Latest / Generations Church / #GOTDialog 002: Church Trauma is Real: A Real Life Story of Identity Abuse | Jon Koo

Transcript

#GOTDialog 002: Church Trauma is Real: A Real Life Story of Identity Abuse | Jon Koo · Generations Church

• 0:00
  So now you're gonna cook something. You're going to cook something up, all
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  right, but cook something real. Hey there, I'm Andeo, the pastor
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  of Genesis Church. This is a podcast and you just tune into the Generations
• 0:09
  on Tuesday edition, Generations on Tuesday or got is an alternative church experience is
• 0:15
  church but a little different. No platform, no propriate, no one creature,
• 0:20
  but rather the focus is on Christ, community and conversations. We have
• 0:24
  a special heart for those who are in the creative arts, entertainment, media,
• 0:28
  music, FMB and similar communities, and we want to provide a safe
• 0:33
  space to explore and discover faith in Jesus, but in a not so conventional
• 0:38
  way. We hope you'll be inspired impacted by today's dialogue where we keep it
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  real, raw and relevant on topics that matter. So let's get right into
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  it. Be blessed all right. I don't know about you, but I'm
• 0:51
  a bit nerverse because this is not an easy topic. It's we're going to
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  talk about church trauma, all right, And I'm not sure, let's say,
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  twenty years ago, three years ago, whether we will actually put the
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  word church and trauma together. But in this day and age, we seem
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  to hear these phrases a lot, right, this phrase a lot of church
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  trauma. Uh. And tonight's topic, of course, it's church trauma is
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  real, and because it's so real, we want to talk about it,
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  uh, And we're going to talk about it from the angle of someone who
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  has been through it. And that's why it's called a real life story of
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  identity abuse, which, of course you were later on kind of like defind
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  that a little bit. So since you're telling us that story, let's get
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  to know you. Who is John Cool? So maybe I'll start and then
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  you feel in the blanks, right, Okay, As far as I know,
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  the official version, John Coo is a former pastor who has years and
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  years of ministry experience. You've been in the church world for many, many
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  years, and in those many years of experience in church ministry, you've had
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  many, many highs. You've accomplished a lot, achieved a lot, done
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  a lot, You've experienced many great and wonderful things. But the fact that
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  you're here today also tells us that you've experienced some lows, maybe many lows,
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  I don't know, you can tell us later. And because of that,
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  you've left your profession as a pastor. You even left the church you
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  were working for h and you had to go through a journey of healing,
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  you know, waiting for some therapy and stuff like that. And after a
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  significant journey of healing, you are now ready to tell your story in a
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  setting like this. I hope I'm ready. You hope you're ready. Yeah,
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  you're already now than say, six months ago, a year ago,
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  Okay, definitely morelready today, definitely than ever. But I think in a
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  while we'll talk about our hopes. Why are you here? Why are we
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  talking about this? Right? But you're back now in the church, a
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  local church with your family, serving wherever you can. That's our little official
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  version of who is young coul One of you, Lina Blanks. Okay,
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  so your question was who is youngco Oh? Who? Yeah? Who are
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  you? Tell us a bit about you? Besides you know your crazy hair?
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  Yeah, this is normal, this is you know. Okay, Okay,
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  you're crazy, He's normal. Okay. So now I can say that
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  I am a father, I'm a husband, and I get to do whatever
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  I want with my life. I get to minister to my family. So
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  that's an overall understanding of who I am for myself who I who I am
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  in in uh, in society, in the community, in the church.
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  I'm just someone who's just serving serving God wherever I can no longer serving in
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  a pastoral capacity, official capacity, and for this season, for however long
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  it takes of me forever. That's great because it's a journey of discovery of
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  the calling. Right. So, so I think that's there's a sum up
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  who I am. Now. Some of you may know who I was before.
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  Uh. Physically I'm half the man I used to be. Oh wow,
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  this this is half the size. Uh. And I was a very
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  different person back then. So so for those who had that context, uh,
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  what you see is what you get still, but definitely a different version
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  of who you you once knew. Great. So your father, husband,
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  uh, and your christ believer now just serving in whatever ways you can In
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  summary. Great, So let's get into the conversation dialogue tonight. So I
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  guess the question would be what difference do we hope to make from having this
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  conversation? Right? In other words, why are we talking about this and
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  why are we talking about this out in the open with an audience here today?
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  And then this later on going online for the world to watch. Why
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  are we doing this? What are our hopes? I think we discussed this,
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  so I will just quickly summarize and then you can add on. I
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  think one of our hopes is that today from this conversation, we hope to
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  inspire good and healthy leadership, because leadership is where things rising for right.
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  We need leadership. We need leadership in family, companies, organizations, churches,
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  football teams, et cetera, et cetera. But there is good leadership,
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  healthy leadership, and then there's bad leadership and damaging ones. So we
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  want to through this conversation hope to inspire good and healthy relationship, both in
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  church and in life. Hope number one. Hope number two, we hope
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  to inspire healing, especially for those who have been hurt. And I think
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  it's no secret now that you're here because you have been hurt, there is
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  strung and you've been through healing and still going through healing. We want to
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  let the people out there know that healing is possible, there is hope even
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  if you have been hurt. Hope number two. Hope number three is we
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  hope to somehow as we talk about this in process this we're still able to
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  redeem and restore trust in leadership in the church, in the faith, because
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  perhaps right now globally, even the trust and the and the belief in institutions,
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  leadership, church stuff like that is maybe on a loan because of so
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  many disappointments. Those of the tree hopes. That's that describe our hopes for
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  today. Yeah, pretty much so. And I think the intention here is
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  not to go on a rent. The intention is not to purposely call out,
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  but to to show like an open book and open the box and see
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  what's inside. And of course everybody's journey is very different, right so I
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  think with context to my journey, it's very scary for an introvert like me,
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  like this is terrifying. If for some of your introverts trust me,
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  it's killing me on the inside right now. But I'll do my best to
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  be authentic, and through that authenticity, I hope you can see where it
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  can lead someone. Maybe you're here experiencing something similar, going through the same
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  thing now, or you've been been there, but you're still in that space,
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  and just want to let you know that that there are ways out of
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  it, out of that space. I think that's also the hope that I
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  would like to share today. Great. I like that we're not here to
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  rent or just complain and just simply opening up a can of worms for no
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  reason. But we are opening up a can. We're opening up a box.
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  I hope you like worms. And there are gummy worms, the yuki
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  worms, all kinds of worms, all mixed up. We're gonna open it
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  up. We're gonna process it now. We don't have like all night or
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  like who we don't do this. I thought we're gonna end about one am.
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  You know, the battery won't last, so we're not gonna be able
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  to check through every single worm that is in the box. But we're gonna
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  try to do as best as we That's why we have discussions two weeks from
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  now and then four weeks from now. But let's see how far we can
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  take this. But again, the hope is to inspire, go leadership,
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  inspire healing, inspire restoration and redemption. Right, Okay, let's start with
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  your story. Let's take us back to when you first put your faith in
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  Jesus. Describe your salvation story and from there, how do you if eventually
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  get into church ministry. Okay, so summary, my mom got safe first.
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  I was about seven years old. I've only been to the one church.
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  Uh, so she brought me to church. My dad was against it.
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  He wasn't a believer, he was a freethinker. Brought myself and my
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  sister at church by eight and a half to nine, I think roughly when
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  the Sunday school. No, sorry, let's retrack back. My auntie,
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  who was a pastor in a church and sunway shared with me the gospel and
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  at seven years old accepted Christ because she told me about Jesus. I'm like,
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  yeah, sure, cool man. And then that was it. And
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  my mom brought me to church. First of all, my mom brought me
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  a church when I was nine years old, went to a church and because
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  she got safe there. Though my father was against it, he still allowed
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  us to go but occasionally. And I settled there because that's where I found
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  friends. You know, there were older brothers who could look I could look
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  up to and immediately actually jump into serving in kids ministry, like you know
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  all these productions untally, Hey, this boy can can can act, one
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  can sing one big and Della and VBS was was a big thing, you
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  know. So that's where that's why I got really rooted in the faith as
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  a very young boy. VBS would be vacation school. So like you're in
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  school holidays, three day, three day, just having fun in the church
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  on church grounds. Okay, yeah, oh so you found faith in Jesus
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  pretty young as a young young child. How did that got you into like,
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  I want to be a pastor full time ministry? That the pretty like
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  you pretty sold out. So it's very interesting now that you're asking me the
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  question, right, I remember bringing my Bible to school, uh and sharing
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  as a young Christian, like eight years old, I was bringing my Bible
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  to school and sharing ring with my friends about the Bible. Like but it's
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  not like eleborate, like I know in the Book of Something, I flipped
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  in the middle because everybody know you flipped the over in the middle of the
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  Book of Something, Like why are you so clever? I know when the
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  Book of Mathews because it's the first you know, very good, very good,
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  I tell him, you know, Jesus and son God. So it's
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  very simple stuff like that. But ever since then, my my friends will
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  call me pastor John. Since then, I'm like Nola, and I didn't
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  I didn't really think too much about it because God serving in church. When
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  I was about twelve years old. I think I got baptized in the Holy
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  Spirit at twelve years old, amazing experience or was it eleven years eleven?
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  Weears I got baptized in water twelve years old, baptized and Holy Spirit.
