Latest / Faith Rehab / Ep. 12 - Boundaries in Church: You're Allowed to Say No

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Ep. 12 - Boundaries in Church: You're Allowed to Say No · Faith Rehab

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, welcome to Faith Rehab Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for listening.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: Today we're going to talk about boundaries and learn that no is a complete sentence.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_05: And I learned that talking about boundaries is a hard topic to talk about.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: It is hard.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: And also, what's hard is when you're trying to learn a language on an app that's supposed to teach you a language and all you do is play chess on it.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_05: Hey.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_05: Chess is great.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_05: Everyone play chess.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_05: Enjoy the podcast.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Heidi, aka T M I Too High.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: And when I was probably 10 years old, my cousin and I wrote a song as an evangelism tool called I Need It Jenny, it being the Bible.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: Well, let's hear it.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_03: No, yeah, we gotta hear it.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, we have to sing it.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: And this is probably gonna like lead people to the Lord.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: So get ready.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, get ready to be saved.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um already walking forward.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: I need a Jenny, don't take it away.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I get started with I need to learn how to trust and obey.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Get yourself a Bible and learn how to pray.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: You need a Jenny, don't try to run away.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: It sounds like you guys are chasing Jenny down the block.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_03: Who's Jenny?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: You're about to like it's J Lo from Jenny, Jenny from the block, and then Jenny from the block, yeah.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: Heidi and Sarah chasing Jenny.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_05: That was a response of Jenny on the block.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_05: Did you know a Jenny at the time?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure we did.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was the 80s.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: There were like a lot of Jenny's.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: All right, shout out to Jenny.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for looking at it.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: When I get to heaven, do you think there's gonna be someone that comes up to me and is gonna tap me on the shoulder and go, I'm Jenny, thank you for that song.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_03: I think there might be a line of Jenny's going.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: If it hadn't been for that song, I don't know what my life would have been.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: I missed my opportunity, guys.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_05: Good job, Heidi.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, listen, would you put in the comments if your name is Jenny and you kick to the Lord today?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I'll be discovered and that song will like new chapter.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: Please.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_05: Hey, I am not Jenny, I am CJ, former BMI2High.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_05: I am your favorite work comp specialist.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_05: Probably not.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_05: Woohoo! Um, my fun fact for today I'm currently 131 days into my chess journey.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_05: I started playing chess this year.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, like with people, like in real life?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_05: People online.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_05: Uh my kids.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_05: I I smash on my kids, but I try to beat my dad.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_05: That's the goal.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: You're beating up on your kids and playing chess.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_05: I gotta get some wins in somehow.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: Is it an app?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_05: It's an app, it's on Duolingo.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Where you learn languages?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_05: I was trying to find a language, and then I was like, oh, chess is an option.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_05: Let's do that.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: Your family speak Tagalog.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: What do you mean you were looking to find a language?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_05: Tagalog's not on Duolingo.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_05: It's not?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know why.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_05: You talk to them.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_05: I try.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: All right, doolingo people, do better with Duolingo.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, let's get some Tagalog.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_03: Otherwise, you're gonna have the whole Philippine nation playing chess and not able to speak to each other.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think they could do better.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: I am not Jenny either, and I am not on Duolingo, but I am Steve.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: And my fun fact is that for a very, very brief time in the world, I was the youngest person alive.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: I had to really think about that.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_05: That's what you were working on, Steve.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: I worked all week to bring that.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: I got a lot of fun facts, but that's the one today.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: Hey.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: If you don't understand, let it sink in.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: You'll get there.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_05: You don't have to understand.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: You don't have to understand.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: I wouldn't think that hard about it.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_03: I would go back to making Jenny your download ring tone.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, how do we monetize that?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, we gotta get that for all the genies in the world.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_03: Everyone will want that as their ringtone, I'm sure of it.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: Today, if you're still listening, today we are gonna talk about boundaries.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: And we're gonna talk a lot about boundaries and how maybe it's hard to have boundaries as a uh person who loves God or loves ourselves or whatever.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: But today on Faith Rehab, we're gonna talk some more about boundaries.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_03: Stay tuned.
