Latest / Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment) / Faith on the Front Lines: Hear the Dirty Truth... (Part 1)

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Faith on the Front Lines: Hear the Dirty Truth... (Part 1) · Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)

• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Murders to Music podcast.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: My name is Aaron, I'm your host and you guys are in for another great show.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I have a couple guests on the show tonight and I want to introduce them.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: This show is going to be about cops and Christianity.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: But don't shut it off if you're not a cop, because, like everything in this podcast, I want to attack this conversation in a way and in a method where, whether you're corporate America, whether you are a pastor struggling with Christianity, whether you are a cop struggling with it, a husband, a father, a wife, whatever it may be, whatever walk of life, sometimes we struggle with our faith, and we struggle with our faith in the way that bringing it into the workplace.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Most of us spend more time in the workplace than we do in church or at home.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: So when we show up on Monday morning and give our corporate job Monday morning, eight to five or longer where is God in our workplace?
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Where is our faith?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Where is our belief system?
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I know that there are people who, especially in my line of work law enforcement they were walking with God, they were a Christ follower, but at some point something occurred and it occurred to me.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: You guys know this.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: If you've seen the episodes and you've listened to these podcasts, you know in my isolating and insulating episode I'm fighting God and I'm pushing him away, and this is two months ago.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: So we all have those struggles where we walk away or we blame others for situations that we're involved in, and sometimes it's really, really hard to take that inward look and really digest what the Bible or what the church is saying, because it may not align in accordance with what we want to hear or what our understanding is.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: So tonight I want to talk about I'm going to tell you how this is going to go.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I've got these two guests.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: One of them is a friend of mine who I worked with in law enforcement.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: He's also seen combat.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: He'll introduce himself in a moment, but his name is James Name is James Sorry about that and he'll introduce himself here in a moment.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Another gentleman I have is Tim.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Tim is a dear friend of mine who has a pastoral background.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: He has been there and done that in one of the largest churches in probably I don't know recent history, and in the conversations that I've had with Tim which he'll get into I know that Tim felt a very similar loss of identity like I did.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: That I described back in episode two when I described the final day.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: One day you're a rock star, and in that episode I use the analogy of Jon Bon Jovi's drummer.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: One day you're a rock star, and in that episode I use the analogy of Jon Bon Jovi's drummer.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: One day you're a rock star, you've been doing it forever, and the next day you find your world upside down and you're having to make left and right hand turns that you don't understand, and at the end of the day, god puts you there for a reason.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: He puts you there for time to permit reflection on what your life is really like.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: What is the world like that you're surrounded by?
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: And some of you guys listening to this are not Christians, and I understand that, and that's okay.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Stick with us and let's just see what happens where this podcast goes.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: So thank you guys.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: So much for listening and I'm going to introduce James.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: James, how are you doing?
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Good, how are you Good, buddy?
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Hey, can you tell us a little bit just about yourself and what your background is, and tell us why you're here?
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so my name is James Doyle.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: A little bit about me.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: I was born and raised in Modesto, california, one of five kids.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Mom was a teacher, dad was an Air Force vet, was in the tech world, was raised in private school, christian education my whole life, preschool through 12th grade, and when I graduated high school in 2010, I enlisted in the United States Army Infantry for a five-year contract where I found myself in an airborne unit.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: I did a 10 and a half month combat tour in Afghanistan in 2011 to 2012 during Obama surge back over there and then finished my time in the army in 2015.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Um, through that, a lot of the time my faith was pretty nominal, just being raised in a Christian school education, but definitely walked away from my faith and kind of embrace that army culture, um, especially the infantry, and struggled a little bit coming out of that.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Um, I found myself exiting the army, not really knowing what I wanted to do with my life, and through some decisions and some friends that I moved to Oregon.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: I decided to go to Oregon for college where I studied literature and criminal justice at Western Oregon University, and that is where I met my wife during that season of life.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: During that time.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Both of us gave our life to the Lord through some struggles, and I pursued law enforcement.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: At that point I was hired by an agency in Oregon where I served for a couple of years.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: That's where me and you met.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: I found myself in a critical incident during the George Floyd incident and riots, which led me moving my family up to Washington, where I currently live and still serve in law enforcement and currently run a Christian networking group and ministry for first responders that are in the Christian walk.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: What is the group that you run?
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: What's it called?
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: So it's called Responders by Grace and you can find us on respondersbygracecom.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: We have a website right now and a private app that we use if you fill out the contact information to get plugged in.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Biggest thing is just identifying Christians and brothers and sisters in Christ within that could be fire, amr, police, active military.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: We also accept chaplains in the group, people that want to support first responders and just trying to get them networking with each other.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Um, around the state and around the country.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Just get guys talking.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Awesome man.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here tonight, and then I'll introduce Tim.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Tim, tell us a little bit about yourself.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great to be with you guys.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: Um, I'm uh Portland, born and raised, grew up in a Christian home.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: Kind of fast forward to high school I kind of dabbled around in various ministry things but just was kind of aimless.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: Got married in 97.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: And eventually my wife and I found ourselves a part of a church plant in Seattle Washington.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: This was 1999.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: Kind of a small-ish group meeting in a rented space and the church was called Mars Hill Church and I ended up becoming the first worship pastor at Mars Hill Church and was a part of just an incredible time in my life where I saw that church grew from, you know, kind of a core group of maybe a hundred people to a church that would eventually number 15,000 across five States.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: Um, in 2011, I moved back to uh Portland to start a Mars Hill church here in Portland and and uh, then Mars Hill ended in 2014.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: We became an independent church.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: I was the preaching pastor there and then we ended up merging with another church in town called Door of Hope, where I was an executive pastor, and then three years ago, I stepped down and ended up moving into doing consulting work with churches where I helped them think through why they do what they do in music and worship gatherings and that kind of a thing which is a passion of mine.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: So I feel like the odd one out in this group on some level.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: I haven't been in law enforcement, I haven't ever been in the military, but for those of you who know the story of Mars Hill Church, it was certainly not not analogous to some of the violent experiences in law enforcement and combat, but it was a pretty intense environment.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: For me it was a hugely formative experience.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: I became a pastor when I was like 24, 25.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: And when Mars Hill ended about 16 years later, I turned 40 for the first time and man saw this thing that changed my life.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: That was so amazing, connected because he got into law enforcement around the time I got into ministry.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: We both were consumed by the work that we did.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: We both stepped out of it around the same time and we both have this similar sense of like who in the world am I Me like?
