Faith, Leadership, and Authenticity: Marnie Swedberg on Overcoming Challenges and Racial Reconciliation
Join host Keith Haney as he engages in a profound conversation with Marnie Swedberg, covering themes of faith, personal journey, role models, leadership, and social media authenticity. Marnie shares her experiences and insights, emphasizing the role of faith in overcoming challenges and the importance of being authentic on social media.
The discussion delves into leadership, racial reconciliation, and identity in Christ. Marnie offers valuable insights on leading like Jesus, the importance of compassion, and the role of spiritual warfare in racial reconciliation. She stresses the need to listen, understand, and see people through the lens of God’s love. Marnie aspires for her legacy to be one where people experience God’s love and compassion through her actions. She encourages living submerged in Christ to impact the world meaningfully.
Don’t miss this enlightening episode! Subscribe to our podcast, leave a review, and share it with your friends and family. Follow us on social media for updates and join the conversation using #FaithAndLeadership. Let’s inspire others to lead with faith, compassion, and authenticity.
Transcript
Well, Marnia, welcome to the pockets. How you doing today?
Marnie Swedberg (:I'm doing great. Thanks, Keith. Nice to be here.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Pleasure to have you on. I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah, me too.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I love to ask my guests this question, kind of get to know you a little bit better. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Marnie Swedberg (:I think from God, in this moment you have everything you need. I think it's easy for us to get kind of time warped and either be lost in the past or concerned about the future. But what I have found is that no matter what's going on in this moment, I always have everything I need because I always have God with me. Yeah. Yeah.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Mm.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I love that. And it's so true. Sometimes the best advice is biblical advice because you know it's good advice.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah, right, exactly.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:One day I should change the question and say, what's the worst piece of advice you've ever received? That's a whole nother pathway it takes us down.
Marnie Swedberg (:I could just summarize that up and just say just do it just do it you know don't think about it just
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Yeah, just do it. Exactly. I'm always curious, I look at your bio and I've seen you've accomplished so much and you've spoken to so many people, but I'm always curious for people like yourself, who were some role models for you, mentors along your journey that you want to kind of tell us what made them so special in your life and kind of give them a shout out?
Marnie Swedberg (:Sure. Well, my dad and mom, I had the great privilege of being married in or being born into a family where the mom and dad loved God, loved each other and loved us kids. And I know that that is not.
probably the average experience of most of the people I've met. So I feel like my mom and dad were really the huge role models for me, where they just modeled a lifestyle of love and of true compassion toward others, of letting Jesus flow through them instead of having them produce and perform all the time, just letting them be his flow through vessels to us girls. And then as adults and my three sisters are just totally my role models as they
just walk closely with God and do amazing things in their lives. And then there was a lady named Carolyn Gage who her and her husband were pastors and then missionaries. They had a handicapped child who died. We were bestest friends as kids and he died when I was about 10 my age and watching them just power through with God all of the challenges. So for those of you who are in ministry, no. And admissions, no. And those of you who have lost a child, no.
watching them be incredible powerhouses for God through it all. So those are the people that come right to mind.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Yeah, it's always neat that God gives us those people to show us different aspects and even things to model in our own character and our own walk with him. So that's always neat.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah.
Marnie Swedberg (:I think one thing that's coming to my mind.
With the leaders that I work with around the world, Keith, a lot of times in leadership, you feel very lonely, you feel isolated, you feel like nobody really gets you. I was just two days ago talking to a wife of a ultra marathoner who runs 100 mile races. And she's like, there's nobody that really gets my life. And I hear this all the time, right? So one of the things that I like to do, I spend a lot of time refocusing us back,
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right.
Marnie Swedberg (:on Jesus because he gets you. Whatever you're doing, Jesus gets you. And even if you can't find a human role model to follow, he's always right there and his life story is always right there for us and all the people in the Bible.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Yes, exactly. And there's so many of them that we can learn and see they were flawed, but God still used them, which is always helpful for me to kind of wrap my mind around.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah, not only their flaws, but yeah, and I totally agree with that. That helps us too, because we recognize, well, if you can use them, then maybe there's hope for me, right? But also, I feel like, you know, through my life journey, you probably feel this way too, I've been able to relate to almost everybody in the Bible at some point or another in their journey, actually what happened to them. Like they got a big dream or a big vision, and then it seemed like it disappeared for a decade or longer. You know, I mean, we can go back to all these Bible characters and move on.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right.
