Brian Steele - Really Real Kingdom

 Brian Steele is a former cult member who underwent deprogramming by a world renowned expert. Even after his escape from the cult he battled to find acceptance and belonging.

 

These days he’s a pastor and has recently become an author, publishing his first book in a series focussed on one of the parables told by Jesus.

 

He has a passion for people to discover a really real kingdom as described throughout the Christian scriptures.

 

 

Website: https://www.kingdomfieldguides.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kingdomfieldguides

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/briancsteele/

Kingdom Field Guide: https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Field-Guide-Finding-Really/dp/1952602173

Email: kingdomfieldguide@gmail.com

 

 

 

(This transcript is intended as a guide only. It may not be 100% correct.)

 

Emily Olsen 

Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick out the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host Rodney Olsen.

 

Rodney Olsen

Today’s guest on Bleeding Daylight is a former cult member who underwent deprogramming by a world renowned expert. Even after his escape from the cult he battled to find acceptance and belonging. These days he’s a pastor and has recently become an author, publishing his first book in a series focussed on one of the parables told by Jesus. He has a passion for people to discover a really real kingdom as described throughout the Christian scriptures. I’ll introduce you in a few moments.

 

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Brian Steele has been a corporate executive and a geologist. Life has taken him on many twists and turns. And these days, he's a pastor, and author. We'll explore some of the detours that Brian has taken along the way, as well as looking at his book, The Kingdom Field Guide. Brian, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.

 

Brian Steele 

Thank you, Rodney, really glad to join you.

 

Rodney Olsen 

Your book looks at a story that Jesus told about searching for treasure and before we uncover more about the book, maybe we should look at your own search. Can you help me understand a little bit of your search for faith?

 

Brian Steele 

Sure, Rodney, I grew up in a Christian home but in the eighth grade, I sort of washed my hands of it all and decided to to wander and I really wandered far I found myself in some dark places in terms of drug use, and, and even involved in curious and some dark spirituality and in sort of even occultic practices. By the time I got to college, I found myself way underwater and was way over my head, and was actually scared with some of the things that I was involved with. So I had I prayed a short prayer. That was something like Lord save me. It was one of these desperation, prayers. And so the next day after that, I was going to college at the University of California in Santa Barbara. I was on campus, and there were some people there, and they were sharing a gospel message. And I thought, well, this is God, answering my prayer already. The next day, I went to a Bible study invited me to, and I made a commitment to Jesus and started a life of faith but what I didn't know was that the group that I got myself involved with was a cult and I got sucked in. And Rodney, the next three years of my life were a nightmare, not just for myself, but also for the friends and family that that really cared about me.

 

Rodney Olsen 

I want to look at the details of that cult in a moment but first of all, what was it in your upbringing, you say you were brought up in a Christian home, that made you want to look elsewhere? What was it that you can identify that made you think I need to explore something else?

 

Brian Steele 

Well, that's it's a great question. Because I had really incredible parents, I do have really incredible parents, the church for for whatever reason, I didn't connect with the practice, in, in my home church, I had felt I was also adopted as a as an infant. And I think that adoption carried a sense of, of not belonging, not because my parents didn't love me, or my brother and sister didn't love me but there was just a deep type of not belonging. You know, for example, during some of the church services, instead of mingling in the commons, at coffee hour or outside with the other kids, I would hide in the bathroom. So there was that sort of painful sense that I don't belong. So when I got old enough, in middle school, I think it was an expression of that, where if I don't belong here, where do I belong? And that just led to a journey of exploration. I think it's also something that made me very vulnerable to being recruited by the cult because cults artificially provide belonging to people who at different stages in their lives are vulnerable. So I think that made me a prime target,

 

Rodney Olsen 

I was gonna say that cult would have seen you as ripe for the picking, because you're looking for identity, you're looking for a place and and so often, that's what they are promising to people who enter the cult. What were some of the practices there that started to tip you off to the fact that this isn't quite right.

