Mike's the lead speaker for time of Grace a global Min media

Ministry that exists to point people to what matters most Jesus using a variety of media television radio podcasts print

Publications and digital time of Grace teaches tough Topics in approachable and relatable ways accessible in multiple

languages making the Bible clear and understandable for those who need encouragement in their walks of faith and for those who don't yet know Jesus

at all Mike's radio program time of Grace with Mike nne is syndicated on the faith radio network and found on other

radio stations he is the author of lonely less six steps to a less lonely life that's his most recent book welcome

Mike thanks for joining us hey thanks for having me absolutely so let's talk about your new book why what what

prompted you to write this what's what kind of was the the initial spark there

yeah it's kind of an odd origin story um our ministry team who's always kind of looking out to see what are the real

needs of God's people and our community and culture yeah uh notice this increasing Trend like spiking levels of

loneliness there's this really uh kind of headline worthy news that came out where the US Surgeon General said that

loneliness is now an epidemic in the United States and that for the person who feels lonely it's literally worse

for your health I think than smoking 15 cigarettes a day yeah like what it does

to is not just relationally but in all kinds of ways psychologically spiritually and so uh yeah our team said

maybe we need a really good resource to offer God's hope and help to people struggling with loneliness right and uh

and and I said I don't think I'm the right guy to to write that book

why I've had all kinds of struggles in my life I'm a recovering addict and you know I've been able to write for

experiencing a lot of things but honestly loneliness is something I've never battled or at least with not with

any frequency sure so our team said well why do you think that is if so many

people around us are struggling with this what what did God teach you or what did uh your parents model for you or

what kind of you know path can you lay out that someone else has taught you that you can pass on to others so yeah kind of dissected what I do in my life

and my habits and ended up with this little book called Lonely less yeah awesome very cool so this there's lots

of books out there that are about like when friends influence people that kind of a thing is that what this is or not so much yes I didn't thought of that

till someone asked me a couple days ago in an interview you know it it does have some really practical things of when you're

in a room with other people yeah whether it's you're at church and you want better connections or you're at a a

family holiday party you don't want to sit in the corner by yourself I think there's some really practical tips we

need to think about how we portray ourselves the way that we communicate especially in a digital age where I

think some kind of really basic communication skills are falling off the cliff in a sense yeah so there's a

little bit of that but to me it's much more kind of holistic spiritual right what does the Bible say about great

families friendships and especially a connection with God that can help with our loneliness gotcha yeah so um just

kind of the 30,000 foot overview what would you say are some of like the highlights that you hit from a

scriptural standpoint of how people can address this issue and create community

in their lives yeah so the the book is based off this premise you can let me know if you think this Rings true I

think that what what has happened in our culture is that in 92 different ways we

chose what was easier but it left us lonelier 92

specifically um not specifically that's my all right like that's really exact

okay you know if I was going to compare my life today compared to my great great grandparents life when it comes to work

when it comes to Friendship when it comes to shopping when it comes to being a neighbor when it comes to being a

church member yeah I think there's a lot of things about my life that are much easier but when I step back and look at

them it it's not shocking that they leave me much lonlier yeah sure yeah I just think

about church as an example um if if the average American will go to a church maybe once or twice a month but we live

stream or we podcast we have all these great resources that we appreciate they're not wrong or bad yeah but if

that becomes the new normal instead of showing up and grabbing a cup of coffee and watching small talk sometimes be

awkward but sometimes turn into more of a church Community than an isolated spiritual experience right I think if we

do that with work with zooming or everyone on their email while we're trying to have a meeting I think if

friends get together for coffee and everyone's got their phone on the t i there's just all these things that I look around and I say it is not shocking

that The New Normal has changed the normal levels of loneliness sure yeah so it sounds like because of all of the

technological changes and conveniences and things like that that people just have to be a lot more intentional is that kind of the the gist of it I think

a lot of it is yeah yeah yeah I one of the tips in the book that I have for example is to um fight for face-to-face