Marnie Swedberg (:really find a lot of comfort and hope in their stories.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Definitely. I always associated my ministry with Jeremiah, which wasn't always helpful for the congregation. But it was more difficult than I thought. But that's right. Exactly. If you told me then what I was going to go through, I might have said no.
Marnie Swedberg (:Well, I just have to say to you, I'm so sorry.
Marnie Swedberg (:You tricked me! God, you tricked me! Yeah... I would have said no! He knew that too, he knows that about us!
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:That's right, Lee. I'm curious as we talk about, to know you a bit better, tell us about your personal story. Cause you have a fascinating one from when I look at your bio. Just kind of walk us through your journey.
Marnie Swedberg (:Mmm. Yeah.
Well, we can take a couple months here and do that, or I could just sum up a couple high points. So I think probably one of the most profound things that happened for me in life was that I came into the educational system not being able to comprehend. So I really struggled in school. I really didn't learn how to read until I was an adult to be able to read, like I would say for pleasure, read without serious focus and concentration. And so school was always a real challenge for me, Keith, and I struggled all the way through.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I'm sorry.
Marnie Swedberg (:through. So then when I got out from under the pressure of school, and I really never went to college, I took like two college courses, but that was it. I never really went to college. I could just hardly wait to be done with school. And so now looking back, having written 14 books and being a trainer of authors, it's just amazing to me that no matter what challenges we face in our lives, God is bigger. And he has plans that will blow
your mind. If you just bring your greatest weakness to Him, He will blow your mind with what He can do with that weakness once it's submitted to Him. So I think that that's been kind of the journey of my life, whether it's been through tornadoes or floods or whatever it was, you know, that I bring the weakness, I just bring the weakness to a loving Savior and I watch how He redeems it, restores it, and uses it for good.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I love that. You mentioned kind of a little bit of my next question. I looked at your bio and the things that stood out to me was she has a history of lightning strikes, ambulance rides, tornadoes, floods, wrecks. So as you think about all those bumps in your journey, how did faith get you through those? Because I know sometimes we talk about those events and some people handle them better than others. But for those who are believers,
Marnie Swedberg (:yeah.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Even believers struggle with, you know, where is God in this? So how did you, as a believer, walk through those difficult moments in your life?
Marnie Swedberg (:Well, imperfectly, I'll say that first.
And then I will say there's a lie, there's a lie existing in our culture that says everything you're experiencing today is because of something you have done or chosen in the past. So in a way, I see where that's true. If I hadn't married my husband, I wouldn't have been in the boat with him when it was sinking. So yeah, it's true. But it can go to the point where we believe lies. Like somehow I caused this. Something I did,
made this terrible thing happen. But then you have things like tornadoes and floods and lightning strikes that you actually could not possibly have caused, you know, economy things. I mean there's things that are just bigger than we are. So it's a false...
It's a false premise that if things are going wrong in your life, it's because of you. If things are going right in your life, it's because of you. There, like I say, there's some truth to it, but the enemy would like you to think that you are all powerful and that you're all at fault. Both.
both and I say it's the symbol thing. You got one on one side and one on the other side and you just can't win with him. But when you're walking with Jesus and when you recognize that he says that he can bring good out of every situation, then it changes every perspective because now I go into whatever it is and I'm looking for where's that good? Where's the good that you can bring from here? Where are you showing up? And there was a time, I don't know, maybe a decade ago or so that I had this picture of myself meeting Jesus.
Marnie Swedberg (:Jesus face to face and asking him about such and such of a situation. You know, where were you when that was happening to me?