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  And then, uh, you've ministry started in the church when I was thirteen
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  years old, so they get all young people and and we were because we
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  were we were attending church, but then going leaving during the sermon, going
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  out to the to the roadside chicken rice shop, and then coming back after
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  somemon just in time when the parents are about to pick us up from Sunday
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  school. Nice. But it was at camp and when I was fifteen years
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  sixteen years old, so you've metrely started and all. It was fun because
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  we started having more pretty goals in the church. Wo And of course I
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  gula, yeah, yeah, yeah, grow not because they're pretty cher pretty
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  goals. But it was exciting, it was dynamic. And then at sixteen
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  years old, I had an encounter. We got at a church camp.
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  At sixteen years old, I just had just recently broke broken up with a
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  girl, oh, who was in church or so okay, pretty girl,
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  okay, really messed it all up. So we needed some sort of counseling
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  and healing and therapy. So as my first encounter, we got and the
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  encounter was very real, very deep. Until today, I can still and
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  bree very clearly, and I was just fast forwarding everything. Then by seven
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  and of from five, there was a youth conference, I think one of
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  the first few youth conferences the church organized, and uh that's where uh the
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  speaker was the last session, the speaker asked, you know, get the
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  auto call about full time calling. At that time, I did not have
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  any clue what the full time call really was, and it was on my
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  mind, but uh, he said that, you know, maybe God is
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  calling you to be a lawyer, engineer, doctor, And in my mind
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  I wanted to be a computer computer engineer. What does me you mean I
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  can be called as an engineer for God? I'm like cool. So I
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  ran to the altar ah and then people just pray that you know how the
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  alla passes spraying. But there was one particular pastor who prayed for me and
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  say that God has given you a compassionate heart. And then that's the moment
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  he said that I felt like a hand squeezing my heart, and the waterworks
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  just began and I broke down. I cry and cry and cry and realize
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  and m I supposed to be an engineer that cries for people. But I
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  heard the Lord spoke to me recularly. I'm calling you to the broken,
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  to the desolate. I still remember that very clearly. Wow, at the
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  end of seventeen, you know, from five and by eighteen years old,
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  I was struggling to decide whether I want to go to Bible school or go
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  to UNI a college just to get a degree first. So that's how it
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  all led to that point of me wanting to be a pastor. Wow.
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  Okay, so you had a really sort of God moment, you responded to
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  the call and got spoke to you, and you started to develop a heart
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  of full time ministry. Then eventually became going to full time ministry. Yeah.
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  So at eighteen years old, I was advised not to go into Bible
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  school. Yeah, because still too young. Go and get your degree,
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  Go and learn, Go and get a job first. You know, it's
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  more important. It's important that I understand how the world works before getting too
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  full time. So when I decided to study, and then I didn't do
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  too well in Uni. I went to work. Maybe you get a job
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  even without a degree, and I got a taste of what the world was
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  like, and I ran away from the call. I decided to like,
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  Okay, God, let's put this call in on hold. I want to
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  make a lot of money, so I thought, lah, and I want
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  to I want to be super independent. I just want to do everything that
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  a working person did LA because I was young, but there was a point
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  in my family life where where my youngest brother was caught home to the Lord.
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  And at that point I won't go into the details of that, but
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  at that point, before he passed away, God spoke to me and said
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  that your brother has finished his race. This was weeks before he passed away,
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  and he said, I'm going to take you a brother home, but
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  it's time for you to start your race. I'm like, what start?
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  What? And why are you telling me this? Now it's time for you
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  to answer the call that I called you to do. And so I went
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  through the whole process of like breaking again. And true enough, my brother
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  did pass away, so I knew that God had spoken very clearly, and
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  that's when at the age of twenty two, I think or twenty three,
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  I went into Bible School. Yeah, amazing. I'm sorry about your brother.
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  So you went to Bible school twenty three, I can't remember. It's
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  a blurnout therefore, yeah, yeah, yeah, you went through it,
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  you graduated, you went to full time industry. Can you tell us a
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  bit about, like what was your sincere hopes and dreams when you went into
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  full time industry and became a pastor? Like what was your dream? What
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  was your hopes? I think everybody who goes in the Bible school right first,
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  hope to be very well equipped, Like I want to know once I
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  did the word God, you know, I want to be like, wow,
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  the best theologian. I want to get it all right, and I
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  want to make sure right that I don't preach anything heretical. You know.
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  Then there's the romanticizing of, like, you know, a pastor's life.
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  You know, I'm going to give up everything. You're gonna be poor,
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  I'm gonna be be uh maybe even single for the rest of my life.
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  I seriously thought that I thought, after my breakup at sixteen years old,
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  right, that no one will love me anymore because there was a series of
• 17:26
  girls who just kept rejecting me. I thought like, wow, one after
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  the other. Of course they were older girls, and then they were like,
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  you're too young for me, and like it's okay, it's okay,
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  forgiven and forgotten. But I saw I seriously thought that my life was going
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  to be very painful and lonely where I'm not going to make a lot and
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  my parents will worried. My parents were like, we need to save up
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  for this child of myne because we know how much he eats, we know
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  how much he spends. He's not going to make it as a pastor.
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  And and I had that in my mind so romanticized that that I'm going to
• 18:11
  go into the mission field. I'm going to work with with aboriginal aron Estly,
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  I'm going to die in the mission field, that kind of romance,
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  you know, of the call. I would die preaching my last won.
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  I would die being marked. This thing is that? Right? The first
• 18:32
  year in Bible School and a second you come to realization that it's not going
• 18:36
  to be that bad, lad So but the third year, right, I
• 18:38
  realized that the progression after going to Bible school because the church, the church
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  endorsed the call and the and the yea to go to Bible School. The
• 18:48
  progression was to just work for the church. I'm like, oh, it's
• 18:51
  not too bad. I'm not going to go out. I'm just going to
• 18:52
  be comfortable behind a desk. That's why I thought. So I had that
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  all in mind, that I'm gonna live and die a pastor for the rest
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  of my life, right, and my churn for a lot after so they
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  will all be pastors, and my wife would just have to support all of
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  us, you know, and God would send ravens, you know, to
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  send shoes, clothes, car you know. So it was something that I
• 19:21
  actually held on as my truth. Yeah, did you did you dream of
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  working in the church as like, you know what, this is going to
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  be the best place to work for because everyone is so forgiving, everyone's going
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  to be like Jesus and they're all gracious, No one's going to be angry,
• 19:40
  no one makes mistakes here. I don't know something like that. That
• 19:41
  was it like a dream place to work at it? Did you feel that
• 19:45
  way? Actually? It was because because the youth ministry was thriving, so
• 19:49
  in my mind I wanted to serve very specifically in youth and worship. That
• 19:56
  was what I felt my calling was because I love playing me, I love
• 20:00
  I love leading worship right and and being among young people means I didn't have
• 20:04
  to wear a suit and tie like back then working in the church that we
• 20:10
  had to wear thie, you know, like a like a corporate job.
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  And I hated it. So I thought working youth ministry because too dressed young
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  and and and that that was actually the career I was aiming for. And
• 20:23
  it was fun because I was working with peers, uh, and it was
• 20:29
  dynamic, so it wasn't there wasn't any indication of of what a real church
• 20:37
  office environment is like. We were kind of insulated a lot, okay,
• 20:42
  so you were very involved in the youth ministry. It was a thriving,
• 20:45
  growing, vibrant youth ministry. So it was fun. It was it looks
• 20:49
  good, looks great. Uh and uh even even your office environment for you
• 20:56
  specifically, it was like, what this is great? Right? So we
• 21:00
  here? What how did we get from that to like there's the dream place
• 21:03
  to work at it it sounds like a theme park to why are we talking
• 21:07
  about just trauma here today? Like how do you where did you start to
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  go, I guess down here for you. Okay, So now we're getting
• 21:18
  into into where it all started, right, Okay, guys, So I'm
• 21:23
  going to open this box. I've kept uside for a long time. I
• 21:27
  opened it yesterday. It freaked me out. I'm going to be very honest,
• 21:32
  real and authentic here if if it if some things I say might be
• 21:37
  triggering, or it might affect you in some way. There's no intention there,
• 21:44
  but half in mind that that this was my response back in the past.
• 21:51
  This was what has already happened. Nothing could have been done. And
• 21:53
  if it does reflect on someone, it doesn't reflect on you. Okay,
• 21:57
  just remember that this is very isolated, is within this context. Yeah,
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  so I was this was It took a turn when I was already the college
• 22:11
  pastor, so college college campus ministry. Uh, we had divided it into
• 22:15
  like high school, one pathetic care, college, one pathtics care, you
• 22:19
  know, young adults. So by then I had already been installed as a
• 22:23
  pastor, really paid my duser for a while, and UH begin to see,
• 22:30
  uh, things have things that I have never seen before in the office
• 22:36
  in the church working culture. So I begin to realize that because I worked
• 22:41
  before, So thank god I worked before. I begin to see different behaviors,
• 22:45
  UH patterns cultures that was very similar to UH toxic work work culture.
• 22:53
  And and so it took a turn when the overseeing pastor over a few of
• 23:02
  us. So this pastor over oversaw the youth ministry, a bit of the
• 23:08
  children, a bit of the young adults, taking care of quite a few
• 23:14
  areas, but very influential. I know, I know that that some we
• 23:18
  would know who I'm talking about. I don't have to mention names. I
• 23:22
  don't have to mention anything because it was already talked about before. So this
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  is more or less the first account of someone who was under that. That
• 23:32
  situation took a turn when we found out certain certain accusations that happened regarding the
• 23:40
  overseeing pastor. Before all this has happened, we already saw a division in
• 23:48
  the church office amongst the leadership division and sense where everybody was working silo.