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: Who am I if I'm not a pastor?
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: Aaron, like who am I if I'm not a cop anymore?
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: And we bonded over some of that experience and also just some of the stories of trauma in each other's lives.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: You know it's easy to compare and, you know, for someone like me that hasn't been in those kind of violent situations to be like oh, I guess you know I was just in intense meetings, but still they leave a mark on you, right?
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: They?
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: They change you, they affect you, um and so, uh, I, I have a heart for everyone that's been through trauma and I think god gives us tough experiences so that we can hopefully have more compassion for others, whether those experiences directly relate or not.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: So I'm just I'm happy to be here in this conversation.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, man.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: You know you mentioned a word there about trauma and if you've listened to this podcast at all, you know that there's open, honesty, vulnerable transparency in this podcast and I love the word that trauma has already been used in the first nine minutes and 36 seconds of this, because at one point in our lives trauma was a bad word.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: It was a negative word.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Triggered was negative, god was negative, therapy was negative.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: But the three of us sitting here we don't see it that way and we've all experienced the therapy and God and trauma and everything else.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: The kind of the way that I want to do this, guys, is I want to talk about ourselves briefly Because I think our own stories God gives us our stories and our trauma so we can help others with it, and I've said it on the podcast that pain is not without purpose and I think that we've all experienced pain for a reason and I just want to share briefly about kind of our.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: You know a little bit about how we struggled.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about my struggles in law enforcement but, tim, I know, speaking with you and maybe not everybody is aware of who Mars Hill is, but you know you.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Maybe when you talk, you can speak a little bit about just the intensity of Mars Hills and Mark Driscoll and the left-hand turn you had to make, which you've already kind of alluded to, and while you haven't seen the combat on the street like we have, I think it would be safe to say there was combat in those four walls of your quote, unquote church.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Um, so then we'll talk about that.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: And the other thing that we've done is I've there's been a lot of unsolicited comments that have come in or questions that have come into the podcast through the murders, to music, at gmailcom email address or Facebook or Instagram or whatever it may be, and those comments are I mean, I don't shy away from the fact that I'm a Christian on this podcast.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: And those comments are I mean, I don't shy away from the fact that I'm a Christian on this podcast.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: And those comments come in hey, how do you deal with this?
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: You know, in these situations when you've seen X, how do you deal with it and remain a Christian?
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: And I'm here to tell you that it's not easy.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: And I want to talk about some of those.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: We've got, I don't know, half a dozen or so comments from the street, if you will comments from the listeners, and some of you listeners right now had no idea that I'm going to put these comments out there, but your names are not attached.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: However, I think your question or your insight, is very, very important.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I'll start a little bit and kind of the idea is I'd like to kind of talk about these things.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be the most lay person in this conversation when it comes to biblical knowledge, but the two guys that are here with me have a lot more insight into that.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: We're going to get a view from James that talks about Christian combat cop.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: We're going to get a view from Tim that is more worldly and pastoral and let's just see what happens.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: God's in this.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: So here we go.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: So, guys, in my walk with Christianity, I became a Christian when I was 19 years old the first time, when I was about eight.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: But I really started going to church at 19 when I met my wife and, um, you know, I became a cop shortly thereafter and at first it was easy to be a cop and a Christian because the world's aligned and I was so green and naive in the law enforcement world and I hadn't had many exposures.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Well, it didn't take long until my partner was killed in the line of duty in 2003.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: And I have an episode on that.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: The Moose the Mentor in the Morning is the episode on it where I talk about that.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: But at that point that's where my first world got dark, if you will, as a cop, and that's where I first really started to question Christianity and I really think that sent me into a spiral out of control.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: So that's a little bit.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: And then for the years following that, it was really, really tough and one of the things that I struggled with was being accepted by others or not being accepted, being understood by others.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: I go to a small group.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: I'm the most intense person in the room and you know everybody asks how was your week?
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Tell me, give me a brief count of your week.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: And I'm like well, you know, a small child got molested by their uncle this week and that's what I had to deal with, you know.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: And those are the things that are bothering me.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: And then people in the group be like oh Aaron, can you please not share so much?
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, not so much detail.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: It's triggering.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Well, if I'm in this faith environment where I'm supposed to be getting help, yet I, I, I'm limited, uh, and marginalized onto what I can say.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: It's really easy to say you know what?
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Screw yourselves, you throw a wall up and you start to push away small group because now they don't relate to me.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Why am I going to waste my time?
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: And that is a very easy way to insulate and isolate.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: So, just with that example, have you guys experienced that in your world?
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: Being an intense person, um, and how do you handle that?
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Let's talk to James James.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Have you, um, experienced that in your world and how did you handle it?
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: and what happened.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: I guess like feeling disenfranchised a lot of the time, like you said, when you know the Sundays that you can be at church, especially with a, you know, being a new guy you're working graveyards and I'm doing the check-in, neck falling asleep in service because I'm trying to be there to support my wife make sure you know she's in church as well and having to apologize to the pastor if you see me falling asleep, it's not because you're born, it's I'm coming off a night shift last night and it was a long night and, um, trying to trust people with the stuff we are exposed to, and I guess, yeah, it's just, it's the battle of that tension of do I feel like the heaviness that we're seeing and being exposed to and dealing with?
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: How do I convey that to people without projecting my trauma onto them in a negative way?
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: If I see these as brothers and sisters of Christ, and these pastors and my elders, which are shepherds, how do I project onto them what I'm dealing with, like you said, without doing it so aggressively that they don't want anything to do with me, but also understanding that maturity level to identify other Christian men that are in this walk there's the same line of work, or elders that have that understanding, at that capacity and, at the end, just really resting in the fact that I think the leadership I'm hungry for and that we as men are hungry for, is found in Christ and through that, you know, it's conveyed into also elders from the church and yeah, I mean it's hard.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Have you found yourself in those situations where you know the words I use, most intense person in the room?
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Right, you're in there with the burden of what you've just seen?