And in that moment, in my picture, in my mind, I saw myself flat out on my face saying, sorry, sorry, sorry, thank you, thank you, thank you. Because he showed me, he just showed me that he's always there. He's always protecting. He's always providing. Goes back to my favorite phrase, you know, in this moment, I have everything I need. And no matter what is going on.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Sorry, sorry, sorry. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Marnie Swedberg (:In the moment there is grace. You don't get grace in advance. You don't get grace for other people. But in that moment you have all the grace you need for yourself. And it's interesting that the people that wrote the Bible kept writing at the beginning and the end of all their books, grace and peace to you. Why do they keep saying that over and over and over? It's because we forget. We forget that there is grace and there is peace available even in the storm.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:It's funny you mentioned that, that thought of, you know, how you found comfort. When I was younger, I remember having that same thought, you know, God, where were you in some of the difficult times in life? But it was when I found the poem, Footprints in the Sand, I was, I remember I was, I was in the doctor's office for one of my pediatric checkups and, and that was on the doctor's office wall. And every time I go see a doctor, I'd read that and it was so powerful. And one day my wife knitted me.
that poem to have in my office as a pastor. So I've always had that in my office to remind me, yeah, God never abandoned me. God never forsook me through any of the difficult times, but he's always there. And that picture of, you know, when you couldn't do it yourself, I carried you. That just was, every time I read this, it makes me weep because it's like, yeah, there was those moments where, well, oftentimes I don't think I'm in charge and I'm not, but when I'm reminded of that during the low points of life, it's like,
Marnie Swedberg (:Now we're.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:You never were in charge and I was always here. You just didn't always notice it.
Marnie Swedberg (:Great.
Right, no, I love that. I love that. And I, you know, what a privilege we have to live on this side of the cross, right? Where the Holy Spirit's right inside of us all the time. I'm just so grateful we get to live now in history instead of before the cross. And I think about the difference in our experience now compared to pre -cross, pre -resurrection, pre -spirit inside of us. I think it's the difference between hauling around an oxygen tank with tubes up my nose,
versus having Him in me. You know, the Holy Spirit was always there. He was with people. But now He gets to be in us and it changes everything to have Him in us.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right. Yeah. And I would think about that too, is that knowing that everywhere I go, I take the Spirit with me and into every situation, to remind you to be your authentic Spirit -led self versus the other party that wants to come out during those moments where you're not your best and you're reflecting your sinful nature versus your spiritual nature.
Marnie Swedberg (:Right? Yeah.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah, and I even think I so I work a lot with speakers over at womenspeakers .com connecting, you know, 1600 speakers with all the planners that come into the system to find them. And one of the things I always say for the speakers that are cross -cultural, so they speak in Christian churches, but they also speak out in the business world or in the government sector or whatever. I always just say it, you don't have to say the name of Jesus if you're in a situation where that's not allowed. Wherever you go, there he is.
You don't have to actually use a Bible verse. You can actually just be Jesus to people and they experience Jesus in your presence.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:That's so powerful you say that, because I've talked to several of my podcast guests recently, and every show we don't focus on God, but I always tell them when they come on, it's like, realize that I come at this from a Christian perspective, and that's my background, and that's how I show up in this space. And the funny thing I've gotten from some people recently is you have this glow, this joy that's infectious, and it's kind of like you just said, I don't always bring up Jesus in every conversation.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah.
Marnie Swedberg (:Right.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:but I try to bring him into every conversation, whether his name comes up or not, in just the way you show up and the spirit and the presence you bring to that setting and to that space.
Marnie Swedberg (:Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, love it.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:That's so cool. So let's talk about your speakers thing. Cause I ran across that women, your website is women, www .womenspeakers .com and you have over a thousand speakers in your platform. So tell us about that ministry that you do.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah.
st minding my own business in:This is in my head, but it wouldn't go away. So finally I understood. I just kept praying about it. What is this? What is this? And God just put in my heart that there were speakers bureaus for the mega churches who could fly in the big names from California or wherever they lived. But
So I had done Marnie .com in:I was just a wreck, but it worked. And then, so I went ahead and I, with God's help, I immediately found the map to buy, which was a miracle. And then I just cobbled together this crazy website with me as the only speaker in it and put it out there. And sure enough, right away, speakers started finding it and the planners started finding it. And it was just amazing. It got busy kind of fast. And there was a lady at my church who said, can I help you? Is there any way I can help you?
