17: Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself

What's the Story

10 Jan

Today’s Guest: Caesar Kalinowski

Caesar Kalinowski is a father, recent grandpa, and has been married to his high school sweetheart, Tina, for over 35 years. He is a serial entrepreneur, church planter, and the author of several books, including the top-selling, The Gospel Primer. He has worked in 30+ countries training thousands of people in discipleship and mission as a lifestyle.

"I love to help those with a high commitment to intentional living in the areas of their family, discipleship, and mission acquire the leadership skills and tools necessary to succeed and leave a lasting legacy." - Caesar

Here’s a summary of this week’s story:

Marriage: Caesar shares how his marriage of 35 years came to be. He and his wife Tina both came from broken families but met in High School and eventually got married, not knowing anything about it. Today they have three grown kids (also their best friends) and four grandchildren.
Becoming a Christian: Caesar and Tina were raised in different religions but both had a similar understanding of Christianity before they met. After Tina was invited to a church retreat by her coworker, she realized that what she knew about Christianity was not the whole story. Both of them gave their lives to Jesus that night and have been growing in their faith ever since.
Life of Discipleship: Caesar became interested in discipleship while doing international travel for ministry work. He noticed that the people he encountered who had nothing were full of joy, and he wanted to have what they had. He then moved out to Tacoma with his family and started living this way. The communities multiplied as people started to understand and walk with Jesus.
To start living this discipleship lifestyle, he recommends starting with family dinner nights, where everyone helps cook the meal. From there, he suggests moving on to open table nights, where anyone can come and they're treated like family instead of guests. As people get more comfortable, organic connections will begin to happen naturally.
Challenges: Caesar shares how people are messy and how it can be difficult to maintain relationships, especially when helping people who are addicted or homeless. The kids sometimes get overwhelmed with all of the people, so they have family nights where only Team K is allowed.
Identity in Christ: Learning about Identity has been a big thing for Caesar. We are all created in God's image. This means that our value and worth come from who we are, not from what we do. And if we see others as image bearers of God, it changes the way we treat them and engage with them.

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Matt Edmundson: Welcome to what's the story? My name is Matt Edmundson, and this is a podcast full of stories about faith and courage from everyday people. And today I am chatting with the fantastic Caesar Kalinowski, uh, about identity, about his life, about guitars, about playing music. All kinds of cool stuff. But before we get into it, uh, one of the things I like to do is just give a shout out to pass guests and episodes.
And given that we are gonna be talking about all those kind of cool things with Caesar, I thought it would be great to mention a couple of things worth checking out. Number one, we did a live stream called, what does the Bible say about me? Phenomenal episode to check out, uh, and also check out, uh, Abi Sharples, uh, when she asked Why would I give up the right to do whatever I want to do with my life and follow Jesus?
Phenomenal conversations from Abi there. You can find these in our entire archive of episodes and live streams on our site for free, www.crowd.church. And whilst you're there, make sure you sign up for the newsletter and each week we will email you the links and the notes from the conversations with the guests, along with any other cool things we think are gonna be worth having.
Uh, we send that sort of stuff direct to your inbox, totally free. Uh, so make sure you sign up to that. Now, this episode is brought to you by Crowd online Church. Caesar, you know as well as I do, right? Not everybody can get to church. Not everybody wants to go to church. Not everybody sees the point of church.
And this is where online church works super well. It is a safe space to explore the Christian faith. And the thing I love about Crowd is that you get to join in and shape the conversation. Oh, That's, that's the cool thing that you can do on live streams. Uh, so if you've never been to church before or if you're looking for something a little bit new, do check out Crowd Church.
The website is www.crowd.church. Or if you prefer, just email me directly at matt@crowd.church with any questions that you have. Oh yes. Now Caesar Kalinowski, apart from having one of the coolest names on the planet, is a father, a recent grandfather, and he's married to his high school sweetheart, Tina, uh, and they've been married for over 35 years.
He is a serial entrepreneur, a church planter, and the author of several books, including the top selling the Gospel Primer. He's worked in over 30 countries, training thousands of people in discipleship and mission as a lifestyle. Uh, and to quote Caesar, he loves to help those, uh, with a high commitment to intentional living.
it's a great phrase, isn't it? Uh, in the areas of their family, discipleship and mission, uh, acquire the leadership skills and tools necessary to succeed and leave a lasting legacy. That's a, that's a very noble cause. Caesar, welcome to the podcast. Great to have you, man. Thanks for joining me.
Caesar Kalinowski: Hey, thank you Matt.
It's good to reconnect here and see you. And wow, thanks for that intro. Wow. I'd like to live up to any of that.
Matt Edmundson: It's all like whenever you do these podcasts, cuz I like you, or like me, I dare say you do a fair few podcasts, uh, as a guest and you, you do the tour and the, and people read out these intros and you do kind of think, goodness me, is that really me?
I don't know.
Caesar Kalinowski: 30 countries has it truly. Yeah. Actually it's, yeah, like I need to update that. It's a few more now, but anyway.
Matt Edmundson: Oh, wow. Wow. Crazy. Yeah, crazy. So whereabouts in the world are you, Caesar, because obviously your accent's different.
Caesar Kalinowski: Yeah, a little bit different. Yeah. I'm, I'm in the Seattle metro area in the United States.
Uh, Seattle is up in the north uh, west. So top left corner, a couple hours south of Canada up there. And uh, yeah, it's beautiful here. We love it. I'm originally from Chicago, but about 20 years ago we moved out here to sort of intentionally live like missionaries in neighborhoods and see what happened.
Like if we moved to another country called Tacoma, Washington. So, And it was really crazy. And you know, you do all the stuff you do if you went to another country, you start to like eat what they eat and learn the language and dress what, you know, dress like they do. Mm-hmm. we all have a whole lot more tattoos than we ever did before.
Matt Edmundson: Is that, is that, what, is that what happens when you move to Tacoma, Washington?
You, you, you end up with Tattoos?
Caesar Kalinowski: I guess so . Yeah. It has been for us and my kids. Well. My son, he's running our real estate, you know what I'm saying?
Matt Edmundson: Oh really? Okay. Fair enough. And do you have a tattoo? Did you
Caesar Kalinowski: Uh, I have several, yeah. Oh, okay. What's the most recent one? Uh, let's see. Most recent one, um, probably on my ribs.
It was a, it was a anniversary gift to my wife a couple years back. Fantastic. You see my, it's a phrase that she has used for our entire relationship, even pre being married. And, uh, it means a lot to her and me. And so I had it, I had it forever inked, you know, right where the most romantic spot could be.
Right under your armpit on your ribs, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where at? Where she loves it and was very, very, uh, chuffed with it. Hey.
Matt Edmundson: Oh, fantastic. Oh, can I ask what the phrase was?
Caesar Kalinowski: It's, um, always and forever.
Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. Fantastic.
Caesar Kalinowski: She would always sign off letters to me? Since college, I love you always and forever, so.
Matt Edmundson: Oh. That means a lot now. That's awesome, man.
Caesar Kalinowski: I don't think, think it's just unique to us, but it's, you know, it's, it's our thing, yeah.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. It means a lot. So you guys were childhood sweethearts. We read there in the bio. How did you guys meet?
Caesar Kalinowski: Yeah, in high school. Met in high school. Crazy. I, I was, I just don't even remember a Caesar without Tina anymore cuz I was just a punk. I was just a kid. And I, I knew, I knew even less about how life and family works back then. they were, we were both kinda raised by wolves and, uh, the only thing we knew for sure about being married when we got married is we don't know anything about this. Our, both of our families were broken and, and pretty dysfunctional.
