Latest / FOLLOW / What if mental health isn’t separate from following Jesus? /// FOLLOW with Chad Bruegman

Transcript

What if mental health isn’t separate from following Jesus? /// FOLLOW with Chad Bruegman · FOLLOW

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: This is how I knew there was a problem.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: Basic things you do every day to live, which are very brainless and easy, felt like I was climbing Everest to do them.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's when I knew.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: And we could go on and on with all of the areas.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: And what I'm passionate about is hey, if he does not deliver you, he will leverage this and use this as much as you allow him to do beautiful and profound amounts of ministry for your fellow man.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: You can be a healing agent by not getting healed.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: I used to think it was really, really rare for someone to have some form of mental health.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm beginning to realize I think it's rare if like someone doesn't have some form of mental health.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Follow Podcast, which is built around one core conviction.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: If Jesus was right about God, about life, about the human soul, then it makes sense to rearrange our lives around what he said is true.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're exploring together.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: What Jesus said, why it's true, and how to actually rearrange our lives around it.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Chad Brugman, one of my favorite people in the whole wide world, thanks for being on the podcast again.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a true statement.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: You are pastor, thinker.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: We spent 30 minutes just talking about a church, which I actually wish would be on the podcast.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I wish we would have talked about that.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: But um tell us, tell the tell the crew that's that's tuning in what you're up to, where you're at, what you got going.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: I am currently where I live, Houston, Texas.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh in July, I call it the devil's armpit.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's absolutely horrendous.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's a hundred degrees, heat index is probably 110, but with all the humidity you could ask for.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, if I'm grumpy sounding, it's because of that.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do you even go outside?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Just to get places.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's that, I mean, for a couple months, you're just inside and it's it's not fun.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I do love Houston.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many redeeming qualities about it.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I could talk forever about that, but I'm in Houston, Texas.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a pastor at a church down here um called River Point Church.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: And um I'm a husband of one, father of four.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: I should have totally should have had two kids.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: If you're single listening to this, hoping to get married, or if you're married and haven't had kids yet, just have two.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Two.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm saving you some some stuff.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: Just have two.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: We're I mean, we I love all four.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: We're keeping them, but it's work.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Times have changed.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Times have change, man.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, times have changed.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Think about when so you've been doing ministry for a really long time.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: You and I did student ministry for a while together.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And man, talk about that times have changed.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Big time.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm getting ready to, I just finished my notes before this podcast.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm getting ready to preach on oxytocin and porn.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, last week we preached a message called the um dopamine dilemma.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: And we're in a series called Intersection, where we're talking about the intersection between faith and science, God and science.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think uh this is this this isn't to do with mental health per se, but I think it's important.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think the future of the church is pulling those two together like we've never done before.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and here's what I mean.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: And this this has everything to do with mental health, actually.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: There is such a grace, and I'm not just talking grace in terms of forgiveness, I'm talking about the other side of the coin of grace, which is empowerment to live free, to live liberated.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: There is such a grace that I have found in my personal journey of mental health when I started studying neurology and to lesser degrees biology, physiology.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, when I started studying that stuff, it put so much language out of the realm of what we call churchy or spiritual, and put language to um, here's what your body's doing and here's why.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: And it it immediately has this effect of, I'm not as crazy as I thought.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not as crazy as I've been telling myself I was.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: It it starts to remove condemnation, low self-esteem.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: It starts to uh give you uh a light at the end of the tunnel that you can break this cycle, or you can, if it's never to be broken, which we're all if we're having real talk, some things will be you'll be delivered from, and some things you will walk through the valley with God with.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um for me, and depression in 52 years, it hasn't been deliverance.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's been he's been with me every way through it.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: And every time he walks me through another dark valley, um, there is new uh skill sets, new, new practices that I apply that make it more hope-filled when it's dark.