Marnie Swedberg (:And I said, that'd be great. I'll just teach you how to add the speakers to the system as they come in. And then that would be huge. Well, as I went to teach her how to do it, Keith, it was 82 steps to add one speaker. That's how terribly I coded it. It was just awful. Anyway, so it was really until about 2015, from 2002 to 2015, before we could quit doing the custom coding. And actually, there was a platform that caught up to the technology needed.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:my word.
Marnie Swedberg (:to make that particular idea work. So sometimes God gives you an idea and it feels like it's early the wrong time. And I always think of Aunt Elizabeth and I think of Mary and I think of, you know, for Elizabeth, it was way too late. For Mary, it was way too early. But for both of them, it was just the right time for God to give them the vision of John the Baptist and of Jesus. And for you, whenever you are given a vision, even though it might feel too soon or too late, it's just the right time. So just go with it. God's got you.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I love that. So tell us about the speakers because you're hoping, so what kind of topics do you kind of range from? Is it like all over the place? Yeah.
Marnie Swedberg (:my goodness.
all over anything. Yeah, anything. Yeah, if you ever need a speaker for a women's event or even, you know, business or for church pulpit supply or whatever you need a speaker for, yeah, check it out because there's now over 1 ,600 speakers there. And we travel, we live all over the world, we travel all over the world. A couple years ago, I met, I flew to Kenya from here, from Florida, and I met a speaker from Australia there and we spent 10 days in ministry together. We had never met face -to -face.
to face, but we've known each other online through womensspeakers .com for several years. And at the end, I said to her, I said, Taryn, am I what you expected? And she said, exactly. And I said, and you are exactly what I expected. So when people say that you can't get to know people online, what you can't get to know is someone who's faking.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Hmm.
Marnie Swedberg (:But if someone is actually being authentic online, you can get to know them very well online before ever meeting them. We did, I mean ministry in another country, especially in an impoverished situation like we were in with a total stranger. That's a huge risk. I mean, most families kind of can't get along at that moment. And so you add somebody that you don't hardly know. And it's really a miracle when it happens like that, when you get along so well and just never have even a little ripple. And yet that is my experience with these speakers.
their hearts are just gold. I just love them so much. We've got all the speakers before they get into the bureau and then from there the planners just find them and reach out and that's how it works.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:So I'm assuming there's a big social media network you have. How do you, because everybody's trying to be a social media star. So how do you make those connections that are meaningful? Because social media can be one of those places where, like you just said, a lot of things just aren't real. I remember I had a friend on social media who, I looked at his social media profile and one minute he was.
in Illinois, the next minute he was in Germany. I'm like, dude, come on, this isn't real. I'm like, but how do you weave through that and make your social media account something that is, I would say, God pleasing. Cause we could be a lot of things on social media that aren't God pleasing.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah.
Marnie Swedberg (:I think the key is authenticity. If Jesus were looking at your profile, if Jesus were looking at your post, would he be pleased? And if you can just answer that question, yes, then you're all right, whatever you posted. Mine have changed dramatically because when I started for the first, what would it be, for the first 17 years, mine was very much living out loud. And as a speaker, that can actually happen where you're in one spot today, you're in another spot tomorrow, and you're in a whole nother spot the next day. I mean, that's actually legit for a speaker.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Mm.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right.
Marnie Swedberg (:happens. So I just lived out loud and I just shared everything. I just shared wherever I was and whatever was going on. And then we had our first grandchild and my son -in -law is a cyber security specialist and he's like, no, there will be no photos ever.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Mmm.
Marnie Swedberg (:And so that really changed it. So I stopped, I stopped posting any family photos every once in a while. Like I think even today we just got home from visiting my son out in Utah, ran a 38 mile race last weekend. And so we were out there cheering him on and cheering for him. And so I have a picture of me and my two adult sons. And I think I will post that one. But mostly what I do now is I post daily spiritual memes where there's
just a picture with encouragement and then I keep people up to track with you know if there's a summit coming or if there's a training a webinar coming or the radio show or you know things like that I will share but I don't I don't any longer do what I did for years so you may find too that your social changes with your life and that'd be normal for that to happen that there will be seasons for this seasons for that.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Yeah, I heard that from someone else who in cyber security about don't share pictures of your family. I stopped doing that too, years ago, because I, so they say take those and then they can find out. And so, yeah, so you gotta be very careful what you share on social media unfortunately these days.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah.