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Or you know we get to see things that and that's one of the comments here you know God puts into these roles and we see things that our souls you know.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: We get to see things that and that's one of the comments here you know God puts into these roles and we see things that our souls aren't supposed to bear and in those situations have you found yourself rejecting God, rejecting the church, pushing away from it, building walls, isolating and insulating?
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's just being real with the world that we're in and trying to rest with that tension, understanding I think part of Christianity is living with that tension where this life is or this world is not our home.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: And it was actually a chaplain from our old department that gave me a little bit of peace but said you guys get exposure to the world that Christ came to fix and resting in that.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: That.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: It was really hard for me to not view God as a distant kind of sitting in the corner, figure it out Like oh yeah, he's here with me but I wasn't.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: I didn't really embrace him as like Abba, father, or Christ is my elder brother, my advocate.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: You know, on these calls with me it was hard to really how do I see God in this call where I'm now dealing with a child suicide, like where is he in this call?
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: And it wasn't really until I worked through the Gospels and prayed through that that you see even the exposure that Christ gets with the world you know here's the creator of the world I think one that stands out to me is when he's raising Lazarus from the dead, and the Greek that's used there is that Christ is groaning in his bowels, which is an anger.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: You know you have the creator of the world being exposed to death, lack of faith, and he's just.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: You see him mourning over Jerusalem at times and it's just.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: The God that came to this world and saved us understands this tension and this frustration more than I do, and it was that same chaplain that told me the evil things that you guys see you have to understand.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Your God hates it more than you do and it's like what do I?
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: you know it's hard to rest in that Um, but finding other Christian brothers, especially within my line of work, that I can identify and take that to.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: I don't think I can understand it, but it helps a little bit, understanding that at least I have a God that is there with me whether I don't understand or not, but he's not indifferent to the frustrations I have.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Tim, what are your thoughts on that being the most intense person in the room?
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: You said it during your bio.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on?
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Uh, on that being the most intense person in the room?
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Um, you know you said it during your bio.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts?
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I can definitely relate and it's just it's.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: It's so interesting in our conversations, aaron, and even listening to you, james, it's um as as much as as ministry is not associated, like I said, with like the violence and intensity in some ways that you guys experience in law enforcement or military.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: I just relate.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: So startup or a church or any kind of org, I mean we grew at Mars Hill 50% to 200% a year for well over 10 years and there's just this pressure to constantly reinvent yourself and to not get kind of passed over and left behind in the growth of it all.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: And then you couple that with um, with there was a real dynamic at Mars Hill where, uh, there was a sense in which it was it was really a place for young men to come and prove themselves.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: And there there is a positive aspect of that in that it called for lack of a better word kind of aimless, shifty young guys like myself.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: It calls them to something more, something more than just partying and chasing girls or screwing around in a band or whatever it is that you're doing.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: That's positive.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Mars Hill really did some amazing things in that way.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: But then building a church on proving yourself through ambition and performance is pretty antithetical to your identity being in Christ.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: It really shifts your identity into what you can produce, how you can keep up, how you can compete with others, keep up how you can compete with others.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: And so there was this talk that our leader gave a lot over and over and over again, from probably the second year-ish that I was there, up really through the end of the church, and the phrase was leadership is lonely, and the idea is that if you're really going to be a leader, you have to make hard decisions, and you can be the kind of leader that cares about people, in which case you'll always be held back in leadership, or you can care about the mission, which will always come at the expense of some of the people along the way, and you have to choose.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: It was presented as like a hard either or, and so the lesson is clear If you're going to be a real leader, you have to prioritize the mission, and the mission in our context was growth, growth at pretty much all costs.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: You have to prioritize the mission over the concerns of any people, and no person is worth considering more than the mission.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: And you say things like you got to get on the mission.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: What are you against the mission?
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Do you not want to see more people meet Jesus?
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: But you're just constantly like running over people and using people up and casting them aside, and so there's this constant sense of the pressure.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: And those of us who were at the upper levels of that, who felt that weight and pressure, we felt like we were in a completely different class than everybody else.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: Essentially, we felt like we led the church, but we were not a part of the church.
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: So how did I deal with the community?
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Is that I only hung out with leaders for the most part.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: For a long time, like in the early stages of the church, we didn't really have community groups and then, when we did, I was like that's for like guys who were not leaders, you know like uh, uh that was at least the nicest way I could say it um, and so I I avoided it for a long time until it really it just got so much more lonely and isolating to do it, uh, that I started to open up.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: But I felt like that same way, like I'd be sitting in the room and and i't really share you know who we were going to fire the next day, cause we were constantly reorging and changing people's positions and letting people go because it was just growth, growth, growth, growth growth.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: You got to measure up.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Um, I couldn't share most of that with the general folk and so it was very isolating.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: It felt like, like I said in my intro intro, like they were kind of civilians who couldn't manage it, who couldn't handle it.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: I didn't share a lot of it with my wife.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: There were definitely seasons where there was a lot of drinking with that and also, just you know, kind of secretly, but we were a culture that didn't shy away from drinking.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, and I'm a bigger fella and I can kind of hold more than maybe some, you know, and I'm a bigger fellow and I can kind of hold more than maybe some, and so you can kind of you can drink to an amount that isn't healthy without looking like that, you know, managing it.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: Well, that was definitely the case for a lot of times over the years.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: There's this book I was reading recently called Strong and Weak, and it says that human flourishing and especially healthy leadership is about balancing strength and weakness.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: Or he says, balancing authority and vulnerability.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: If you're all authority, you end up exploiting people and running over them.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: If you're all vulnerability, you end up suffering and being a victim.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: If you shy away from both of them, you just withdraw and kind of check out of life.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: But it's actually balancing vulnerability and authority is what leads to flourishing and healthy leadership.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: And one of the concepts that really stuck out to me in this book is he says a lot of leadership is about managing what he calls hidden vulnerability the vulnerability of like for a cop going to the community group when you just saw something horrific happen the day before and maybe it's not the appropriate place to share that.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: You can share, that you're struggling, but maybe you don't share all of those details.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Everyone in leadership has areas of things that really affect them that maybe you can't share with everybody, things that really affect them that maybe you can't share with everybody.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: And and the key to your success and health longer term Is finding how to manage that.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Manage that with, like finding people who you can actually say anything to.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: At times it's therapy that could take the form of different kinds of communities or social groups or or or support groups or Really intentional friendships.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: It can take a lot of different forms with how you manage that, and then a spiritual component of taking that to Jesus and crying out to him.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: And you know like the Psalms are full of like yelling at God, like what the hell are you doing?