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so I know that's a diatrap I just went on about our church series, but we are we are starting to purposely use more and more language around biology and neurology and physiology and connecting it to the scriptures.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do we over the next few weeks have this conversation, talk about this intersection, how do they impact one another?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: You you have been pretty open about your struggles uh from the stage.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: You've talked about it uh for many years as long as I've known you.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Could you could you tell me, and maybe this is Carter, you're you could talk about this too.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Have you felt like the church has misunderstood depression and mental health?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Did you experience any of that?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: I've deferring to Steve always.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: I could listen to him talk for two hours straight.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean I mean I'd be really curious because I I think Chad that has been one of the the pieces that you've really always done a great job with your teaching.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Is I think people have always connected to you because they there's a truth and a realness and a love for God's word, but also like you're not there's not like a a pretend um or something's off limits.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um makes me like wonder like when did you first have like the category to say, oh, this is depression in one sense, and then two the courage to actually name that not just to yourself but to a to a room of people that were looking to you as a as a spiritual leader.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I I looking back on my childhood, I always was the funnest kid in the room.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm the guy walking in shooting finger guns at everyone, Captain Charisma, uh huge extrovert.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then I would have this shadow side that made no sense to me, to my parents, where and as I was younger, there were very quick, isolated moments, but they were they were dark and they were uh I was a fundamentally different person to be around.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so what I would do is I'd hide, you know, I was like, oh man, 24 hours, 48 hours.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: You a kid should be out with their friends all the time.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: I I would hide because this isn't the Chad everybody's expecting.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: This isn't the Chad everybody affirms for being the fun guy, the popular guy, the charismatic guy.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I would hide.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: It started like that, and then in my uh early 20s, I got went through one of those seasons again, and then um it wasn't going away.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so the hiding, the isolation, the the you know, hiding out on an island socially and all those things started happening.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: Friends weren't hearing from me, parents weren't hearing from me, um, because I didn't know what to do with it.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: I I thought maybe, man, this is my new lot in life.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I I've I've made a living, so to speak, off of extrovert Chad.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: Chad, everyone wants to be around.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I don't want to be around myself right now, so I'm not gonna get around other people.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it lasted long enough for me to realize there has I didn't have language at that age to to identify, but I just in my internally said there's something deeper going on here.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I I had to ask for some help.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I did that in my immature 21-year-old way of starting to ask some leading questions to people that I respected and trusted in hopes that they would pick up on what I was trying to confess, which was, I'm not doing good.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to get out of bed, I don't want to go to work.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: Basic, uh, this is how I knew there was a problem.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: Basic things you do every day to live, which are very brainless and easy, felt like I was climbing Everest to do them.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's when I knew.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And what was the journey from there?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I when we talk about this in terms of spiritual formation, because in church, what was your what has your journey been like holding that reality that look I have I have some depression, some proclivity towards some of this.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: What's your journey look like as a pastor?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, especially in the early years, and by that I mean the first 15, which is over still over half of my ministry career.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: It was so stigmatized in culture.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: So then times that by at least two, that's how stigmatized it is to be the preacher, the pastor.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, you're I I had bought the lie that we had not purposely told each other, which is the pastor's got it all figured out.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: The pastor sets the standard for all things life, and then he teaches you how to follow.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so what what what it caused me to do in the beginning was uh hide it even more.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: And we know in the mental health spaces, um hiding in isolation is to mental health struggles what sugar is to cancer.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, it intensifies it, it it grows it, it spreads it.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so what I was doing without knowing it was stuffing my face with sugar while I've been diagnosed with cancer.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, how cruel does that sound?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: But that's what I was doing without knowing it because oh, you're Pastor Chad, you've gotta play the part, you've got to look the part, fake it till you make it.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, not realizing that what God was wanting me to do with that was leverage it for his glory to testify about it and to be a herald that, hey, you want to follow me as I follow Christ, okay.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well then let's walk this through together.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you what it's been like for me to find hope in really dark places, to persevere when everything in me, body, mind, and spirit, is wanting to give up.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, let's take this journey together.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: And all God wanted me to do, how he wired me, I'm an overshare.