Well, the people who have been on the back side of what happens to some of those children, those are the ones that are the most cautious, and so we do need to just pay attention to them.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Yeah. I can just tell from talking to you that you're a leader and I love talking to leaders and you talk about leading like Jesus. What does that look like in 2024? Because it's different today than it was maybe 10 years ago.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah, and maybe different than it was 2000 years ago. And then, yeah. But yeah, even though it is, of course, some different, the bottom line principles are never changing. They're never changing. If we look at Jesus's leadership style, he led from a position of confidence and security in who he was. I look at his life and I am always astounded. Like, how could he, how could he go through all those experiences and not show
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right.
Marnie Swedberg (:any fear. Like he was never afraid. He was completely secure in the love of God and that God was going to protect him right up until the moment where he needed him to suffer for us to do what he came to do. And his security is really inspirational to me because a leader who is insecure in who they are in Christ,
will always pass that insecurity on to their team, whoever they're with. Their team will suffer for any insecurity. I had a mentor friend say it to me like this, the enemy is an expert at finding the chink in your armor, shooting the burning arrow there so that he can hurt the people you're leading. And that was profound to me. I'd always known that he was hurting me. But when I
that chinks in my armor allowed him to hurt the people I was leading.
Wow, my motivation to be authentic in Christ, fully standing in the power and authority that I have in him, being all he created to me and nothing more. That really changed how I stood up against the enemy and how I protect myself from believing lies, from being sucked into schemes and plans and things that are not of God. So I'd say the first thing is to just look at how Jesus lived so comfortably.
that his father loved him and that nothing could by any means harm him. And even when he was crucified, his spirit was not harmed.
Marnie Swedberg (:His spirit was just fine. It was his body and his soul, his emotions, his feelings that got hurt, but not his spirit. So the confidence there, I look at his life and I see so much compassion. Whenever, you know, so many times when he came to a group of people, he would feel compassion toward them. And this is one that I'm still learning, Ashley. Keith, I'm trying to get better at this compassionate thing. I need more of Jesus's compassion because as leaders, we get busy doing what we're doing.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Thank you.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Yeah.
Marnie Swedberg (:and we can walk right by people's hearts.
And so the compassion of Christ is one that I'm still really working on. And then the servanthood, just the willingness to serve. He was willing to do everything they did, sleep with his head on a rock. He was willing to do everything that he called them to do, everything that he called us to do. And you leaders that are listening, everything that he called you to do. Jesus has already done it in one form or another. He's already lived it out so we can just look at him and lead like him. And it is different from day to day how we
at time, Keith, I remember in: of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right.
Marnie Swedberg (:You will never know everything. You will never know how to do everything, but you will always be farther ahead on the path than someone else and you will always know what I need you to do to accomplish what I call you to do each day. And for me, that was enough.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Wow, that's really interesting. You know, if you were talking to women today who are leaders, or they may not realize they're leaders, but have something offering and really should be doing what you're talking about, you know, getting out, sharing your stories, being speakers, how would you get them to prepare themselves to take on that role of being leaders and being speakers that people want to, you know, engage with and have them come talk to their groups?
Marnie Swedberg (:Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah, there's like two different questions there. So I am going to divide that into two. So one is that I think that we are all leading someone. There is someone who's watching you, whether it's a grandchild or a niece or nephew or, or a little kid up the block or across the street. There's always somebody watching you. It could be somebody at work. You have no idea how much influence you already have in this very moment. And you don't have to do one thing except acknowledge to God that I'm not.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Yeah, good.