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: How can you let this happen?
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: That's not a lack of faith, exactly the opposite.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: The Psalms are full of crying out to God like how could you let this happen?
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: That's not a lack of faith, exactly the opposite.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: The Psalms are full of crying out to God like how could you let this happen?
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: Or why did you let this happen to me?
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: So I think it's managing that hidden vulnerability.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: You have to have an outlet and it's got to be multifaceted.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: But that outlet isn't necessarily for everybody, and managing that, rather than stuffing it, is a really it's a tough skill to learn.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: I I'm guessing they don't teach that well in the police academy.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: They sure as hell don't teach it very well, uh, in pastoral and ministry training either.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: You know, you said a couple of things that really resonated with me and, um, I'm going to give episode numbers because one of the listeners said hey, when you talk about things and I want to go back and hear them, I don't know what episode they're on, I don't know how to find them.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to say it Episode 22, when I talk about pride and I talk about my pride I made a point why did I stack myself up with so much to do?
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Why was I always looking for the next assignment?
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Why was I always striving to be the best?
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: And a lot of that was because I wanted the accolades that went with it.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: I wanted the attaboys, I wanted to be on TV, I wanted to be the best in my unit or whatever it was right.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of pride there, and when you said, you know, get on the mission, it's like the mission versus the mission.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: For me, my mission was accolades, was praise was being the best.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Your guys' mission was numbers of people.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: You know, butts in seat versus sacrificing their souls.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: So, instead of slowing down and, you know, paying attention to the people, it was just getting the people there, and I, at least in my mind.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Hopefully it's coming out in this, but in my mind there was a.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: There's a correlation there.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: My mission was to be the best and to get accolades, because I'm a very weak and insecure person.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Your mission during that church and Driscoll's mission was to put butts in seats and multiply at 50 to 200% every year for 10 years straight and, as a result, we lost accountability, lost track of what we were sacrificing my case.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I was sacrificing my case.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: I was sacrificing my family.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: I was sacrificing my faith.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I was sacrificing a relationship with my wife and my kids and watching my relationships dissolve underneath me, and I was okay with that because I was kicking ass at work.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: In your case, the mission was to multiply and, as a result, we sacrificed maybe the souls or the relationships or what church was really about in order to achieve the mission.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: And that's the correlation that I see between what you're saying and the experiences that I lived.
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: I think you can also kind of hide in that too, don't you think?
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Absolutely okay, do I go home and try to tackle this overwhelming thing that I know I'm underwater in and I have no idea where to start, or do I just get back to work and take another case or take another project?
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: You know, like there's a sense in which you, you, you can kind of hide in success, uh, from the things that really even matter most.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: That's a great point.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: You you get.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: You know you don't go home and deal with the struggles that you have at home and the mess that you've made.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: You don't clean up your own mess.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: You go hide at work where you can be successful again and get more accolades and find something else, or turn to the bottle or turn to whatever it is to get you that high and that dopamine release that you need that you're not getting at home because your world sucks ass, because you've made some really poor decisions.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: The other thing that you said, um, that resonated was when you were talking about dealing with.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe not sharing all the details as to what it was right At least in my experience, cops are sometimes seen as a circus sideshow or a good story or what's exciting.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: So you know I'm going to get graphic here just to prove a point.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: But sometimes when people would ask me you know what's going on, or if I found myself dealing with that dirty situation that I've made, where you know my life is imploding and I go to church and all of a sudden I'm in this life group and they ask me how are things are going Well if I really open up to them and tell them what a failure I am.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: That's a really vulnerable place to be.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: But if I say, you know, tell me about your week, and I say, well, you know, a two-year-old got molested by their uncle last night and you should have seen the injuries, that is a shock and awe.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: It's a very easy way for me to exit stage left and blame the church for you know, um, not being supportive of me, right?
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: it's a very easy way for me just to throw it out there, knowing the reaction I'm going to get, and I can go hide again I think erin, yeah, to carry off, that is, I dealt with a little bit of the other side of the spectrum where you know I'm just going to play the part, um, put on a smile, act like you know, almost the imposter syndrome, like I'm the healthy guy.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: You know I'm the Christian cop, so I'm, I'm good, um, but then that just led to um, building tension and, like you said, hatred almost for aspects of the church and where I'm not even I'm coming here to worship and I can't worship because I'm sitting here so frustrated with the week I just had and feeling like I can't convey to the people around me outside of my wife, and she's sitting here next to me, knowing the week I had, because that's a relationship me and my wife have, where she's comfortable, where I can, you know, tell her the calls that I had, and that's something that we've established and then you know to see the person two rows in front of me screwing around um, or not paying attention, or on their phone, or you know the the sermon is a little bit more trivializing than I would like it to be in the comparisons it's making through the scripture, that um is very heavy and has that realness of the dark and the light and that tension that is very real in the world that we live in with Christianity.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: And I just saw that you know whether it's a child suicide or you know.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: So not to get too graphic, but I had a couple of weeks span of work where we had me as my small man team had multiple child suicides.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: We went to.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: We had a individual dive hypothermia in a river 50 feet in front of us.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: Cause we're going to get to him and literally watched him die.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I called you that night.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah and um, and it's just like you know, those are like you said, those are.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, you know we're done with that.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: Now we're at the shoplift at Walmart 30 minutes later and so it's just like okay if I don't have a brother in my congregation, that, like you said, tim, that I do have that vulnerability, that I can take that to.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Now I'm going to sit here in the congregation as the brother in Christ who's preaching that he doesn't have that world experience and I pray he doesn't have to have that experience.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: But now I'm projecting, probably unbiblically and not righteously, through almost a lens of sin and anger onto him.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: How dare you project this sermon through this way, where now my whole day of worship is now about me and my tension, instead of worshiping you know my Savior, and being here to where Aaron said well, I'm just not going to go anymore or I'm going to make an excuse.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go do security so I can walk around in the hallway, because at least in the hallway I can.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm at church, I'm taking communion, I'm tithing, but I don't have to sit then in the congregation with tension during this sermon.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: And that was really something that it took me a long time to work through and I still fall into that temptation at times but thankfully the Lord's blessed me with some pretty healthy brothers that I can relay that to.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: But it took.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: You know that's the community piece.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: And then Tim, I also kind of wanted to hit a little bit on the part you're talking about with the leadership and that balance, something that was really encouraging for me, especially after my shooting of trying to find a healthy way to kind of cope with that.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: You know, christian and using lethal force and very much.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: The Christian school I was raised in was more of a passive Christian, look, and really trying to study the Gospels and the way that Christ taught and Beatitudes and it was coming across meekness and actually looking up the Greek definition of it, which is controlled strength.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: You know it really is.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: The epitome is in Christ.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: You know he had the ability to destroy his enemies at a second but he bore what he did and even telling Pilate you have the authority because it's been given to you, and just how do I then convey that as a Christian man in law enforcement?
