Latest / Future Christian / When Giftedness Outpaces Character | Chuck DeGroat

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When Giftedness Outpaces Character | Chuck DeGroat · Future Christian

0:05
Martha: This is the Future Christian Podcast, a conversation about church leadership, fresh
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Martha: ideas, and the future of the church.
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Martha: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today Loren Richmond Jr.
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Martha: is in conversation with Chuck DeGroat. Chuck is a professor of pastoral care and
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Martha: Christian spirituality at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, where he
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Martha: also serves as founding executive director of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling
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Martha: Program. He is a licensed therapist, spiritual director, author, retreat leader, and
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Martha: founder of the Soul Care Collaborative, a network of practitioners.
0:51
Martha: offering spiritually attuned and trauma-informed care.
0:55
Martha: As a therapist, he specializes in navigating issues of abuse and trauma, pastoral and
1:02
Martha: leadership health, as well as doubt and dark nights on the faith journey.
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Martha: He and his team also facilitate five-day soul care intensives.
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Martha: He trains clergy in handling issues of abuse and trauma and conducts pastor planter
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Martha: assessments. Before transitioning to training pastors, Chuck served as a pastor and
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Martha: counseling center director in Orlando and San Francisco.
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Martha: He and his wife Sarah have two married daughters.
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Martha: A reminder before we start today's conversation, please take a moment to subscribe to
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Martha: the podcast, leave a review, and share Future Christian with a friend.
1:42
Martha: Connect with Loren, Martha, and Future Christian on Instagram.
1:47
Martha: Shoot us an email at Loren at ResonateMediapro.com with comments.
1:52
Martha: Comments, questions, or ideas for future episodes.
1:55
Martha: Your support and voice mean a lot to us in making this independent podcast possible.
2:02
Loren: Hey, welcome to the Future Christian Podcast.
2:04
Loren: This is Loren Richmond Jr., and I'm glad to be welcoming today Chuck DeGroat to the
2:09
Loren: show. Hey, thanks for being here.
2:11
Chuck: Thanks, Loren. Good to be back.
2:14
Loren: Yeah, so you've been on the show before. You're welcome to share briefly just a little
2:18
Loren: bit about yourself, your faith background, where you're at today.
2:22
Chuck: Yeah. Well, I'm I'm currently at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan,
2:27
Chuck: and we were just talking offline about how it's known these days in part for the
2:32
Chuck: Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination.
2:35
Chuck: But I was a pastor in San Francisco before that, Orlando, Florida before that.
2:40
Chuck: I've been a therapist for for for for a long time now, twenty five years or more.
2:46
Chuck: and so I've kind of lived this this this life, this hyphenated life as Eugene Peterson
2:51
Chuck: once called it. He called himself a pre psychologist.
2:55
Chuck: You know, I've been able to kind of live that being the the therapist, the therapist,
3:00
Chuck: the pastor and the professor, who also gets to do some writing.
3:04
Chuck: and I guess that's what we're talking about too.
3:08
Loren: Yeah, yeah, we will be. Share if you would just about any kind of spiritual practice
3:13
Loren: or something you find meaningful that's kept helping you stay grounded today these
3:19
Loren: days.
3:20
Chuck: Wow, that's a good question. Well, f for years I've had a contemplative prayer
3:28
Chuck: practice and that's a oftentimes a midday practice of at least a half an hour or so of
3:37
Chuck: silence and non-distraction and that that that of course is a form of prayer, but it's
3:46
Chuck: also j just a form of presence and rest. In solitude as well.
3:53
Loren: I appreciate the reminder about the non-distractions.
3:56
Loren: I'm reading this book on constraints. I picked up from the local library, and it was
4:01
Loren: just a reminder how much we th we think that multitasking is a thing.
4:05
Loren: so this morning when I was working on some podcast material prepping, I just like
4:10
Loren: threw my phone away. I'm like, put the f you know, it it is amazing how things like a
4:16
Loren: phone, 'Cause I like I recognize this myself.
4:18
Loren: Like even just a phone being present there makes me want to grab it, pick it up, and
4:24
Loren: I'm scrolling mindlessly before I even know it.
4:27
Chuck: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's the way it goes nowadays.
4:33
Chuck: And and it feels like i you know, w we we can be habituated into this state of
4:40
Chuck: inattention, right? This state of distraction
4:45
Loren: Mm-hmm.
4:45
Chuck: where where we're just pulled in the these different directions.
4:48
Chuck: That's why it's so important to well pay it pay attention to what we pay attention to,
4:53
Chuck: right? Is what we always say. For me, that question in Genesis chapter three, where
4:58
Chuck: are you, is so important because at
5:00
Loren: Yeah.
5:00
Chuck: any time of the day that could that could stop me in my tracks and I could just sort
5:05
Chuck: of be awakened to the reality that I'm not quite here right now.
5:10
Loren: Yeah. Yeah, it reminds me of your last book, which highly recommend for folks.
5:12
Loren: And that
5:13
Chuck: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
5:15
Loren: was such good such good content and reminders there.
5:18
Loren: This is making me think of like a really hard question right off the bat that I sort
5:24
Loren: of want to ask you. And I can't remember where I heard this, but I was listening to
5:30
Loren: something else recently and it in the the idea that like there's so much content and
5:36
Loren: information available to us, especially as as ministry leaders.
5:41
Loren: And I don't think like all that content information is is healthy or or helpful maybe.
5:47
Loren: But also like it it can be it can be seen as a point of privilege to say like I'm
5:53
Loren: gonna to shut myself off from some things.
5:56
Chuck: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
5:58
Loren: How do you when you're coaching or or working with pastors and ministry leaders, like
6:01
Loren: 'cause I mean, like one could say like Chuck, thirty minutes, like wow, that is so
6:05
Loren: privileged to just cut yourself off from the world for thirty minutes.
6:08
Chuck: Yes, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
6:11
Chuck: Yeah, absolutely. I mean well, I mean, none of us can give our attention fully to all
6:17
Chuck: the things in any given day,
6:19
Loren: Yeah.
6:19
Chuck: right? And and obviously it's more complex nowadays with with our access.
6:23
Chuck: I mean, I didn't grow up in a world where we had access, right?
6:26
Chuck: I mean we'd watch the nightly news and we'd
6:29
Loren: Right. Yeah.
6:31
Chuck: find out what was going on, but then there was twenty four hour news and we thought,
6:36
Chuck: well now we're you know, we're in it. It'll never get worse than this, you know.