Marnie Swedberg (:living for myself, I'm living for you and I'm living for others. And as you go forward, you will just automatically step into greater roles of leadership because that's all that leadership is, is just recognizing I'm here for more than myself. And if all you do every day is survive the day, this is my goal is to get through this day. That's a very selfish way to live and there's a lot of work to be done. God asks us to keep praying, praying that more people will come out and help with the harvesting. And that's really why we're here. So I just said,
I just encourage you to change your mind about that. Don't just keep sitting around feeding your face or, you know, buying stuff for yourself or whatever. You know, get busy. There's lots of work to do. And as you step into that, you're going to find that you will experience so much joy in doing what God created you to do. I think the most depressing life is the life where all you do is feed yourself. And I don't just mean food. I just mean feed yourself, just whatever, you know, whatever thing you crave, whatever your body lusts, whatever you want, just feed yourself, feed yourself. It is, it is such a disappointing way.
to live. It's just so devastating and it will bring you no lasting joy at all. But when you lay it down and you pick up what God created you to do, there's so much joy in that you can hardly wait to get out of bed in the morning. I mean it's really, it changes everything. It flips it completely upside down. So that's the first thing I would say is you are a leader in this moment because someone's watching you and following you. So get your act together with Jesus and start acting like it. And then the second one is if you're called to be a speaker and not everyone is, but if you are called to be a speaker, you are a leader.
all to be a speaker, then yeah, get some training. We just, we have lots of training over at womenspeakers .com and marni .com has just a ton of training, free training available to you, entire courses. And we're just, we do, we do summits. I do nine summits a year. So the next one up is a speaker training summit. It's absolutely free for those who attend live. And so just check it, check out all the training and just start, just start, ask if you can share your testimony in your Bible study group or whatever, just start somewhere. Take, take a positive action.
It's easier for God to move a, you know, to forward a moving ship than to get somebody off the couch. So just take some action.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:That's great, Marty. So you said, before we got on, that you wanted to ask me a question. So I'll give you the microphone now, and this never happens on my podcast, but you get to be the host and I'll be the guest for the question you wanted to ask me.
Marnie Swedberg (:I do.
Marnie Swedberg (:Mmm.
e of the things starting back:work better than they have at actually taking time to step back and to say, wow, I didn't realize that words I was speaking were hurting your heart. I didn't realize that I was being offensive to you in this way and I never intended it. And yet you are experiencing what you're experiencing from my behaviors, my actions, my words. So I wanted to ask you, Keith Haney, if you could say something to a white person today who really has a heart for reconciliation.
What would you say would be an important thing for us to keep in mind or what advice would you give us going forward?
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:So that's a difficult question because I think the thing I've run across in my interactions and as I talk about race and kind of teach racial reconciliation is the most important thing that anyone can do on both sides of the table is to listen, be willing to hear the stories. I think what's been missing in our dialogue lately is when you get an African American person,
willing to share the story. Sometimes the story is difficult to hear because depending on where they came from in their story, it can be full of lots of pain. And just like when you're talking to your spouse and you know you've hurt your spouse and you ask your spouse, I want to know what I did. And they start to tell you and you begin to feel something because you take it upon yourself the pain that they're feeling.
Sometimes it becomes too much and you kind of want them to stop and you kind of distance yourself from that conversation. I think that happens sometimes with the white culture because there's two reasons because you've been told you should feel guilty. And let's face it, no one wants to be overwhelmed with guilt. And so you just like, I don't want to have this conversation.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:But the other person needs to share that story. So you have to be willing to listen to that story. You also have to be willing to ask more clarifying questions. I don't think we ask the clarifying questions. I remember talking to an African -American, we were talking about this race thing on my podcast once. And he said, I was sharing my story with somebody and they said, hey, that wasn't me. We never owned slaves. And it's like,
I didn't say it, you did, but I need you to understand the depth of the sin that our country went through, and it's never really been addressed. It's like every time the subject comes up, people push back and don't want to hear the aftermath of what that event in history has caused in terms of generational pain that's still being done in some communities in this country. And so to hear the ...
Marnie Swedberg (:Right? Yeah.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:depth of the story is a lot and it's painful, but if you want to have the deeper conversation, you have to hear the story sometimes as painful as the story will be.
Marnie Swedberg (:I really love that. I love that advice because I think that we don't think about that before we ask and having that kind of a mindset going into it helps a lot. And I guess I have a follow -up question. Do we have time? Did you read the book White Fragility? Okay.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Sure.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I did start to read that book.