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: It's righteous strength it's.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: You know Christian cops in a healthy, biblical way should be the most feared cops to evil, then they are the most loving and gentle when they need to be.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: And it's that balance and being able to, it's okay to embrace that in a healthy capacity as well.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: And then, like you said, with that meekness, it's also being vulnerable.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: When I need to be vulnerable, finding the time to go away.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: You know, you see Christ even as the God-man, having to separate himself for a long time.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: You know, having his close brothers that he would go have a long time with to pray.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: You know, and just that humanity side and understanding that is our savior, he's not indifferent and that he understands that at that capacity is this leaning into that concept has really helped me to kind of move through some of that stuff.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: Love cares about justice.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: That doesn't mean every one of us is always a primary agent of justice in every situation.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: Sometimes, I think a lot of times, we defer that justice to God and His judgment.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: But then there's also times to take that into our hands.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: You know as well.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: But the idea that love never judges anyone and doesn't care about making wrongs right, like that's not love, that's certainly not Jesus' love, it's not God's love in the Scriptures, like he cares deeply about justice.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: And there will be a judgment, judgment and all wrongs will be made right and everyone will stand and have to give account for everything that they did.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: And I think that's supposed to motivate us in this life and give us peace in the ways that we can't always see the justice that we hope for.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: No, and like you said, sorry, I don't have to cut you off here.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: It's all right, buddy, go ahead.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Like for no, and like you said, sorry, I don't have to cut you off here.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: Sorry, buddy, go ahead.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you see that all throughout the Old Testament, some of the most rebukes that God gave in Isaiah and these different passages was, culturally, you were a culture of bloodshed.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: You are not there for the fatherless, the widows, injustice is everywhere and it was a rebuke on them as a culture because of, obviously, their idol worship.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: But that was the fruit that that bore and it's no different than today Like we live in our culture child sacrifice, you know, through abortion, all these different things we're seeing prevalent and celebrated and embraced and chased.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: And you know the violence, the normalization of misdemeanor crime, like whatever it is in our culture, again, understanding of misdemeanor crime, like whatever it is in our culture, again, understanding.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: And then even too, like Paul affirms it in the book of Romans from prison, you know, through chapter 13 and you know verse four, that you know it's a vessel of God's wrath on a servant to you for the good, and so like leaning into that as righteous government.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: You know, as law enforcement, we're the most intimate form of government we have in this country.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: I go in your home, I can use lethal force and, if it's justified, go back to work like that.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: You don't get any more intimate than that.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: And then how do we balance that as christian men?
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: And it's just like you know, it's ordained if we're doing it righteously.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: But that's the caveat, right?
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: You?
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: know, yeah, one of the things that you know you've both said in the last couple minutes is about Christianity and love and judging, you know, and righting all wrongs through love or not seeing wrongs through love.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: I believe We've talked about kind of the negative aspect of law enforcement and Christianity, you know, and the struggles we've had, but I also believe I would be amiss if I didn't talk about some of the positives.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: You know, one of the experiences of being a Christian, one of the experiences that I personally had was, you know, my ability to see people as children of God.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: And this is not like I'm awesome, because I'm not.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Just listen to the rest of the podcast, You'll figure out how not awesome I am.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: But when I go into that interview room with the child molester or the murderer that just committed the world's most heinous act, and I go in there and I'm able to separate the act from the person and able to communicate with them in a way and strip all that story away, the baggage.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: The baggage is you just molested your kid or you just committed a murder.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: You know you killed your wife or your family or whatever it may be, but be able to strip that off and go in there as human to human.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: You know, when I sit down in that interview room, you're a child of God, just like I am.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: We've both got off the path that we're supposed to be on and the only difference is today we're going to talk about your sins and thankfully, mine get to stay in the closet.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: I wasn't born with a badge on.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I wasn't born a saint and I haven't lived as a saint, except my skeletons are in the closet still.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: I don't have to talk about them and hopefully we won't expose them ever.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: But today, unfortunately, because of what's occurred, we've got to talk about yours and for me, I think the only way I was able to do that is through my Christian faith, because if not, your emotion would be tied up too much in what this person did and the gruesome crime scene that you just came off of.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: So I think that, you know, through faith it made me very successful and whether I'm, you know, one of the homicide classes that I went to, at the end of it he would give us all a plaque to put in our locker and it said remember, we're doing God's work.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: We're out there helping God.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: We're out there, you know, doing what's right.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: We're not seeing these people for evil.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: You know sinners and demons.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: We're seeing them for humans and children of God and we need to treat them as such.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Don't lose sight of who you are.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: And that was huge for me.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: I would guess that's hard, that there's an inherently dehumanizing trajectory right.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: The longer you're in law enforcement, the easier it is to see to overlook, at least in some cases, the humanity in certain kinds of people, I would guess right.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say so.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: I was in it 21 years and I at least in my world, I understood the boundaries and I understood and it wasn't a conscious decision, it was a God thing when I would go into that interview room, um, you know, and at the end of it they've confessed to whatever they've done.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: We're friends, they're crying, they thank me for it, you know, and then they high five me over the wall in court as they get sent off to prison for the rest of their life.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: That relationship is not built because I'm a cool guy.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: That's built because God was involved in that conversation, and that's, that's how I feel about it.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: Um, so, it's not all negative.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: It does help us out.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Um, you know it, there's some healthy to it, but, man, it really is a struggle at times.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Um, yeah, that reality that Christ died for the victim and the victimizer, and that doesn't let anything that they did off the hook.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: And yet still, all human beings are image bearers of God and whatever they did, the sacrifice of Jesus is sufficient to cover that between him and them.