6:41
Chuck: And now we've got we've got our phones with notifications at any time of the day, at
6:46
Chuck: any point, you know, social media, all the things.
6:49
Chuck: I it's always striking to me that, you know, Jesus, I mean, if I were the Trinity kind
6:54
Chuck: of thinking about well, how to do this most effectively, like if we're gonna Jesus is
7:00
Chuck: gonna become incarnate and engage in public ministry in the world.
7:04
Chuck: Let's let's let's do that in a big chunk, like fifty years.
7:07
Chuck: You know, let's make
7:09
Loren: Mm-hmm.
7:09
Chuck: sure we use that time effectively. And and yet we've got three years and lots of time
7:15
Chuck: where, you know, he could be out ministering, but he goes and prays.
7:20
Chuck: And
7:21
Loren: Mm-hmm.
7:23
Chuck: lot lots of people that he passes by on the way that he could have healed.
7:28
Chuck: And
7:29
Loren: Yeah.
7:29
Chuck: it's just striking to me that, you know, we We're limited and we've got to remember
7:34
Chuck: that. That goes back to Genesis chapter three, too.
7:37
Chuck: We're dust, and to dust we shall return, right?
7:40
Chuck: And in in our limitations, there's only so much we can do.
7:43
Chuck: I'm a therapist, I'm a professor, I'm a writer.
7:46
Chuck: I'm I'm engaged in people's lives in a variety of different ways.
7:50
Chuck: And and I think you are too. And at some point we've got to be able to say it's time
7:55
Chuck: to turn on the Yankees game and exhale,
7:58
Loren: Yeah.
7:59
Chuck: right? Because I can't hold
8:01
Loren: I I never exhale during those games, so I increase anxiety.
8:04
Chuck: Yeah, okay, there you go. That's fair. That's fair.
8:07
Chuck: Like we were not we were not designed to cr to to hold the weight of the world.
8:12
Loren: Yeah.
8:13
Chuck: and if you do try to do that, well you're probably gonna end up in my office talking
8:17
Chuck: about burnout or exhaustion or something like that.
8:20
Loren: Yeah. Well I I appreciate you engaging me a a a challenging question right off the
8:24
Loren: bat. We're here to
8:25
Chuck: Yeah.
8:26
Loren: talk about Chuck's new book, Who You're Becoming, the slow and courageous work of
8:31
Loren: cultivating character in a narcissistic age.
8:34
Loren: Do you wanna just first talk about like why you wanted to write this book?
8:39
Loren: What were your goals for it?
8:41
Chuck: Yeah. Well, I'll just put it really simply.
8:43
Chuck: I I have been alongside a lot of people talking about spiritual and emotional health
8:48
Chuck: and practices for a long, long time now. my first job in the late 90s as a pastor was
8:54
Chuck: pastor of spiritual formation. And I I've led people on retreats and done all the
8:59
Chuck: things, right? And yet I think a few more than a few years ago, I started wondering
9:04
Chuck: with all of this, with all these resources for spiritual and emotional health.
9:09
Chuck: are we becoming a people who are loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, gentle, you
9:14
Chuck: know, faithful? You know what I'm getting at there, right?
9:18
Chuck: I mean, are we are we becoming a people that
9:21
Loren: Yeah, fruits of the spirit.
9:23
Chuck: look like the fruits of the spirit? Are we becoming a people that look like Jesus?
9:28
Chuck: Am I becoming that person with all the resources for health?
9:31
Chuck: and and obviously, I mean I just wrote a book on on how to do the deep work around
9:36
Chuck: your story and around your body and nervous system.
9:39
Chuck: All this work that I'm committed to and we're committed to, that's one of the big
9:44
Chuck: questions of the book is what's the tell us?
9:47
Chuck: You know, who are we becoming, right? That's the title.
9:50
Chuck: And so that really gets to the heart of it.
9:53
Chuck: And it goes in lots of different directions, you know.
9:56
Chuck: This is not simply a book on the fruits of the spirit.
10:00
Chuck: I mean, we I I I go down many different roads in the book, but that's kind of the
10:05
Chuck: general for me as I was wrestling with it, that was kind of what I was bringing to the
10:10
Chuck: book.
10:11
Loren: Yeah. Well, I gotta say, like most books I just burn through and read very fast.
10:16
Loren: Your book was such where I really found myself I mean, you certainly build in in each
10:21
Loren: the end of each chapter
10:23
Chuck: Mm.
10:24
Loren: pauses and and ways to kind of take in the
10:28
Chuck: Mm-hmm.
10:28
Loren: content and practice. Like I'm thinking that you had a lot of kind of like body stuff
10:31
Loren: touching your chest if I remember. So like I f like
10:34
Chuck: Uh-huh, uhhuh. Sloy done.
10:37
Loren: I say this honestly, like this is one of the few books where I I actually stopped
10:41
Loren: would read a chapter at a time because the content was so good.
10:45
Loren: So I
10:46
Chuck: Mm. Mm. Mm.
10:48
Loren: wanna recommend that for listeners. So something certainly I noticed throughout the
10:53
Loren: book was IFS or internal as I understood it, internal family systems sort of is a a
10:58
Loren: subcharacter, if you will, throughout the book.
11:01
Loren: Do you want to just briefly explain IFS and
11:04
Chuck: Yeah.
11:04
Loren: what that's about?
11:06
Chuck: Yeah, yeah. I mean the the technical name of a kind of a counseling modality is
11:10
Chuck: internal family systems, but it it sometimes goes by the name parts work.
11:14
Chuck: There are other people who've engaged parts work.
11:17
Chuck: And to really simplify it, because this is in the spiritual formation tradition too.
11:22
Chuck: In fact you know, I I often point people to the work of a woman named Elizabeth
11:26
Chuck: O'Connor who's writing in the late sixties.
11:29
Chuck: She wrote a book called Our Many Cells. It was a spiritual retreat for her church in
11:33
Chuck: Washington, DC, where she was talking about our the different parts of us, right?
11:38
Chuck: The simple way of maybe explaining it is when you wake up in the morning, there may be
11:43
Chuck: a part of you that wants to get out of bed and get get to work, you know, is ready to
11:48
Chuck: open your inbox and and get productive. And there may be another part of you that's
11:52
Chuck: like, let's pull the covers over the head. I do not want to get out of bed.