• 4:43
  unknown: Add it up.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: Now sing a little Jenny, because that's our that should be our intro music.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: Jenny.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: Jenny from the block.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, welcome back.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_03: Today on Faith Rehab, as promised, we're gonna talk about boundaries.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: And probably the king of boundaries is a guy named Henry Cloud.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: He wrote a book called Boundaries with John Townsend.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: And he says this this is the core definition.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_03: Boundaries show what you are responsible for and what you are not.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: Just like a fence around your yard shows your property, where your property starts and stops.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: Personal boundaries clarify ownership of your feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and choices.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: And so today we thought we would talk a little bit about boundaries.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's an interesting topic because so much of church hurt comes from people being asked to do things that they're not comfortable with or pressured to do things.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so as we start this discussion, I want to talk to you guys just kind of what your feelings are about how do we justify boundaries in a faith that says love each other, serve each other, give all that you can, you know, Jesus gave it all.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: And there's hymns that like all to you, Lord, I surrender, and things like that.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_03: How do we how do we justify having boundaries, which seem very healthy in uh the church world where we're asked so much?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm gonna toss it to you guys.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_03: What are your thoughts?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: I even think beyond that, and I would be curious to know how many people part of churches feel this way, which is why I think Dr.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Cloud's work is so profound because he's bringing boundaries into a Christian space where a lot is asked of us, and we're also encouraged to share our story, right?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like so oftentimes it's like, so what's your story?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: We want to hear people's gritty backgrounds, and we feel entitled sometimes to be inside of their stories because we want to pray for them and know how to disciple them.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think a lot of lines get blurred in the church specifically because we're almost conditioned to overshare, overgive, and it's exhausting.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, in the in the corporate world, I feel like it's easier because you take away the spiritual aspect of it.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_05: If you're crossing boundaries in a corporate workplace, it's usually like duh, like what are you doing?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_05: You're probably doing something inappropriate.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_05: But the type of boundaries that I experience or seen people experience is like, hey, can you can you be at the prayer meeting?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_05: Like if you're on a staff, is it am I doing it as a favor for you?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_05: Am I doing it as a volunteer?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_05: Am I doing it as a staff member?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_05: Those types of boundaries is very like difficult to determine what's what.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you're kind of describing boundaries, you know, to use uh Henry Cloud's example of a picket fence around your yard.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: You're kind of describing like if you work at a church or if you're very involved in a church, that the picket fence has like a five-foot space of fence, and then another five-foot place where there's no fence, and then another five-foot place where there is a fence, and then another ten-foot place where there is no fence, and it's sort of random and haphazard.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes marriages can be like that, friendships can be like that, depending on who you're connected up with in relationships, that that it's hard.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so, how are your boundaries, CJ?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: Heidi, how are your boundaries?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_05: There is an extra layer of probably assumed obligation when you're like an immigrant kid or even a pastor's kid.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_05: There's this extra layer of obligation that I felt that I need to fulfill.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um, especially when I got married, those boundaries are blurred.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_05: Like, okay, so they my dad needs what at the church?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_05: Do I leave my church that I go with my wife to do that?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_05: Do I um help in this way?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_05: Or do I go and just drop what I'm doing and help my mom?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_05: Those type of things that I had to like, I think everyone does when you first get married.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_05: You could you gotta make these boundaries so that you're not disrupting your relationship with someone else.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_05: So I had to learn that kind of thing.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_05: And I I did get that book boundaries to figure that thing out.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_05: Then when I became when I had to deal with my addiction of porn and lust, that's a whole new set of boundaries, physical boundaries that I had to do.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_05: Put a bunch of blocks on my phone, have accountability partners.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_05: And so I it was a I learned a lot of it over time, and I'm still learning, still learning how to protect my peace.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_05: And I like that definition, like what's my responsibility and what's not.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_05: I have to make it clear.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, how about you, Heidi?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: I grew up in so much enmeshment.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like my dad is an identical twin, he and his twin married sisters, so there was a lot of sameness, and I think that we equated like sameness for closeness.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: And my dad and mom were divorced, and so was my uncle and aunt, and they were pastors, and it was messy.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so I grew up where everyone kind of knew my story or their version of the story before they actually got to know me.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then I watched that play out in my adult life when I married a pastor and became a part of the church, and I just thought everyone should have access to my time, my story.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that's why I burned out so quickly.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: When I would go to church on a Sunday morning with my kids, everybody and anybody that wanted a conversation with me or wanted to have us over for dinner, it was just like that we would just say yes to everything.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then when we went through our divorce, is when I realized I'm going to need boundaries to keep my sanity because not everyone is going to be invited into this story.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: And that was when my boundaries got really, really clear.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I learned that as an approval seeker, people pleaser, uh, boundaries don't bode well for people who don't have them.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: I felt like I was hurting people by having very specific boundaries, including my mom.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: I remember writing her an email and asking her, can you please not share what Josh and I are going through with anybody who's a part of our church family?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you're gonna talk about it because you need to process it, do it with people who don't know us.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: And um that was hard.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it was hard for her or hard for you?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: It was hard for both of us because my mom and I were very close and she was a part of my daily life with my kids, with Josh.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: And to have that hard boundary, and there were some other ones in there, it just it shifted our relationship in a way that was very lonely and sad because we needed some separation.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: There needed to be some separation there.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: You guys both mentioned parents, and you both are parents, and it's interesting because the boundaries are an evolution, right?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: That when your child is born, if they need something and you don't provide it, they will die.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: You can't just look at a crying baby and go, that's a ish you, not an ish me, right?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's uh that's uh that's not a you problem, that's a I'm here to take care of you.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: I I sort of see our parenting as this sort of diagonal line that your child, when they're born, is completely dependent on you.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I think my job as a parent, I would hope, would be to help him be completely dependent on himself and God, not not on me, because I'm not gonna be around for their whole life.