And, uh, we were like, golly, please God lead us to something that's gonna, you know, there'll be some relational peace and
Matt Edmundson: well, it must have worked because you've been married, what, 35 years now?
Caesar Kalinowski: Over. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's, it's crazy. We're gonna, we're gonna be coming up on that next big milestone anniversary here, uh, in August.
So yeah, it's crazy. And we have, we have three grown kids. We have three grown kids that are like our best friends and four grandkids now. Hard to believe it, but nuts. Yeah. And we're very close. Our kids are best friends. Yeah. And they're kinda like our best friends. We see 'em all the time. Team K. We call the family team k. Yeah. Team K.. Yep. You know,
Matt Edmundson: we, we, I heard you talking about this team K thing, uh, a few years ago at church and we were just like, uh, I, I, I went home and I said, Sharon, I said, team E, which is what we would be? I said, it just doesn't sound as cool. I'm not quite sure what we, and so we called ourselves Team 53, cuz that's the house number.
So, um, see, I love it. We designed a, we designed a logo, a team 53 logo. We have a WhatsApp groups, we have people come live with us all the time. You know, lodgers come through the house, we're all still connected on the team 53 WhatsApp. It's cool, man. So thank you for that. It is cool, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have that and that's all because we heard of the team K thing.
Caesar Kalinowski: Only people consider themselves part of the team. Mm. You know, as we treat 'em like family and they're like, well, we're in, we're the team. We're team K now. Right? We're we're in. Like, you're as in as you get, you're in. Mm-hmm. You want a key of the house it's yours.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now we heard all those stories from you when you came to Frontline and we was like, this just sounds amazing.
And we were kind of doing the lodger thing anyway, cuz. Um, Nic, who's been on the What's The Story podcast, he's been on Crowd a long time, uh, a few times. The one of the founding pastors of Frontline, I know you and Nic are, are good friends. He modeled that whole, um, having people live with you thing. In fact, I lived with Nic when I was a student and, um, and so we've just carried that through and it is amazing a, that the people that come through and the people you connect with who then become your family, uh, you know, part of the team, and have you always done that?
You and
Caesar Kalinowski: Tina?
You know what? Surprisingly, yes. Even before we really had a reason to, or mm-hmm. had all the language around why this is part of our discipleship lifestyle now. Uh, even early in our marriage, it's, we always had roommates and it seemed like the odd person was always needing the place. And if we ran outta rooms, they'd say, well, I'll just crash on the couch.
And, uh, people coming through town, uh, you know, people would say, Hey, I know you guys seem to be happy hosting folks. Can so-and-so stay with you while they're in town? We're like, well, if they, they don't mind having my kids bunk beds. They're, they're, it's theirs. And the kids would sleep on, on the floor or whatever in our room.
Mm-hmm.. And one time, I gotta tell you a funny story. I, I'm really, I'm gonna be honest with everybody here. One time we had. The guitar player from Prince's band named Des Dickerson. Mm-hmm.. You guys have all seen him. You go little Red Corvette video, the guy with the little Japanese flag head thing and Oh, okay.
And it was a little bit after Prince, not much, but he was on the road doing something with his wife and someone said, Hey, could he stay with you? And I said, well, he can, if he doesn't mind staying in bunk beds, that's all we have. I said, no, they're really cool. They're fine. Well, after they left, they were there with us for a few days after they left.
We were kind of changing the bedding and all that, and we realized that my son's bunk bed, the lower bunk. He had created a stellar epic booger wall, and oh, we didn't know, we didn't know this. I, we, we would've used a little spray and cleaned it and, and it was nuts. And I was, I was mor, we were mortified. And, uh, you know, there, you don't wanna be a respecter of individuals, but I wouldn't want anybody to have to endure the booger wall.
I mean, you know. So after that, we were much more, we were much more cognizant of what's going on with the environment and cuz we had changed the sheets and everything, but we just, oh, missed the booger wall.
Matt Edmundson: Missed the wall, missed the boo. The, the, the booger wall. Booger, I think is a, is an interesting word, but Yeah.
Yeah. Uh, bogie, uh, we would say in England. The bogie. Bogie, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The bogie wall. Um, Uh, but that's fascinating. That's fascinating.
Caesar Kalinowski: Sorry, I'm, I'm kinda an external processor brother. It's up here. It's probably coming.
Matt Edmundson: It's just coming out. Yeah. The trouble is right, because I, I've, I've got three sort of grown, not as grown as yours, but, uh, two of my kids are at university or college now.
And, um, so my kids are a bit older, so, I'm listening to you going, we had one of those, uh, we definitely had one of those, you know, so Oh, I bet, I bet. Yeah. Yeah. We definitely,
Caesar Kalinowski: I think it's more of a boy thing than a girl thing. Yeah. But I, I might've just been our experience. The girls and boys might be equal opportunity, bogey, wall creators.
I'm not sure.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. So when you and Tina got together, uh, in high school, were you both Christians at this point or was this all part of the story?
Caesar Kalinowski: it's, it's kind of part of the story. Uh, I was raised going to church, which now we think is kind of a taboo phrase to say that cuz you either are the church or you're not.
It's not a building or a program. But anyway, we, I was raised going to church from birth. Yeah. And, uh, pretty legalistic and pretty weird. Zero discipleship, zero. It was all about Sunday morning. And then kind of get back, you, you know, you say the, Prayer, the magic Jesus in your heart prayer. Yeah. And then what Christianity was is you, you, you wait for heaven or for Jesus to get back.
And in between what the Christian life was in my upbringing Yeah. Was try to sin less and then Yeah. Yeah. Make sure you make it to church. And then if you wanna be a rockstar Christian, well you tithe, you know, you give some money. Um, my wife was raised Baha'i. No, really, not everybody knows what that is, but it's, yeah.
Yeah. It's an offshoot of Islam. Mm-hmm.. But it's the kinder, gentler, respect women, and they have, I think it's seven prophets that they think are all good to go. Mm-hmm. Jesus being one of them. . Yep. And, uh, so that's how she was raised. And, uh, it's a very gentle her whole family is, is still, uh, part of the Baha'i community.
Wow. And they're all very, very nice, gentle people. Mm-hmm. . And it's kind of like everything's cool. . Mm-hmm.. Yeah. But after we, um, right around the time. We were getting married just before we were getting married. Tina and I had dated through high school and then broke up and she went to university and had come back to Illinois where we were living in Chicago area.
Mm-hmm. . And, um, my mom, who is the sweetest thing in the world, um, she loved Tina really from the get-go. Even when I was broke up with Tina and I was dating other girls, she would accidentally bring up Tina, you know, like. But she had invited Tina along with. Sisters to go to a women's, uh, brunch or something at that Yeah.
Church for my childhood, which is not that great. But, um, and there Tina actually had kind of an understanding shift and it really made sort of a commitment of sorts and then they all came and surrounded her and laid hands on her and tried to get her to, you know, like be slain and all these crazy things.
So she ran out literally. Wow. She's like, well thanks for that. And I'm outta here. Yeah. But it kind of had stuck to her heart a little bit. But she was afraid to tell me because, uh, she thought I was gonna go, you're crazy. I shouldn't let you go. I knew it cause we weren't. Yeah, yeah, we weren't, I wasn't living my faith at all.