• 23:56
  There was no cohesive direction. And so when when people start working silo,
• 24:00
  right, people tend to get competitive. Also not competitive in a healthy way,
• 24:06
  but it's just like you can you know that someone's trying to do better
• 24:10
  than the other. And I had not realized it back then, but there
• 24:17
  was a lot of hidden agendas backbiting. Now, if you're new to church
• 24:23
  or you've heard this before, uh, this is what it is. Some
• 24:29
  cultures, some church office cultures are like that. So sad to say,
• 24:33
  it is what it is. Right, And how it took a turn was
• 24:38
  when this overseeing pastor kept talking bad about other pastors and the lead pastor,
• 24:53
  the senior pastor. I didn't realize it back then, so we we were
• 25:00
  also amongst ourselves, among of the pastors that was under this pastor kept doing
• 25:03
  that too. We kept talking bad. We kept seeing other pastors who and
• 25:10
  other leaders who we thought were the bad person. Right, we said that
• 25:14
  we saw them in a very bad light and we will try to avoid them.
• 25:18
  That's how the division started. And that's when we realized in hindsight,
• 25:26
  it had already started then so fast. For a few years later, the
• 25:33
  overseeing pastor, it got. It got quite bad, lad because I was
• 25:37
  in pastoral meetings, right, and pastoria meetings will be quite heated and intense,
• 25:44
  and we're like, what's going on? But we could not say anything
• 25:47
  because anytime we kind of asked, we will get shot down and say that
• 25:52
  you don't understand, you have no idea what you're talking about. You stay,
• 25:56
  stay your lane or keep to your corner. Okay, know your place.
• 26:00
  You're too young, so okay, fine then because the accusations now fast
• 26:04
  forward. The accusations came for this pastor, and of course they were real,
• 26:08
  they were true. The accusations involved my childhood friends who I had lost
• 26:15
  along the way because they had left church, and these were very close friends
• 26:19
  of mine. So I was angry because at first I did not believe the
• 26:27
  accusations, or rather the accusations didn't seem as serious as I thought. And
• 26:37
  my dad was on the board, so even my dad had to He was
• 26:44
  trying his best to protect me right from from actually seeing the whole picture.
• 26:49
  He said, you need to understand that in due time you will know what
• 26:53
  has actually happened, and you have to accept it now. But I could
• 26:57
  have accepted. I was ready on the word of like because there was so
• 27:02
  much loyalty. There was so much allegiance at that time, and I hated
• 27:07
  what was going on because, for one, I don't like division. If
• 27:11
  it happens right, I don't want to take sides. But I was seeing
• 27:17
  myself taking a side which I did not fully understand. So when when crap
• 27:23
  hit the ceiling and he hit the fan, everything crumbled before my eyes.
• 27:30
  I could see even amongst my colleagues, people who I was close to,
• 27:34
  we grouped together because it was safer in numbers, right, it was.
• 27:37
  It was comfort in numbers. But we begin to see our relationships, our
• 27:41
  relationships strained. And of course, when this pasta had already resigned and left,
• 27:49
  and the whole the whole situation was kind of kind of like case closed.
• 27:57
  We thought, Okay, the worst is over. Am I getting ahead
• 28:02
  of it of the question? So we thought the worst was over? And
• 28:07
  and like we had to figure out a way out of this because none of
• 28:12
  us followed this pasta, this parst I had already left, decided to start
• 28:18
  their own ministry, and we decided not to. I'm gonna share this little
• 28:23
  part here that a lot of people didn't don't know, not even my peers.
• 28:29
  So this pastor happened to be in Australia at the same time I was.
• 28:33
  The the year that pastor left, I was still angry, right,
• 28:37
  and I was still like, I'm gonna fight the authorities. I'm gonna fight
• 28:41
  the system. I'm gonna break it. I'm gonna make sure right, I
• 28:45
  make every wrong right dreamer. So in Australia, we coincided our timings and
• 28:55
  we met, and I literally, right, I mean not canno, literally,
• 29:00
  I metaphorically took the knee and planted allegiance for this pasta. It was
• 29:08
  crazy. I look batter, I'm like, wow, you stupid or what.
• 29:11
  But at that point I was so wrought with emotions that had no idea
• 29:18
  what was doing. All I needed to know was I needed someone to keep
• 29:23
  mentoring me and keep that covering over me. So I planted allegiance in Australia.
• 29:30
  Then when I came back, God did something and it shifted the narrative
• 29:33
  and my eyes just opened. I found out the truth about everything that happened,
• 29:37
  and they were like, holy crap, do I have to now cut
• 29:41
  myself and like do a blood sacrifice to break the allegiance and vow what they
• 29:45
  need to do. And it freaked me out. But that's when when my
• 29:49
  eyes were opened, I began to realize every single instance that has happened in
• 29:56
  my life interacting with this pasta. I began to what it was I begin
• 30:03
  to see the abuse of manipulation personally for me. Yeah, okay, let's
• 30:10
  process that you became a pastor when the full time ministry. You had very
• 30:18
  pure intentions doing so. You really wanted to change the world through your ministry
• 30:22
  to music, and of course you had to come under leadership. You have
• 30:26
  to come under the leadership. And of course, loyalty is not wrong,
• 30:30
  submission is not wrong, communment is not wrong. All of those things are
• 30:34
  not wrong. Right. But like any good thing, like sugar is good,
• 30:40
  but too much sugar is no good, vitamins good, too much vitamins
• 30:41
  not good. Right, what I hear from you is that being under this
• 30:48
  person's leadership, there was from what you're sharing, right, that the leader
• 30:56
  tend to start talking bad about other people. So you caught that and that
• 31:00
  became normal to you, like, oh, this is what pastors do.
• 31:03
  We talk bad about other passes that don't flow with us, so we talk
• 31:07
  better about them, and that's normal. Uh, And only you you only
• 31:11
  realize later that wait a minute, that's that doesn't seem right, right,
• 31:15
  and other things, other things, And you shared a story about you pledging
• 31:21
  alligions and all that that form of loyalty to the extreme right. Not everyone
• 31:33
  sees it as wrong. If I may be honest, I was there too.
• 31:40
  I was there. I've got my own story of extreme loyalty. And
• 31:45
  I didn't realize until ten years later that there was a point in time in
• 31:49
  my life where I chose my leader over my own wife. Yep, I
• 31:55
  didn't see them. Now I say, everyone can go like, what,
• 31:57
  what, what did you do? You choose somebody else, all your wife?
• 32:01
  That's clearly unhealthy. No, but I didn't see it then, and
• 32:06
  I'm pretty sure you didn't see it then. Yeah, how did you come
• 32:12
  to realize? And what did you notice that when you go, wait a
• 32:15
  minute, something's off here. Sorry, we again understand what what a narcissist
• 32:23
  manipulator really functions like. And this is like just recently in the recent years
• 32:30
  of just understanding behavior. I just I had to research it so I grew
• 32:37
  up. Now that's the reason why I'm also half the size now, because
• 32:40
  it's all correlated. I finally realize I was. I was the fat,
• 32:46
  little chubby kit everybody called cute. Everybody loved to see me eat and kept
• 32:52
  feeding me food. I didn't like it, actually, but I thought that
• 32:58
  was how people proof of me and accepted me. Because I didn't want to
• 33:02
  be the fat kid. Everybody kept teasing the fat kid, even in school,
• 33:07
  and it was bad. It was the fat shaming was bad, but
• 33:12
  the fat shaming in church was acceptable and felt good because it was masked with
• 33:17
  approval. Where am I getting is since a young age when I first joined
• 33:28
  the church and all that, and in youth ministry, right I realized why
• 33:31
  the girls didn't like me because not attractive at all, and just kept stuffing
• 33:37
  my face. But but that's how people kept enabling. And so the culture
• 33:45
  of enabling this kind of behavior was I think it's very normal across all So
• 33:49
  don't get me wrong that it's only in church and among this amongst these people.
• 33:52
  But but it began to progress into different forms right where because I was
• 34:00
  yearning for approval, especially from this pastor, to a point where, right
• 34:07
  I didn't yearn for approval from my parents anymore. This pastor became my parent,
• 34:15
  and I had given their full authority to this pastor and stripped my parents,
• 34:22
  or in some way strip my parents of their authority. So what would
• 34:24
  they say? Sometimes? Right? Well, growing up didn't mean any thing
• 34:28
  they could not control me, and I'm in control, right. I wasn't
• 34:30
  being rebellious. You know. I was going to church six days a week.
• 34:37
  I would take a bus from all the way to walk up to church
• 34:43
  around the area, right. And they loved it because they loved this kid
• 34:51
  who were seeking for They call it like woll I was so eager to serve
• 34:53
  God, but I was actually seeking for approval, and so everything I did
• 35:01
  was for their pastor's approval. Everything on stage, off stage, in the
• 35:06
  office, our, the office, everything in ministry. And there was so
• 35:09
  much power given to a point where I asked if I could start abandon this
• 35:17
  pars to say no, so I cancel the idea. I asked if I
• 35:22
  could go on holiday this time? I was this time, I was already
• 35:25
  in Bible school. As school, I go on holiday. My family,
• 35:29
  Oh no, because there's ministry you shouldn't go, and there's ministry you can't
• 35:35
  go on weekends. I'm like, but weekends are when we can go on
• 35:37
  holiday. That's when my parents are free, right, But no, you
• 35:42
  can only go on weekdays. So I'm like, okay, surely I know.