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: That doesn't mean there aren't horrible consequences to their victims, lifelong consequences, maybe even the cost them their life because of it.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: And yet still, before Jesus, you know he died for all that.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Totally yeah.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: So I'm struggling right now.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Guys, we're talking about forgiving and you know I'm sitting here talking about forgiving these child molesters and stuff.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: And it's really easy to say when the child molester isn't riding in your vehicle of life.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're not involved directly, it's really easy for me to sit on the outside and be like, hey, you know, from a third party's perspective, I can separate my feelings for this guy.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: I have a situation in my personal world which I won't go into, but it involves child molesters.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: But it involves child molesters and, um, the very near and dear to my heart is the person, uh, who was, you know, violated and a good family member.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: And I have a really hard time forgiving this person.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Like, uh, I honestly want him to die in jail, I want him to get shanked.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: Um, I want him, you know, and if I ever see him then you know I'm going to want to beat his head in.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: So I guess it's tough for me as a Christian.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: I'm struggling just as we're talking about this.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: One side of me is like I'm, you know, able to separate it for others, but I'm unable to forgive this guy.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: You know, at least right now where I am in my walk because I have such hatred towards him.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean, yeah, how do I?
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: And taking all of the stuff that I saw as a cop as kind of my foundational basis?
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: You know, I know what child molesters are about, I've seen them, I've seen the acts, I've done you know all this stuff, yet they're affecting my own world.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: How do I deal with that as a Christian?
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: How do I break that down and find that area to forgive this person when I have been indirectly affected by their acts?
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: I would balance on the side of looking through Scripture too Forgiveness, a lot of time it's going to follow repentance as well, and I think there's a scale and a spectrum within that, Like you can protect yourself and your heart and your family members from a position and still love them as an image bearer of God, while still protecting yourselves and your relationships and those around you in a healthy capacity that doesn't make it unloving or unforgiving.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: I think that kind of falls on.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: You know, is that person repentant and sorry for this horrible thing that they've done?
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: And with that you know, there's the justice system we have on the side of eternity and there's also, you know, the Lord's.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: You know judgment on that as well and how he sees the bigger picture.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: He knows the heart of that person and doesn't negate the act that they've done.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: But I think resting in that a little bit too is not thinking you have to go from one extreme to the other.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Like there's a healthy pattern within that.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: And, Tim, I don't know you know from your church leadership if you want to speak on that.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there is a way, then, that my time in ministry does relate to some of these things, because people do come to a pastor, not with over 100 calls a day like you guys, but I suppose those aren't all sexual crimes, but things do come.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: I have had to deal with my share of, of, you know, domestic abuse, sexual violence, molestation, all kinds of things like that, and and and sorting out you know the place of.
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: How do you respond to these people?
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: Do they still even have a place in a church community and all that.
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: And I think that the first thing I'd say is one like Christians tend to just have such a and this is of course, what I'm about to say like totally reductionistic and broad brush, and of course there's exceptions to this, but on the whole, in my experience, I guess I'll just say, christians American Christians in particular tend to trivialize so much and put what just seems like an absurd, trite Bible verse band-aid on a gushing wound, like you've got an artery cut, and they come with the most laughable bit of consolation, usually in the form of well, you know, god works out all things for the good, and like he's got a plan.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: And like you know, that verse isn't a scripture and I do think he does have a plan and yet, like in those moments, it just rings so hollow and fake and is the reason why so many people walk away from the church and the faith.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: Because if you deal with real, actual, just the carnage of life, that's my problem.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: And you're around people that can't even relate to it, it's like, well, what are we even doing here?
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: What were you saying?
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: That's your problem.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're hitting the nail on the head.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: We deal with the carnage of life and we go to church and they're like, oh, just forgive, because Jesus forgave and God works out all things for good.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: And you know, love, your as your neighbor, whatever you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: This is where I push church away, right here, and I'm like you know what?
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: Screw yourself, walk in my shoes for a day and then spout this stupidity well, and that's why I think I said it's such a it's.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: It's just like you said.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: It's not one extreme or the other, and that's where I was kind of getting at what you were hitting on, tim it's either you know right in my closet or you know nothing, or you know forgive and it, but it's like that's not even a biblical form of forgiveness, like there's like christ, yeah, no, totally, yeah well totally yeah, well, and the and the.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: The dirty truth is most people to give those answers are trying to believe the same fallacy that they're giving to you, because they don't want to face their own crap, their own pain, the ways that they have been abused.
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: Behind the most self-righteous, passive person More times than not in my experience in ministry is somebody with deep wounds and they're trying to cover up yours and brush them away because they're scared to death that they might have to face it themselves.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: And I think so.
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: That starts to actually get to the heart of some of this is because to deal with forgiveness is to look in the mirror in some ways as well, because the act of forgiveness I mean in order to forgive someone, you have to put yourself on some level as a fellow sinner in need of grace, and it's super easy then to compare and you're like well, I haven't molested anybody, this guy's a piece of whatever you know, like that and to compare.
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: And yet what the scriptures tell us is that the ultimate example of forgiveness, ultimate example of forgiveness, is Jesus, and the ultimate injustice of all human existence was the betrayal and the false trial, the torture and then the death of Jesus.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: The torture and then the death of Jesus, and he suffered all that willingly at the hands of people who he created while he had all the power to resist and take himself out of it.
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: And that's the profound thing about forgiveness and it's super easy to make that trite and be like, well, just forgive, as Jesus forgave, but you got to walk into like the bloody betrayal and reality and really reckon with with what Jesus went through to even start to get your head around that.