 

Brian Steele 

It was a Bible based cult. It was Christian. Their doctrine, I would say now is was basically normal Christian doctrine. What made it destructive was their practices of control, manipulation, use of fear, guilt, shame, and also practices of isolation. So they had convinced me that my family was against me, that my other friends were satanic, quote, unquote, and so they isolated me. And then in that isolation, I was much more easily to control. So it wasn't at all about the doctrine. I would say you could take the doctrine that was found there in terms of basic Christian beliefs, and you could import that into any mainline church, but it was about the abuse of authority and the abuse of control over the members lives too. Very, very small degree. Basically, there were arranged marriages, if you wanted to date somebody had to seek counsel from the leadership, and they would tell you where to live, and where to work effectively. And there was a high degree of guilt, shame and fear that was used to control people. So just for example, Rodney, there was a member who ended up leaving the cult, and a week later, he died tragically in a plane crash. And the leadership said, See, look what happens when you leave. It's that level of control and fear. And really, I was turned into a different person, my personality was replaced, I'd become somebody that was the group ideal, and it was forced into a mold. And really, I lost myself.

 

Rodney Olsen 

And I suppose that's the fear of some looking into the church from the outside that they see people taking this book that we call the scriptures, the Bible, and they can spin it in so many different ways. But what you're saying is it wasn't the Bible that was at fault, it was people trying to take stuff from the Bible and spin it in a way that it was never meant to be.

 

Brian Steele 

Yeah, that's exactly right, that the scripture can be used as a two by four, to beat people into submission, we had so many different meetings in a week that the workload was, was incredible, there would be something practically every day. And if you missed something, for whatever reason, you know, one of the leading brothers would say, Brian, you know, the Bible says that we shouldn't forsake the gathering of ourselves together. And don't you think, brother that you need to be coming to all of our meetings, right likes that type of that type of control. And, and if you're isolated from the rest of your family, and friends and your, your whole world, depends on that social structure, then they can turn the love up and down, based on how you're performing and it's used to control people.

 

Rodney Olsen 

How did you eventually exit that group?

 

Brian Steele 

Well, my parents knew that something was wrong. They saw a massive change in my life, they saw the personality change. And they had tried to get me out Rodney, they had talked with me a number of times, but but I didn't have any inclination of ever leaving. So the coal was going to send me from California to a university in Bellingham, Washington called Western Washington University. And I got into went into that school as a geology graduate student, that was going to be my guys. That was going to be my cover. And then I was going to recruit college students for the cult there. So on my way from Santa Barbara, to Washington State, my parents said, Would you please just come by our house just to say hi, and I reluctantly went, and then they said, We need you to go to your uncle's house to help us move a TV. So I go to the uncle's house. Well, they had hired a world renowned expert, he was a deprogrammer, somebody who got people out of cults across the world and they kept me there for a week. It was at that time an involuntary intervention. So they took my car keys and my shoes and my wallet, and they moved furniture in front of the doors, they nailed windows shut, they removed the sharps from the kitchen, they had two big bodyguards, and I was basically kept there to prevent me from leaving so that I could listen to this man as he walked through, hour by hour, day by day. So I could finally start thinking again. And that's what got me out of the cult was this intervention that my parents performed? And I am I have so much gratitude for them. Rod knew that they would do this, that they would show me that kind of love, that they would do that level of intervention in order to get me out. And I'm so grateful for that.

 

Rodney Olsen 

At what point during that time that forced intervention, did the light start going on for you? Do you start to realize, actually, what they're saying is the truth.

 

Brian Steele 

It was probably day three or four, that the irony is that there's no system of control. And that could be a cult control. It could be a domestic violence situation works on national levels, the whole system of control is the same in any setting of that kind of social manipulation, but it's never 100% perfect. So there's always doubts and I had my doubts while I was in the group, but I just kept pushing them down or I didn't have the courage to face them or I had the fear that if I acted on those doubts that I would be basically kicked to the curb or done away with and so It took about three days of listening to the programmer where those doubts were able to surface to my mind enough. And I was able to reengage my critical thinking that I thought, oh boy, I'm in trouble I have myself in something, it's pretty deep, and it's pretty bad.