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_03: But the boundary thing has to then evolve and change over time, and so you guys both have parents that are still alive, mine are both gone, but but I am a parent, and even how much I relate to my sons has to have some boundaries.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so what are your thoughts on that?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I think I have an older son who's in his 20s, and then my youngest is oh, I don't know.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think he's 13.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think he's 13.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: Did you lose him?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_03: Is he still around?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: He is.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: I just he's so tall and strong.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: He looks like my almost 16-year-old and almost 18-year-old.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I think I kind of clump him in that category and forget how old he is.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe check his ID later.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I um I think about that.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like how I'm very cognizant of sharing with them what's going on with me and their dad or things like that, because I don't want to put them in positions that I was put in where I knew too much stuff that I didn't want to know.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: But it's I have to be checking myself constantly when I'm interacting with them.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what are healthy boundaries to have with my 23-year-old who's dating?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, like it's I don't know if that answers your question, but it's something that I'm very aware of because I don't want to hurt them.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I want them to be okay with having boundaries too.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like if I could teach my kids anything, it's it's okay for you to say no to a friend that wants you to hang out with them.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can say no to obligations, you can have boundaries with people.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'm curious to see how my score is when my kids are aware.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know if I'm doing this right.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_03: Does any does anyone I can judge everyone else and see how they're doing?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_03: I I I could let me score there.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_03: But uh, but me, like I I think parenting has a lot to do with managing your disappointments in yourself and in your kids and whatnot.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but also don't you think that boundaries are a lot cultural?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when I was working with Habitat for Humanity as the um family selection committee, we'd go into people's where they currently are staying, and you know, there were some families that each kid had a bedroom and they were not usually recipients of the th that was like our family.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_03: And then there were families where they all slept in one bed, and um that that was sort of culturally, and maybe it was their income, but also it seemed like that's what they knew, and they thought it was normal and it was normal.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_03: But if our kids tried to jump into our bed, we'd be like, get out.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: You you you're bringing something up that I've never considered before.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: My mom is one of 14 kids.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_04: Oh jeez.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: So imagine like, and she was number seven right in the middle.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: And she told me that they slept on like army cots, and she might have shared a bed with a sister, and then the little sisters were in dresser drawers on the floor.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I wonder if some of me growing up without real definition around things came from my mom coming from a big family where you're just you've got to be the loudest or you're not gonna be heard.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: You have to eat the fastest or you're not gonna eat.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like my mom moves very quickly through life.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that some of that, some of those blurred lines probably come from growing up in a larger family.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so I'm gonna throw out a few things.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: I found a a list of like five different areas where it's hard to have boundaries in church.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_03: The first is the time and energy commitments that you know, people that go to church, that love church, that love God, that are trying to serve the best that they can sometimes get uh questioned about time and energy.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_03: And so churches run on volunteer work, and there can be a subtle or not so subtle sort of expectation or demand on what what can you give?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_03: Well, let's just start with that.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: What are your thoughts on that?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_05: I remember my dad always talked about priorities, and then there were like five things that he said, I'm gonna butcher it, but I just know that God was a first priority, and then he separated it from church ministry.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, what?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_05: And I think the the thing that gets put together is God and church ministry.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_05: But between God and church ministry, I think it was like the first and the four.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_05: I forgot what number it was, but family, uh, yourself, stuff like that were in the middle between those things.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_05: So generally, I always thought it was like your relationship with God, your prayer time, your alone time with God is an important thing.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_05: But I think that doing church ministry gets put into that first priority.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_05: And that's where you get kind of like the workaholic equivalent in the church, where you're just you're just there all the time, or you're worshiping the ministry part of it rather than like the whole idea serving God.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: Josh said he understands why priests don't get married.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: He said, if I didn't have a family, I would be at the church all the time because it really is his passion, his calling, and his his overcommitment is really coming from an authentic place of service for him.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm wired very differently from that.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I watched that play out in our marriage and the impact that it had on us because he would go to the hospital in the middle of the night.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: He would meet families in parking lots that were getting ready for an intervention.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it's interesting because if I think of him as not having boundaries, that's me putting that on him because I wasn't comfortable with it.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: But in his mind, he's got different boundaries around stuff.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's the what is he responsible for to get back to that definition and what is he not?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_03: He felt responsible for all of that.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I know that when I started on staff at the church where I was on staff, you know, my wife and I had just been living a pretty normal married life.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_03: We'd go to church, we'd sit kind of near the back.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: I always like to sit on an aisle, so I have early, you know, easy escape.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um but then when I started on staff and we sat on the back, if I was just attending, all I could think about was, oh, there's uh there's Jimmy Schnitzel.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_03: I wonder he's how he's doing with his wife that we talked about.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, there's Sally over there who is dealing with some stuff in her life.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: I wonder how that's going.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: There's Jenny.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_03: I know she needs it.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: Needs that Bible.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: I hope she hears the song today.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: But also then, so when I was on staff, I had to change where I sat.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: I had to sit up front so I could really worship, enter into the worship and not see all the people because the people would distract me.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: And our church was pretty big.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: We had about 2,500 people on a weekend, and we did five services, two on Saturday, three on Sunday.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: So guess where I was on Saturday at the services, especially if I was preaching and on Sunday all day.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_03: So my wife would have to bring the kids, have them behave, you know.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: And if you are a person who goes to church regularly, you know what a nightmare it can be to get your kids to church.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_03: And she had to do that every week because I was already there for the other services.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_03: So, what were the boundaries?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it was my job, and I loved the people, and I loved the job.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's probably my favorite job I ever had, but I had to, I had a family to attend to, and and so what was the time commitment?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_03: Uh 24-7.