Like, cause we weren't discipled growing up. Yeah. And uh, but not too long after that we got married and, um, when our son was born, God really started getting ahold of our hearts. Like, we don't know what we're doing. And we somehow she started being discipled by this gal at work and was invited to go on a church retreat for like a weekend.
Mm-hmm. up at a really nice, kind of up by the, you know, nature and lake and all by us and all, uh, and said, I really wanna do this. This is cool. They're cool people. And I was like, well, I didn't wanna be a rejector. I'm call a Christian. It's cool. I'll go. And we went to this thing and literally it was like, it was the first message I had heard that it was gospel and like lordship and, and difference.
Oh wow. Not just church attendance, wait for heaven and try not to sin us, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And that night, the dime dropped. God got a hold of my heart, like, really. And oh wow. We got back to our room at the lodge, and I said to Tina, I said, I gotta tell you something. And she goes, no, no. I need to tell you something.
And she's, and I said, well, let me go first. And I said, I, I really, seriously, I gave my life to Jesus tonight forever. I want him to be the king. I wanthim to take the wheel. All the metaphors, you know? And, uh, and she says, I, that's, I did too. I did too. and it was like amazing grace because both that same night we were given a true like experience of who God was and what he fantastic had for our lives, and wanted for our lives.
And crazy as it is from, and that was, man, that was 37 years ago. Um, from that night to today talking to you, we've never had a time where we weren't like engaged. There was no backslide and there was no mm-hmm.. It was like we were like, we're in. Are we in? How do we help? What do we do? You know? Yeah. Yeah.
And so, um, and it wasn't always like the way we live life now and understand discipleship and community lifestyle yet, but it was a real thing. And so it was kind of God's grace. Again. We, from that point forward, we were real serious about it and growing, and then we met some people that actually discipled us and that, that changed everything that really did.
Matt Edmundson: The fact that you both became Christians the same night is phenomenal, right? I mean that's,
Caesar Kalinowski: yeah, really. I mean, I was a Christian growing up, but not really.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, the fact that you both had these sort of encounters, you both commit your life to Christ at this as the vernacular that we would use in the church, but Right.
You keep using this phrase Caesar. Um, and I just wanna bring some clarity before we carry on. What do you mean when you say discipled? Discipleship? Because there's some people listening to the podcast that might not know what that means, or it might sound a little. um, left field for them, so fair. Explain what you mean there.
Caesar Kalinowski: Yeah, good question. Fair enough. So classically discipleship is this process of learning lots about the Bible and Jesus, so we can be more like him and sinless. It turns out, if you look at Jesus life and his model as he called people to be his friends and be his family. They didn't understand him at all. They weren't Christians like, you know, we always, we always joke who did Jesus disciple?
Was it Christians? Mm-hmm, no, there weren't any. Mm-hmm. you know? Yeah. Right. And so how we articulate it now is that really discipleship is this process for ourselves, but also of helping others in community and them helping us to move from unbelief to belief. What's true of the gospel? And what's true of who God really is.
Yeah. And what he's done in it through Jesus and, and what he says is true of us now in every area of life though. So it's this process of moving from unbelief to belief. Mm-hmm. or from maybe lies that we've been believed to truth in light of the gospel in absolutely every area of our life. And that's a lifelong process.
It's, yeah, it's, it wasn't that like, well here's where I need to move from unbelief to belief. only, I'm a rotten sinner and I'm gonna, I deserve hell. And so let's say this magic Prayer and then wait for heaven and try to sin less. Yeah. Wait a minute, what if the whole thing, and, and this is what the Bible actually teaches.
What if it's really about every area of our life, our identity, our gender, our retirement, our parenting. Mm-hmm. , our generosity, uh, you know, our inner thought life, uh, you know, habits vacationing, how we see money and recreation. Uh, what if the gospel actually speaks into all of that? and it does, and since it's all of life, guess what?
Then it takes kind of an all of life relationship with each other as we kinda walk in the ways of Jesus. Mm-hmm.. It's crazy. There's a, there's a part of the Bible where Jesus is talking. It's in the Book of John. It was his beloved. It was his best friend, . And he says, he says, you know, if you'll be my disciples, if you'll kinda walk with me my ways, then you'll come to know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
Mm. and you know, around Christians and stuff, we like to quote that term, the truth will set you free, brother. You know, like that. Yeah. But we never come back up like, yeah, Jesus says, if you'll walk in my ways, like, like live, like I live a little, yeah. Then the big word in that verse, you'll come to know the truth that sets you free.
Yeah. So it's about the sets you free about your identity, what sets you free. His generosity. Mm-hmm. , uh, who he is really, and not who you think he is. You know, all those things. Yeah. And so for us, that's become a lifestyle because it's every bit of life. It's not Yeah. Here's like, here's how I was discipled Matt.
I, uh, after, you know, saying the magic Prayer, you know, then some people said, oh, you, well, you're in. So, yeah. Yeah. Now we need to disciple you. Welcome to the club. Yeah. And there was one guy I met with him an hour, uh, a week for nine weeks. We went over nine Christian topics, we would look at loads and loads of verses connected to like, okay, we're, we're gonna disciple you about Prayer today, Man.
Mm-hmm. And here's 13 verses about Prayer. Mm-hmm. So you should pray, you should pray to God, you should do it. You know, and oh, okay. And then next week we'll talk about, uh, atonement or something, or angels or, I don't know, whatever the topics, the nine topics were. Here's a whole bunch of verses to prove it.
There you go. And at the end of the nine weeks, it was like, well, high five. You're discipled, you're mature.
Matt Edmundson: You check you've got that check.
Caesar Kalinowski: It was, you know what it was is it was just knowledge acquisition or the passing on of knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not discipleship. That's not what Jesus did at all.
I don't wanna freak anybody out here, Matt, on the podcast, but Jesus never owned a Bible, huh? Nor did his disciples. Jesus never had a Bible study. Crazy. Mm-hmm. . How did he do it? He lived life with them and he said, well, you heard it said right hanging. the temple and the church system, you know, but I'd say, this is what it's really all about.
Mm-hmm. , come walk with me and then you'll know the truth and you'll see, and you get set free in this area of your life and in that area of your life. And so, yeah, that's what, that's a long answer, but that's, that's really how we,
Matt Edmundson: it's a great answer. Discipleship. Yeah. It's a great answer. And you talked about FTU became a, a Christian, you know, you've had these different forms of discipleship.
So when did this, when did the penny of all of this start to drop for you and, and, and, and I guess, what was it about this new way of looking at discipleship that really captivated you?
Caesar Kalinowski: I think as I, I started doing quite a bit of international travel.. Mm-hmm. and what the church would call like missions work. Mm-hmm.
you know, going into different places to do ministry work in, in our case, we were going into war zones and where there was Christian persecution, like horror stuff. Oh, wow. And active war zones and all. Taking in aid, taking in food, taking in medicine, uh, generally set, throwing a sheet up on the side of a hut and maybe showing the Jesus film, things like that, just, but really trying to do relationship.
And, and I realized that when we would encounter the church in these places, the people of God, they had nothing, Matt, like no things, you know, the word nothing. No things like literally the clothes on their back. If they had clothes. And I'm not joking to people, we were, you know, working with in Sudan during the war, Sierra Leone during the Civil War there.
Um, The church was beautiful, and they were so full of joy, man, and they were like being persecuted, and they were star, their babies were starving. No joke, I'm not, you know? Mm-hmm.. And yet they were so full of joy. And, and yeah, as I would go there and I'd come home and I'd go there and I'd come home, I remember praying, dear God, you know, I, I want to have what they have.