• 35:45
  I submit, I submit, I kept submitting. There was one more
• 35:52
  instance, I had dye my hair green, so this is not new,
• 35:53
  this is like old news. I already died my hair green. News was
• 35:58
  just before Bible school. And this pastor in a in a youth kemet in
• 36:01
  Singapore, I followed for ministry, asked me to publicly announce or not ask
• 36:07
  me, but implyed and and kind of like pressured me to publicly announced I'm
• 36:10
  going to Bible School and that I will redye my hair black because it's only
• 36:17
  proper. Don't go into bubble school with green hair. Wherever rebell is,
• 36:24
  and if everything that I had to do with my identity, what I wanted
• 36:29
  to do, even the person I wanted to date and all, there was
• 36:32
  one guy I really like, really pursued for many years just fars. I
• 36:36
  say, no, don't touch very special, You're not you're not, You're
• 36:40
  not for this girl. I'm like, she's my best friend today last still
• 36:45
  still good friend lives, so I was good. But back then I'm like,
• 36:49
  okayno, but other other guys could pursue. I'm like, do it.
• 36:53
  This guy is kind of play the guitar so so different different parts of
• 37:01
  it. And if my sound Patty in my sound like like, you know,
• 37:06
  what's the big deal? But I I didn't realize. But I felt
• 37:10
  suffocated all throughout. I felt like I couldn't express myself. So I kept
• 37:16
  eating and eating and eating. There was only only expression I knew, and
• 37:20
  I ballooned up and and it affected my confidence and on every level to a
• 37:27
  point where right that I thought anything I thought wrong, any thought I had
• 37:32
  wrong, or any any insecurity I had, I thought I had already sinned
• 37:38
  against this pastor can you see where the thought and heart worse. I no
• 37:45
  longer even saw me as positioned as as God's child. I saw myself as
• 37:54
  this person's spiritual child. So I'll call know, I said, I'm so
• 38:00
  sorry I had this thought and all Have I lost the anointing? Have I
• 38:06
  lost your spiritual covering? So my whole identity was shaped around this past's approval
• 38:14
  and and also the proofal of everyone else, because everybody, whatever this pastes
• 38:17
  said, everybody had to resonate, and so I had to follow the resonance,
• 38:23
  and it was actually dissonance for me. It really stripped away a lot
• 38:30
  of who I thought I was going to be. Hm, yeah, okay,
• 38:36
  let me get their breath lighten up things and if you do. Yeah,
• 38:44
  So, if you don't mind me asking this way, so we we
• 38:47
  we are hoping through the conversation to inspire good leadership. Right, what you
• 38:53
  just described to me sounds like you are implying that this leader somehow practiced not
• 39:04
  so healthy leadership over you. Okay, whatever, this pastor kind of like
• 39:09
  practice as the form of leadership maybe has influenced you to behave that we are
• 39:16
  like overly fearful, overly loyal. Yeah, okay, So because right,
• 39:25
  why why there's so much fear and of all that is because this past the
• 39:30
  cap declaring over and over again, I am prophetic, I am called as
• 39:38
  a prophet of the Lord. Okay, so if you go against the prophet,
• 39:43
  and there were many instances this fast the said, so many people have
• 39:46
  spoken against me, and look where they are now. They have cancer,
• 39:52
  they have fallen sick. Yes, so you you you kind of like I
• 39:55
  don't want to be in the wrong side of things, right yeah. So
• 40:00
  of course fear had already said it so deep. Yeah. Yeah, And
• 40:04
  and and this passed this word to me and many of many of us who
• 40:10
  are serving, was absolute true, yeah, And who deals in absolute or
• 40:16
  your Star Wars fans only sif deals just we kind of did it, I'll
• 40:23
  just keep it in. Okay. No, I'm glad you say it because
• 40:27
  that's what I was trying to get at, because otherwise it will sound like
• 40:34
  I'm this way because of somebody else's fault. You know what I'm saying,
• 40:36
  Like, you know, if we don't qualify that, it sounds like,
• 40:38
  yeah, I'm like that because of somebody else's fault. Because there's also some
• 40:43
  amount of responsiblit you have to take. Right, just because someone is trying
• 40:47
  to manipulate us doesn't mean we allow them to manipulate us. So there is
• 40:52
  that, we accept that, but we also I guess what we're trying to
• 40:55
  say here is there is leadership is influenced, especially when you started so young
• 41:06
  under someone's leadership. And what we're what you were saying just now is if
• 41:10
  I'm if I'm right, it's it's years and years and years of speaking saying
• 41:19
  things to your impressionable years, right, that created all these perceptions like I
• 41:27
  am the prophet of God, so what I say is God's words. So
• 41:31
  if I say don't marry the girl, you don't marry the girl, right,
• 41:35
  And this is over and over and again and there every things said about
• 41:38
  like you know, it's a famous one. I don't touch lots annointer,
• 41:43
  So I'm annointer. You don't touch me, you don't talk bad about me,
• 41:46
  you don't so all those things. I think it's what created these perceptions.
• 41:52
  Right. So we're not saying we're not blaming, We're not saying,
• 42:00
  ah, I'm like that because so and so it's like that. But what
• 42:05
  we're recognizing here is leaders do have influence. The things you say do matter.
• 42:10
  It does shape people's minds. So we really have to be careful.
• 42:15
  Even the Bible says we're going to be accountable for every idol word. What
• 42:21
  more the words than not either? What are the words that we say intentionally?
• 42:23
  Right? Okay? Cool? Because one of our hopes here tonight is
• 42:28
  to inspire the leadership, which means leaders have to be extra careful about what,
• 42:34
  especially the Christian war are the Christian world God no leaders, I'm a
• 42:37
  pastor. It's very easy to write. You see, I just have to
• 42:40
  pull the God said so card. It's done. It's done, right,
• 42:45
  Like, where do you go from there? If I go against your God
• 42:50
  says the word I'm going against I'm going against God. How can I do
• 42:52
  that? So those things, Yeah, I think leaders say sometimes too freely.
• 43:02
  Yep. And so it's clearly affected you. You you've you've come under
• 43:09
  such leadership for so long. It created in you this this sense of loyalty.
• 43:15
  Yes, loyal it is good, but over extended health dealer. Okay,
• 43:21
  okay, how do you affect you? And uh when when was the
• 43:27
  worst time? And then because I know you eventually had to leave like you,
• 43:32
  we say, it's not your former pastor, so you're once a pastor
• 43:35
  and you're normal. Yeah, okay, So yeah, so there is part
• 43:38
  three okay, or rather part two way two B. So past that leparty,
• 43:46
  we were trying to rebuild. We're trying to hold things together. Don't
• 43:50
  rock the ship too much, rock the boat too much. But we were
• 43:52
  fragmenting right amongst all of us. Now, what happened happened in this context
• 44:00
  was there was so much of this past us character and impression and like influence
• 44:10
  over all of us. There were about seven of us the last okay,
• 44:16
  so this was just before the pandemic, the last two years before pandemics.
• 44:22
  When so by twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, I had already
• 44:30
  hit burnout point, and this burnout was bad. This was the darkest time
• 44:36
  of my life. Actually, had I gone through my decision, I wouldn't
• 44:40
  be here today. My child wouldn't be here today. So that woke me
• 44:46
  up a lot. I was in I was overseas and something happened. It
• 44:53
  took a turn really bad because I wasn't sleeping well. I was only sleeping
• 44:59
  two three hours every night. I was overweight. I was diagnosed with type
• 45:01
  two diabetes. I had been given like a death sentence for a doctor,
• 45:06
  and I don know what to do. I was lost, and amongst all
• 45:09
  of us, no one was helping me because I was reaching out for help,
• 45:14
  and I didn't know who was returned to because I did not trust anybody
• 45:16
  anymore. There was so much fragmentation that when I came back, the only
• 45:22
  person I cried out and reached out to was a church member, a church
• 45:28
  board member, because he had walked through with a lot of us a coaching
• 45:36
  program. But that coaching program was the turning point for me. It was
• 45:39
  life changing because it only helped me understand the journey before I could see the
• 45:47
  cracks, I could see the potholes, I could see the damage done.
• 45:52
  But I wasn't out of the woods yet. So all this had happened,
• 45:57
  I came back. I reached out to him and he embraced me with so
• 46:04
  much of God's love because I could not recognize God's love anymore. And at
• 46:10
  that point, all he said was tell your wife. I didn't tell my
• 46:15
  wife, and at that time she would come back with two caskets. I
• 46:22
  didn't tell her, and he said, you need to tell your wife.
• 46:24
  This is your first priority. She will understand. She's strong enough. So
• 46:29
  I told her. I broke. She said this okay, we will get
• 46:32
  through this. And so he walked through with me for six months and then
• 46:40
  he said, are you okay now? I said not yet, not yet,
• 46:45
  because mentally I have no idea who I am. I had put myself.
• 46:55
  I had cause a lot of pain to myself trying to feel alive.