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_03: But most people aren't on staff at a church, most people are volunteers, and so when they get asked to volunteer, where the boundaries come in is it okay to say no?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_05: I'm thinking about my time on staff, and I think what was hard for me when I was um on staff at a church was having the boundaries and having to say no.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_05: Because I think in my heart and my calling would be like, I just want to be in the front lines with everyone else.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_05: And so during that time, I had very young kids.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_05: Theo was just born.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_05: I had to say no a lot, and that crushed me.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that feeling, um, luckily, I have a great supportive wife that reminds me of my boundaries.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm so, I'm so grateful for that because if not, oh man, I would be bad.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_05: That just like you want to be on the front lines with everyone.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_05: You get more, I don't know, church clout, if you're there, you know, you get connected to the inner circle of things.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_05: And I just kind of in my mind, when I took the job, like, I know I'm not gonna get there.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not gonna get in the inner circle.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_05: I'm just gonna try to do my job well with my boundaries.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_05: And in any job.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_05: I had I tell this to everybody, I always have a regul resignation letter printed or written addressed to my boss.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_05: If ever it gets out of hand where I put my work in front of my family, where something goes wrong, I'm ready to send that sucker in because luckily I was mature enough to have some boundaries.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_05: And one of my boundaries for this church was I can't let it get to a point where I work so hard at this church that I don't want to be a member of this church anymore.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, it's a good boundary.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_05: Where and if it was getting to that point where it's putting a strain on anything financial or whatever, then I gotta put that resignation in and just do a new chapter somewhere else.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_03: I'm very curious about whether you have written Heidi and I a letter Faith Rehab broadcast.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_05: I'm gonna submit after this recording.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: Do you don't do that?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_03: I'll just play it.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: All right, let's talk about uh another one spiritual authority.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sure this is true in synagogues and in mosques and in any place where there's faith that people who are leaders oftentimes ask for or demand some spiritual authority.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: And the what about boundaries in that area?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's such a hard one.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: Well, this is where I think I probably have been guilty of giving and expecting some maybe over-the-line boundary kind of stuff.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_03: Because in my growth within my own faith journey, I have spent a lot of time reading the Bible, journaling the Bible, taking classes about the Bible, uh, reading books from other people's perspective about the Bible.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so when I would say, Well, the Bible says this, I'm usually quoting the exact words that the Bible says, and then I'll go on to tell you what I think it means.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that many people in my position have told you what it means without the caveat of something that I've learned that I can't possibly be the first person in 2,000 years to get it all right.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think I'm that important.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_03: First of all, he if I was the somebody else's, if they've got it all right, it wasn't me, it was somebody else.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know where I'm wrong, or I would change some of those things, but I do think that sometimes we speak with the authority like God told me.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: And we sometimes will say, God told me we should do this, or God told me you should do this.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: And there we have a woman pastor at our church who's told a story of a guy who came up to her after hearing her speak and said, 'God told me that I should be dating you.' And she laughed at him and went, Well, God hasn't told me that.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: And she was a little creeped out, as I you would imagine.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I get very suspicious of any pastor that doesn't have that humbleness to say, I don't know, or the transparency to say that I struggle in this.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_05: Whenever there's a pastor that tells them like that relates to anyone, uh, any regular person with sin or anything, I just wish they did that more.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_05: I wish they opened up more and said, like, hey, I struggled with porn for 15 years.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_05: And then this is where I'm at in the scripture, or them wrestling with the scripture just like us, when they come off so maybe it's just my preference.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know if that relates to anything we're saying.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: No, I think especially when people are hurting in the church.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: How oftentimes has Steve said that, you know, a someone with good intentions will kind of prescribe a scripture verse to someone who's going through difficulty as if that's the thing that's going to help pull them out of whatever hurt they're in.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: And when I think about pastors being abusive of their authority in the church, I'm fiery.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I sometimes I feel like I haven't processed all the anger that exists inside of me because I would just go right into the pastor's office and say, You said this on stage, you did this over here.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like help me understand this dissonance.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I was never afraid to kind of push back on that, where I know there are some people who grew up in the church who felt like if the pastor says it, it's it's gospel.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, that's what I would say is just give yourself a check when you're going to a church and you like the church.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_05: Are you liking the church for that person or for the purpose that the church is going, like the same direction that the whole church is going to, which is following Christ, being Christ-like.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_05: Or is it this person that you give this blind loyalty to?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_05: And why?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, there are pastors that I will follow because they are so authentic with their faith and they tell me things that I'm so glad they do.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, oh, he struggles like me, and this is how he wrestles through it.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: And our faith journey is not exempt from reinforcing our biases.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a few pastors that I've read a ton of their books because I love the way they think, I love the way that they speak.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: Some of it is they challenge my thinking, and so I have to, you know, my journey of transformation is being pushed forward.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_03: Other of it is I just like their style.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: I like their way of putting things and their way of describing things that make it simple enough for me to understand.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't know if that's just my bias, but I know, having worked and attended many churches, that oftentimes people leave just partly because it's just their preference.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: Doesn't mean it's ungodly, they just don't like that music, or they don't like that way that guy speaks, or that woman, or they don't like women, or whatever.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_03: That there's some of them is is just that our our preferences and and things that we just can't agree on.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_05: You could just tell if someone spends time with God too.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_05: There's just some pastors we're like, geez, I need to spend time with God because I'm not doing as much as that guy.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and it just kind of oozes out of them.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_05: So that's um, anyways.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: I I do think though, just on top of that, I absolutely think that's true.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_03: And the Bible says, and I agree, that you'll know by the fruit of the spirit.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that we sometimes fall into a trap of that knowing is growing, that the person who has the most Bible verses memorized must be the deepest person.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I would say, the well, I I mean, the Jesus gave a very good example.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: If you want to be the greatest, know idle all the Bible verses.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, no, wait, he didn't say that.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_03: If you want to be the greatest, be right about the most things.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, no, no.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry, he didn't say that either.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_03: He said, if you want to be the greatest, be a servant.