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: I actually don't really love the the Passion of the Christ movie but but it does a good job with the blood.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: It's almost like I think people have called it like a snuff film or like torture porn, because it's just so.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: Mel Gibson, if you don't remember this, there was a film that he made about the death of Jesus 10, 15 years ago and he just goes into just incredible detail about everything that Jesus went through.
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: But it does give a good graphic, even that we sanitize what Jesus went through for us, both physically but then spiritually the one who was unified in unbroken community.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: Deeper than anything we as created beings can imagine that relationship within Father, son and Holy Spirit was broken on the cross for the only time in eternity.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: And so all that to say, I think the ultimate example is Jesus, because he's the only truly innocent person ever who absorbed all the wrong things and the sin and the violation that everyone has ever done onto himself.
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: So it's the greatest injustice of all time and my encouragement and I preached this to myself with people I struggle to forget, because I have a list of those guys to her, I have a list and in in their situations, even in family, that are struggling that way, and I was just reading a book about it because I'm trying to press in in a relationship with someone in particular.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: I'm reading a book on forgiveness by a guy named Tim Keller who I really respect.
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: He died a couple years ago and I'm just struck with with the advice he gives and it's the advice I've given to many people over time in ministry, which is, um, it doesn't come all at once, you don't just sit down.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, sometimes you can just kind of buckle down and decide to forgive somebody, but more if, if it's really cost you something.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: Forgiveness is the, is the is the conscious decision to set some of that aside, because Jesus set it aside for you.
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: And when you don't feel that and it just feels still wrong with every fiber of your being.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: I think the only thing you can really do in the midst of that is just ask God to change your heart, and in my experience he does.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: If you really ask him, if you're really actually open and it's not just a rhetorical like I know, I should forgive this guy but I hate his guts.
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: I guess change my heart, but I want to kill him.
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: That's not, as maybe that's not a real, genuine request as much as, like God, I know you have forgiven me, but I can't let this go.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: But I know you let it go for me.
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: So change my heart, help me to understand even more deeply how I have sinned and betrayed you, so that I might be able to have compassion even for what this person did.
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: And I think you sit with that and pray that.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: In my experience, god does change your heart over time.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: We'll move on from this here in a second.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: But honestly, tim, with where I'm at right now, I don't even feel that.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: I don't even feel that need or want to forgive.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: I feel a obligation to forgive because of Christianity and my faith.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: But me sitting down having a conversation with God about forgiving this person, I'm like, yeah, it's not even a topic of conversation and I just haven't, I guess, been convicted to that point yet, and maybe it's just the years of being a cop and the um, the uh defense mechanism I have for my family and my loved ones.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: You know where I just I want to defend, I want to seek my own justice, I want to kick somebody's ass in the name of God versus forgiving Um, and that's just honest.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: That's just how I feel.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Um, it's not right.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: I know it's not right, it's not Christian, I know it's not Christian, but in my world, like you know, again, I wouldn't mind if you got shanked in prison.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: It's just where my heart is and my heart is wrong in that place.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: And I know there's listeners out there who are listening and we're going to get some of the listener questions here.
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: But I know there's listeners out there who are listening and we're going to get some of the listener questions here.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: But I know there's listeners out there who are feeling the same way, whether it's a personal attack that's been on them or whether it's you know, that horrific situation they've been involved in, or you know they don't have to be a cop to feel this way.
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: I know you believe in the things I'm talking about with Jesus.
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: I know you believe that and I know it's changed you.
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: Oh, totally, agent of justice for the people you bring in my life.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: You know, I think that would be a legit prayer.
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: You know like he has softened you towards many others, and I think sometimes there can really be a cost of holding on to some of these things.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: That hardens us if we're not careful too, and so there is a sense in which forgiveness is for another.
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: But forgiveness, there's also a very real sense in which it has a real effect on you as well, you know.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: I totally agree.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: I think that you know, do I want to hold on to this forever?
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: No, Is there.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's not where we start right.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: Maybe that conversation isn't going right to it with God.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Maybe there's other obstacles in the way that I need to work with in my walk with Christ that you know we slowly break down that brick wall versus just trying to run through it headfirst.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: But also, I would be lying if I didn't say the defender in me, a part of me, wants to hold on to that.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: It's a shield, it's something for me to hide behind.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: It's a little bit of, you know, I don't want to say tough guy, but it's a little bit of just my own justice, my own seek for justice, and I know that's totally wrong, Um, but you know it's truth.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's just the way it is.
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, I don't mind being angry, I don't mind hating him, I don't mind being mad and I get it.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: None of that is Christian, However.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: Um, it's.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: It's how I feel, you know, and just like God has revealed and, uh, other things in my world and world and convicted me of other things, even recently.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't think this is beyond it, it's just the way I feel in the moment today.
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one other quick thing that just comes to mind that just I think is worth sharing, just real briefly, just for the listeners who may be hearing this.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: And I'm sure if there's anybody who has experienced like a trite version of forgiveness from church folk, it's probably cops.
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: And so one thing that has really helped me is to dig into this subject and realize like there's a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation and and restoration.
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: The trite, reductionistic, straw man view of forgiveness that is so common in the church is if you forgive, it's pretty much like nothing ever happened.
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: And if you're still holding on to something or you still bear any feelings on the subject, then you haven't forgiven, and I just simply don't believe that.
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: That's true biblically In the scriptures, like Jesus's wounds, he's wounded for our sins and when he returns in Revelation he's pictured with a human body and still bears the wounds, and then we have to stand before him and answer for everything we ever did against him.
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: So it's not he forgives, but it's not like it never happened.
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: So forgiveness, I think, deals with the past.