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I used to hate that about myself, but then I realized God divinely wove me together to be an overshare, to de-stigmify anything and all things that I'm living through by being unafraid to publicly get up and confess.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna do that this weekend again as we talk about a specific subject around pornography and oxytocin.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm gonna get up there and and say, we we we will not find liberation if we do not walk this together.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: You cannot find healing if there is not horizontal um um confession, you know?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh not just horizontal, but excuse me, what's the other one?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: My brain just vertical and diagonal.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the Bible's the Bible makes a few statements that horizontal um confession is as big a piece of the pie as vertical confession is.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's the oh you too.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, oh wait, I'm not alone.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, wait, the pastor fights that he struggles that?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm probably qualified to confess.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm probably qualified to um get some help without the stigma around it.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so um man, I'll talk about my struggle with depression proudly and loudly to anyone who wants to listen because I've spent 30 years almost befriending it for lack of a better term.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's like if we're if we're gonna be if we're gonna be living together, we might as well get along.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: We might as well learn the intimate details of each other.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um I might I might as well learn your love language depression and serve you in that way.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: And and that may sound weird, or but what I mean is, man, you can work in tandem with your struggle or you can work against it.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I'll I'll always tell people to pray for God to deliver them from it.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: He reserves the right to uh at times for his glory do that, and I'll be the first to celebrate with you if that's your story.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: But if I'm being intellectually honest, that's very few people's story who follow Christ and and ask God for deliverance, be it depression, anxiety, OCD, uh, and we could go on and on with all of the areas.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: And what I'm passionate about is hey, um, if he does not deliver you, he will leverage this and use this as much as you allow him to do beautiful and profound amounts of ministry for your fellow man.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you can be a healing agent by not getting healed.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Which is I counterintuitive, but it's true.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: I found this weirdly interesting piece because I I go back to, you know, the church at its best is a place where everything is up for conversation.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I think it's one of the things you model so well, Chad, and your preaching and your leadership and the way you pastor that Eric and I just deeply love and respect.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And yet there are so many times where people show up and Sunday morning has gotta be up into the right.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Life is too hard.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much going on.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: So then it's like people's you know, experience 75 minutes one way, and then they go, Oh, I guess this part of me's never welcomed here.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's a there's kind of like this this piece in the back of our brain that you know, like I formed you and I shaped you in your mother's womb.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Which is biblical and beautiful.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: But it's almost as if like I formed you and I shaped you with no mistakes, no, no air.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then you start to realize, well, there's there are like in the way my brain was put together, whether and then add in some complex trauma, I can't make enough whatever serotonin, whatever, whatever it is to find that regulation, and I need help.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and then if I can't talk about it, you know, it's it that adds a bit of shame, and that just to your point, it just grows.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like I think for some people that it's this piece of like, but did God make me deficient?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Did God not make me perfect?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like, like what's wrong with me?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then two, how do I how do I walk this out in this reality of going, okay, like I need help?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm just coming to this point where I used to think it was really, really rare for someone to have some form of mental health, and now I'm beginning to realize, oh, I think it's rare if like someone doesn't have some form of mental health.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, right, what and you named off a couple of them anxiety, OCD, like depression, like you go doing a whole list and you realize the people in our churches are wrestling with such massive struggles.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I love how you're framing that, and that realizing God didn't mess up with you.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: This is a this is a a way at which um you get to lead with the limp, and there's a way at which there is a pathway.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them you would have never, just by the way they looked, never would have thought what they had either grew up in their childhood and navigated, or were carrying currently, or had wrestled through.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you just realize, like, man, we we are so unaware to see the struggles that our our people, our friends, our our family members, our siblings, uh, our neighbors are wrestling through.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I mean, I again I'm just I'm shocked that it's 2026.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: We've had 2,000 years to wrestle with the implications of the story of God, particularly through the new covenant post post Jesus on the cross.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we are still so shocked sometimes to find out that everyone besides you isn't just got it all together, and that that we are more broken.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: I I say this to my my people down here in Houston nonstop.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: It it probably drives them nuts, but I said we are divinity and dust put together.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: We are the clay of the earth and the breath of God.