11:57
Chuck: There may be yet another part of you pulling you to, but I've got my daughter's
12:01
Chuck: recital and I I really don't want to miss that.
12:04
Chuck: And yet I've got the, you know, the thing at work.
12:06
Chuck: And so at as we begin to pay attention to our lives, what we realize is what St.
12:11
Chuck: Augustine realized, what, 15, 16, 1700 years ago, that we're fragmented, that we're
12:16
Chuck: pulled in lots
12:17
Loren: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
12:20
Chuck: of different directions. And so it's really a matter of paying attention to where
12:25
Chuck: we're pulled. And as Augustine says, Returning to ourselves.
12:28
Chuck: that's easier said than done, right? And particularly
12:32
Loren: Right.
12:33
Chuck: when as we we understand trauma when parts of us are kind of frozen in the past, you
12:37
Chuck: know, hard things happen.
12:39
Loren: Mm-hmm.
12:40
Chuck: And it's like as as a guy told me just recently, you know, he he was leading a a staff
12:44
Chuck: meeting for his church and he said I felt like I was I was twelve years old again
12:48
Chuck: being bullied on the playground.
12:50
Loren: Mm.
12:51
Chuck: yeah, there are there are things like that that we've gotta be aware of, but They're
12:56
Chuck: it's just simply an invitation to to pay attention.
12:59
Chuck: Yeah.
13:00
Loren: Yeah. Yeah.
13:02
Chuck: And to return to ourselves.
13:04
Loren: Yeah. I I find it I don't wanna get you know, I don't wanna make this all about you
13:08
Loren: counseling me here, but it's good stuff.
13:10
Chuck: Ha ha ha.
13:13
Loren: two thoughts I had as I was reading the book, and may we'll take this in parts here,
13:20
Loren: but one is that I think so often churches assume gift no, we assume that woundedness
13:27
Loren: is giftings. Like we're acting so often I think it seems like What people are doing is
13:34
Loren: is praised and encouraged. And I I sort of just wonder how often it's actually people
13:41
Loren: acting out of their woundedness.
13:44
Chuck: yeah.
13:45
Loren: and and and similarly, like, how do churches promote healthy spirituality when that
13:51
Loren: means asking some people to step back and others to step forward?
13:57
Loren: So yeah, I I've given you a lot there. Maybe talk through
14:02
Chuck: Yeah.
14:03
Loren: one at a time.
14:04
Chuck: Yeah. Yeah. I mean i it it's a complicated question and it reminds me it's always
14:08
Chuck: helpful to think about it less in the abstract and more more in in terms of actual
14:13
Chuck: people. I mean, I remember years ago when I was a pastor and there was an incredibly
14:18
Chuck: gifted audio engineer in our church and he made us all sound better.
14:22
Chuck: He made it's a church of about eight hundred to thousand people and and big enough
14:27
Chuck: where you have you know, you have a worship team and You're singing your 1990s songs
14:32
Chuck: or whatever back in the day. And but I remember you know, he was he's being because of
14:37
Chuck: his work, his volunteer work, this wasn't his his day job, he was spending a lot of
14:42
Chuck: time at work and then at the church. And I I
14:45
Loren: Yeah.
14:45
Chuck: encountered his young son one day, and his son was really kind of dejected that dad
14:50
Chuck: was again busy with church stuff. And
14:53
Loren: Mm.
14:53
Chuck: so I had a conversation with this guy and about hey, you're you're clearly really
14:58
Chuck: gifted, but This is pulling you away from what what matters.
15:02
Chuck: And that's hard to say because you make us all sound better.
15:06
Chuck: that that's where this gets complex, right?
15:09
Chuck: Because clearly,
15:11
Loren: Yeah.
15:13
Chuck: clearly there are people who get up in front and lead in a variety of different ways,
15:18
Chuck: whether it's in public life or ministry or churches or whatever it might be, where
15:23
Chuck: their character hasn't quite caught up and where their wounds are maybe invisible and
15:28
Chuck: yet apparent. You know, if you're in You know, if you're in regular relationship with
15:33
Chuck: them. And so it's I think it's a matter, I mean, there there are different ways we're
15:38
Chuck: we're approaching this. One is we're just these days we're just triaging situations
15:43
Chuck: where, you know, where character hasn't caught up and some of these leaders are
15:48
Chuck: getting in trouble. But we we might want to just kind of take a step back and ask more
15:53
Chuck: about formation. what would it look like to take character seriously?
15:58
Chuck: What would it look like to think through what it means to become people who are people
16:03
Chuck: of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and how how is that kind of
16:08
Chuck: character cultivated. And that's kinda kinda what I'm trying to do, you know, in this
16:13
Chuck: writing is to to think about that, to step back and ask, how does that happen?
16:18
Chuck: at a at that formational level.
16:20
Loren: Yeah, yeah, because I can see that, especially with your example, you know, imagining
16:24
Loren: that this this man, this father, might feel a be somewhat of a perfectionist, if you
16:29
Loren: will, perhaps, and
16:30
Chuck: Yeah.
16:31
Loren: just feeling this need to like I have to. And again, it
16:34
Chuck: Yes.
16:35
Loren: soft sometimes in church settings it's like, this guy is so gifted and he's so
16:38
Loren: committed and he's so
16:40
Chuck: Mm-hmm.
16:41
Loren: and it's it's hard to be like, Hey, maybe you should step back, right?
16:45
Chuck: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's really hard. And and you know, I mean, I think I think
16:49
Chuck: especially today where churches feel like they're in competition with others, you
16:55
Chuck: know, and I I
16:56
Loren: Yeah.
16:56
Chuck: know we were in the shadow of a megachurch back then and you know, so like audio
17:01
Chuck: quality was really important to the senior pastor at the time, you know, and and he
17:06
Chuck: could get real spicy with with you know the A V people and the audio engineers and if
17:12
Chuck: if they didn't do their jobs well. Well, we we were I was I was engaging a
17:17
Chuck: conversation of this man's character. I was engaging a conversation of his spiritual
17:23
Chuck: formation. I think what church oughta be about, right?
17:26
Chuck: I was asking him to step back for the sake of his own deepening life in Jesus, his
17:32
Chuck: family. And yet I I think it's really easy to say, No, no, no, no, no, no.
17:37
Chuck: We need him. Like we can't do
17:39
Loren: Yeah.
17:40
Chuck: for the kingdom work to be done, you know, we need
17:42
Loren: Yeah.
17:44
Chuck: so and so in that role. And so it can get really confusing.