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: You can forgive somebody, even who's dead.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: That's a one-way decision for you, for an individual, not to hold that against another person any longer.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: But that is not reconciliation, which brings you back current, and that's a two-way street where two people are reconciled to, where they actually talk through and own what happened, and that brings kind of the account up to the current and so you can forgive somebody without being reconciled.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: But then even if you're reconciled, that doesn't mean that you have to continue in relationship and trust with that person.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: That's what I believe is restoration, that's the decision to move forward.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: And while I believe Christians are under a biblical mandate to forgive and I believe we're in mandated to be open to reconciliation we are not mandated to pursue restoration with everybody and continuing to trust them.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: There are people with whom I can be reconciled to, but I will never trust again and I don't believe that there's something wrong with me or it means that I haven't forgiven them.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: And so just a great book that speaks to this in a lot of detail and the difference between those three things is a book simply called Trust, by a guy named Henry Cloud, and it was super helpful when I was dealing with some things and trying to sort through.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: Like how do I move back to reconciliation or restoration or even forgiveness with someone who's really hurt me and realizing that they're not the same thing.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: So whenever somebody tells you like, oh well, just forgive and forget, you know, like that's just, that's not biblical.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: That's not the biblical, it's a very reduced, trite caricature of what the scripture actually teaches.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: Pete.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: Well, and I appreciate you saying that so much, Tim, just because, too, it's even amongst brothers within the church.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: You know Christ I believe it's in Luke 11, but he gives us the example of when brother's wrong, like you, rebuke out of love, to move to repentance, to move to forgiveness, to, like you said, that's how you get even within the church like, let alone the world.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: It's biblical love confronts sin because at the end, like that's what put our savior on the cross, and, like you said, the wounds that he bears.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: And it's like all of this is relational but to move forward in relationship, you have to approach that and you have to address it.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: You know, I think the Christian perspective is out of love.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: What is your heart when you're doing it?
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: You know, is it coming with an unjustified justice or judgment?
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: Excuse me, I think it just it comes down to the heart at that point.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: But there has to be that confrontation with it.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: And I think, aaron, you made a comment earlier and I would just encourage you, brother, like the fact that you're angry, like there's, I don't think that's unbiblical or un-Christian of you to be angry, especially with something that egregious.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: It's how I think what Tim is saying that too.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: What I would encourage is what do you do with that anger?
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: You know it says in Ephesians be angry but do not sin Like anger is a natural.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: Does that mean?
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: Does that mean I can't stab him?
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: Is that what that's saying?
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: More than likely, okay, uh, but yeah again.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: Um.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: So, guys, real quick, just in recap.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: I just want to thank you guys so much for your input on this um.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: You know, we're going to split this up into two episodes.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: Uh, we're going to do an episode number or whatever the next episode is, and then we're going to do a bonus episode.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: Um, so I really really thank you guys for taking the time to share your wisdom and your knowledge and your expertise on these subjects and your opinions.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: Uh, and I think we've probably, you know, spoken to a lot of people tonight and I really hope this gets um into the right hands, maybe answer some questions for people that you know reached out to us.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: Thank you, guys so much.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: Any closing thoughts from either one of you guys?
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Thanks for the opportunity.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: I think in the last couple questions too, it's, you know, thinking about God's plan, finding better habits, avoiding some of the pitfalls of how to respond negatively to stress.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: I think all of these things in my experience and the experience of so many people I've seen they're really a process, and so if there's just one thing that I would encourage the listeners towards, it's just stay with it, Stay on that path.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: Stay on that path.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: It's a long.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: There's this pastor guy, Eugene Peterson, who describes the Christian life as a long obedience in the same direction.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: Almost all the growth metaphors in the scriptures are slow growth.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: They're agricultural metaphors, they're marathons, not sprints, and and, uh, man, that's just not, it's just downright un-American.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: Uh, but it is the way it is, you know, and and so I think my encouragement would just be like you know, stay, stay on the path, like the Mandalorian.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: This is the way.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: You know like, uh, you know like um, stay on these paths.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: If you're, if you're concerned about the path, if you're concerned about not following into these things, if you're concerned about not being too hard-hearted in your home life, if you're concerned about getting too closed off to others, you're actually on the right path, because you'd be far more dangerous if you weren't concerned at all.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: So even that, even just your concern and not knowing what to do, is probably God working in your life and convicting you.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: So just stay on the path, keep reaching out to others.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: It's a long path, it's not a short one.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: So stay on it, because Jesus is there with you.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Pete.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Tim, Anything James.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: James.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I just want to thank you guys, both for the conversation and, Tim, your insight, um, for me and Aaron from an all law enforcement perspective, and I would just encourage, you know, the brothers and sisters listening to this that are still in the profession.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: We need you, um.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: You know we need good people in this profession still, and as much as the culture wants to tell us that our profession is dead, it's um, and, like tim said, just taking it one day at a time, one call at a time, um, reaching out to brothers and sisters around you, find good community within your department.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: If it's not there, you know, um, if it's within your church, you know there's people out there that care about us in this profession still, regardless of even here in the pacific northwest.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: Um, and just to those that have found themselves, that have lost the profession, you guys have a lot of wisdom and insight that us younger guys and girls still in the profession need, and just that healthy relationship finding a mentor.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: It's gone a long way for me, and so I just appreciate hearing what you're doing here and giving me the opportunity to come and talk.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you, guys, so much.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: You know, ladies and gentlemen, I really appreciate what God is doing in this podcast and, like I said earlier maybe I said it, maybe I thought it, I can't remember Sometimes it's hard to get caught up in.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: What are the downloads look like?
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: What are the numbers look like?
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: Who are we reaching?
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: How many countries are we in?
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: How many cities are we in?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: Blah, blah, blah.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: It's really not about that.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: You know, uh, christianity is something that's tough to talk about in the workplace.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: Imagine coming on a podcast here and talking about it to the world.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: You know, it's, uh, it's a subject that I think we need to talk about more.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: So, really, guys, I just hope this reaches you where you're at.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: If you guys want to communicate with myself or any of my guests, the email address is murders2music at gmailcom, and that is the number two murders2music at gmailcom.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: We'd love to talk to you, we'd love to have you on as a guest, we'd love to hear your input, good, bad or indifferent.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: If you want to reach the guests directly, remember you can reach out and learn all about James's ministry at respondersbygracecom.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: Feel free to reach out there.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: And if you want to hear a little bit more about Tim, his story and Mars Hill.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: Check out the podcast the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: It's on all your streaming platforms and it'll really give you some insight into this man's world.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: Well, ladies and gentlemen, we're about to wrap this up for the evening, but come back next week for part two, where we're going to dive into the listeners' questions Listeners who have reached out to us and asked their own set of questions, just like you've heard tonight.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: Come back next week for part two of Cops and Christianity, ladies and gentlemen, that is, the Murders to Music podcast.