Marnie Swedberg (:Thank you. I think you answered my question. I really felt like after reading it, and I read it twice, I really felt like after reading that, that it was hopeless. That's how I felt. And I was sad that it had gained so much.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Yes.
Marnie Swedberg (:traction in our culture because it makes white people absolutely hopeless to be able to ever get past the pain that's been inflicted on you, on others that we didn't do or we didn't do intentionally. And so thank you. Thank you for just hope. Thank you for hope.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:When I wrote my Bible study on this, my second chapter was, I think what gets at the heart of the racial issue in America, or just in general, is, and the chapter was entitled, Who's the Real Enemy? Because the racial divide in our country is not between black and white. It really is a spiritual warfare. And if we don't look at it as a spiritual warfare and we stop and we keep using...
man -made tools to deal with the problem, we will never ever solve it. I remember when I wrote my Bible study, I remember I did a field test, I did it, but did it all white congregations and we took it around and I started, you know, letting do for Bible class. And one guy came to me and he said to me, he's like, this problem is too big and it will never be solved. And my response was, well, I know how big your God is. Right.
Marnie Swedberg (:I love it.
Marnie Swedberg (:Wow.
Marnie Swedberg (:Mmm.
Marnie Swedberg (:You just kind of defined him for me!
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I said, but if our God could solve the sin problem, he can solve the race problem. And I think we just haven't looked at race as a spiritual issue and we don't use spiritual weapons to deal with it. So if we want to deal with race, we have to use spiritual weapons against it. Not DEI, not more conversation, not reparation. None of that's going to solve the problem, but we have to realize that it's Satan who tells us,
Marnie Swedberg (:Amen to that.
Marnie Swedberg (:Tools.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:have truths. And if you look at the racial divide in America, a lot of the things that you see are just like the Garden of Adam and Eve. You see that there are some things that may be true in a conversation, but they're not universally true. But it's just enough truth that you go, well, maybe it is true. So when white people get the impression that all of them are responsible for slavery, that's not true.
There were some, but that's not a universal truth because there were black people that owned slaves. It was the tribes in Africa that sold blacks into slavery. So it's like, there's a bigger story here that we never ever talk about. And it's not all one group that did something to another group. So, you know, we glossed over the truth and we've stopped learning the truth. And so we just go into narrative. So it's gotta be.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah. Right.
Right? Yeah.
Right. Right.
Right?
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:a deeper conversation about, okay, now how do we move on and how do we work together as believers to solve these underlining problems of culture and race in America?
Marnie Swedberg (:that.
Marnie Swedberg (:Bye.
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah, I love that so much. And I just think one of the things that has helped me and I encourage you who are white, who are listening, is to just look for the person's true identity and don't get focused at all on color, on story, on any of these things. Who is actually talking to you, the eternal who that God sees and however hurt they are in their words that they speak to you, hear past that hurt to their heart.
and see them for who they really are, who God sees them to be. And I think God always sees us through the lens of Jesus' forgiveness. He never focuses on our sins at all, on our failures at all, and anything we misunderstand, any lies we're believing. And so I love to either, when I'm talking to anybody, whether white or black or young or old or man or woman, whatever, I always like to just look for their true identity. God, show me who I'm really talking to here and give me your love and compassion for this person. And that helps a lot.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right.
Marnie Swedberg (:but thank you so much. I feel like it's a conversation that is hard to have, but it's so important. We got to talk about this more.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:We do. And it's funny that you mentioned identity. That's where my devotion starts, is what is our true identity? How does God see us? God does not judge us by the outward appearance. That's looking at each other through the eyes of sin. I have to see you as a child of God, not as a white person or a white Christian, but I just see you as a child of God.
Marnie Swedberg (:I thought it was really funny. Yeah, and I thought it was really funny. We went to a native church for a while when we were up in northern Minnesota. We lived on the Canadian border and there were a lot of Native Americans up there. And I remember one of the Native Americans was practicing his speaking. So he was in college to learn about, you know, how to be a preacher. And he said, he said one of the hardest things was for him to lower himself to speak to white people.