17:47
Chuck: And I'm I'm not b because I've done this as a pastor and I know you've been in the
17:52
Chuck: trenches. I mean, these are we're not just talking abstractly here.
17:57
Chuck: We know we know these are really complicated conversations to have as teams, you know,
18:02
Chuck: with boards and elders and so forth.
18:05
Loren: Yeah. Yeah, they are complicated. certainly, I mean I mean, certainly I don't want to
18:10
Loren: belabor this point, but it just seems like there's so many stories we hear
18:15
Chuck: Mm-hmm.
18:16
Loren: of folks getting burned out of church and sort of needing to take a break just because
18:20
Loren: there's not that like, hey, maybe it's time for you to take a step back.
18:25
Loren: certainly I I don't want someone to take a step back from participation in Christian
18:30
Loren: worship or their spiritual practices, but also like
18:33
Chuck: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
18:35
Loren: Maybe they don't need to, like you said for your example of someone being at the
18:38
Loren: church working full time and then being at church another twenty, thirty, forty hours
18:41
Loren: a
18:42
Chuck: Yeah. Yeah.
18:44
Loren: week.
18:45
Chuck: Yeah. And maybe, you know, maybe a a pastor who is proud or arrogant or even
18:51
Chuck: narcissistic doesn't need to be on the platform.
18:54
Chuck: I mean, this is what Gregory
18:57
Loren: Yeah.
18:57
Chuck: the Great was saying in the sixth century to to pastors and leaders back then as Pope,
19:02
Chuck: you know, Pope Gregory the Great. character matters.
19:06
Chuck: And you know, of course he used language of vainglory, not narcissism, but it I mean
19:11
Chuck: essentially was saying, you know, if if if if your reputation, if your approval, I
19:17
Chuck: mean the very things that we're talking about today matters more than who you are, who
19:23
Chuck: you're becoming, that's a problem. And so yeah, maybe we do need to step away.
19:28
Chuck: But yeah, that it makes us a little itchy, like will the kingdom go forth without my
19:33
Chuck: incredible prophetic voice, you know, leading from the pulpit.
19:38
Loren: Yeah, I'm glad you point the other side of that dynamic of someone who's extremely
19:43
Loren: gifted, but may not have the character, you know, and for a church to be able to say,
19:49
Loren: like, hey, let's let's style that back for now.
19:52
Loren: that's a hard decision, but I think an important one.
19:56
Loren: I think related to this this question or to this topic is this idea of sin or
20:02
Loren: understanding sin as b behavior management,
20:05
Chuck: Mm-hmm.
20:05
Loren: where you can probably get at this more the connection more distinctly than I'm going
20:10
Loren: to right here.
20:11
Chuck: Yeah.
20:12
Loren: But I think like someone who's like to use that stereotypical, infamous, narcissistic
20:17
Loren: leader who you've certainly written about in the past and talked about, like there's
20:23
Loren: this idea that like if we can control their behavior and and sort of keep them in
20:29
Loren: line, you know, and I think what you argue certainly in the past and and still here
20:35
Loren: too, that if you're not if you're just looking at it as like behavioral management,
20:40
Loren: that's not gonna solve the the deeper issues.
20:44
Chuck: Yeah, no, it doesn't. And that's how we often treat it.
20:47
Chuck: And and particularly where there are significant things like moral failure.
20:52
Chuck: It's you know, let's send you off on a sabbatical for six to eight weeks or send you
20:57
Chuck: to a therapist for six sessions and get that fixed, you know.
21:01
Chuck: And and and and Yeah, we we don't we've sort of fail to recognize that it's rooted in
21:07
Chuck: deeper patterns and habits of the heart that need to be recognized, right?
21:12
Chuck: And so I always I was when I'm sort of engaging this work individually or within
21:17
Chuck: systems, I always want to move from behavior down to patterns and ask what's this look
21:22
Chuck: like over time? Now there there are one off things that happen.
21:27
Chuck: You know, I give the example of a a colleague at one point that you know had a a a bad
21:32
Chuck: moment in a staff meeting and we all knew that there was more going on in his life and
21:38
Chuck: family, right? There are one
21:40
Loren: Mm-hmm.
21:40
Chuck: off things, but when you when you take a look beneath the waterline, you might say,
21:45
Chuck: and and begin to analyze it at level patterns or habits, what you realize is that this
21:52
Chuck: isn't this didn't start yesterday. And likely, you know, this is showing up not not as
21:58
Chuck: a one-off, but more as a byproduct of one's formation.
22:02
Chuck: And so we've
22:03
Loren: Yeah.
22:04
Chuck: got to look at it more from the level of formation, story, relationship.
22:09
Chuck: and and if we look at it from that perspective, at least in the work that I do, the
22:15
Chuck: the turnaround time isn't as quick, you know, because
22:19
Loren: Yeah.
22:20
Chuck: if these habits were formed over the course of years, it may take that reformation,
22:25
Chuck: that transformation may take years as well.
22:28
Loren: It's interesting it's interesting you talk about that understanding of problematic
22:37
Loren: behavior, sinful behavior as a one-off versus like systemic, right?
22:44
Loren: Of their lack of formational character. Like, you know, if someone's going through
22:54
Chuck: Yeah.
22:57
Loren: a a crisis, like they're not gonna be their best self.
23:00
Loren: Like
23:01
Chuck: Yeah.
23:02
Loren: I'm thinking of I just read this book on Canadian youth hockey culture and it was
23:08
Loren: quite just horrific, right? Of these young men's approaches.
23:12
Loren: And it seems like story after story was like when they misbehaved, it was like, this
23:18
Loren: is this is just a one off. This is just a one off.
23:22
Loren: Yet the the author goes through painstakingly detailed effort to show like this is
23:28
Loren: more systemic rot. So
23:30
Chuck: Yeah.
23:31
Loren: what like I don't know, have you even thought like what's that about or why do we
23:35
Loren: always want to just assume it's a one off rather than looking at the systemic rot?
23:40
Chuck: Yeah. Well You know, individually it's easier, culturally, systemically it's easier,
23:45
Chuck: right? they're just harder questions that you have to face personally.
23:49
Chuck: If if you're if you're gonna see this as a habit, this is the way I've been treating
23:55
Chuck: my spouse over the course of years, versus like, I just had a bad day.
23:59
Chuck: but all but also, you know, if you're a church and we're looking at a a culture, you
24:04
Chuck: know, of of bullying or harm or whatever it might be.