 

Rodney Olsen 

So you managed to then start to see that this wasn't the place for you to be. Were there recriminations from the group, once they found out that you were leaving.

 

Brian Steele 

I didn't tell them. I just didn't show up to my mission training team where the group was, was going to do more training. Instead, my parents sent me to a rehab center in Ohio for cold victims, which was another tremendous gift. So I didn't face any recriminations from the group because I just disappeared, I didn't tell them where I was, I just literally disappeared off the map from the group. At the Counseling Center, I got to learn about all of the cult dynamics and how the psychological implications I got to unpack the psychological baggage and the emotional damage that was done, I got to straighten out some of the spiritual baggage. And Rodney, I was so fortunate to have that type of recovery, because the vast majority people who leave groups like that, never fully recover. And they never understand what happened to them and why it happened. And they carry that baggage the rest of their lives. It's so sad. So this was 30 years ago. And I still have every once in a while little twinges, I would say, I'm healed. But I have some skin. I have some scars. From that experience. I wouldn't say person who goes through that can ever be fully healed. But a person can find a life that is healthy and thriving, again, a life of faith. But it sure takes a long time running.

 

Rodney Olsen 

And what did that do, immediately after that, what did that do for your faith? Was it something that you said, Okay, well, I'm going to turn from this facade of faith into a true faith or, or did it cause you to walk away for a while?

 

Brian Steele 

Yeah, I think what happened is the pendulum did swing the other way. I've maintained my faith. But I walked away from the spiritual disciplines and my faith inside the cult, I had to constantly be reading the Bible, always praying, always attending meetings, always on the treadmill, and just the hamster, running as fast as you could and never getting anywhere. So when I left, I think I went too far the other way, Rodney, where I never threw my faith away. But I did wander. And I didn't have the rooting and the grounding of some of the spiritual practices that keep people grounded. So the image that I have the cult felt like Egypt, if we're looking at Israel's story, Egypt was a place of slavery. And those groups like that are effectively a type of slavery. And then from Egypt, I went into a desert, and I wandered, probably for a good 20 years of still being a believer going to church trying to engage. But it was very difficult to engage it in a way that felt like it was really meaningful. And so so there's this period of wandering. And that's, that's really normal. I do feel fortunate that I didn't completely abandon my faith, because that does happen often and understandably.

 

Rodney Olsen 

And there was still further bumps along the road during their time afterwards, weren't they?

 

Brian Steele 

Yeah, that's right. So during that period, what I'll call the this wilderness period, I got married, had a child, but I wasn't a whole person. In my marriage. I didn't have a life that was integrated. So I would say it felt like I was a Christian Sunday morning, probably for about an hour, and then Monday, not so much. Wednesday, Thursday, even less Friday, definitely not. Saturday, I'm repenting, so I could be a Christian again, Sunday morning. It was that sort of cycle, which effectively was a cycle of sin management. And that life of integrity, eventually, in part led to a divorce in 2008. And that was an even darker period of my life, going through divorce,

 

Rodney Olsen 

it must have been a very difficult time when you're not fully in touch with faith. So that would be difficult to hang on to. And at the same time, if this comes back to that early thing that you spoke about of not feeling that you you fit in that must have come back to haunt you again.

 

Brian Steele 

Yes. Yeah. And and actually, I've just recently started to understand this about myself with my story of belonging. Because I this last summer, I had a sabbatical and went to the soul shepherding Institute with Bill and Christie Gaultiere and, and was able to peel back some of the layers of the onion, and really look at some of the wounding in my past in a way that I hadn't before. And one of the themes was this belonging. So I think, you know, in in a cult, it's a hyper spiritualized, hyper social pressurized environment. So when I left, I think I want it to get as far away from that as I could. So I went to more of a material individual way of living, as opposed to a spiritual, social way of living. And that pendulum swing, you know, I was attending a church, but I didn't have really deep, meaningful relationships. I also had a type of pride where it was like, I don't really need other people. In terms of my faith, I had isolated myself from meaningful relationships inside the church. So as a member of the body of Christ was a member of the church, but I was withering, because I didn't allow myself to connect fully and meaningfully with other people, I was effectively cut off.