• 47:01
  There's a reason for the tattoos, and I'll say I'll explain why. My
• 47:06
  first tattoo. Right when I first got it, I was expecting pain.
• 47:10
  Lie right, they're doing. But as the moment the tattoo artists started,
• 47:16
  I heard the pastest voice in my head, screaming in my ear, You're
• 47:23
  going to go to hell. You are walking away from your calls, You're
• 47:29
  singing against God. And it was so as cruciating that I couldn't hear the
• 47:32
  tattoo gun. I could only hear that voice. I couldn't feel the pain.
• 47:37
  I could only feel the pain mentally. It was weird. It's never
• 47:43
  happened again. It was only at that point I think something broke in me,
• 47:46
  something really broke. And so this this person walked through with me,
• 47:52
  and just to make sure I got out of the woods. Where As I
• 47:55
  got out of the woods, he could see because he's a trained professional,
• 47:59
  right, so he could see, Okay, you don't have signs of this
• 48:02
  anymore. I took control of my health. I decided to take control my
• 48:07
  life and say, I'm going to be responsible for certain things and for things
• 48:10
  I couldn't control. I cannot deal with it right now. So I took
• 48:15
  control my health. I took control of my behavior as a pastor. I
• 48:20
  was still a pastor, you know. And so getting back to this point
• 48:24
  here, we were all fragmented. I was going through all this. No
• 48:29
  one was really able to help me. Because they were all giving very like
• 48:36
  textbook advice. I'm like, didn't I don't need that. I just need
• 48:37
  you to walk with me, but no one could. But there was also
• 48:43
  a lot of back by things that I realized enough is enough, la.
• 48:46
  So this was twenty seventeen. I took control my health. I lost the
• 48:51
  weight, I felt better, went through the therapy, I felt better.
• 48:53
  I'm like, I'm myself again. I'm no longer taking out my anger my
• 48:58
  kid. I'm no longer distant from my from my family, my parents.
• 49:02
  I finally spoke to my mom and dad about it. We cried, we
• 49:06
  reconciliated, dealt with a lot of childhood issues, childhood trauma. Another coach
• 49:12
  came and also walked through with me and with through another trauma, my teenage
• 49:15
  trauma, just to get me because he understood what was what was happening.
• 49:21
  These two were like very good friends and they really helped me through. And
• 49:25
  then I finally decided, Hey, I don't think I want this life anymore.
• 49:34
  I don't think I am suitable. So at this point, right I
• 49:37
  wasn't like I'm completely heal now I'm gonna take my career different path. No,
• 49:40
  because I Finally it finally hit me so hard. I had become a
• 49:45
  mini version of this pastor. The way I was pastoring was exactly how this
• 49:51
  person passed it. And I begin to see how many people I've also heard
• 49:55
  along the way because we lost a lot of young people. They left.
• 50:01
  They left because of various reasons, but I'm very sure some left because of
• 50:06
  me. I was a lousy pastor. At that point, I was at
• 50:09
  my worst. I was using people for the sake of events ministry. I
• 50:19
  began to despise myself. I look in the mirror. I got disgusted at
• 50:22
  the person I've become. So whoever I was watching this and all that,
• 50:28
  I'm generally sorry that I've hurt whoever who is receiving this. I told my
• 50:36
  wife, I said, I cannot beat this anymore. I'm causing so much
• 50:39
  damage. I am also hurting because I don't like division, right, but
• 50:47
  I was causing it by hurting my friends, my colleagues who I actually grew
• 50:52
  up with. They were my youth leaders, and now they become a colleagues.
• 50:55
  I hurt every single one of them. I was in a very bad
• 51:00
  place, angry, full of rich so I thought I could leave and I
• 51:09
  had always wanted to put in my resignation, but I was scared. I
• 51:14
  was scared because not because of like you know, your no more career,
• 51:17
  no more title, whatever. I didn't care about that, but I thought
• 51:21
  I need to have some income to support the family. But my wife said,
• 51:28
  you know, she's you. He finds a good wife, right,
• 51:30
  finds a really good thing, like right. The blessing in all this was
• 51:35
  she said, go ahead, God will take care. My wife was the
• 51:38
  pastor in the family, not me. She said, go hey, God
• 51:42
  will take care. God would provide. Don't worry. My parents say,
• 51:45
  whatever you decide. God. My father finally like was really like, you
• 51:47
  finally know the truth. That's why I was trying so hard to protect you.
• 51:52
  You had to find out for yourself, you know, you to discover
• 51:54
  like so drama or I couldn't be the one, you know, to influence
• 51:58
  you. But you finally understand, you see the light. I'm glad he
• 52:01
  did that because there was very wise of him. And so she said go
• 52:06
  ahead. And in twenty twenty, in the pandemic, the first MCO was
• 52:13
  bad, loud, we had no choice but to run church right, and
• 52:15
  of course the time I was the worship pastor, but I was also the
• 52:17
  avy guy. I was the camera guy. I was the sound guy.
• 52:20
  I was the everything had to do the recording from my home because I was
• 52:23
  the only one with the equipment. I was the sound engineer. I was
• 52:25
  mixing and producing and like with the help of one or two volunteers, I'm
• 52:30
  like, there's no way I can quit. Now. Everything was on my
• 52:36
  shoulders. I'm like, I cannot let the church down. And at this
• 52:39
  point, right, I'm like, maybe I should just continue this call,
• 52:43
  you know. So it suddenly gave into like a damn mind la, maybe
• 52:46
  you power through. Things will get better. But things were not better at
• 52:51
  all, because even even out of the office right on ZOOMA, we could
• 52:55
  just feel the tension, the animosity and like the division. I'm like,
• 53:00
  you know what, screw this enough, it is enough. So second second,
• 53:05
  m CEO, things are already back open in church. I was still
• 53:08
  the saga or still the worship leader or still there everything, because then people
• 53:13
  can only be in the church. Good lie right, the higher one can
• 53:15
  do four jobs. H ah. So where I was a yeah, and
• 53:22
  I handed in with fear and trembling, and this is what I told God,
• 53:27
  I think I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't even know
• 53:30
  whether I am going against your will or I'm still in your will, but
• 53:37
  it's typed out. I'm in the office. I made this decision. I've
• 53:42
  ready made an appointment with the with the sp I'm gonna do it if I
• 53:45
  walk, if I walk, even against you, right, God, please
• 53:50
  lighten the punishment, see this mindset, lighten the punishment. Please remember me.
• 53:55
  Don't forget me. Because at that point, right, I thought,
• 54:00
  right, and I still think about it. Right, this is it.
• 54:05
  I'm closing the doors once and for all. Wow, right on cue yea.
• 54:16
  And so that happened. That was the turning point, and that's when
• 54:20
  I walked away from it all. I didn't tell anybody. In fact,
• 54:24
  the whole office only found out on the day they they announced the last day
• 54:30
  of my of my serving. Notice. The came as a shock, and
• 54:35
  I am not spoken about it actually ever since I do today. Yeah.
• 54:43
  So what we've heard from your story so far is uh okay. The kind
• 54:51
  of leadership you're under definitely influence you to be, to influence your experience,
• 54:59
  and influence you to become who you were. Prior to this point, right,
• 55:05
  And some of the traits that we hear is because we want to we
• 55:09
  want to inspire good leadership with good health and healthy leadership. So that means
• 55:13
  we have to talk about like what is not good health a good leadership?
• 55:15
  What is not healthy leadership? So what I'm hearing is when when leaders use
• 55:22
  fear to lead right, using fear, Uh, if you don't do this,
• 55:28
  you get punished when you don't do this, God, God's favor is
• 55:31
  not on you when you don't do this. So fear tactic I think causes
• 55:37
  people to live in fear. Even if you serve, you serve out of
• 55:39
  fear. When you worship alf out of fear. That's what I'm hearing is
• 55:43
  not it's not healthy when leaders start to, I guess, create division when
• 55:53
  you start talking about other people. Right. You see, by by doing
• 55:57
  that, you're kind of right already trying to draw aligne. I think that's
• 56:02
  not what the Bible is encourages to do. Right, We're supposed to be
• 56:07
  one body united, So when we when leaders start to talk bad about others,
• 56:14
  I think that draws a line and it creates a division. When leaders
• 56:22
  tend to put themselves on the pedestal. I'm the prophet, I'm the man
• 56:27
  of God, woman of God, prophet or God apostle of God. Listen
• 56:30
  to me, seem to imply, therefore, only my words carry it,
• 56:35
  and only my words is right. I think that again creates unhealthy culture.
• 56:39
  So this is some of the things we were able to identify, and we
• 56:45
  want to make sure we kind of like lead in a way that is not
• 56:50
  out of fear but out of love early in a way where it's not I
• 56:54
  guess, manipulative by kind of like putting others down so that I get puffed
• 57:00
  up, or also not put ourselves on a pedestal where we are almost like
• 57:07
  like God, what I they can I summarize that? Right? Yeah?