24:08
Chuck: you know, you it's it's like there that's risky to to take a look at that.
24:12
Chuck: It's it's risky to look at the story. I mean, I r I remember when I was working with
24:18
Chuck: the church in the Chicago suburbs that I wasn't working for them.
24:22
Chuck: I I was consulting with them and They had a long history of of moving to the outskirts
24:27
Chuck: of town. I mean, they had started as kind of an urban church and they had moved
24:32
Chuck: further and further out, and yet they were trying to be a church that valued diversity
24:38
Chuck: and multicultural worship and things like that.
24:41
Chuck: And you know, I remember the I I remember the looks in the room when I I was like,
24:46
Chuck: Yeah, we I I think we actually I I don't I don't think the problem is your vision
24:51
Chuck: statement here, you know. I actually think we need to take a look at your history and
24:56
Chuck: the the reality that
24:58
Loren: Yeah.
24:59
Chuck: you You've made two significant moves to this very large campus now on a cornfield.
25:03
Chuck: And yet, you know, you're like, why aren't we more diverse?
25:06
Chuck: And how come God, you know? and and they're like, no, no, no, no, no.
25:09
Chuck: We would that's not what we were paying you for.
25:12
Chuck: We just wanted to kind of tweak our our language, our vision statements and mission
25:16
Chuck: statements, those kinds of things, right? So
25:19
Loren: Mm. Mm-hmm.
25:21
Chuck: I just think it's hard. It's hard for me to look at patterns in my life, you know, and
25:25
Chuck: say, goodness. So how did that impact my my wife, my two daughters?
25:29
Chuck: Yeah.
25:30
Loren: Yeah. Well, this is where I think doing that work, which I'm sure you try to do with
25:35
Loren: that church, this idea of a calm non nonjudgmental presence, I imagine, in those
25:41
Loren: conversations. This
25:43
Chuck: Yeah.
25:44
Loren: is something I really appreciate in work working as a chaplain.
25:48
Loren: It's j I mean, it's just amazing for one how coming in in that sort of non judgmental
25:54
Loren: presence, calm presence can help at People access parts of themselves.
25:59
Loren: Do you want to talk more about that?
26:02
Chuck: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean I I think any anyone who has observed
26:09
Chuck: systems led by reactive leaders, anxious leaders, know know that like the system takes
26:16
Chuck: on the anxiety of the leader, right? and by virtue of these wonderful mirror neurons,
26:23
Chuck: you know, and and our resonance circuitry in the brain, you know, we we we pick up on
26:30
Chuck: the the energy, let's just say, of of the leader.
26:35
Chuck: when the leader is anxious. But by the same token, we we we pick up on the calm of a
26:42
Chuck: non-anxious leader. We we sort of borrow their groundedness.
26:47
Chuck: And it's been interesting to me over the years in in there have been a a number of
26:54
Chuck: times where I I I've led in situations of anxiety.
26:58
Chuck: There I'm thinking of suicides and I'm thinking of political events and I'm thinking
27:05
Chuck: of really hard church situations and where I've I've had to step into a room and my
27:12
Chuck: groundedness kind of allowed others to go, okay.
27:17
Loren: Yeah. Yeah.
27:19
Chuck: make it all better. Doesn't take away what just happened or what's happening
27:23
Chuck: currently, but I can breathe. And so this is the work that we need to do.
27:28
Chuck: This is the last chapter of the book, in fact, a chapter where I get into the
27:33
Chuck: differentiating or it's really I build to that.
27:36
Chuck: So that work is being done throughout the book.
27:39
Chuck: And as you know, at the end of each chapter and the practices, but it culminates in
27:44
Chuck: the last chapter where we talk about differentiated leadership, this capacity to stay
27:49
Chuck: deeply connected to who we are, where we are, what we believe, the ground of our
27:54
Chuck: being, our own limits, and and also move toward others, build a bridge to others,
27:59
Chuck: connect to others. And that's really a a a learned some people call it a skill.
28:04
Chuck: I think it's more of an art. I borrow the language of Gregory the Great again.
28:09
Chuck: Care of Souls is the art of arts because I think it's something that is more than more
28:14
Chuck: than a skill that's developed in a short time.
28:17
Chuck: It's more something that you're apprenticed into by people who demonstrate and live
28:22
Chuck: and model non-anxious leadership.
28:25
Loren: Yeah. Yeah. Certainly I'm thinking of as we're recording us just last night, I worked
28:31
Loren: and was awoken, you know, at just past midnight f t for a family whose loved one had
28:37
Loren: experienced a heart attack. And it is amazing, like first of all for me, part of my
28:43
Loren: challenge is getting like my brain w working right at being awoken from a from a deep
28:50
Loren: sleep.
28:51
Chuck: Yeah yeah.
28:52
Loren: But but Once I'm able to get my brain functioning, it is
28:56
Chuck: Mm-hmm.
28:56
Loren: amazing like how just being a calm presence can just bring down a family and then they
29:02
Loren: can be
29:03
Chuck: Mm. Mm.
29:05
Loren: like, Okay, this is the next step we need to do.
29:06
Loren: And like you said, it doesn't
29:08
Chuck: Mm.
29:08
Loren: like make any th everything better. Like their loved one is still in critical care and
29:13
Loren: there's still
29:14
Chuck: Yeah.
29:14
Loren: like challenges t to be faced ahead. but it it just seems so interesting because I I
29:19
Loren: really appreciate this idea or what you shared about the the art of arts and it being
29:25
Loren: a a practice 'cause it seems like right now, like we're in a cultural context where it
29:30
Loren: just seems like the move is escalation constantly.
29:34
Chuck: Hm. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I I think we we're living in a time where there is this c sort
29:40
Chuck: of collective trauma and physiologically we're living in this collective state of what
29:47
Chuck: I call sympathetic storm. This state of
29:51
Loren: Mm-hmm.
29:51
Chuck: reactivity, this state of anxiety, this state of of fight or flight.
29:56
Chuck: and we we see it in the way we engage. We see it in the polarization in our culture.
30:02
Chuck: one of the things we know about being locked in that sympathetic state, that more at
30:08
Chuck: that state that as as many of your listeners probably know is sort of energized by our
30:14
Chuck: amygdala is is that You don't have a whole lot of capacity for curiosity in that
30:20
Chuck: state. You don't have a whole lot
30:23
Loren: Yeah.