 

Rodney Olsen 

So you've been through a whole range of different things and, and now you're starting a new journey. When did the idea settle with you that you might even study and become a pastor?

 

Brian Steele 

I have a very unusual route to becoming a pastor. So during the early 2000s, I was actually practicing as a geologist, because I went to school for geology, got my graduate degree in geology, eventually, I joined a firm and was practicing engineering geology, became a partner in the company, eventually transitioned into I was transitioning to becoming president of the company, really doing very well in business and in practicing geology. And at the same time, my son was going into middle school. And so I was at a different church now, and just started volunteering in the middle school youth group, and got really surprised by how much I enjoyed working with the youth group, it was actually shocking. I was like, oh, my goodness, I deeply, deeply enjoy this. And this is satisfying in a way that I've never experienced before, was sort of alarming for me. I'm a volunteer in this ministry. And that just steamrolled, I started gaining more responsibility and having more involvement in it, it really came to a head where the The first time I got to deliver a sermon to these middle school kids, it was so deeply enjoyable. And that same week, I closed a massive business deal in my company. But I had way more satisfaction in this experience in the youth group. And then I thought, Oh, no, I'm in trouble. And so soon after that, the church actually offered me a pastor job to become the youth pastor in this ministry. I mean, that that created a huge dilemma, because I was six months into this transition to become president of the company. So I'd approach my business partners and lay it out and say, you know, this church has offered me to position to become a pastor, and I think I need to explore that. And they were so kind and so generous with me. And they said, Brian, you've been pastoring us all along anyways. So you have to go explore that opportunity. And they gave me this long, long leash, they said, Go check it out. If it's for you, that's great. If it doesn't, you can come back and you can still work for the company. And that was such a gift. And that was incredible. So I have been a pastor now for going on eight years, I was a youth pastor for three years. And now I'm working with adults and how to establish Christ as the foundation in somebody's life. And what's really cool if I could take one little side detour. Part of my responsibility at this congregation is called the belonging team, believe it or not, and my job is to help people feel like they belong in a big congregation and a big church. And I didn't even really connect the dots that this was one of the deepest aches and one of the deepest pains in my life. And God was so good and was so kind that he would use that pain and turn it around, to bring goodness into other people's lives. Like one of the deepest pains of my life, and now, it's part of who I am, and how I'm serving, and how I'm trying to help other people. And it's just, I think God is so creative in the way that he can do that.

 

Rodney Olsen 

We know that God doesn't cause the wounds in our lives, but it's constantly amazing to see the way that he takes those wounds those things that we thought were wasted years and, and turn them around. So I imagine you're able to then use that experience for others who are finding that acceptance and that belonging very difficult to be able to walk them very gently towards that belonging.

 

Brian Steele 

That's right, you know, you've you've heard the expression, death by 1000 cuts, I think the Christian life is his life by 1000, cuts, every single one of those small little wounds, the Lord is able to not just restore, and heal, but is able to turn them around to bring blessing and goodness into other people. And it's precisely those small multitude of little cuts that makes our life, I think, meaningful and exciting, and that that ultimately leads to flourishing.

 

Rodney Olsen 

I'm interested in your book and the premise solid, looking at one parable that Jesus told that's recorded in the Scripture. And you've studied this for many, many years, tell me what drew you to study this particular parable. And maybe you can start off by outlining the parable for those who perhaps haven't heard it before?