• 57:14
  I think so. In my in my context, right, the experience of
• 57:19
  that leadership that I had was in the languaging and in the behavior, like
• 57:29
  because the person has been so influential, the person already knew that I would
• 57:34
  not fact check, I would not do any background check on any situation or
• 57:38
  any person. So for example, the languaging would be like you know why
• 57:44
  this is like that? It's because so the person will actually reveal certain bad
• 57:47
  traits about the other person that you know they're talking about, Oh, this
• 57:52
  this this person marriage is actually not good one. That's why they are the
• 57:58
  directing like that they directing to me, you know, and not to you,
• 58:00
  so that they're trying to show that they're protecting or the languaging is you
• 58:10
  don't understand. You know, I've already been through this, I've already had
• 58:14
  this twenty years under my belt, you know, so so you don't know
• 58:19
  what you're talking about. You know, you're still very fresh, you know,
• 58:22
  right behind the years. There's all kinds of languaging by saying that did
• 58:28
  you know that if you did this right, this would happened? And and
• 58:36
  you're not wrong because because you know, you actually did not do your homework
• 58:38
  first. So it sounds now as like hearing myself say that, right,
• 58:45
  It sounds like like what every parent will say or everything. But but in
• 58:50
  terms of ministry, it was it was very detrimental because none of us could
• 58:53
  make any decisions ah or or could even could even act out of being so
• 59:05
  called sensitive to what God is leading us to do. Okay. Part of
• 59:09
  your story is also called how you got help, how you healed, which
• 59:14
  is there was a coach that was there. Uh, not everyone in church
• 59:19
  was able to help you, but but there was someone. Every thank God
• 59:22
  for that someone. So there was coaching, there was you mentioned before you
• 59:27
  went for therapy. I think what we can learn from that is that get
• 59:31
  help. There is help available. Don't be shy to approach help, even
• 59:38
  if it's outside the church. Sometimes you may need professional help to help you
• 59:43
  process things, but of course within the church it is. It'll be ideal
• 59:47
  and great if there are people in the church who cared, who love,
• 59:52
  who genuinely want to be Uh. I want to see you grow and succeed.
• 59:57
  Now, if we bring this to a close, right, how do
• 1:00:00
  we bring that that the hope number tree? But how do we bring restore
• 1:00:05
  back redeemed the trust and believe in leadership and church so that we don't end
• 1:00:13
  with like, ah, yeah, nobody wants to be part of the church.
• 1:00:15
  That's nobody want to trust the pastor yeah. So I talked about languaging
• 1:00:22
  earlier. It's actually awareness of what languaging I was also using because the moment
• 1:00:30
  I left the church, my languaging was still the same. I said,
• 1:00:35
  the church has hurt me. The church leadership as a whole. We're not
• 1:00:39
  supportive the churches did the church is that church members also were not nice.
• 1:00:45
  Church members were were some some church members were bullies, uh, and they
• 1:00:50
  had very high expectations and real expectations and all that. So that was my
• 1:00:52
  languaging. As I began to study therapy also right and also understand uh,
• 1:01:01
  what I was going through. I read somewhere that you can blame as he
• 1:01:08
  could have a blankest statement that blames everyone and and use this, in this
• 1:01:15
  case the church as a representation of that bad experience. But actually that's not
• 1:01:20
  the case. Because there is a name to a person who has hurt you.
• 1:01:23
  There is a name to some people who have who have done you wrong.
• 1:01:28
  So if you can actually identify those names, then is it truly the
• 1:01:31
  church has hurt you? Now I realized no, because back in I still
• 1:01:37
  keep in touch with different friends from that church, and they are still the
• 1:01:43
  best people. They're still the nicest people. Once in a while bum into
• 1:01:46
  into them and mols right and they're like, how are you doing and all
• 1:01:50
  that. So it's not the church as bad, right, Not the church
• 1:01:53
  has hurt me as a whole, And it's not the leadership too. The
• 1:01:57
  New Syney pastor messages me from time to time like how doing and praying for
• 1:02:00
  you and your family. I'm like, wow, that's nice. The other
• 1:02:02
  one didn't message message at all. Uh they laugh anyway. So it's identifying
• 1:02:12
  who has heard, and from there continue to separate and identify at what point
• 1:02:20
  did they hurt or did they really hurt you, what they really mean or
• 1:02:22
  were they just being very objective and very blood So it's a whole process of
• 1:02:30
  first doing that and then what was the question again? Yeah, how do
• 1:02:35
  we redeem and restore trust again? Because so otherways it sounds very dying.
• 1:02:38
  Yeah, it's it's like then no point going back to the church. Right.
• 1:02:44
  But you see, in this whole process of trying to risk rebuild who
• 1:02:47
  I was, I begin to realize it's it's everything is all encompassing. You
• 1:02:53
  rebuild your theology. So it's not just deconstructed theology. It's it's like you
• 1:03:00
  have built the lego model wrong, you take it apart, it's not fully
• 1:03:04
  broken. You just need to go back to the manual and rebuild it.
• 1:03:07
  Right. So it's the theology, the spiritual aspect my faith. I had
• 1:03:12
  to rebuild my faith in the sense that I knew because I know that God
• 1:03:15
  is real. I know that God is evident because of my experience even with
• 1:03:20
  my brother and my whole life. So my faith in God was not affected.
• 1:03:24
  My faith in men definitely was affected in leaders. So the whole process
• 1:03:29
  of identifying who helped me restore certain trusts in different leaders. Because I knew
• 1:03:36
  that there was some pastors outside organization, different pastors, I reached out to
• 1:03:40
  only three pastors and all three of them were outside of the country Singapore,
• 1:03:44
  Indonesia, and South Africa. Because these were only three I trusted. I
• 1:03:49
  told them the exact story, no judgment, embraced me, and they walked
• 1:03:55
  through with me. Also, so I know that it's the same thing.
• 1:04:00
  Not all Christians are bad man, right, one, two bad apples,
• 1:04:02
  that's just the whole bunch. So they had a role by instilling the trust
• 1:04:10
  that you can also be a good pastor in uncount They're trying to encourage me
• 1:04:15
  to go back into the full time call, like when you go to the
• 1:04:17
  church, when you which is you going to work for now? Like chill
• 1:04:19
  Chell, chill que And so I talked about the spiritual and theology and the
• 1:04:27
  faith mentally, I had to also trust myself again because I saw my self
• 1:04:32
  doubt, second guessing. Even till today, there is some second guessing.
• 1:04:36
  I talked about opening the box. Yesterday I had a huge moment of like,
• 1:04:43
  did all this really happen? I doubted all the experiences because there was
• 1:04:47
  a whole wave of emotions and so the whole process of rebuilding, even the
• 1:04:55
  confidence. I went to the gym and that that does a lot. That
• 1:05:00
  rebuilt everything. Actually, I'm more confident now than the previous version. I
• 1:05:06
  know exactly who I am now because the pandemic was a blessing for Mela.
• 1:05:13
  It was a luxury because I finally got to spend time with my kids.
• 1:05:16
  We had our second kid in the pandemic. And then suddenly now because the
• 1:05:18
  thirty came. So I'm like, I'm a family man, I'm a stay
• 1:05:21
  home that. I'm confidently saying that without any shame, because I feel like
• 1:05:26
  stay home dead. Why you lost your job? Is it? No?
• 1:05:29
  I walked away from my job. Why was it? Was it? Because
• 1:05:31
  you know of many reasons? Say no, I wanted to be to stay
• 1:05:36
  home there because I wanted to redeem myself as a father, My first kids
• 1:05:41
  say Papa, I don't love you. When she was three years old.
• 1:05:45
  That cut like a knife, man like, it slices me to pieces.
• 1:05:48
  And so ever since then, I've been trying to work on my redemption with
• 1:05:51
  her. I can confidently say that I love where I am now in this
• 1:05:58
  space. I don't want to understand a lot of things still. I don't
• 1:06:01
  understand a lot of theology still, because I'm it's always a learning process.
• 1:06:05
  I don't understand what's really happening in the in the previous church, but it
• 1:06:13
  doesn't affect me anymore because I know exactly what I'm supposed to do now.
• 1:06:20
  And so that's why I can't just identify and say that these are the things
• 1:06:25
  that happen is this iss is. I'm not gonna add any more to that.
• 1:06:30
  I'm not going to add any emotion to that to stir up and to
• 1:06:32
  cause any trouble. I don't want to. I can, but I don't
• 1:06:38
  want to, because the wiser thing to do is to focus on the now
• 1:06:44
  and then now is to raise the next generation, which is my kids are,
• 1:06:47
  and in the in the current church that I'm serving now, I'm just
• 1:06:51
  enjoying it. I'm like, I'm going to church. I'm not scheduled to
• 1:06:54
  preach. I have no pressure to perform, no pressure who speak prophetic words
• 1:07:02
  into people's life and ask for prayer because back then we were expected to because
• 1:07:06
  profit muss, so you must emulate the same thing I don't. I begin
• 1:07:11
  to have more confidence in my prophetic gifting, in my worship giftings and all.