I'd give anything for their joy and relationship with you. And then I remember it like God said, well then do. I said, I'll give every, I'll give anything, everything he says, well then do. And I was, I kind of hung my head. I was kinda like, you know, the, the prodigal son, you know, like, I, I like my stuff. I don't wanna give my stuff, you know, but, but as that contrast grew in our hearts of like being the church like that with no things, no church services or buildings and or, you know, programming.
and then coming home, and I actually worked at a really large church and I was head of production. Mm-hmm. putting on the show, Hey, hey, cue Matt, cue, camera three. Camera three light lights. Hey, you're a little slow on the smoke. Let's get that mist up a little quicker next time. You know that? Yeah. Yeah.
And the contrast between being the church, with the church on the ground and then going and doing church. Mm-hmm. even as one of the pastors, it, it got real stark for me. And I was like, yeah, what if. What if we lived, like we lived the last three weeks in the bush with those people and the way they lived. With everybody here, like in a neighborhood.
We just treated everybody like family, shared our stuff, didn't have any giant agenda, trying to close the deal with them, but showed them love, invite 'em to walk in the ways with Jesus so that they'd come to know truth and get set free. Yeah. What would happen? And we got to a point. Our, Tina and I and and a few other friends, we had the conviction of, we have to try, like we have the book of Acts.
Is this real? Yeah.. Yeah. That's what they were doing there, you know? Yeah. Could we live that way and what would happen? And I think I'd rather live that way with a dozen people and our kids authentically, so they didn't see their faith as a, an event once a week or, you know, so. Mm-hmm. , I think I'd rather do that than get to, you know, continue to pastor these thousands of people and preach with my head up on a 15 foot screen, you know, all that.
And so we moved out to Tacoma from Chicago where I had started to live that way with just a handful of people. And it was, it was amazing and miraculous. We still live this way. Yeah. And those communities multiplied as people started to understand and walk with Jesus and wanted their family connected to it and they wanted to get set free in this area of their life and it was really natural.
Now we still gathered and. Did that stuff and learned the, the word of God together and would sing and oh, you know, we would do those things, but, but six days and 22 hours a week, we just did life together. Yeah. Come together for maybe an hour or two to also we, those were like family reunions for us and the communities as they, as they multiplied they wanted to hang out.
Like, Hey, you know, we all kind of multiplied out of this one little missional type community. Could we get together once in a while and see each other and hear how it's going? And, and that would kind of just grow. And it's like, yeah, but we're, of course we're gonna do food. and someone says, but I've been writing a ton of new stuff.
Can I? It's okay if I bring my guitar. I was like, heck yeah brother. You can do what you want as family, you know? And so as people would sometimes visit those things, a lot of people wanted be like, what's going on, ? Mm-hmm. They said, you know, you're kind of doing a lot of the same kind of things I've experienced.
Maybe a church dealio, but it feels really different. It feels like a family reunion every week. Yeah, like you love each other and you're actually out for a reason. And so when you come together, it's not to talk you into going to live in anything that you're, you're already living, that you're coming to celebrate all that stuff.
Mm-hmm. So that's, that's kind of how that, that morphed for us. And, and now that's what I helped others figure out how to live that same way and write books.
Matt Edmundson: So I'm, there's so much, there's so many questions in a lot of ways. I guess if I'm sorry. No, no, no. It's, it's all good. It's all good. I'm thinking, um, how do people listening to the podcast maybe that think, man, this, this sounds amazing, and it's, I guess it, I remember the first time I heard you talk about it and Nic talk about it.
It just ignited something in me, which I thought I, I just want to find out more about this. Right. How do, how do people, where's a good place to start, especially if you've grown up in
Caesar Kalinowski: like the I know more, or where would they start? You mean like how they start this lifestyle?
Matt Edmundson: Exactly. How does someone start as a Christian, how does someone start this lifestyle?
How do they sort of bring this into their neighborhood?
Caesar Kalinowski: Yeah, so what I would say is first, start it at your own table for you and your family and maybe a close friend or two. Hmm. Don't, don't try to go talk your neighbors into coming over to your house and or maybe a whole bunch of Christian friends and neighbors or whatever to experience something that you don't even do.
I, I, I'm amazed at how few people have family dinner nights. Yeah. And so, like with the people that we coach, cuz Tina and I both. We coach as couples and we coach couples in this lifestyle. We always start with, okay, start having a weekly family dinner night, at least one. Mm-hmm, that's really special.
Really cool. Full of grace. Not a Bible study at the table. I'm not talking about that. Mm-hmm. we're talking about where everybody shows up a little early and and helps cook and you rotate who, who, who gets to pick the meal this week? Great. You know, you learn to bear with one another. You know, the kids are like, well, I don't like that.
Well, that's what we're making. Cuz she gets to pick this week, you know? Yeah. and, and then it's full of grace. And you, we do things like, you know, high, low buffalo. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. You know, like, no, never. What's the best part of your day? Okay, high low is like high. Like, what's the best part of your day, honey?
You know? Yeah. And then why, yeah. People really reveal your hearts and then, well, what was the worst part of the day? You know? Yeah. And what happened, you know? But then someone threw in there once at, we had done high lows for years, and they said, we do high low buffalo. I go, what's Buffalo? It's the craziest thing that happened.
You know, like you've never seen this because you're not gonna see a buffalo walk anyways. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I like that. So you just connect in your hearts and, and what happens is those become cherished times amongst the family. That's how team K. Did it and people, we started realizing like people were literally on lists to be able to come to our family dinner nights.
Community. Yeah. Fantastic. How do we get to come to family dinner night? Yeah. And so then when we started doing things like an open table, that would be kind of like step two, Hey, pick a different night of the week that that is your model, your family dinner night's, your model, and then. Throw it out like real.
Don't try to impress anybody. Just go, Hey, it's like just kind of come and we're gonna hang out and get to know each other and you can bring anybody you want and we're gonna do it every Thursday or every Friday, or whatever you want to do. And, and treat people like family, not like guests. Yeah. That's key.
There's a difference. And everybody kind of knows, you know? Yeah. The difference there, and, and what happens is when you treat people like family and that predictable pattern of, we're gonna do that every week regardless of how many people who shows up, we don't care. Trust God for that. And we're going to eat anyway.
you know, it's not anything additional. Yeah. Like we eat, you know, you eat every night and what we found is that just that little bit, all of a sudden people, we call 'em people of peace, they lean in like, oh man, we love you guys. And, and it's like, hey, like we should get together and watch this, you know, this show, you know, whatever everybody's into right now.
Mm-hmm. great. Come on, pop over. You know, just get some pizzas and stuff. I'll bring some beer, you know, wherever, it just becomes this rhythm of normalcy. But what happens is, as we grow in our, what we call it gospel fluency, this ability to actually speak good news to people. Mm-hmm.. Not Shame or shoulds or just Bible stuff to em.
But then, then all of life kind of becomes this discipleship thing. That's why I talk about discipleship is a lifestyle. Mm-hmm.. But that would be my first step family dinner night. Yeah. Yeah. It's meaningful. And I got tons of resources on this stuff too, to help people. Cause you are like, well, we don't even know what to do,
Yeah. We don't like each other. I'm like, well, That's a problem.. Yeah. You need to get over that, that then the model for like an open table or like, you know, or like we do happy hours here in our neighborhood a lot. That's a big deal. People love them. These throw out some appetizers and you know, open a bottle of wine, have a couple beers.