 

Brian Steele 

Yeah, it is Matthew 13:44, which Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field that a man finds and covers up, and then in his joy goes and sells everything, and buys that field. And I stumbled on this parable in 2012. I didn't know anything about the kingdom at all. I'd been a Christian for a long time, but the kingdom was something that was totally outside of my experience. I'd read about it in the Scripture, but it had no bearing on my life. And backing up just a little bit, actually was reading the parable of the sower. And that's a familiar one which says, you know, the sower goes out, and so as a seed, and some of the seed falls on the rocky ground and some of the thorns and some of the shallow soil, but some of the seed finds good soil. And I noticed, for the first time after reading that parable, probably hundreds of times that Jesus said, the seed is the word of the kingdom. And it stopped me dead in my tracks. Because like, I have no idea what the kingdom is. And then shortly later, I was praying the Lord's Prayer. And we'd all you know, prayed that thousands of times our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come and again, I got stopped dead in my tracks. I'm praying for his kingdom. And I have no idea what his kingdom is. And then the kicker was the parable of the hidden treasure. I believe I was that guy had been walking across a field hundreds of times. And one day, stubbed his toe, and I looked down. And there is this treasure box. And so Rodney, I've been studying that single parable for over eight years now. And the question for me, that I've just been exploring is, what is the kingdom? And why is it worth everything? What is the kingdom? And why is it worth everything? I had to wrestle through whether Jesus was actually being a scam artist when he was telling that parable because my experience was, I don't even know what the kingdom is. So really, you're wanting me to sell everything to acquire this thing? And it didn't seem like a good deal for me at first, does that resonate with you at all?

 

Rodney Olsen 

Yeah, it's interesting that, you know, Jesus doesn't seem to tell us exactly what the kingdom is. It's so much of Scripture is the kingdom is like this. It's like this. It's like this will just tell us what it is.

 

Brian Steele 

Right? So and I think that's intentional. And Jesus being deeply rooted in Hebrew Scriptures and being a Jew himself. The Hebrew scriptures are intentionally vague, because they are inviting you in to explore. It's very different than western teaching. Western teaching is going to go here's your five steps for doing XYZ And then you can do this and that. But Hebrew literature in the Hebrew tradition is filled with question and filled the gaps and ambiguity and filled with mystery so that you step in and you explore the world. And when I say that I've been studying the parable of the hidden treasure for eight years, I really mean if you, if you open that treasure box, and begin to walk through the hidden chambers that are within inside that treasure, it really is endless. It's like pulling this piece of yarn, and you're pulling in, you're pulling in, you're pulling and you're pulling, and it's connected to a sweater that's infinitely large, and you're gonna just keep pulling. And but what happened was Rodney, it was a second conversion in my Christian faith. Everything seemed like it was brand new when I discovered that God's kingdom is not a metaphor, that it's not a symbol, but that it is a real actual kingdom, here and now and that Jesus is a real actual King.

 

Rodney Olsen 

When did you start to really come to terms with what you believe this parable is saying?

 

Brian Steele 

That the shift for me is when the kingdom became there, it was a transition from the kingdom becoming real. To the kingdom being really real. This is just an example what I mean by really real. Four years ago, my wife, Katie, got a brain tumor. Before that time, I thought that the brain tumors are real, but they had no bearing on my life whatsoever. They were just kind of real. out there, it was external to my life had no impact on my life. But the moment that we found out about my wife's diagnosis, instantly, brain tumors became really real. That tumor affected every single detail of our life, it invaded almost every conversation that I have, that we had it, it affected our finances, it affected our planning, it affected how we spent our time, it affected our community, brain tumors went from being real, to really real, and that it wove through every fiber of our lives. And that's also what happens with God's kingdom. There's a moment when it becomes something external way out there, that when you realize God's kingdom is really real, and has a bearing upon every breath, that you take every word that you speak every dime, that you spend every minute of your day, every resource, every relationship that hit the rule and reign of Jesus as King has complete and total influence in your life. And meaning and significance. That's when it became it became something. And so that's this, the title of the book is the Kingdom Field Guide: Keys to Finding God's Really Real Kingdom, because Rodney, I don't think the parable, the hidden treasure makes sense so long as we think the kingdom is real. It's not enough. We're not going to go and sell everything for something that's real. It has to become really real.