friendship I'm I'm raising two teenage daughters right now and I just see this where my wife and I are almost saying

like invite someone over please we'd love to cook for more have a sleepover like yeah and I I don't think we're just

being nostalgic of our childhood I think you know we see the screen time which

isn't bad we see the constant connections digitally but there's just a right it's like we've taken the depth of

real human interaction and we've spread it out to this really shallow more quantity than quality and I think it's

costing us relationally and it sounds like you're kind of alluding primarily to social media in that regard guard at

least as far as it it pertains to like teenagers or do you see that kind of across the board with every generation

or every I think of my own life um I'm not a big Tik Tock guy but when I'm at a

meeting or when I'm anywhere and there's a 0.12 second Lull in the

conversation my new Instinct has become to grab my phone and check whatever the

weather the news so I don't think it's just like uh you're 14 and you're addicted to the

right I think our brains have all been trained to choose the easier path of digital candy instead of like the Daily

Bread of real human interaction interesting so that sounds like you're sort of alluding to the fact that it

becomes addictive as people get the little dopamine hit for constantly scrolling and checking and everything so

okay so let's say somebody says yeah that's totally me how do they go about breaking that habit like finding

choosing something that is better for you but now you're having to exert the will power like how does somebody get

that process started yeah it does not come easily um I think something that

I've seen really helpful in my life because I even my brain I didn't get my first smartphone until I was 27 and I'm

just shocked at how difficult it is to resist yeah totally that's what they're designed to do right exactly yeah

smarter people than me have chemically studied my brain so yeah so I love

intentionally using my calendar and then dropping my my Messiah

complex and leaving my phone at home yeah and by that I mean I'm going to meet with a friend for coffee or we're

going to work out together so I work out with my good friend John every Wednesday morning like it's on the calendar so

instead of this American busyness where yeah we should get together sometime right it's like fixed and protected yeah

and then the fact is as much as we tell ourselves we we need our phones for emergencies sure I could there are many

humans who survived for many years with having this glute to our hip so if I leave it at home then then I don't have

to fight that willpower battle every minute that's a good point yes I can have a conversation with John and just

ride the waves of the good parts and the dull Parts but there's no there's no candy to grab because it's not in my

pocket or on the table yeah that's really fascinating so essentially you're like structure I think there was a um I

want to say it was Benjamin Hardy that wrote a book that was called willpower doesn't work um and it was just about that idea of you structure your

environment such that you don't have the tempt to go do the thing that you want and that's exactly what you just

described that makes perfect sense yeah so so and I love the idea of get it on the calendar of see getting together

with a friend on a regular basis face to face that kind of a thing what are some other like practical things practical

little tidbits that you discuss or or maybe chapter topics or things like that that are in the book yeah my favorite

thing about the book that I think about all the time yeah is a little section that I call how to talk okay this going

to seem so obvious you're going to think okay we're out of good content for this

podcast so here's what I was thinking as a pastor you know I hope this is okay to admit out loud on a Sunday when people

walk through the door of the church my heart often has an instant

reaction to the faces that I see some I'm really eager to talk to and some I

have to like say please Jesus produce the fruit of love and kindness in me right now of course it's really

difficult and and I was thinking why is like what is it about some people that makes me like to

interact with them and others it feels like a sacrifice and a chore sure I came up with this just little four box Matrix

that's called me you good bad okay and

what I've learned is when I talk with someone and we talk about me and then we talk about

you and we both talk about good things we're not just like dumping all of our pain problems and oh wo was me but we

also talk about the bad things and we're vulnerable and transparent I can't think of a single

person that if they're not a mute or a monologue or a dumper or a denier yeah

but they'll they'll talk and then they'll ask questions and listen right and they'll celebrate God's goodness and

blessing and they'll confess their sins and struggles right like to me whether it's a family reunion or a small group

at church like those people are the ones like just good relationships happen sure

absolutely and it's almost natural because that's kind of the way that people connect with each other yeah yeah