• 1:07:15
  I'm like, actually it's not so bad. So there is hope to
• 1:07:20
  come out of all that, and to be in a place where it's actually
• 1:07:25
  okay to navigate this space where things aren't fully rebuilt, but the foundation feels
• 1:07:33
  a lot more solid than it was before. Great. We have some questions
• 1:07:39
  that we want to go through, and I think it'll be good for some
• 1:07:44
  of these questions to be answered while the recording is happening, because I think
• 1:07:47
  that it is a value. But before we go into questions, let me
• 1:07:51
  just attempt to summarize a little bit what we've learned so far tonight is that
• 1:07:56
  church trauma is real. It does happen, and just trauma generally happens because
• 1:08:01
  of I don't know, poor leadership and healthy leadership, and I generally don't
• 1:08:11
  think leaders are intentionally doing. So maybe they themselves have not been led well,
• 1:08:19
  so that's the only way they know how to lead. Perhaps, I
• 1:08:21
  don't know. I think in this context, I can look back now,
• 1:08:25
  right, yeah, I can only pinpoint one year. It was great two
• 1:08:30
  thousand. That was the year everything flourished because everything was aligned. But I
• 1:08:38
  now, as I look back and I put all the pieces together, this
• 1:08:41
  pastor had the best intentions actually very genuine and when the ministry flourished, it
• 1:08:45
  grew from thirty to one hundred to two hundred, became the actually the largest
• 1:08:50
  youth group back then. It was then. I think they this pasta allowed
• 1:08:58
  different things to affect power, okay, their power, their influence, and
• 1:09:06
  begin to look like, hey I can actually do more and I can actually
• 1:09:13
  gain more. Yeah, so I think I think that's when the change happened.
• 1:09:15
  Now, which could happen, Which could happen? And I'm also trying
• 1:09:18
  to like also zoom out a little bit from that one pasta to just in
• 1:09:26
  general, like it can happen to any of us. I'm a pastor,
• 1:09:28
  Yeah, so it can happen to It could happen to me, right even
• 1:09:30
  you know, with this got gets successful, I become super famous and there's
• 1:09:33
  like three million views, then I gotta I gotta watch out for that.
• 1:09:38
  As I'm saying this, I'm saying to myself, don't let get don't let
• 1:09:41
  success get your head and stuff like that. Right, But what we're trying
• 1:09:45
  to say is that when leaders don't lead well, it can cause trauma.
• 1:09:48
  It can cause trauma means injury. So some some injury are self inflicted.
• 1:09:53
  Some injury are not right. Some injuries because someone didn't sweep the nails from
• 1:09:59
  the floor. You saw it by the inship away, so some child will
• 1:10:01
  step on it and get hurt. Yep, So leadership can be like that.
• 1:10:05
  We see the science, but we don't don't do anything about it.
• 1:10:09
  People get hurt. So church trauma is real. It does happen. It
• 1:10:14
  happens in churches, it happens everywhere, and generally it's because of leadership when
• 1:10:18
  it's unhealthy, when it's unwise, when it's not careful. So we want
• 1:10:24
  to watch out for that. But I like what you say at the end,
• 1:10:28
  there is a name to the person. We don't Just because one church
• 1:10:32
  hurt you doesn't mean all churches are bad. Just because one leader in that
• 1:10:35
  church doesn't mean all leaders are bad, so we don't walk away. And
• 1:10:39
  as people say, don't throw away the baby with the baffa, right,
• 1:10:44
  So I guess being able to name and being able to be specific, this
• 1:10:51
  pastor hurt me, but all the other pastors did not. So I don't
• 1:10:56
  give up one past us. This church was not healthy for me whatever was
• 1:11:00
  happening there. So I may walk away from this church, but I don't
• 1:11:05
  have to walk away from the church, right and definitely these people are human
• 1:11:13
  beings who claim to represent Jesus. And maybe they hurt you, but Jesus
• 1:11:16
  is hurt you. So like, okay, this Jesus person hurt me,
• 1:11:21
  Now I walk away from Jesus. That is totally not necessarily like right,
• 1:11:26
  okay, So let's get into some questions. Now, A question here about
• 1:11:33
  leadership. What what advice do you have for leaders who want to do right
• 1:11:36
  by God and for those they're discipling. I want to learn this. I'm
• 1:11:41
  going to leader now. I want to learn what what what would you give?
• 1:11:45
  You know, whatever would you give the leaders so that we can do
• 1:11:46
  it right and you know we won't hurt those discipling. I think I think
• 1:11:53
  if if I look at the leader now, right, I want to see
• 1:11:59
  the leaders posture of humility because in Asian culture, I don't know, right,
• 1:12:06
  maybe Asian culture, or maybe it's just globally, like okay, maybe
• 1:12:11
  globally, a lot of leaders are always put on a pedestal and leaders are
• 1:12:15
  pressured not by their own own doing. Sometimes this is it by expectations and
• 1:12:21
  not their pressure to I want to have the right things to say, the
• 1:12:26
  facts, the the most profound things to say and do to make to make
• 1:12:31
  a lot of the followers to be like, wow, that's why you're a
• 1:12:33
  leader. Right. But I think humility is the key, and it's the
• 1:12:40
  hardest because if a leader is not teachable, even when someone younger or inexperience
• 1:12:45
  becomes a lesson for them and they don't take it well, then that's where
• 1:12:53
  it becomes like a crack in the wall mhm and and and little cracks in
• 1:12:59
  the wall. Eventually the wall will crumble because they don't they don't identify like
• 1:13:02
  these are potential potential things that could that could affect their leadership style. Right,
• 1:13:11
  and how did you do? Right? By God, I read this
• 1:13:19
  so my my my philosophies now have been very much influenced a lot by people
• 1:13:26
  like people like Adam Grant, Paul Scanlon, and Edit Grant said. Adam
• 1:13:30
  Grant said this the three ways you can become a leader, One like a
• 1:13:38
  politician, one like a preacher, and one like a scientist. I'm paraphrasing.
• 1:13:44
  A politician would try agendas, you know, promise everything for it's a
• 1:13:48
  whole world. A preacher is like it's like, you know, just shoving
• 1:13:55
  things down, just telling people, you know, like just do this,
• 1:13:58
  do this, do this. Scientists will always test, test their theories,
• 1:14:03
  test right or wrong if they if they made a mistake, great because it's
• 1:14:06
  a lesson and they continuously learn from their mistakes. And I actually resonate a
• 1:14:11
  lot with that, Like thinking like a scientist helps me become a better leader
• 1:14:15
  because I'm not always right, and my word is not always you know,
• 1:14:20
  absolute, and when it comes to the things of God, you're not always
• 1:14:26
  accurate. So always be humble and learn, and even if you're wrong right,
• 1:14:32
  be first to say I'm I was wrong, because all leaders don't say
• 1:14:35
  that. I didn't say that. I kept I kept saying that. You
• 1:14:40
  know, this has to be the wailer and push and then, of course
• 1:14:44
  members don't want to fight past asma, so like, yeah, okay,
• 1:14:45
  okay, so I don't want to be that kind leader anymore. So moving
• 1:14:51
  from that, someone here commented and then the question I feel, so I
• 1:14:56
  read as it is. I feel sometimes this iron style of leadership style,
• 1:15:00
  this iron leadership style can create strong devotion and powerful spiritual presence, which,
• 1:15:06
  right, if you're strong and you're assertive, it can kind of like inspire
• 1:15:13
  the kind of strong devotion and all that. Right, it works there,
• 1:15:15
  so lead us do it. But how do we reconcile that we unhealthy readership?
• 1:15:20
  How why is that unhealthy? Are we calling it unhealthy? If you
• 1:15:24
  are very I don't know. Iron face dictator almost because it works well.
• 1:15:30
  It creates devotion, it gets things done, it brings results. So I
• 1:15:35
  believe, at least in the church context, this is this is something I've
• 1:15:40
  been pondering about, and I could be wrong here, Okay. CineMo Edi
• 1:15:45
  told me this one day. One day, he said, John, gone
• 1:15:48
  are the days of the darling checks, the dormoens and the individual worship leaders.
• 1:15:51
  This was in the context of worship. I said, really, so
• 1:15:56
  yeah, there will not be an age of era where there will be annimohdes
• 1:16:01
  it's an age of collaboration. I'm like, Okay, that opened my mind.
• 1:16:05
  It helped me reframe. So I took that and I pondered and I
• 1:16:11
  and I realized that that can apply to leadership, meaning that an iron leadership
• 1:16:17
  usually will always have one person always driving it. I see that there needs
• 1:16:25
  to be and I'm taking it from a biblical perspective, right in a sense,
• 1:16:31
  if I were to if we were to translate the trinity into leadership,
• 1:16:39
  now we all have our understanding of the trinity, and it's not possible in
• 1:16:44
  a human context. But hear me out. If a leadership is trifle,
• 1:16:49
  then there's check and balance as accountability there is. There is a lot of
• 1:16:56
  dynamics. It's not just one person because if one person has an iron leadership,
• 1:17:00
  everybody generally like yeah, and you just need to have yes men,
• 1:17:02
  right, you can drive things through, no problem. That works for all
• 1:17:05
  organizations. But eventually, in the age of collaboration, I think in the
• 1:17:11
  future, leadership has to be many folk. It could be a pair,
• 1:17:16
  it could be three. I like three like ers of the whole trinity concept.