30:23
Chuck: of capacity for calm in that state. it's really hard to take a deep inhale and exhale
30:28
Chuck: and speak from the ground of your being in that state, you know?
30:32
Chuck: And so, and and you've got to do a bit of work to get back to the what I call this
30:38
Chuck: home state, this grounded and differentiated state.
30:41
Chuck: And so I think w what I noticed for me years ago in leadership.
30:45
Chuck: I was a therapist and a pastor at this time.
30:48
Chuck: I I needed to be hospitalized to be awakened to my own chronic sympathetic storm, the
30:53
Chuck: reality that I was living in a hurricane and I didn't even know it.
30:58
Chuck: That been if you would have asked me I would have said I I'm not super anxious.
31:03
Chuck: I mean, I got things I'm anxious about in my life, but underneath there's a big storm.
31:09
Chuck: And so yeah, I think what that's part of what we need to pay attention to.
31:13
Chuck: And it like when I do this work, you probably know I do these five-day intensives with
31:19
Chuck: a a lot of leaders. Five days, three hours a day.
31:22
Chuck: I've got a team that does them. And you know, that's what we're paying attention to is
31:28
Chuck: you may not sense that there's a lot of anxiety, but beneath the water line, there may
31:33
Chuck: be a hurricane down there. Yeah.
31:36
Loren: Yeah, yeah. You talked about those different the fold and the flight.
31:42
Chuck: Yeah.
31:43
Loren: certainly the the fight or flight is the most common way we think about it.
31:46
Loren: I I wanna ask you here, like hopefully this doesn't get too personal for for us and
31:50
Loren: for our listeners, but like I'll try to ask this somewhat generally.
31:53
Loren: Like
31:54
Chuck: Yeah.
31:55
Loren: I've recognized like my my pattern is fold and and you're welcome to kind of share
31:59
Loren: those the the different Fs if you want.
32:01
Chuck: Mm-hmm.
32:04
Loren: But Like f how can I say this in a way that's not too specific, I guess.
32:09
Loren: Like
32:10
Chuck: Uh-huh.
32:12
Loren: certain certain cultural moments have made it for me especially more difficult to feel
32:18
Loren: like I can like be my true self rather than to fold
32:22
Chuck: Yeah.
32:23
Loren: or the language I use is to disappear. And i in
32:26
Chuck: Yeah.
32:26
Loren: in some context it's like I'm encouraged to disappear when it's
32:30
Chuck: Yeah.
32:30
Loren: like for me, healthy functioning is actually to not disappear.
32:33
Loren: And certainly like
32:34
Chuck: Yes. Yeah.
32:36
Loren: we all people encounter those different contexts where like and this sort of gets back
32:41
Loren: to the question I started at the beginning,
32:44
Chuck: Mm.
32:44
Loren: where the healthy move for us is to do the opposite of what the cultural context is
32:48
Loren: encouraging us to do.
32:50
Chuck: Mm. Yeah, yeah. so Just to take it a step back for a moment, you know, you're getting
32:56
Chuck: into what I call the six Fs. I talked about this in
33:01
Loren: Yeah.
33:01
Chuck: Healing Whats with Dan and I I talk about it here fight, flight, fawn, find.
33:05
Chuck: Those are the Fs of the sympathetic nervous system when we're more in that storm mode,
33:10
Chuck: when things are churning, and then freeze and fold, which is more of
33:15
Loren: Yeah.
33:17
Chuck: it's not quite this simple, but more more our what we call our parasympathetic nervous
33:22
Chuck: system or dorsal system, and and it's where we maybe maybe start to feel overwhelmed
33:28
Chuck: and we pull back, pull away for me, pull the covers over my head and want to
33:33
Chuck: disappear, which I I can relate to Loren. So yeah, well I I think you know I It it
33:38
Chuck: feels like when we discover kind of where we live.
33:42
Chuck: I was talking to someone who lives in a lot of fight.
33:45
Chuck: We think that the answer is the exact opposite.
33:49
Chuck: You know, I just need to stop
33:51
Loren: Mm-hmm.
33:52
Chuck: doing that. Or if we're living in more fold, I just need to get more engaged.
33:55
Chuck: When the invitation is to recognize how we got here in the first place, like why our
33:59
Chuck: nervous systems are living in this place
34:01
Loren: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
34:04
Chuck: of of coping, this place of survival, whether it's more sympathetically oriented and
34:10
Chuck: mobilized or whether it's more parasympathetically oriented and and feels a little bit
34:16
Chuck: more like shutdown. I I want to get clear on like how did I get here?
34:21
Chuck: but then
34:22
Loren: Yeah.
34:22
Chuck: how do I get back to this place that I call home, this place of calm and groundedness.
34:28
Chuck: So it's not the opposite. It's more how do I get to a place of groundedness, to a
34:33
Chuck: place of calm, and then from that place decide what what what might it look like for
34:39
Chuck: if I live in more of a fold orientation to enter in more courageously or if I live in
34:45
Chuck: a fight orientation more often than not to r relax that and you know yet still
34:51
Chuck: participate. that's more the dynamic rather than like going to the opposite of it.
34:57
Loren: Yeah, that's really helpful. I don't know if you follow the work of Mike Foster.
35:02
Chuck: that name doesn't ring a bell, no.
35:04
Loren: But he has this he has I'm trying to remember what his he calls them scrambles and he
35:10
Loren: he talks about language of his language he uses is like a primal question.
35:15
Loren: so he always thinks of like what's the what's the question you're really at?
35:21
Loren: Like you're s he calls it the scramble, which is sort
35:25
Chuck: Okay.
35:25
Loren: of similar and like what's the the the underlying question of that scramble you're
35:30
Loren: asking?
35:31
Chuck: Hmm. Yeah.
35:31
Loren: so I think it's it's fist with what you're saying, so that's that's helpful.
35:35
Chuck: Yeah. Yeah. And and it I mean that ought to lead us to some curiosity, but also to
35:38
Chuck: some self compassion. Like I think people
35:40
Loren: Yeah. Yes.
35:42
Chuck: live in perpetual fight, you know, are often exhausted of the fight, you know, and
35:47
Chuck: they they don't want to back out of, you know, their work of maybe pursuing works of
35:53
Chuck: justice in the world, but they certainly wanna do that from a more grounded place.
35:59
Chuck: when I was living in a bit more fold, I was calling it rest and it wasn't rest.