People usually bring a bunch more of all that stuff. Mm-hmm.. And it's easy and it's fun. And then from those little things, what happens is all these organic connections begin to happen and hey, we're. I'm taking the boat out this weekend. Why don't you guys come? I'm like, we're coming. You know? Yeah, yeah.
And then they go like, we wanna ask you about your kids, cuz ours are just hitting the teen years and they hate us right now. And your kids love you. But I imagine it wasn't always that way. Like that's for sure. You know, . And so it's, it's, you know, and it's that life on life things starts to happen now.
There's a lot more, but that's, that's sort of the basics of how we, we do this. Yeah, that's fantastic. How it started and how we still do it.
Matt Edmundson: In fact, just before we hit the, before we got on this call, um, my, my wife was saying to me yesterday, she's like, oh, uh, Monday night. Cause Monday night we often have people around for dinner.
And so she said Monday night, uh, we've got, um, Beth and Terry coming around for dinner and we'd actually, we've just recorded, uh, a What's the story? Podcast episode with Beth. So she's the week before you, uh, in effect. Um, and hey, Beth. Yeah, yeah. Beth's awesome. And uh, and so Beth's like, oh, can we just have dinner at your house?
And we're like, sure. And they brought their two kids and after I finish recording the conversation, I go in our bathroom has just got kids in the bath everywhere, which is great. We've not had that in this house for a while. Cause my kids are a little bit older. It'd be a bit weird if I walked in the bathroom when they're in the bath.
Uh, so we've got kids with toys, soft toys everywhere. And Sharon's like, oh, by the way, I've invited this person around for dinner cuz they were originally gonna come as well. So they're coming. Okay. And then one of, uh, lodgers who moved out cuz she got married a couple months ago. I walked her down the aisle.
Caesar one of the most precious moments. And um, so her and her husband and her sister also came around. There is like 12, 13 people around our table and it, originally it was just gonna be a small dinner and then within the space of like 12 hours, it all got crazy and it's just wonderful and beautiful and it's the way it should be, right?
Caesar Kalinowski: Yeah, it is. And it, it's not hard. No, there's no, there's no huge setup. There's no huge expense, there's no programming. And, and I don't know what happened to so many people where we, you know, we don't even know how to be friends anymore. Mm-hmm. And there again, this is not how I was raised growing up. My, my dad was mean, and he was an alcoholic.
And he had one friend, and I can remember, he would see him like twice a year, you know, and he would go golfing with guys from work, but they weren't really his friends. They would just go get drunk and golf. And so, we almost never had people in our home growing up and yet. That wasn't our early marriage. We, Tina and I always had people, we had people living with us and staying at the house and it's just, and so, but then once, once we started walking with Jesus, we realized, oh well we bear your image.
That's how you are. So even, even when we don't know what we're doing, you still gave us that, you know, gift to do that. And so,
Matt Edmundson: yeah. No, that's brilliant. So on your journey then, um, you know, you've been married to the amazing Tina whom your mum adores and loves, which is always a beautiful thing. Uh, and so you, you, you are doing all this open house stuff with Tina.
What are some of the challenges that you guys have faced on this journey? Because it sounds exciting, but I can't imagine it was all sunshine and rainbows, which is a phrase I like to use. Uh, I imagine there are some obstacles and some challenges along the way.
Caesar Kalinowski: Ah, so many because it's messy as heck. people are messy.
Yeah. I'm a mess. Okay. You, you, you and I know each other a little bit, but we, we live pretty far apart, but mm-hmm. , listen, I'm not exactly Jesus here yet, you know, you know, so when you start to, when you start to, um, get deeper into true relationship with people that you're not sleeping with or you're the parents of, so they have to listen to you kind of at least, yeah.
Kind of. Yeah. And they start to open up a little bit. And we use a phrase like, let your redemption show meaning. Let, let stuff that that in you is being transformed by Jesus. Now, let, that's don't fear. We always wanna hide that stuff, put on the happy face, put on the mask. But the truth is when we let our redemption show, in other words what God's doing and how we're moving from unbelief to belief in different areas about who God is and mm-hmm, who he says we are now, when you let that show, it gives other people permission to do the same cuz you're not this teflon. Yeah. Perfect family. Yeah. And that gets really messy. Mm-hmm. And so practical things. We've had people that we're super, super close to, all of a sudden they just, they flip out and they're pissed off at you and they never wanna talk to you again.
You're like, what? What happened? Like, we're pretty nice. Generally. Yeah. Yeah. Kind fun to hang with. I think stuff like that happens. Break, it'll break your heart. Uh, we've had, since we have so many people kind of through the house, We've had so many things broken. Mm-hmm. stolen, spilled on, uh, I'll tell you one story.
Once we were in Europe, Tina and I and the community was kind of watching the house. Our son was living there at the time. He was a young adult at this point. But we came home. We were kind of getting, we were gone for a couple weeks, kind of. We knew there was a lot going on still. Community life was still happening.
Say, Hey, well what happened? Uh, you know, while we were gone, this and that and the other. And I was sitting on the couch with my son and I picked up one of the couch pillows and, uh, I happened to notice there was a huge rip in it, but it had been sewed perfectly, like professionally. Like, like there's no way he sewed that.
And I said, well, what happened at the pillow? And he goes, well, I don't wanna tell you. I said, why not ? He says, cuz you're gonna be angry. And I said, well, I, I'm already kind of angry, but at least it got fixed. And then I happened to notice the matching scar on the couch that I'm sitting on about this. And it's like sewed perfectly.
Like you could, cuz it's tight, you could never do it. Mm-hmm. And I said, okay, listen, I, I'm already kind of angry, what happened? And so here's what happened. While we were gone house full of people, community going on believing, not believing, all over the map. Mm-hmm. That's our neighborhood, our friends.
Um, my son who carries a weapon, cuz he was in the Marines at the time in the military, he had his gun sitting out and he had been explaining it to this one young knucklehead and the guy picked it up and he's like, Hey, you know, be careful. And he's like, I know what I'm doing. And somehow he managed to knock two safeties off and there's a, a hip thing that has to and pull this nine pound trigger.
And he blew this 45 hollow point through my pillow, through the. Into the frame of the couch, the wood, and that's where it stopped. Luckily, it didn't exit the house or anybody else's body. Yeah.. And so I said, so wait a second. So this guy, I won't use his name. Um, he blew a 45 through our couch and, and the house was full of people.
Yeah. I'm like, oh boy. Wow. And so that bullet, by the way, still lodged in the couch, um, frame. Um, that guy, that kid, that kid would not talk to me. I was his pastor actually at the time, you know, kind of, yeah. And, uh, He wouldn't, he, he kind of hid from me for months and months, like he just didn't wanna Right.
Uhhuh. And so I was doing a wedding in this beautiful rose garden a few months later, and we're all in community. There's lots of people sunny day and I'm doing my thing and I look out, I'm like, Hey. He's sitting right there, third row. No way. And I was just like, I see you brother. So when I, we got done and I released everybody.
I shot down the aisle, I put my arm around, I said, Hey, let's have a chat.
Matt Edmundson: Well, that trumps every story that I've got. Let me tell you that trumps all the stories of the fact and stuff that's happened in my house.
Caesar Kalinowski: I mean, we've got lots of homeless people staying with us, people who are addicted, people who steal your stuff, people. You know, there's a reason that scripture says, Hey, um, if you loan money, don't expect it in return.