but I think that all of us I mean I'm definitely like this I'm a talker so I have to remind myself of that me me you

good bad Mike it's like I have another story and I thought of another thing and another

thing like yeah some people are quiet and they have to work on this some of us talk too much yeah some people are very

untrusting and they won't open up about the bad sure and some people always see the glass half empty and so they just

tend towards the negative so I think all of us have like part of that Matrix to really be cognizant of and aware of sure

so that all of our relationships can be a little bit stronger right okay so and let's say from the perspective of

somebody who's a little bit on the shy side and they need to begin to work on this and open up a little bit more what

are some strategies that they can use in order to begin to exercise that muscle

yeah yeah I'm I'm raising two daughters and one is much more talkative than the other so I think I think about this

quite a bit yeah um I think it's good to remember that you

know God made each of us with a good purpose and each of us have a story that's valuable and worthy to be

told so I think when we start to think um well what I think doesn't matter or

who cares about me if we kind of lose that like I'm a child of God and I've been through some good things and some

bad things are actually really valuable and helpful for people to hear yeah instead of why would you want to hear

about my day it was fine it was bad whatever ever there comes with like a belief that

I'm a Child of God the life that he's given me matters to him and to other people and the reason he put me in this

place in this conversation is for a purpose it's not just to sit there and act like nothing is important right yeah

absolutely no that that makes sense it sounds like it's less about exercising the muscle and it's more about changing

the mindset so if the mindset is more like I don't matter then it's like what does the scripture say about my identity

in Christ and if you can get that deep down then it becomes more natural for you to share yeah yeah I think that's

the issue behind the issue so you said it well totally awesome so what about like somebody who maybe is nervous about

sharing because of trust issues like they've been hurt in the past and they don't know that they're going to be

necessarily well received so they don't want to be vulnerable where do they go to work on that piece of it yeah

yeah I've been leading kind of small group Bible studies in my home for about 10 years yeah and Lauren I am

I am shock I'm not trying to be dramatic I am shocked at how fast people connect

when people are vulnerable totally like it'll be like the first night I this

about a year ago I invited people who all 10 of them didn't know each other total strangers yeah they walk into my

house we kind of set the ground rules I lead the way with some pretty transparent confession and like an hour

later I close the door and I look at my wife and say can you believe that just happened yeah like can you believe

people would talk about addiction pornography marital struggles divorce

trauma abuse strip clubs on the first night like how how's that possible so I

am such a huge huge supporter of uh James 516 which say confess your sins to

one another not just to God but to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed um so how do you get

there I I think I would I would ENC I think for 90% of the people out there the problem isn't you've shared too much

and it's been used against you in my experience 90% of the people haven't shared enough really and they're

cautious and they're guarded and we I look at the prayer requests at our church and it's like my Aunt has cancer

right yeah yeah yeah yeah that's really the Instinct I think of even Christian people sure um almost every Bible study

like there'll be crickets when you get to the the prayer requests time or else it'll be like oh I know this person who

has this you pray for them totally yeah we pray for other people's physical needs

instead of our own spiritual needs yeah but if if by chance someone's listening and they really have they've tried and

it's been used against them yeah which does happen this is the world and not heaven sure um I would encourage you you

know find someone that you know you've had a good relationship with don't go back to a

person who's broken your trust sure and and then I would say start with like a let's say a level two out of 10

confession yeah I'm struggling as a parent yeah yeah and just kind of see how that goes and do they respond with

compassion do they respond with their own confession I think that's the best sign yeah and then if they don't seem

like you're just not getting Good Vibes that's okay um God will provide someone else right yeah but what I've normally

seen is when I have the courage to say hey I'm struggling with a almost always someone says me too sure

and then it really goes deep really quickly and really beautifully so yeah test the waters read James 5:116 because in my

experience like what changes like a church into like a church home is this really difficult but powerful step yeah

that's awesome so I really like your your grid concept so let's talk about people who were fixated on the negative