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: And that if we're measuring people's depth of their relationship based on being a servant, then we're probably in alignment with what Christ has said.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um, all right, ready for another one?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, this one hurts, man.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: This one's gonna cut deep.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: The personal information and privacy matters, too.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: So the boundary issues around small groups and around the most famous of all Christian abuses.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, let me pray for you.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'm only telling you this so you'll be praying for them.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: You know, please pray for Jenny.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_03: She doesn't know the Lord.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: She needs the Bible.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_03: She needs it.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_03: So just pray for her.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_05: Is Jenny the unsaved girl or the one saving people?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: No, Jenny is unsaved.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, I guess I needed the verses to figure that out.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think we never got to the verses.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think we only wrote a chorus.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll be working on that.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: Could you please let's re-release that?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think people like to have information.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I felt like in my position as a pastor's wife, if they had access to me and I had access to Josh, that I had information about things.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I was very immature and young and wanted to build rapport.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I did that by oversharing with people, and I shouldn't have done that because I knew things.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: And by knowing things, it made me feel like we were gonna have a more authentic relationship.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: But just because you have information about someone doesn't give you depth of relationship.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I learned that very quickly when my marriage dissolved of who was left and who wasn't.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that I perpetuated a lot of the gossip in our church because I knew things.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_05: Gossip.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_05: I I normally tell my kids this, but I don't honestly know.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_05: Is gossip allowed if you're trying to solve the problem and you're involved in it?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_05: Like, how do you explain what's it what's a line of gossip and you trying to figure a solution to it?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: So let's just travel back to the definition of what the Lord has given us through Henry Cloud.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, he really has helped a lot of people.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: I don't mean to mock him.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_03: I apologize for that.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, boundaries show you what you're responsible for and what you're not.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think gossip is stuff that I'm not responsible for.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: This is how I take it.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not responsible for it.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's just juicy information I want to pass along.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: Why?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_03: It makes me feel important, it makes other people feel important.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe I want other people to know.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_03: So, for instance, if I'm having a disagreement with a friend, and I think that friend is wrong, and I want to process it with my wife, that's different than me saying to you about a mutual friend.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: So let's talk about Heidi for a second.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: Let's say I know something about Heidi.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_03: Heidi and I will sometimes marko polo or will sometimes text.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_03: And if it was something that I knew she was struggling with and I told you, it's not my news to tell.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_03: I don't own that.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: She does.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_03: And so I the boundary is she told me, she didn't say, Hey, would you call CJ and tell them all about this?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: But I think I know what you're asking because I've been in situations like that before, CJ, where if something is happening and I'm a part of the group that it's happening in, if I'm talking to other people in that group about it because I'm processing it, is that considered gossip?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: Is that kind of what your question is?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_05: Well, uh now I'm thinking because we're coming from a Christian idea, like we're coming from a Christian group.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_05: Every time someone brings you a drama, it almost feels like it's my duty as a follower of Christ to tell this person what I think.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_05: Or I need to get involved in this because I have a duty to serve my friend.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_05: And that's where it becomes like, is it gossip or am I being a good Christian?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_05: And I I like your I mean the definition.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, if it's your responsibility, it's not gossip, it's a discussion, it's a constructive criticism or something that you could give.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_05: But if it's not, it's gossip.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_05: But I you see where there's like uh enmeshment there where you're like, am I being a good Christian?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_05: I need to listen to this and give them my Christian feedback.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: But I think it's like Yeah, but that's is are they asking for your feedback?
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I think people come with this like obligation to like it's my duty to because I'm a good person and I want to make everyone a good person.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that authority piece, right?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: Because that that happened to me a lot.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: When you when you're going through a divorce, everybody wants to talk to you about, oh, I went through a hard time in my marriage.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: And and they're trying to be there for you and support you, but really they're telling you God hates divorce, and and it's hard to have a boundary in that and say, every marriage is different.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: You see a version of Josh and I projected that is very different from what happens behind the scenes.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: So it it gets really messy.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: Everything gets super messy.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the way that I would measure that is who actually stayed in my life beyond that experience.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: Because there were pastors, a part of our church that were like, how can we be there better for couples going through divorce?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, like, just show up for them.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: Guess who's not in my life anymore?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: The people that, you know, it's like, it's just an interesting conflict that people feel like they're telling you that this is what God's word says, or and but they're not there for the messy parts or the ordinary parts like they were when you're part of the community.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: I think sometimes we really radically underestimate the power of God.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so that if somebody comes to me with a problem and I can solve it, I work to try to solve it.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_03: But what would be better for them than me praying for them or me helping them find a scripture or helping them find something that is a practical tool.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes that's a scripture, sometimes it's a phone number of a center or a resource or a you know, some life skill that will teach them to be better at things, you know, like, oh, I don't know, boundaries.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_03: And that sometimes we underestimate what God has used in my life and also the tools that I have to help other people.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I listen, I think a lot of men, especially in my generation, were problem solvers.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_03: And when I first started as a therapist, people would walk in with problems and I'd give solution.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm depressed, cheer up.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm getting a divorce, figure it out, you know, or I would just come up with solution, solution, solution, which doesn't really help that person process.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_03: And if we can help people process, wrestle with their faith, continue in their own faith journey, and sometimes we go, Well, I'll pray for you, as a flippant sort of thing, but we really should be spending some time praying for them and asking our hearts to change, their hearts to change.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_03: Now, sometimes people do that because they don't want to do other things, you know, like, hey, I'm hungry.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_03: Do you got a dollar?