You know, just give it. Yeah. And we found that to be a hundred percent accurate. Bible. Like whenever we've had to help people with stuff, they're like, well, I'm gonna pay you back. We're like, well, listen, if you do or you don't, that's up to you. It's all God's. It's yours now. Yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah. You use it as you see fit.
You can use it for what you said you needed for, or maybe you won't, I don't know. But, uh, and sometimes people would get it back to you, usually not, and then they get freaked out weird, and we're like, we're not. I told you it's yours. We love you Way more than you know, a few quid or a few dollars, you know. That's okay.
You know? Wow. So there's all, and even our own kids at times pushing back like, man, the house is so full of people like, yeah. I remember one time they said like, there's people over, like every meal. I'm like, kind of. They said, can we just have one family dinner night that's not full of everybody else?
Mm-hmm. just for the bio team K . Yeah. And we said, well, why? And they told us and we said, fair enough. And we let the community know, hey, you can come over all the time, but on Wednesdays clear out from about five to eight and we're just gonna be with our kids and Yeah, and you can come over after that or before that and you get to and yeah.
And they loved it. And I'll tell you though, man, it didn't take very many weeks before, you know, one of our kids, I don't remember who said like, I know it's just Team K, family Night tonight, just us. Hey Megan, at school like her dad left the family and she's so, could she come? Could she just come and you tell her she's beautiful?
Like you tell us every day. Yeah. They need that. And like, sure, honey, is that cool with you guys? And the kids were like, sure. And and pretty soon it was kind of like, now there's two or three people, but they were inviting them, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and then pretty soon it was kind of back to everybody.
So fantastic. But those are challenges though. We had to work through.
Matt Edmundson: And how was, um, cuz I mean, you're right. You're listening to your talking your stories and you kind of go, well, it's the obvious conclusion is that's gonna be chaotic and there's gonna be mess and there's gonna be good stuff and there's gonna be stuff that's not so good that you've gotta deal with.
So how was it, um, how was, I guess, how was married life during this time? How did you and Tina cope with this together? I mean, we've heard a little bit about the kids, but I, yeah. I'm just kind of curious to know how you guys as a couple dealt with all this.
Caesar Kalinowski: Well, I'm, I'm fortunate that we're both pretty, uh, uh, outgoing people.
Mm-hmm. we're both pretty out there and extroverted types where we get our batteries recharged by having people around. Mm-hmm. and Tina's an amazing cook. She's actually culinary trained chef and wonderful, but just the most normal person. You've met her. So, um, that was easy to do because we're on the same page.
Right. However, we coach lots of people where my wife's really introvert and I'm extroverted and we can work through that. But a couple of things come to mind. One is that, we, we, uh, we live open door. We always kind of did, but now really intentionally, we live open door. People know it. Community stop by anytime you want.
But in light of truly treating people like family and in light of God's love for us and great approval, we also fear, uh, feel. We can say, come by anytime, Matt or whoever, you know, uh, but we also feel the freedom to say, Hey, what's up? You know, it's not, maybe it's not a great time. Like, you know, I could think like, you know, ding dong, Tina and I are watching a romantic comedy or something, having some wine or whatever, you know, ding dong someone from the community's like, Hey, I was just hanging around.
I don't know. I was just, what are you guys up to? It's like, well, um, Tina and I were just finishing up this romantic comedy thing and having some wine, kind of hoping for a happy ending, if you know what I'm saying. if it's, if it's not an emergency, how about we catch some coffee in the morning or, you know, something like that.
Yeah. And so you have that freedom too, right? Mm-hmm. to be able to sort of protect those times as well. Um, but also because we do try to model what we say and that's let your redemption show. Hmm. We are very open about the challenges of being married this long and being married young and not being perfect people for sure.
Mm-hmm. and so we kinda would let some of that stuff show and let people in on it and that can freak people out. Mm-hmm. generally the religious types. We've actually had situations where our own co-leaders got all freaked out because we, you know, admitted to we're, we're working on this and that, and we got some counseling and we're working through some stuff, you know, and they're like, oh, hey, wait a minute.
You what? Yeah, but you're one of the pastors and I'm like. Yeah. No, listen, I'm not perfect human here. Like, there's none, you know, and I'm not gonna hide it. Like, we ain't gonna live that way. You know? We're gonna let you see it, warts and all, but we're also gonna let you see redemption happen. Yeah. And it does.
And it, and it continues to in our lives. So, and that's some of the challenges we face. And, and I, I, there's been times where for a while, We don't want to, but we're human. We kinda recoil and go like, man, there's been some trust broken here with these people or this, you know? And like, maybe we don't wanna have as many people around for a while and then we know that's selfishness and fear.
Mm-hmm. But it's real, you know, like, yeah, that's, we don't just push through it, you know, it's like sometimes you're like, you know, for a while we gotta. You know, speak the gospel to our own hearts. Yeah. And kind of move from unbelief here to belief what's really true. Yeah. What's really going on. And, and get back to like, but the one who matters loves us deeply.
And wasn't surprised by any of this, you know, so.
Matt Edmundson: That's always the thing, isn't it? God's never ever surprised. Let's, um, I'm aware I, I'm asking a lot of questions about this now. I really want to touch on this topic of identity, which is a big thing. Um, your, sort of, your, your message if you like. So let's hit on that.
Yeah. Uh, briefly, what have you learned about identity, uh, specifically, I guess, how it relates to your lifestyle? .
Caesar Kalinowski: Well, I guess the big one, Matt, is when we really went beyond just reading this in the Bible, but believing it was true that we are actually created in God's own image. Mm-hmm. and he's a triune God.
So that means that part of our identity flows from dad, from the father, from Jesus, the son, who in Hebrews it says, Jesus is not ashamed to call you brothers and sisters. Mm-hmm.. Oh man. I love that so much. And from the Holy Spirit that we have an identity relationship there, and so is everybody else that we've ever met, created that way.
And when you start to believe, like, and find your value and self-worth from the mm-hmm. first and foremost, from who God is in perfection. And he created you in his image, it says in Genesis to be like us, us. You know, that's the three, right? Mm-hmm. and, and then you start to realize, oh, that's true of me.
Well, that changes. No. So my, my value is not coming nearly as much as from what I do or didn't do. Mm-hmm. or shouldn't have done or what, you know, whatever. But also when you start to see everybody else, like, Hey, what changes if you see people first and foremost as bearing the image of a good and right, and perfect God.
Holy god. Mm-hmm. , they're creating that image too. Well, but they're not Christians like, but they're still image bearers. They're humans. Yeah. Yeah. And they're no different than us.. Mm-hmm.. They're we're created the same. Now maybe our choices have led to different lifestyles, different consequences, different, all those things.
However, the 99% of what's true of us as humans is exactly the same, and we bear that same image. That changed a lot for us. And then just to back up a tick, this idea that our value. And, and worth in life doesn't come from what we do. Mm-hmm. but what he's done mm-hmm. That, so we, I use this phrase do to be Yeah.
Like the way the world is at least, and see if you relate to this, the way the world is what you do, or we do things, we perform, we do work or whatever to be perceived as valuable, to have value in people's eyes. I want, I want you around because you know, what have you done for me lately? This, you know.
Yeah. But, and so then we go, Oh Hey, that's working. Like they like me or they wanna hire me, or, you know, they're, they're inviting us to the parties now. And so what I do equals who I am and my value. Not really, but that's, see, that's the lie. That's the, the original fall of mankind in Genesis three. That's what you see.