and they only want to talk about the negative so how does somebody first of all recognize this because I think a lot of times we have a hard time seeing our

own areas of weakness but you recognize it then how do you begin to shift that

mindset so that different things come out of your mouth yeah this takes courage but I love just asking people

whether it's my wife or my girls or a cooworker what what's it like to be

around me oh that's a good question oh it's You Gotta Have

Courage and sometimes I think my wife's gonna give me like a you know a 97% on the husband scale and some the truth

comes out that I'm like oh why did I ask this question yeah yeah so that that might you know maybe you're listening

are watching this podcast and this is a you know take that little Matrix meu good bad and just ask a friend hey I

heard this give me some candid feedback what do you think I'm good at what do you think I can work on right absolutely

that's and I think that that kind of third- party uh feedback is GNA open your eyes to a lot of things right and

so let's say somebody recognizes yeah I'm pretty negative I tend to focus on the bad things most of the time

practical steps for how to begin to shift that I'm I'm guessing it's going to have something to do with praise but

yeah yeah that's I learned that old acronym of how to pray that a CS have

you heard that one no what is that yeah a stands for adoration Okay C is

confession T is Thanksgiving and S is supplication or asking God for things oh so basically straight out of Philippians

four like yeah okay so we lots of us will go is right to the C and the S God

I messed up forgive me and I really need help with but I think the the A and the T are

meant to kind of solve that problem God I I praise you today you're a good father you love me despite my sin you

bless me with this day with daily bread with the ability to work and I sinned against you by so thank you so much for

Jesus and thank you for sticking with me I think that kind of balances out the yeah totally it's recognizing the bad

our own sin our own need but it's bringing God and his bigness and his glory and his forgiveness into the conversation too yeah I love it and so

it seems like again like get to the root with God and then out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks so

whatever you're kind of meditating on is what you're going to end up putting it bringing to conversation too right yep

yeah awesome um and then so somebody who feels like they maybe talk a little too much uh how do they recognize that and

what do you do about it so Lauren there's been so many me when I go to meetings I will often like

take the agenda and just write on the top of it I speak Spanish so I just write Miguel Cay

just like I'm the meeting hasn't even begun I just know myself like just I verbally process things so I

need to have that visual reminder to tell me all right this is your time or

something I like too if I'm across the coffee table with someone I love before I tell my story because you know if you

would tell me a story oh I you know whatever happened with whatever like oh that reminds me of this one thing that I went through right I called the three

questions rule where I'm not allowed to tell my story until I've asked three questions about

yours yeah and that has a way of kind of balancing the the word count scales a little bit sure yeah and restraining my

desire to just you know jump it yeah jump in and share my own stuff yeah that's great that's great so for

somebody that you know hasn't even gotten to the point of having enough interactions to practice this somebody

who feels really isolated and they are not in community where do we where do

they start yeah I think the church is the best place for this yeah um you know

the church is a community that is very flawed but it's called to this amazing example of love and kindness and

Hospitality right uh it's a place where it's not just here's what you need to do or stop doing or change hopefully it's a

place where the gospel of what God has done um the story of Emanuel a god who's with us a Jesus who died so that the

barrier between us and God would be gone um I think both vertically with your relationship with God and then

horizontally with other people um it's not a silver bullet but I think the church is the number one place to start

yeah yeah and how important do you think it is or do you kind of see in general

for friends to have lots of things in common like do you often see like multigenerational relationships that are

actually that actually go really deep or people that are in completely different walks of life or is it usually people who are in like similar life

circumstances does that matter I think it matters I don't think it's the only Factor but there's just something about

if you can relate to what I'm going through sure as a guy raising teenagers instead of well 50 years ago I had

teenagers like yeah right but your teenagers didn't have Instagram and you

know so I think there's something about stage of life that makes connections a little bit easier but you know I've also seen