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_03: No, but I'll pray for you.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I got a dollar, I'm just don't want to give it to you.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: Or, or you're going through a divorce, I'll pray for you.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm praying that you go back to your marriage.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm praying that God brings you back together again, instead of like, just pray that for the the kids and the healing.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_02: And and I like that you said remembering that we're all in process, that none of us have it figured out.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: My favorite people are the ones who would say, What are you comfortable talking about?
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: And if you don't, if you don't want to talk about what's going on in your marriage, let's talk about something different.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because they were like giving me permission to not have to have this part of my life take up all the space in our conversations.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: I want to hit two more, but I think I can hit them both as uh together.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_03: One is, and because they're both involved with so much pressure.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_03: One is your attendance to at things, and the other is your giving.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_03: And uh any pastor who actually knows how much you're giving is probably out of balance that they probably need a uh some kind of separation in there.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: But what about those boundaries in terms of giving, tithing, generosity, as well as like the social pressure of hey, we're all gonna be there.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_03: You gotta be there.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: If you really love God, you'll be a part of it.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: Go back to that definition.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_02: What does Henry Cloud say?
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's my what's my responsibility, right?
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_02: So can't it be between me and God what I give?
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: Can't it be between me and God how I give my time?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: But that that pressure is so real to show up and and be there and and to give.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'm having a hard time because I want to be honest, but I also want to be careful of not saying too much about specific people or churches.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's it's hard to do.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's hard to have an honest conversation and not feel that pressure.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, that's part sort of our tagline is we want to have real talk, but we've also made a commitment to each other not to bash individual pastors because that's somebody's pastor, right?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_03: Not to bash individual churches, because that's you know where people are still going and and where Jenny's gonna find the Lord.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_03: But it's just a hard thing.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_03: CJ, are you how are you feeling about it?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_05: The same.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_05: But though if we talk about, I think I mentioned about attendance.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_05: Like I did feel this guilt that I couldn't, if someone asked me, can you cover this?
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_05: Can you do this?
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_05: And I say no, I got kids, I got this.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_05: I there was this guilt in me saying, Oh, I can't, I can't uh move up the ranks in ministry.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know how he says that.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_05: But um the the thing about tithing, I guess the boundary that comes to mind in money is being feeling frustrated that um it's kind of like a state worker.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_05: And my wife's a state worker, she's been in there for a while, she's a hard worker, but I know there's some state workers that have a make the bad rap.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_05: They're the bad apples, right?
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_05: That you're like, our tax pay, our tax money goes to your salary and you're not working, and they want all this regulation to figure out who's inefficient.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_05: I feel the same way about church.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_05: Like, this is our tithes going into this, and I seen you work, or that kind of effect.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_05: We're like, or you're causing too much uh drama in this and we're paying you.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_05: Like you're causing too much division, or you're just not answering me back on my emails.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_05: That's where I get this this I see it in the corporate world where there's no um there's no accountability.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_05: There's all accountability in the corporate world.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_05: If I don't email someone back in 24 hours, I could get written up or something like that.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_05: That's I mean, we have those at my job right now.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_05: But in the church, there's this grace, and then there's this forgiveness that we have we are bound to do, and so that gets abused a bit.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_05: So when it comes to money, I think about that too.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_05: Like, hey, we we give our tithes, whether it's 1%, 10%.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_05: I think the responsibility is like I gotta get my kids fed first.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_05: I also need to give God something.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_05: I always give something, right?
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_05: But uh there's this argument about like the church and being accountable, like showing the funds, showing all these things.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_05: See, this is the stuff that I don't really want to say because it's very clear who's listening.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, but that's very true of every church, I think.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_05: So and is that related to your question?
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_03: Totally.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: Because I think it's a question of when it comes to finances, like I have lots of friends.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_03: I never tell them my budget, I never tell them, you know, what I need to make up, you know, I if we're really gonna have this vacation, we need an extra ten thousand dollars.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so I, you know, I've been in lots of churches where they encourage you to tithe, and then they encourage you at the end of the year near Christmas to to give an end of the year gift, and then at the end of the fiscal year, they encourage you to give an end of the fiscal year.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_03: Now, I don't believe that churches are only all about money.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: If you're in a church like that, please leave today.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like, don't even write a letter like CJ would.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_03: Just leave.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_03: Just you don't have to, just Irish goodbye it.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_03: But I do think that churches need money.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they they uh pay salaries and turn on the lights and whatnot.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_03: And uh what CJ I think is bringing up is are they good stewards of that money?
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: Which is you know, you have to decide for your own church.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_03: But when there's pressure on you to dig deep and give more, then the pressure I sort of feel like this about salespeople.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_03: I never feel bad when somebody asks me to buy something.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_03: I only feel bad if I say no and they continue.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so to go back to what Heidi said earlier, shouldn't it be between me and God?