And it's the beast that scripture talks about. you know? Yeah. Yeah. And the truth is no. Your identity and self-worth doesn't come from what you do. It comes from who you are. Mm. And first and foremost, baseline, we're image bearers of God. And now if, if you have begun a relationship with God and with Christ, and believe who he is and what he's done for us.
And he Bible teaches that we're now actually indwelled by his own spirit. Jesus uses beautiful redundancy like that. You and the father, uh, are, are now one with us. Like I and the Father are one. We are all one. And, and you bear my image and it's, oh, that starts changing who you see yourself to be and how you treat others.
I asked this question this weekend. We were doing some teaching, I was sharing with you before we went live and um, we were teaching on this identity and I asked the question, Hey, what changes for you if your primary self worth the way you see yourself and your value didn't come from your job, your title, your accolades, what others thought of you?
All that, but primarily came from the fact that you, dear sister, dear brother, are created in the image of a good right and perfect God. Mm-hmm. And then I, we talked about that and then we did a follow-up question, like, and what would change in all of your relationships, your kids, your spouse, people at work, your parents, your pastor, you know, if you primarily first and foremost, see them as there goes another image bearer.
Yeah, you can see a homeless person, you can see a crack egg, you could see a horrible criminal and you go, but they were created bearing the image. What has happened here? Can we help them? You know, like, can we help them come to know and believe what God says is true with them? So that's, that's a big part of, of really for us, even lifestyle and discipleship is being image bearers, being family.
Cuz here's part of the thing is if we really believe this Matt, if you and I believe that we beared God's image and dad's, God's our father. Mm-hmm. , that makes us brothers. Yep. And there's so many scripture that says, that says, I'll be a father to you, not like a father. And you'll be like, sons. And it doesn't say like, sons and daughters says, you'll be my sons and daughters.
Hmm. Well, if that's really true, Matt, then you and I are cosmically, eternally, we're brothers. Maybe not biologically we weren't born in the same womb, but we're brothers. And if I believe that, that relationship's very, very different cuz Yeah. You know, you look at your neighbour, and they're hurting. And you're like, man, sucks to be them.
And maybe if they knocked on your door and begged you, you might help 'em, but you're not going outta your way. But if you go, but that's my brother, Matt lives right across the street. Yeah. And he just lost his job and they, they had one car and it don't work. And we've got two. And like, you know, I mean, it's different, man.
You engage humanity, you engage people differently if you see them as family, brothers and sisters. So yeah, that's, that's been a big part of it. Just the whole shift for our. That's really powerful. Each other. Yeah. And that leads to then wanting to have people around cuz they're brothers and sisters. Let's get 'em over here.
Matt Edmundson: You know? Well, it brings, it brings, um, when you see it, like you've talked about it actually, the whole concept of family around the table then makes sense, right? All team K the, the sort of the family. We're gonna treat you like family. I'm gonna see you as a brother or a sister. Uh, and it, it changes how you interact with people and it's what makes this super powerful.
Um, and you can, you look at it and you go. Oh, I can see God's thinking in this a little bit. Do you know what I mean? Because it, it, it, it's like, Hey, welcome, you know? Well, sometimes we make it a little bit too complicated, but when you take, you take a step back and you go, I, okay, I can, I can. I get this now.
Caesar Kalinowski: But Matt, this is exactly who the church is. Mm-hmm. Or, or we. And if you look in the, in the beginning and you look in the book of Acts and throughout the epistles, this is exactly the things they were talking about, what you and I are talking about today. Mm-hmm. And it's exactly how they lived over the centuries. We've turned it into programming and all kinds of other things.
Yeah. But, We didn't make this up. Like don't, I don't want anybody hearing this and go, that's Caesar guys smart. You know, like this is just in the book. And we decided to give it a spin and see if it was true. See if it works. It could still be true. And it turns out it is. Yeah. And, and listen, I'm all for gathering up and having the party and do it weekly.
Do it monthly. Do it online. I don't care. You know what? I don't. But how are we living? Do we do we live as healthy family? The beliefs. Yeah. I got God is my daddy. Jesus is my brother. Mm-hmm. , and I'm indwelled by the power that raised Christ from the dead, the Holy Spirit himself in us. Well, well, there's nothing really to fear.
We're Coheirs and that's my brother. And you know, it, it just, that's the basis for why, and we would choose to live this way. I think.
Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. Listen, Caesar, uh, there's a couple of resources that you've got that I want to draw people's attention to because, uh, we, I mean, we could talk for hours on this and I still don't think we've scratched the surface, so, uh, but you've got a, a bunch of stuff.
The first one I, I wanna mention is your podcast, which I, I love. Um, tell, tell folks about the, the podcast that you've got going on.
Caesar Kalinowski: All right, thanks. Yeah, so it's called the Everyday Disciple Podcast cuz that's kind of how we try to live. Mm-hmm. and it's every day and make that a lifestyle. And on the podcast we talk about kind of everything in life.
No kidding. But how does that, how does the Gospel speak into that? How would we live that out? How maybe. And we're seeing that on the news, but what might be our perspective in light of living this way and believing the truth of the gospel? And so that's what the podcast's about. We're coming up on six years every Monday.
Yeah. Um, so it's real easy to find Everyday Disciple podcast. Again, my name is Caesar. There's a couple other podcasts that have sort of nicked the name a little bit, where it's like Everyday Disciples or you'll, you'll know it when you find it. It's got my name on it. Yeah. It's got these little black and red feet running across.
Um, they can, they can find it at everydaydisciple.com. Yeah. To find the podcast.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. And it's definitely worth listening to. I just want to give a little story, I suppose. Um, I remember listening to an episode you did a couple years ago, and it was coming up to Halloween and. In the episode on Halloween, you were, you know, there's big division isn't there in the church?
Halloween, do or not to do. You're just like, man, this is the one day of the year where everybody in your neighborhood knocks on your door, right? And it's like with a smile on, what it's like, and you were like, just bear that in mind. And so I, I came back to Sharon and I said, listen, we've gotta go big on Halloween.
I mean, Halloween's not as big a deal over here in the UK as it is back there, but we were like, yeah, we changed everything. And so me and my daughter, we started. Decorating the outside of the house and you know, and all that kind of stuff. And so we got all of that from your, your podcast. And so, you know, it is the one night of the week people come knock on your door.
And we were like, this is great. So do check out the podcast. And the other one is, um, if people wanna find out more about identity, you have this. Uh, audio series, right. I'm gonna put the slide on the screen. Do you just wanna talk about this?
Caesar Kalinowski: It's four or five audios. They're short, but I kind of work through the whole sort of how does our identity flow from the father, from the son, from the spirit, and what's that really look like and taste like, and they're short.
But I, I just, I'm happy to give it to anybody who wants to go a little deeper into identity. They're, and you can share 'em, send them to anybody you want, whatever. Mm-hmm. they're, they're four or five audios in this audio pack. So, yeah, I'd love it. And it's real easy. You just email. That this address, are you showing that there?
Yep. Yep. It's on the screen. Yep. Yeah, if you just email to that address and just put the word gospel in the subject line, you don't have to write anything else, hit send. Uh, then the little tech gremlins in the background automation will send you that set of audios. Easy peasy. And then I'll send an email or two introducing myself and some other resources around this if you're interested.