• 1:17:20
  But that's what I feel leadership should have. The check and ballance is
• 1:17:27
  very crucial. So it's not just the previous hich I was in. But
• 1:17:30
  as I look across, because I was so intrigued by this, right,
• 1:17:33
  I look across all the other churches that had individual leaderships or very strong personalities,
• 1:17:41
  every single one of these leaderships actually struggle with retaining devotion, loyalty,
• 1:17:48
  and in the pandemic it showed, at least in the Asian context, the
• 1:17:54
  Malaysian context, a lot of churches actually lost and the characteristics were all this
• 1:18:00
  leaderships. Now, some work, some doesn't, some are in different seasons
• 1:18:03
  and all. But as I look deeper into some who were case studies,
• 1:18:12
  they all had a toxic culture. They were hiding. So I mean,
• 1:18:15
  look good on the front, as like you know, a good force to
• 1:18:18
  reckon with, but at the back, behind the scenes, there was a
• 1:18:23
  lot of problems, a lot of cracks ready, and I don't think God
• 1:18:27
  intended, I don't know, for that kind of leadership for the church,
• 1:18:33
  because he can also remove the person. Right, So check and balance,
• 1:18:39
  I think that's the simple answer. But I have three strong ones to make
• 1:18:44
  sure that no one's outline. So plural leadership into the single leadership. Okay,
• 1:18:49
  we've got time for two more questions, but you've got to keep the
• 1:18:53
  answers shot. Okay, So first one, and I think it's important because
• 1:18:56
  it's kind of relates. Number one is this one. Is it possible to
• 1:18:59
  remain in the church that has toxic toxic culture or poor leadership? How would
• 1:19:04
  you advise those serving under such situations? Mhm, it's your decision. No
• 1:19:11
  one has asked you to stay or leave. It's really yours. It was
• 1:19:15
  my decision. I could state, had I stayed, I will become worth
• 1:19:19
  it. That's that's how I saw it. Now, should you stay should
• 1:19:23
  you leave? That one really depends on your style of how you submit,
• 1:19:30
  follow or colead or can turn a blind eye. And like, I just
• 1:19:35
  carry on it. I surf in my own little pocket. My so my
• 1:19:40
  friends stayed back to surf in the church, and they're doing well, they're
• 1:19:44
  thriving in their little pocket. Uh, it's not still not great. I
• 1:19:48
  still I still hear what's going on. So you can stay. If you
• 1:19:53
  know how to survive in that environment, you can stay and speak up.
• 1:20:00
  But I don't know where that will get you because it's systemic, as all
• 1:20:08
  things systemic. It takes a lot more than just speaking up. It takes
• 1:20:13
  a momentum. But if you truly feel that now we've got speaking to you
• 1:20:18
  because you sought the Lord to stay or to leave, then you need to
• 1:20:23
  follow his planner because I can't tell you what the plan is, right,
• 1:20:27
  Yeah, yep, okay, another one for you For those of us who
• 1:20:30
  grew up serving in church since young, what question should we ask ourselves in
• 1:20:35
  reflection to know if we what we went through was healthy or not? So
• 1:20:42
  what should we ask ourselves? I asked myself this yesterday. Was I being
• 1:20:46
  a spot bred, petty, little whiny young pastor? My answer was yes
• 1:20:53
  and no. I grapple with it. How you want to recognize identify really
• 1:21:05
  depends on because we are we are also governed by a lot of emotions and
• 1:21:13
  something emotions. If we don't read it as data, we are led by
• 1:21:16
  it, so our emotions could could filter and and I think for me it
• 1:21:21
  had to be a lot of removal of filters. Had to be very honest
• 1:21:27
  with myself first to recognize whether whether it was my own responsibility, my own
• 1:21:31
  doing, or it was something all my control. Maybe it's just some displeasure
• 1:21:38
  and like disagreement with the leadership or with church members and all. And I
• 1:21:43
  want to get at this. I constantly ask myself this, is there a
• 1:21:49
  point where there will be reconciliation? Is there a point where there will be
• 1:21:53
  forgiveness? There is a per I can only come to this answer. There
• 1:21:57
  is a percentage I have for given to a certain percentage. If I can't
• 1:22:01
  face to face that a person, I don't know, because if you catch
• 1:22:05
  me on the wrong day, Uh, it's hot, it's hot. I
• 1:22:10
  I be very honest, it's hard. So I'm dealing. I'm still doing
• 1:22:15
  dealing with a lot. And and how do I recognize if, let's say,
• 1:22:24
  for hypothetically, in this currentcation, i'm serving in aura and if i'm
• 1:22:28
  if I find that anything unhealthy, is it healthy? I think with my
• 1:22:34
  understanding now, I would talk about it with the leadership, with people if
• 1:22:42
  it's If it's something I can identify, great, If it's not, I'll
• 1:22:45
  just wait and see. Because to call it too soon too early also not
• 1:22:49
  good. Call it too late, well, that thing you can do.
• 1:22:53
  But at this point currently, if you're feeling that you're not sure, it's
• 1:22:58
  okay to wait it out it's not life or death. And if it doesn't
• 1:23:02
  impact your health mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and you can still
• 1:23:08
  like keep an arm slang and that's fine. How would I answers that?
• 1:23:14
  Yeah, so there's a question for me. So I'll end the talk by
• 1:23:18
  answering that. But before that, if I may contribute to the answer to
• 1:23:23
  that question, I think one simple, one simple test, litmus test for
• 1:23:29
  me is when you are deciding doing something out of fear of that leader rather
• 1:23:35
  than God, I think it's a predicious signer the mesical I am not missing
• 1:23:41
  this weekend service, not really because God will be unhappy. It's more like,
• 1:23:46
  what would my pastor say, or would my sel leaders say. I
• 1:23:48
  think that's a pretty sious sign that something's off, I would say. So
• 1:23:53
  that will lead to my question. Someone asked me past the ND how do
• 1:23:57
  you come to realization you were choosing your leader over your family or wife and
• 1:24:00
  that's not right. Was it to trust friends who nudged you or et cetera.
• 1:24:05
  Now, okay, I did say that it took me ten years to
• 1:24:08
  realize it. So I didn't realize it for ten years, ten whole years,
• 1:24:11
  the whole ten years, I was thinking I was honoring God by pleasing
• 1:24:15
  the men. I did what I did to please my leader, thinking that
• 1:24:21
  I was honoring God, because the messaging is don't touch lots, annoying it.
• 1:24:26
  If you honor me, your honor God. Now again, don't try
• 1:24:29
  a baby out with about water. Right, there's some truth in it.
• 1:24:31
  Right, give me you like, if I honor my parents, I'm honoring
• 1:24:34
  God too, because God told me to honor my parents. So yes,
• 1:24:36
  there is truth to that. But I think the distinction is fear. When
• 1:24:44
  you do it out of fear of men and not God, that's something wrong.
• 1:24:46
  So for ten years I thought choosing someone else over my wife was honoring
• 1:24:53
  God, not realizing that not choosing my wife is dishonoring God. Right,
• 1:24:59
  how do I realize it? I didn't realize it for ten years. How
• 1:25:00
  they realize it ten years later. And this is why it's important to have
• 1:25:05
  a third voice in your life, to hear from somebody else, because again
• 1:25:10
  I don't have it's a it's a three hour stories. I don't have the
• 1:25:12
  time to get to the details. But through a serious of circumstances, I
• 1:25:15
  ended up having a conversation with somebody. Yep, a third voice, a
• 1:25:20
  pastor who is not in my usual circle of life, who related a story
• 1:25:25
  to me. And this is where I knew, I knew his God.
• 1:25:29
  He related a story to me. Right, there's almost exactly like mine.
• 1:25:32
  He told me about this other pastor who chose his leader away his own wife.
• 1:25:35
  I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait,
• 1:25:39
  sounds too familiar to the detail, to the timeline, because his thing
• 1:25:46
  happened ten years ago too. Yep. I'm like, and I woke up
• 1:25:53
  because this pastor was telling me this other pastor chose she's just always why.
• 1:25:59
  I'm like, wait to me, yeah, you mean there's oh yeah,
• 1:26:04
  it's not right. Yeah, And I realized I did it out of fear
• 1:26:09
  of man rather than than God. So I think that's quite a clear sign,
• 1:26:14
  quite a clear sign. There's nothing wrong if you're loyal because of God.
• 1:26:17
  There's nothing wrong if you're like seven days in church because you really want
• 1:26:20
  on God. Better is one day in your course? No whatever. I
• 1:26:25
  think like that, if it's for good. But sometimes we get mixed up
• 1:26:30
  when it's really I fear my position, I fear my standing with so and
• 1:26:35
  so, I feel whatever, and we mask it saying it's God when it's
• 1:26:39
  really not, because I don't think God will make you choose your family over
• 1:26:44
  someone else and stuff like that, and of course we need to process this
• 1:26:47
  and all that is a lot of talk about. But we have to end
• 1:26:49
  this show because you know it's late, and we will talk about it,
• 1:26:55
  yep, when we meet again for GT or Oh, you can talk about
• 1:27:00
  this in your small groups, in your mobile session or wherever you are meeting.
• 1:27:02
  Let's I think it's important to process this. Yeah, I don't think.
• 1:27:06
  I don't think the expectation is to watch something like this and expect all
• 1:27:10
  of the answers. But I think we're doing this to open up this box
• 1:27:15
  so that we can talk about it openly, uh, and not hide anymore,
• 1:27:20
  and not whisper and gossip. We don't gossip. We want to healthily
• 1:27:27
  talk about this. Yeah, yep, So I thank you for coming here
• 1:27:31
  and opening this box. It's a little bit messy now. I'm pretty sure
• 1:27:36
  those watching, those here watching have a ton of questions and accusations too.
• 1:27:43
  Yeah, but let's come on, believers, Christians, disciples of Jesus out
• 1:27:47
  there. Let's let's talk about this in a healthy way. Yeah, well
• 1:27:55
  that's awful. Now. We hope you've been inspired and impacted by the content
• 1:27:58
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• 1:28:00
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• 1:28:04
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• 1:28:06
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• 1:28:12
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