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's between you and God, no matter what you're giving and when you're giving it.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_03: That's between you and God.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_05: Um, there's always this thing where there's a homeless guy and you could give money, and there's this person that says, they're just gonna spend it on alcohol, they're gonna spend it on something else, right?
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_05: And so that's how I feel about giving to the church, where it I'm gonna give it because that's what I'm bound to do.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_05: If they choose to squander it, they could deal with God on that.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_05: And so that that's what helps me give, even though like it in the flesh, the finances are not shown, or I don't know.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_05: Like there's something odd about it.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_05: Obviously, if it's obvious, leave.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_05: But if it's not.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_05: You're giving out of you know, out of the joy and the overflow of what it's given to you, and you just trust God to deal with it.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: I I just I remember um pulling into the parking lot at church and someone saw me get out of the car and said, Oh, we're paying you too much.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: And what he didn't know is that we shared the car.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: We had one car, and you know, it's like the audacity that people have sometimes to say things without thinking.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, but I'm we could do a whole episode, which is just have pastors and their wives on here and the idiot things people have said to us.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank you for that.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_03: Let let's change gears a little bit.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me what you think, and for our listeners, what's the difference between having boundaries and being selfish?
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_03: And because this is primarily Christian-based, I'm sure other faiths have something similar that you know, die to yourself daily, you know, lose yourself, that that that there's something about uh being others-centered that's so holy.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_03: What's the difference between having boundaries and uh being selfish?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_05: I don't have a good answer, but I want to share this.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_05: There was a time where I did come out of Celebrate Recovery and I felt like I could share anything.
• 45:31
  unknown: Yeah.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_05: And because some people in my life did not like that, they made me feel selfish.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_05: Like you're being selfish with giving all your sharing everything.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_05: You don't need to share everything.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_05: You're just being, you know, mine was I'm I'm having boundaries by being open and allowing you that sounds opposite, but allowing you to come into my life a little bit.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_05: These are to the close people that I know.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_05: Totally.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_03: Because the boundary was I'm gonna be open.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_03: I've been operating in secret for a long time, and now I'm gonna be open.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_03: So it was uh it wasn't me prying into your life, it was you sharing.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's uh what are you responsible for?
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_03: I'm responsible for my own truth.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but I could see how people see people with boundaries and like, oh, they're being selfish.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_05: They don't want to serve, they don't want to come out, they don't want to give, they don't want to but they're just having healthy boundaries, man.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: My my sister and her husband, I think are really good about having boundaries.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I've been hurt by that because I perceive it as they're not being giving with their time to our family.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: That wasn't that's not real.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: They're actually protecting their family from overcommitting.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that when I started learning how to have my own boundaries, I started to really respect the people around me who were demonstrating what healthy boundaries look like that I had perceived as selfishness because I wanted something from them.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_03: That's so good.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_03: You guys are killing it.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I want to move now to sort of uh what are some helpful hints?
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_03: What are some things that might be helpful?
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I I want to start in maybe the most controversial thing I'm gonna say on this whole show is that for a lot of people that have had some church hurt, that have been hurt by people of faith, that have been hurt in their temple or their mosque or whatever, the boundary is I'm done with that.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I understand that boundary.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_03: I also hope that on this podcast we're encouraging people, and I would like to personally encourage you that it's okay to have some boundaries, but also I would encourage you to continue to seek after God and seek that relationship.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_03: In other words, to separate the hurt from people and the institution from your relationship with God.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_03: Does that make sense?
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_03: That if if it's not God gossiping about you, I promise you, he's not coming over to my house to go, have you heard about CJ?
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't need don't even get me started on Jenny.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um that we need to separate the institution and people from our relationship with God.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_03: So, yes, have some boundaries and and I mean, and continue to seek truth and godliness and and your develop your spiritual walk.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that's the end of that sermon.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_03: But what are some other helpful things that um that have helped you guys to have boundaries or things you wish you had done, wish you could do?
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it was until this conversation that I realized how misaligned Josh and I were because where I thought we needed boundaries, he just had a different boundary for me in terms of his commitment to the church.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted my boundary to be his boundary.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: I was kind of putting that on him because if I could do anything different, I think I would go back and have a lot of different boundaries and be okay with saying no and share far less about myself, our struggles.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I think sometimes I thought I was doing people a favor by oversharing for two reasons.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: One, I wanted them to understand me or maybe like feel legitimate in how I was feeling about something.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_02: And also I wanted people to feel close to me by knowing what what we were going through.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I should have been more protective of some of what was what was going on.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: Certainly, I wish I could go back and not gossip.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was a part of a church, a smaller community within our church that we weren't a small group, but we did everything together.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a lot of hard things that happened within that circle.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I think we we hurt each other because we didn't have the maturity or guidance to know how to have boundaries.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, we were young.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_02: And when you leave a college community where you're living in close connection with everyone, and then you're part of a church community, we were kind of reproducing some of the same patterns we did in college, but we had kids and spouses, and you know, um, it was different.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that makes any sense.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it makes total sense.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_03: CGG, do you have something or should I go?