And if not, well then, you know, unsubscribe or whatever. I don't care. But I, I love to send you this. And it's professionally recorded. Sounds great. Yeah. And you'll love it. But, but check it out. Learn, learn a little bit more about your identity cuz that's what starts to change our motivations from Yeah.
Like, well that sounds great, but I, I'm too busy or I have fear around this or that. At least for free. Check out that, that audio series.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. It doesn't cost you anything. Check out that audio series. Yeah. Email that. They're short too. Yeah. Um, and the email was on screen. And for those of you listening to the audio version, uh, check out the, um, transcript, the notes.
We'll make sure it's in the notes on your podcast app. We'll put the links in there as well.
Caesar Kalinowski: And I, what is, I think it's now you just, you just email now@123lifeschool.com.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. And it's numbers. 123 life school.
Caesar Kalinowski: And then just put the word gospel in the subject line and it'll send it to,
Matt Edmundson: it's all automatic. But yeah, like I said,
Caesar Kalinowski: thanks, but then I'd love to be able send that out to some, some friends.
Matt Edmundson: Oh no, that'd be cool. Uh, you know, do, do check out Caesar's Resources. They are phenomenal. His books are good too, I mean, just anything that's got his name on it, it's gonna be great. So do check that out. Wow.
Caesar, listen a listen. Aww Shucks, gonna make him blush. Uh, listen. Bud it's been brilliant having you here on the podcast. Thank you.
Caesar Kalinowski: Can I do that one more time and I ask you lots of questions?
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah, let's do that. We'll do the reverse. We'll have Caesar interviews, Matt, cuz Matt's not told his story.
Um, one last question, which I do ask all our guests, and I nearly forgot to ask Uh oh, right? Here we go. No, no, no. Yeah, yeah. Check it out. Right? You are at the Oscars, uh, you've won your lifetime achievement award. Um, and you do that. I would just like to thank dot, dot, dot. I'm curious who's on Caesar's list of people that you would like to thank, you know, whether it's family members, mentors, pastors, preachers who, who's on there, who's had the big impact on Caesar's life and why?
Caesar Kalinowski: uh, two people jumped to mind right away. I was mentored when I, or discipled and mentored by, um, a good friend of mine, his name's John Jenkins. He's Pastor Johnny to our family. Mm-hmm.. And when we were very, very young parents and just starting to walk with Jesus, this, him and his wife Ruth were gentle and they discipled us like we're talking about like.
As family in he, he was old school though, and he would like, take us to the mall and here's how you talk to people. And we'd go, you know, do all these things and, and so Pastor Johnny Jenkins and his wife Ruth, and then because we're big on teaching the Bible in story form. Mm-hmm. , you know, like we teach the whole Bible through narratives actually, and dialogue.
I was taught that, uh, by a person who's become a great friend in my life too a peer now and mentor his name's John Whitty. He's a Southern Baptist missionary, and I'd, I ran into him in Sudan. We're both doing ministry. And he was like, yeah, well we're doing this all without any printed materials, just all through story.
Cuz the Bible is one big story. Mm-hmm. and then a certain way of doing a dialogue. And that's what we do in community now. And I've been all, all over the world, you talking about 30 countries, that's mostly what I'm usually doing is telling the story of God and, uh, and Dialogueing around it. And, um, so I, I would thank John Witty for that.
Those, those, those people have really had the ongoing and, and there'd be so many more, but that's what. Popped into my head, so fantastic. Thanks.
Matt Edmundson: Fantastic.. Yeah. Yeah. Legends. I'm always, I, I love this question because it's really fascinating who people say, uh, and the stuff that people come out with. So that was great.
Um, Caesar, how do people reach you? How do they connect with you? If they want to, if they wanna learn more about Team K, about the stuff that you're doing, what's the best way to do that?
Caesar Kalinowski: Really just go to everydaydisciple.com. And there's all kinds of resources there. There's a way to send messages. Uh, my name is Caesar and you can just put caesar@everydaydisciple.com.
That's my email. As long as you spell Caesar like the salad or like the pizza here in the States or like you see it in the Bible. People always mangle that, but yeah, I'll let you figure that out. Yeah. Yeah. Google has, but if you just go to the website, you can get ahold of me. I'm, I'm real easy to find or Google me up or something.
I know I'm on there.
Matt Edmundson: Nah. Fantastic. Why? And do you know why your parents chose Caesar as a name for you?
Caesar Kalinowski: Yes, I do sort of. So I'm the, I'm the third Caesar in the family in a row. Oh, wow. My son is Caesar four, and now his son is Caesar Kalinowski the fifth. And he actually even has the, the iv, you know, uh, the, the V on his.
Wow. On his birth certificate, and I never could understand why Caesar, which seemed like a Latin name to me, and Kalinowski, which is as Polish as you get. Yeah. Why was that jammed together. And I was in Poland, uh, maybe a decade or so ago, and I asked an old buck who was a, um, like a historian, I said, Hey, any understanding of why I would have this name?
And he's like, oh, well, sure. Um, Kalinowski, Kalinowski Kalinowski was a royal name. And I, I kind of knew that like, not that we're royalty now, but it used to be I guess. Yeah. And so Caesar is Kaiser, which is ruler, so Kaiser Kalinowski, very typical name. So is it a family name? And I said, very much so. He goes, what? There you have it. So. Wow.
Matt Edmundson: Wow. Thank you guys.
Caesar Kalinowski: Go figure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So now we got, there's the fifth that'll be over here for Thanks.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. So carried that on. That's awesome. That's, we, we definitely don't have that tradition in my family. Kids if you're listening. I expected you to stop hashtag just saying.
That's awesome. No, Caesar, that's been brilliant. Honestly, man. Uh, it's been an absolute treat to talk to you, to catch up with you again, to hear your heart. Uh, I just love what you guys are doing and thanks for all the encouragement you guys have given to me and Sharon over the years. Even just with the stories that you've told, we've just.
Really, man, it's just been brilliant.
Caesar Kalinowski: So you're very welcome. But it's just, that's all. God's grace continues to flow through all of us. Keep passing it on. That's all we gotta do. And you are, thanks for doing this podcast and it's great. And I, I love what's going on with Crowd and it's, it's great man.
Matt Edmundson: Oh, it's awesome, man.
Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's all cool. No. Great. So big thanks to Caesar again for joining me today on the podcast. Remember to check out Crowd online church at www.crowd.church even if you might not see the point of church, see Crowd. Yeah, it's an online church, but it's just on a quest to discover how Jesus helps us live a more meaningful life.
As Caesar would call it discipleship. We're a community, a space to explore the Christian faith and a place where you can contribute and grow. You are welcome at Crowd. Become part of the family, why not? Now be sure to subscribe to what's the story wherever you get your podcast from, because we've got some great stories lined up and I don't want you to miss any of them.
And in case no one has told you yet today, uh, you are awesome. Yes you are. It's just a burden you have to bear. Caesar has to bear it. I have to bear it. It's just the way God made us. You've gotta bear it. You. You are awesome, fearfully and wonderfully made. You're created in his image. You're an image bearer.
So what's the story is produced by Crowd online church. You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app. The team that makes this show possible is Sadaf Beynon, Josh Catchpole, Estella Robin and Tim Johnson. Our theme song was written by the fantastically talented Josh Edmundson. And if you would like to read the transcript or show notes, head over to the website, www.crowd.church, where you can also sign up, as I said, for our weekly newsletter, and get all of this good stuff direct your inbox totally free.
So that's it from me. That's it from Caesar. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a fantastic week wherever you are. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.