 

Rodney Olsen 

Do you find that there are a lot of people in churches who would subscribe to traditional Christian belief, and yet they haven't caught this idea of a really real kingdom. And so therefore, it's part of their life. This Christian faith is part of their life. It's not all consuming as you're explaining, with this idea of the kingdom,

 

Brian Steele 

I think, yes, I think for the majority of Christians, I would even say the majority of Christian pastors, for a lot of pastors and leaders and influencers, the kingdom isn't yet really real. But they haven't understood that it's an actual kingdom. There's a tremendous irony in this, in that we were designed and made to live in an eternal kingdom. So it's written in our DNA. And so if you look at the consumption of media, people spend billions and billions of dollars on Kingdom narratives. Any successful franchise is a kingdom narrative. So Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, all of the Marvel movies, all of the Disney films, they're all Kingdom narratives. It's practically the only thing we'll pay money to watch is a good Kingdom narrative down Abby, like, I'm kind of ashamed to say that, you know, we've been 50 hours of Downton Abbey. And there's a reason. It's because it's a very good Kingdom story. So the irony is, is we're starving for Kingdom narratives were desperate for it will consume them in massive quantities. So I think it's something like this kingdom is the only thing we know. But the problem is, we don't know that we know it. It's operating back of mind.

 

Rodney Olsen 

So really, it's a case of when we do stumble across it, finally, we see it there, that's when we're prepared to sell everything for it, because we realize the value of it.

 

Brian Steele 

That's right, and and that it's been there the whole time. It's always there. The premise of my book is you can't see what you don't seek. And that the kingdom will remain invisible. It might even seem unreal, until you start seeking it as your highest priority. And that's why Jesus says, Matthew 6:33, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And he's saying, you don't want to seek it, like you've lost your car keys. You want to seek the kingdom, like you've lost a child, that type of priority. And until seeking God's kingdom becomes the priority of our life. It's not gonna matter. That's the the experience in the in the parable. Imagine the guy walking across the field, again, hundreds of times, the hidden treasure, it's not hidden, because it's buried. It's hidden, because he's not looking for it. So it's there. But he stubs his toe, he sees there's a box there he lifts the lid, he starts pouring through the treasure there's there needs to be I think we have to have a period in our lives where we have to dedicate our mind and our thinking by asking what is the kingdom and searching scripture to see what the kingdom is, then eventually, it's going to move from our mind into our heart, we're going to understand the value. So I love in this in this parable, I have this image in my mind where he's, he's finally captured the value of what he's just found. Then he looks up and what does he see? Rodney, he sees a for sale sign, and this field is for sale. And that's why Jesus says in his joy, he goes and sells everything that he has, it's a no brainer. And that's a test to find out if you have found the kingdom or not. Because if you have, it'll be your greatest joy, your highest priority to have the mother of all garage sales. If you're not yet ready to give everything that you have in exchange for the kingdom, you haven't yet found it or you haven't yet discovered that it's really real.

 

Rodney Olsen 

How do we begin that journey? How do we stub our toe so to speak?

 

Brian Steele 

Rodney, that is the question. It's such an important question. Part of the answer is that we have to learn about the kingdom in a way that Jesus taught the kingdom. He taught by using immersive experiences. So yes, he gave some sermons. And yes, he gave some teachings. But you have to look at where and how he taught. So he taught on location. In these places. The first century Jews were already intimately familiar with and his teaching used the physical stuff that they already knew. So he'd say, Oh, the teaching is like a seed. While they're like you mentioned, they're an agricultural society, so they understand farming. Or he would say the kingdom is like this net that's in the water. Well, they would understand that because they're fishermen, or the kingdom is like leaven while they cook with bread. And so they would understand that, the point being that you have to learn about the kingdom in the way that Jesus taught about the kingdom. So my book, I call it the Kingdom Field Guide, because I'm giving people immersive experiences, to learn about the kingdom, I'm directing people to, to physical places that are going to be all around them, and giving them experiences for learning and how to engage their site, how to engage their mind, how to engage all of their senses, to be immersed, so that the kingdom isn't just something that's just limited to their imagination, but they began to connect it to the real world.

 

Rodney Olsen 

You've obviously been on this journey for some time as you've studied this parable. What has been the response of those people that you've helped to take on that journey for those who have entered into this study that you've done and realized it for themselves?