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know if I have anything.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna give kind of a list of two or three.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_03: And remember that I'm a therapist, I'm not your therapist, so these are free.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_05: And you can't sue him.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, don't sue me.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'll have to go on workers' comp and then CJ will write me a letter or something like that.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, for those of us that have had any kind of hurt in any kind of relationship, including churches, synagogues, mosques, anything like that, as we try to reconnect into a community like that, I would just encourage you to do a couple of things.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_03: One is go slow.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_03: The trust is something we give.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_03: And we sometimes say, people have to earn it before I give it, which is true.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_03: But trust is like an onion, it's got so many layers, right?
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_03: That everybody I meet, unless they're really seriously obnoxious, everybody I meet, I can talk about news, weather, sports all day, right?
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_03: I can talk about any of those kinds of things and then see what they do with it.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_03: And if I want to talk a little deeper, uh and I tell them about my family and see what they do with it.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_03: Because if they're not trustworthy, I think that's gonna come out.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_03: And over the course of a relationship, the more you give to someone and the more trustworthy they are with it, the more that can reinforce that trust.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I'll just say this about Heidi, who I've known for 14 years, and CJ that I've known for uh 26.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, right.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_03: No, it can't be that many.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um 26 years?
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_05: No, no, no.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_03: I was thinking 2000, but it was 2020 when that so six or seven years.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, six seven eight um, you know, have done nothing but been trustworthy with everything that I've shared.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_03: And I hope I'm the same with them, but but go slow with your trust, go slow with your investment because if you're coming from a hurting place, that protecting those wounds by saying no one's ever allowed, yeah, robs you of relationships that are going to be powerful and amazing.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_03: And but go slow, dip your toe in, don't go cannonballing in there.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I know people like this where they tell me everything, not even in my practice, just in the world, where they'll tell me everything.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I go, I'm worried about you sharing all of that because they're looking for I'm gonna give people everything, and if they're not trustworthy, then I'll know it.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, most people are not gonna be trustworthy with all of that all at once, they just can't do it.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so take your time, go slow, and then look for patterns.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_03: You know, anytime, um, I'll have Heidi come up with the right term here in a second, but anytime there's a bias that we have that if I say church people suck and that you can't trust any of them, and then one person does something that sucks and I can't trust them, that's sort of it's confirmation bias, is that right?
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, where I go, see, see, see, those people.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it wasn't those people in a plural sense, it was that person.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so look for patterns about how people, you know, treat other folks in the church and how, especially when people are leaving, to know how they're treating them on the way in, like Jenny, or on the way out, like the rest of us.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then I have one more, but any comments from you guys?
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_03: This is great.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm curious to hear your last one because I have one that I'm thinking of.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you share and then let's see if it matches.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_03: I I just think this is so important for people to hear on your job, in your family, in every relationship, that no, the word no is a complete sentence.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_03: That when you say no to most people, the more intimate the relationship, the less likely it is.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_03: But when you say no to most people, you don't need to come up with a slideshow or research statistics or a whole explanation and a five-point, you know, TED talk.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_03: No can mean no.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_03: And we we know that and we teach that in relationships, you know, no means no.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_03: If she says no, don't go any further.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, if you ask me to do something at the church and I say no, thank you, I'm a little nice, so I always add thank you, no, thank you.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's a complete sentence.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_03: And people don't need to know why.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_03: And if I want to tell them for my sake, maybe, but I don't need to tell them like to kind of convince them that's a complete sentence.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: Something that I admire about CJ is over the course of these recordings, you have these moments where and I can watch it happen.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_02: I see it like happen in your eyes, where you look back at a time in your life when you're like, gosh, I could have done that differently.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: I could have done that better.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I have so much respect for you for reflecting in that way.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think I would encourage people to look at yourself.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like what are the ways that I'm showing up?
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because Steve, when you were talking about confirmation bias, when we show up with the expectation of how people should treat us or what people in the church are doing wrong, there's a lot they're doing right.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot the and there's a lot of ways that people are helping.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then how how am I helping?
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_02: You know, how am I helping people that are in pain?
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_02: And um because I have to be accountable to what I share with other people.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so just like check yourself because there's kindness in that, there's a real kindness in that.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: And if we're supposed to be Christ-like, like do better.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I know one thing when I'm talking to I have a real heart for my my church staff people.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_05: I think it's a really tough job.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you guys do too, I know.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but I used to be the one that loves commiserating with them, you know, like what's new?
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_05: You know, now I don't know if it's the podcast or the discussions that we had with people, but I really think about their health.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_05: And those three things that Steve said just say, no, you know, you got to protect your boundaries.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_05: I pray for those people.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_05: I and I I have that in mind when I'm talking to them now.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_05: So personally, what I I would like to do is just lead them in more of a direction of good health rather than let's talk about let's let's gossip it up, you know?
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_05: Like, um, what can I do?
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_05: What questions can I ask to see where they're at?
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_05: And not just to provide a solution because I probably don't have one, but to listen because they probably don't have that many people that understand church ministry and would listen without giving feedback.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_05: And I I would be great at both because I would just love to listen.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, I every time I talk to someone in ministry, I have that in mind now.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's awesome.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I want to paraphrase Heidi by using the lyrics of one of my favorite songs, and it goes like this Checkity, check yourself before you wreck yourself.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, thanks for listening today on Pod and on Podcast, on Faith Rehab Podcast.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_03: I hope we've helped you think about boundaries, talk about boundaries, giving you some helpful hints on how to have boundaries.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_03: And remember above all else that we should what, Heidi?
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_03: Be blessed.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_03: Be blessed.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_03: Have a good week.