36:05
Chuck: It was it was disappearance, you know. And so I had to recognize, I'm my body's in an
36:11
Chuck: overwhelmed state. I am exhausted, I've been pushing too hard, and I'm I'm not
36:16
Chuck: actually resting, I'm dissociating. and my family
36:20
Loren: Hmm.
36:21
Chuck: sees it experiences. They're like, Dad, where are you?
36:23
Chuck: I mean they they used to say, Dad, you're here, but you're not here.
36:26
Chuck: And I think
36:27
Loren: Yeah.
36:28
Chuck: probably a many of us have had experiences like that.
36:31
Loren: Yeah. let's take one let me give you one more question before we move on to closing
36:35
Loren: questions. There's this line in your book and I can't really remember what context,
36:39
Loren: but it just has stuck with me. What we behold we become.
36:41
Loren: You you spend so much time in the book talking
36:44
Chuck: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
36:47
Loren: about formation and practice, and I I feel like nothing encapsulates that as well as
36:52
Loren: those five words.
36:54
Chuck: Yeah. Well this is this is a chapter on attention.
36:57
Chuck: And and it's a paradoxical chapter in the sense that we live in an attention-seeking
37:04
Chuck: culture, right? Where it's like see me, see me, see me with my Facebook post, my
37:10
Chuck: Instagram post, my TikTok, and my you know, YouTube channel, my all the things, you
37:16
Chuck: know, like me, see me, approve of me. and yet, paradoxically, we are created to be
37:23
Chuck: seen and known by God, right? Like I and that's that's virtuous attention-seeking in a
37:29
Chuck: sense, to be seen and Known at the deepest level.
37:33
Chuck: And so what we behold, we become takes on a bit of a different shape when you think
37:40
Chuck: about it that way. If our attention is given to scrolling, to distraction, to approval
37:46
Chuck: seeking. I think of my work with narcissism to the of and the mere hungry leader who
37:53
Chuck: uses his audience for approval, right? That will shape us in a particular way, that
37:59
Chuck: shapes character. And so we've got to be mindful of of how that's shaping us over
38:05
Chuck: time. but but but the the paradox is that if we find our way to this place of of
38:12
Chuck: surrender where we open ourselves in receptivity to the the the attention of God.
38:18
Chuck: This gets back to my last book and that question, where are you?
38:23
Chuck: You know, the God who's
38:25
Loren: Mm-hmm.
38:26
Chuck: walking in the garden in the cool of the day looking for you, looking for us.
38:29
Loren: Mm-hmm.
38:30
Chuck: And we recognize that we're already seen and known.
38:33
Chuck: that as Augustine said, God is more near to us than we are to ourselves.
38:39
Chuck: We can rest, you know, it we don't
38:42
Loren: Yeah.
38:43
Chuck: have to, as Augustine said, chase after it anymore, you know, and and and so I guess
38:48
Chuck: the the the point behind what we behold we become is that we're shaped by what we give
38:54
Chuck: our attention to. And I for me in on retreats, I'll invite people to ask themselves,
39:00
Chuck: to interrogate their their practices, their, you know, what they do throughout the day
39:06
Chuck: to see where where are they giving their attention.
39:09
Chuck: And it's very revelatory when people come back and share with one another.
39:15
Loren: Yeah. Yeah. I mean s screen time, right? Screen time has to be like one of the most
39:20
Loren: obvious examples of that and something that I I find harrowing when I think about like
39:26
Loren: how much time I'm staring at my phone. I I'm thinking certainly too about what you
39:31
Loren: said. Certainly you've interact with him a lot.
39:34
Loren: Steve Cuss and his idea of being human sized, like when we know we're seen, right?
39:40
Loren: Like we don't feel like we need to make ourselves seen.
39:44
Chuck: Mm. I think that's exactly it. I think something rests within when you know that you
39:51
Chuck: are seen and known and and you know I I There's a line in there that goes back to some
39:58
Chuck: work that I did with a guy years ago where it was the line was something like, If if
40:05
Chuck: if I'm not shining, I will disappear. And that
40:09
Loren: Hm.
40:10
Chuck: struck me as really big. Like this was someone who was pastoring, and I had asked him
40:14
Chuck: to step out of that role and step away from like just public engagement because he was
40:19
Chuck: so addicted to it. And yet within a few months he had started a podcast, you know, and
40:23
Chuck: I was like, What's going on, buddy? And that
40:26
Loren: Yeah. Yeah.
40:28
Chuck: was it. If I if I'm not shining, I'll disappear.
40:29
Chuck: If I'm not showing up, who am I? And I think,
40:31
Loren: Yeah. Yeah.
40:34
Chuck: you know, if we're honest with ourselves, there's something true true about that, you
40:38
Chuck: know, like I I I have to ask myself continually because I'm in this role where I'm,
40:43
Chuck: you know, as a writer, you are you're required to do marketing for yourself, you know,
40:48
Chuck: you're required to get the word out to go on podcasts with Loren.
40:52
Chuck: What's that? You're in it?
40:54
Loren: Yeah. I'm literally in that right now. I'm in the I'm I have a book out as we're
40:59
Loren: recording this so ten days ago and I'm in that self promotion game.
41:04
Loren: Yeah.
41:05
Chuck: I mean, you know what it's like, right? And so, will anyone care?
41:09
Chuck: Will anyone see me? Will it will it matter?
41:12
Chuck: You know?
41:13
Loren: Yeah.
41:14
Chuck: And so each of us is invited to do our own work around that.
41:19
Loren: Well, some closing questions here. we asked this question and I I suppose I'll ask
41:24
Loren: this like if you're a Pope for the day, so thinking about you're in charge of pastors,
41:30
Loren: like I'm gonna ask this specifically. You're in charge of pastors.
41:34
Loren: What are you telling those what do you want those pastors to know?
41:39
Loren: What are you telling them? That sort of thing for a day.
41:43
Chuck: If I'm in charge of pastors for a day,
41:46
Loren: Yeah.
41:47
Chuck: we might just sit in silence the whole day.
41:49
Chuck: I might not do much talking at all. I you know, I'm inviting them to get curious about
41:55
Chuck: their own formation, their own patterns, the story, the stories that they're living
42:01
Chuck: in. And what's happening beneath the surface, in what I call the autonomic engine, but
42:06
Chuck: under the hood, so to speak, at a physiological level.
42:10
Chuck: if they're living in as many pastors are, chronic storm, or if if as many of us do,
42:16
Chuck: they they're being pulled into the fog of overwhelm.