 

Brian Steele 

It's been so fun. I've worked with hundreds of people in my pastor role. And I've seen what's most interesting. I feel like it's been really valuable for people who are in leadership, who have responsibilities in ministry, but they're stuck, and how they communicate to other people about the gospel. So for example, the person who wrote the foreword to the book, his name is Joshua Sheets and he is in high level leadership in a international discipling ministry. And up until the time when we had, we started talking about the kingdom. He didn't know how to communicate to the kingdom, to people that are in his ministry to his leaders. And even further down to the people he was serving. Heat stubbed his toe on the king on the hidden treasure. And this is somebody who has been in ministry for four years. And it became really real to him. And what was so cool was it when he had a sabbatical, he set up different field trips for his family. So they traveled to Israel and to Europe. And he literally like for his kids, he, he hid a box in a field and it gave his children an immersive experience in finding a treasure. And then that helped them understand what God's kingdom was. So I think it's it's all about the immersive experience. It's about the way of learning and the way of really embodying faith. And I've had multiple encounters with people like that who've been Christians for decades, decades, decades, who have not yet made the connection, that God's kingdom isn't just real, but really real,

 

Rodney Olsen 

Is the book available for people to purchase now?

 

Brian Steele 

It is being published going to be on Amazon. And this is book one in a series of seven or eight, all about the parable of the hidden treasure. And you think that one book is enough to explain a parable but 10 books, Rodney is not going to be enough to explain the parable, the hidden treasure, it's all scratching the surface, I think I'd like to speak to people who are in a place where they've they feel stuck. Or maybe they feel like their faith is boring, or dull, or it's routine. And I just want them to know that there is a life of flourishing that's available in this life. That there is like a sense of thrill and excitement. When we discover God's kingdom is really real that that's unlike any other kind of religious duty or any kind of, of just kind of going through the motions. That's really My prayer is that people would stub their toe on the hidden treasure.

 

Rodney Olsen 

Do you find sometimes that people are so caught up in this idea of kingdom, the kingdom to come in eternity, that they are losing the opportunity to live kingdom right now?

 

Brian Steele 

Yeah, I think it's a huge problem. Well, we have to agree that Jesus is an actual King right now, when he said all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. That's a description of his current rule and reign that right now at this moment, his kingdom is here, not yet fully. But his kingdom has been inaugurated. And in fact, we are the body of Christ, the king, we are the the embodiment of the king on Earth. That means something if we've been delegated that role, and authority to act on behalf of the name of the king, then there's a real tragedy when that doesn't occur. And I even think of, of recently, Prince Harry, and and Princess Meghan, they have recently decided that they don't want to have official duties in the royal family. And so they've moved to Los Angeles and they have, in a sense abdicated their royalty. In many ways. That is a picture of how many Christians are living their lives, that in reality, they are royalty. They have been given responsibilities in the kingdom of God to act on behalf of the king. But they've decided to abdicate their royalty. They've decided to to live outside of the responsibilities The stewardship that's been entrusted to them, which means they're also going to lose a huge amount of the blessing that comes from, from working and living and having that type of relationship. On behalf of the king, there is a loss.

 

Rodney Olsen 

It's fascinating to start to delve into this whole area, or coming out of this, this parable, and the parables around it, where, where Jesus talks about pearls and all sorts of things. But if someone is wanting to get hold of the book, or to get in touch with you, I will put some links in the show notes at bleeding daylight dotnet. But where's the easiest place to track you down?

 

Brian Steele 

Yeah, go to kingdomfieldguides.com. That's field guides with an S. And you can sign up to get the book. There'll be information there. You can also find me on Facebook, I have a Facebook page called Kingdom field guides. Or if you'd like to email me I'd love to, to have connection with people and my email is kingdomfieldguide@gmail.com.

 

Rodney Olsen 

Brian, it really has been an honor to chat to you to talk about some of the things that you've discovered as you've lived life and to come to this point where this book is ready to get out there and to invite others into this kingdom. Thank you so much for your time today.

 

Brian Steele 

Rodney, thank you so much. It's been a great honor being on Bleeding Daylight.

 

Emily Olsen 

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