God just do some great things where wow these people would never connect if it wasn't for Jesus yeah brings together

people from all tribes and Nations and personality types and backgrounds yeah so yeah it's a factor but not the only

one for sure yeah and so for people that go to like mega churches for example where they're enormous and you're just a

face among many many many um and I mean I've certainly had this experience where I've tried multiple Bible studies and

it's difficult to find a group where you really connect what are what are some strategies people can use to really find

their tribe especially if they're you know in a small fish in a big pond kind of a thing yeah great question I think

about this constantly our church is we're not a mega church but we've grown a bit in the last five years and yeah I

thought a lot about that I don't want a person to be a a face in a crowd or just a number on a list of church members um

honestly my experience is I don't want to say everyone that

would be an exaggeration almost everyone that I've seen join a group and be absolutely transparent about their sin

has found Community wow I've seen it up close like with hundreds

of people in my own living room that had no connection they were not friends not from the same even stage of life or area

of town but but once the truth comes out like people just love each other so much

better people connect in such profound ways if we're all kind of I don't know there's something about confession that

just bonds people even psychologists who study friendship talk about this that you know their stage of life and mutual

interests and Affinity groups but it's really that moment when you say something that kind of makes you

sweat and a person responds with love like that's when true friendship happens sure so if you're at a big church I

really do think you need to get in a smaller Community whether it's serving somewhere in a a small group Bible study of some sort but I don't think that's

going to fix it until you're candid and honest about your own humanity and sinfulness yeah that makes sense and so

you mentioned service where does Serv serving other people fit into this does that seem to deepen connections as well

yeah yeah you're spot on actually to my uh discredit I didn't cover that in the book but multiple uh podcasters have

brought that up I think you're exactly right there's just something about our whether it's our mental health or our loneliness that just gets fixed when we

stop standing in front of a mirror and thinking about ourselves yeah and we turn outward to serve another person in

Jesus name yeah totally yeah that definitely makes sense so um how can

people who have you know I guess struggled to create deeper relationships

in the past like they're no longer in college they're not in a immediate Community kind of a thing so now they're going to a church and they're trying to

reach out so so some practical steps are you join a small group and you get

vulnerable about whatever your struggles or weaknesses or things like that are um and you and you start serving other

people any other practical steps that you want to make sure that we cover yeah you know we've talked a lot

about church but um can we talk about work for a second please yeah yeah so I want to say this gently you know

everything changed so fast with the pandemic with with zoom connections being The New Normal which I'm super

grateful for in a lot of ways yeah but I think you know how how many hours literally of my life will I see my

co-workers a lot a lot and it really Grieves me man I have to fight this

myself that we'll get to a meeting and finally all we all of us humans are in the room we're not just digitally distant and every laptop is open every

phone is out and I'm just watching people not pay attention to each other right it's almost like you have to fight

like you're three feet away from me and it's like hey hey I'm like ah why is

this normal this isn't like these are really smart intelligent relatively godly people right and so part of my

book I I say when it comes to work is to uh give the gift of your undivided attention

is that I'm only going to get little Snippets if I'm like multitasking while you talk yeah absolutely if we're in the

same meeting together like I know how I would want to be treated if I was sharing an idea or a reaction and so if

we can just apply the Golden Rule to I think in a world where things have gotten so shallow and distracted that

you might stand out as a really great person to connect with with some simple eye contact and a little nodding and a

follow-up question right so it's not rocket science but just in our world I'm like I I think people who practice those

really basic skills that used to be common sense will stand out in our modern Digital fast-paced World well

it's kind of like what you said about leave your phone at home when you're going for interaction so it's not just work it's make sure you're you give

whoever is in front of you your undivided attention and you're not doing 500 things at the same time yeah yeah

yeah I don't want to come off as like overly Amish I'm a fan of like I work

for a media Ministry so I love I love podcasts personally I love yeah I love YouTube I just want to make sure

that good thing doesn't become like a bad thing because we haven't put boundaries and and barriers on it no

that totally makes sense so for people that are like yeah yeah I've got all these relationships that are more