And it was just such an interesting thought. It was like, huh, that's so funny that like from his culture, they were so superior that he would lower himself to speak to a white person, you know? And that was, you know, sometimes that's how it feels, whether it's somebody with a lot of money or a lot of power or a different color or whatever. And I think that the reality is that we're all just people. We're all just people. We're all God's children. And that's how we should be speaking to each other.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Yeah, no, that's right.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:So now we can flip the table around again. And I'm curious, what do you want your legacy to be?
Marnie Swedberg (:Thank you.
Marnie Swedberg (:Well, just to be truly honest and realistic, I really could care less if anybody remembered about me at all. And really for most of the people that have lived over the centuries, we only know a few names. I mean, how many names do we really know? Maybe if we put them all together, a thousand or something, that'd probably be a lot of all the millions of people that lived.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right.
Marnie Swedberg (:So it has nothing to do with me, but honestly, Keith, when I walk into someone's life, whether it's for a couple minutes or for a weekend retreat or whatever it's for, or for like family forever, when I walk into somebody's life, I want them to experience God differently than they have before maybe, as truly who he is, really a loving, compassionate father. And I remember one of my Buddhist friends saying to me, your God has an anger management problem.
And at the time I kind of took that really, I really took that to heart and I thought he kind of does, you know. But as I have really read through the Old Testament multiple times since then, looking for his heart, I see that he does not have an anger management problem. If anything, he has a patience problem. He is way too patient. I always say I would have pulled the plug right after Cain killed Abel. That would have been the end of the whole process for me. I'd be like, you can reject me all you want, but you can't kill each other. I won't allow that.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right.
Marnie Swedberg (:And so yet God, even after Cain kills Abel, what does he do? He comes and he talks to Cain and he protects Cain. His heart is for us, not against us. He is this amazingly loving God. And if I have a legacy, it's that if you were around me, you felt closer to God. That's what I would want.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:That's awesome. As you wrap up this conversation, Marnie, what key takeaways would you like our audience to remember from our discussion today?
Marnie Swedberg (:I think so many people feel like they are supposed to come up with the good stuff that we're sharing. So they try harder to be like Jesus, but our lives are really more like a drinking glass. If you have a cup, that's like your body is the container, the cup, right? And then when people come through our lives, they suck on our lives like a straw. We say things like, they sucked me dry, or I'm all out of gas, or I've got nothing left to give, right? Because we think we're supposed to come up with what's in the cup.
But the reality of how we're created, the way that God designed us is that He would fill us.
and that when someone came and sucks on us, people come and suck on our life, what they're going to get is Jesus. That's how it's supposed to be. And if I quit being submerged in Christ, what happens is that they get me the best I can give them. And sometimes that's just plain toxic. But if I say submerged in Jesus, then whenever someone comes into my life, they get Jesus. And that's what I would like to leave you with is that you have the opportunity to live at the highest power level possible where everything you do is not only having a
a benefit here on earth, but it's having a benefit for eternity. It's just simply not possible for someone to be so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good. That is impossible. The more heavenly minded you are, the more you are bringing heaven to earth through your life by letting Jesus fill you completely and then flowing that out to the world around you, the more useful you are now and the more benefit will be in eternity. And mostly that's just going to be the people you bring with you.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:That's awesome. Where can people find your website and connect with you and learn more about you?
Marnie Swedberg (:Yeah, just Marnie .com, -A -R -N -I -E .com. And again, if you're a Christian woman speaker or looking for one, womenspeakers .com.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Well, thank you so much for the time and being on and providing such great content. Blessings on what you do and may you continue to pour into people's life with the ministry you do and the speakers that you connect people with because we have so much to share as we share Christ with the world and letting that light. One of my one guest said, you know, maybe walk into them and sparkle Jesus, which is my new favorite word for the. So I love that. So may your speaker sparkle Jesus in every context and you do the same in the context you.
Marnie Swedberg (:Thank you.
Marnie Swedberg (:Sparkle Jesus, I love that.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:you work and move in.
Marnie Swedberg (:Thank you, Keith.