42:19
Chuck: when I have opportunities, and I was just in Queens, New York last weekend with a a
42:25
Chuck: bunch of pastors, but I have opportunities to to speak on these things.
42:29
Chuck: Yeah, it's inevitable that there are going to be really important conversations.
42:35
Chuck: And then I'll have conversations offline with them who will come to me and say, hey,
42:40
Chuck: that's exactly where I am. And I am
42:43
Loren: Hmm. Wow.
42:45
Chuck: I'm not sure what to do because it feels like if I step out of my role, fill in the
42:50
Chuck: blank, something will fall apart.
42:53
Loren: Right.
42:54
Chuck: and It it feels kind of threatening at some existential level, some physiological
42:58
Chuck: level, like y you know, I I I can't afford to step away and do a week intensive.
43:03
Chuck: I can't afford to take a sabbatical.
43:06
Loren: Yeah. Who am I if I'm not actively pastoring?
43:11
Chuck: Exactly, right? And so you're getting at like core, core questions.
43:14
Chuck: And so maybe those that gets it w that Mike Foster that you're talking about, some of
43:19
Chuck: those primal questions with that scramble. But yeah, those core questions that I think
43:24
Chuck: we all have to wrestle with. I mean, I I'm fifty-six now, but I I think I've had like
43:29
Chuck: several midlife crises at this point to
43:32
Loren: Ha ha ha.
43:33
Chuck: to where it I I've I've wondered about my vocation.
43:37
Chuck: I've wondered if I matter,
43:40
Loren: Mm-hmm.
43:40
Chuck: I wondered should I call it quits? I mean you it gets it can get really dark in those
43:45
Chuck: places, right? And so I think I just hold space for safe space for those pastors to be
43:51
Chuck: honest with themselves and one another and say, hey, you're not alone in this.
43:57
Chuck: There are lots of us who actually wrestle with these questions who who wonder these
44:02
Chuck: things. And what if what if we begin to have these conversations a little bit more so
44:08
Chuck: that We weren't so lonely and maybe we didn't
44:12
Loren: Yeah.
44:13
Chuck: live with this kind of incessant drive, this exhausting drive that is burning us all
44:18
Chuck: out.
44:19
Loren: Yeah, well first of all, like I am not at all thrilled to hear that you say I'm like I
44:23
Loren: thought my one I could be one and done with the midlife crisis, but
44:27
Chuck: One one midlife crisis near yeah, yeah, right.
44:31
Chuck: Yeah. I wish.
44:33
Loren: Whenever I talked to you, I remember I think the first time I talked to you, you you
44:35
Loren: named Teresa Vavila as your theologian who you wanna meet.
44:37
Loren: Is that still it or does another
44:38
Chuck: Yep. Yeah. yeah.
44:43
Loren: come to mind?
44:44
Chuck: yeah. I mean I there are others. I I I yeah, there are plenty of others.
44:47
Chuck: But Saint Teresa, I've done a lot of work around her.
44:50
Chuck: I created a little film about her on my website.
44:53
Chuck: I think she's extraordinary. I call her my favorite sixteenth century reformer.
44:57
Chuck: Yeah.
44:58
Loren: Hm. what do you think history will remember from our current time and place?
45:05
Chuck: You know, I I I think if it goes on another five hundred years, they'll look back and
45:10
Chuck: they'll they'll say, you know, every five hundred years, as Phil Phyllis Tickle said
45:15
Chuck: in in her book, The Great Emergence, there are these massive reckonings, and that was
45:20
Chuck: yet another reckoning within the church where things had to where it had to go through
45:26
Chuck: its dark night, where it had to where people were talking about deconstruction, where
45:31
Chuck: there were prophets stepping up to say hard things, where where Christianity was being
45:36
Chuck: conflated with empire and where you know pol politics and you know and and religio
45:41
Chuck: their major conversations of politics and religion that that you know well it's not
45:46
Chuck: the first time around right because we've seen this before they'll
45:51
Loren: Right, right.
45:52
Chuck: say they did it again they had the benefit of hindsight and history
45:57
Loren: Hmm.
45:57
Chuck: and they they did it again but this is what rose out of the ashes you know this is the
46:03
Chuck: new thing that you know when i AI won and the machines took over this is what rose out
46:09
Chuck: of the ashes right
46:11
Loren: boy. boy.
46:14
Chuck: Yeah, I just I just went there because that's what we're talking about in the news
46:17
Chuck: these days, right? So
46:18
Loren: Yeah. Well, what do you hope for the future of Christianity?
46:22
Chuck: Hm. I I you know I think this it goes back to the very beginning.
46:27
Chuck: finding our way to this simpler path of of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness.
46:34
Chuck: that you know we'd we'd be caught by the beauty of Philippians 2 again, Jesus who
46:41
Chuck: being a very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped or
46:49
Chuck: exploited, right?
46:51
Loren: Yeah. Yeah.
46:56
Chuck: And that that would radically change not just the way we think, but our our character,
47:01
Chuck: the way we show up as pastors and leaders, it would lead to humility, self-giving
47:07
Chuck: love, suffering servanthood, you know. it would change our politics, our ecclesiology.
47:13
Chuck: That's that's what I would hope for. That's just a little thing.
47:18
Loren: Yeah. Well the book is Who You're Becoming, the slow and courageous work of
47:23
Loren: cultivating character in a narcissistic age.
47:26
Loren: Obviously this book is available, I imagine, wherever books are sold.
47:30
Loren: How can folks connect with you and any other resources you want to share?
47:36
Chuck: Yeah, I mean I'm on Substack at Sitwith Chuck.
47:38
Chuck: I'm on I I've got a website, ChuckDeGroat.net.
47:41
Chuck: I I have something called the Soul Care Collaborative where you know, I've got a team
47:47
Chuck: of practitioners that do the work that I do and I'm on all the channel social media
47:52
Chuck: channels except for TikTok. I don't think I'll ever do that.
47:56
Chuck: So yeah. I've got a YouTube page
47:58
Loren: Fair enough.
47:59
Chuck: now. I finally started doing YouTube videos because someone convinced me I'm getting
48:04
Chuck: old enough to start doing that now. So
48:07
Loren: Well, I really appreciate your time and conversation.
48:09
Chuck: Yeah.
48:09
Loren: We always leave folks with a word of peace, so may God's peace be with you.
48:14
Chuck: And also with you, Loren