peripheral but somebody who's really aching to have a deeper relationship in their life like for some people that are

maybe single and really don't want to be or they're feeling lonely as a result of that or um something along those lines

any encouragement for those people yeah I wouldn't say my my book is about

dating tips so I I didn't I didn't cover that section as worthy as it is sure to

me one of the the sweetest promises in the Bible whether you're a widow or a widower right or married and busy or

divorced and missing what you had or single and aching for more I I love that the Bible's most repeated command is do

not be afraid and the promise that almost always follows it is for

I am with you yeah absolutely and I think about that I mean maybe as Christians we get used to that idea of

like yeah God's with us God's always with me he's my good shepherd I walk to it but think about that yeah god father

Son and Holy Spirit the three most amazing people who have ever existed are literally in the room with

you right now yeah absolutely like on the other side of my computer I have two chairs and a couch I'm just like picturing like

God the Father sitting right there just affirmation in his eyes because of what Jesus did and like the Holy Spirit like

I I think if we could open our eyes to see that God is here and God Is So holy he's so much better than the best date

or boyfriend or wife he's better than a son or a daughter having grandkids like

then then those relationships would be nice but we wouldn't need them to be content to the same degree yeah absolutely yeah so I man it sounds so

obvious to say but if God is with me I think this is what the Psalms always get after like what what else do I need

besides right a glorious God who's right here in the room because of what his son did for me sure and so segueing from

that into I mean we're going into a holiday season which is a time when a lot of people who are already feeling lonely feel even lonier so what would

you say for the people that are kind of in that place at the moment um and I'm I'm assuming it's going to have

something to do with what you just said but what would you say that would be an encouragement for them to hang on to especially this season yeah that's a

thanks for that sensitive question if the premise of my book is right that we tend to do what's easier and it leaves

us lonelier I think my holiday advice would be do what's harder and see if you end up less lonely

that's a good point yeah absolutely it's gonna be really tempting to sit and watch another Hallmark Christmas movie

about people who have amazing relationships that are resolved in 91 minutes sure but if you get up and go

serve someone if you make it to your holiday church service and show up early Andy to practice meu good bad in the

lobby before church begins um if you go to a holiday gathering or a work party and you give

someone the you leave your phone at home and give the gift of your undivided attention like I think the holidays are

a great spot to start practicing some of these little baby steps to a less Lon life and it's not going to fix it by

January 1 but I kind of think of our relationships like a credit score yeah like I I can't fix my credit score in 30

days yeah but I could take some steps in the next 30 days that would get me moving in a right Direction sure AB so I

think that's the encouragement that I give people this this holiday season awesome so what have I not asked you

that you want to make sure you leave with our audience yeah as a pastor I always think

about the two big teachings of the Bible what some people call the law and the gospel and the law is all these things

that God wants us to do or not do steps we have to take and I think we've talked a lot about that so do leave your phone

at home uh don't dominate a conversation do give a GI like yeah that's that's all

good stuff and I say it cuz I think it's helpful but I definitely want people to not forget and I want to leave them on

this promise of the presence of God isn't based on what we do or don't do it's simply based on what Jesus has done

for us yeah and relationships are so like not

guaranteed you've talked about will people respond to your confession well or will people be hospitable if you show

up in church we we hope so but we don't know so which is why I love like the rock of this relationship that we have

through Jesus that even if he doesn't want to go on a date with you and even if she doesn't respond well to your

confession like at the end of the day you're gonna go home to the very presence of a glorious God because of

the work of Jesus Christ there secur there yeah yeah it really gives a kind of confidence and peace and hope deep

down in our soul right absolutely so where can people go to learn more about you and to pick up a copy of the book

yeah so you can go to timeofgrace.org that's our ministry website with the book lonely less and all the other books

I've written and hopefully helpful Ministry resources awesome well thank you so much Mike this has been very timely I really appreciate it yeah thank

you

- Generated with https://kome.ai

‍