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: And if you are divinity and dust, a combination of that, here's what you're gonna experience on this side of eternity a lot, which is an endless cycle of beauty and brokenness walking together in what should be a friendship or a marriage, and instead they're like in a wrestling match and see who's gonna win.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes I've been guilty of this f over and over, preaching as if I can formulate God and us and God good enough to get you to always win the wrestling match against someone I'm no longer believing we were supposed to spend much, if any, time at all in any kind of contingent relationship with.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't say we're broken along with being beautiful anymore as a scapegoat to live without restriction or live unwise, um, cast off all restraint.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: I say that to destigmify and get people to confess one to another and to God.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like I literally use confession as the chief uh indicator as to how healthy our church is.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: Do we really believe the gospel we preach and that feels good to hear on Sunday?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you if if you if we have chronic isolation and people hiding and secrets, right?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um that we're all keeping out of fear for judgment or how we're gonna be treated when we do confess, that's fine, but let's just quit saying that we trust Christ and His finished work.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: Or let's keep preaching the message of Christ and Christ alone, and he's done it all so that we can rest in our salvation and be less intimidated now by what he's doing, which is sanctifying us.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: Sanctification is slow and arduous and nasty sometimes.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's two steps forward, one step back.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: And God could not be more comfortable.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: He designed that.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and so the God, you know, reminding people of what Christ has already done and it is done once and for all, and it is finished, is not the 101, so you can graduate to next level 201.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Courses in theology.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: It is 101, 201, 301, 401.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: It is the the highest PhD level of theology comes back to Christ and Christ crucified.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: And in terms of mental health, I I would not have the the growth I've had when I go through seasons of depression where it's not easy, but it's much more manageable.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: The chief reason, not the only reason, is because of my trust in what he says about me in those seasons and how that doesn't shift.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, everything in my soul, everything in my body, everything in my surroundings of my day-to-day is shifting.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: I know, you know, the more you know and believe by faith what he has spoken over you, um, the more freedom you have to not over-magnify and and hide when you feel ashamed because you're depressed or anxious and you call yourself a Christian, and we think we should just be walking bundles of joy all the time.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a really good point, Chad, because and and I really do want to spend, you know, the last half of this talking to what we would assume we're saying, uh, me too, all of us are broken.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody has a brokenness.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to, as Carter says, make sure we touch the bottom of the pool because there are people who are walking in, and you made this point.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, um, I'd say it this way: looking at someone who's struggling, who's really in uh systematically walks through depression and say, choose joy, is like looking at somebody who has a broken leg and say, choose walking.
• 23:39
  unknown: Yeah.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it that's not that's not how it works.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we do believe that there are ways in which we can walk through this life and uh walk through depression, anxiety, these pieces.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to talk a little bit about that.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, we all have we all have struggles, mental health issues, we all have, we all have brokenness.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we then deal with this reality?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: How do we deal with this reality that uh, as Carter had said, um we are beautifully and wonderfully made, but there is imperfection in every single one of us, right?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: We have imperfection.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: There isn't.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you believe that we are made perfectly, uh that God makes everything perfectly, it's pretty easy then to look at your own life and go, well, he didn't make me perfectly, so I must have been a mistake.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I must have been something must have gone wrong, which isn't true.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: It just isn't true.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: One of the big makes mistakes we make is we divide mental health into its own thing and think like it's like uh this side thing.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: You have a spiritual life, but then you have a mental health life.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: And Dallas would sort of say, look, God's care for the direct depressed person is the care for the whole person.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: So like the body that he made, the mind that he's renewing, the friends that he gave you, the doctors that are around you.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: That there is a you know, when you look at renovation of the heart and some of what he walks through in that framework, right?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: That we we all of these plea pieces play.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the body isn't bad, the mind isn't bad, they all play together.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Orberg says the soul is the sticky substance, sticks all that stuff together, right?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sticks it all together.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, how do we help someone understand what is helpful as you walk through these seasons?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: What have you guys learned?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'll start at the base level because I think you have to start here, at least in terms of understanding what's going on when we when we have mental health struggles, you know, another part of human brokenness that's just a inevitable reality right now.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm a pastor, so I'm gonna talk theologically first.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um we were made, we know from the beginning of the story, we were made in the image of God, right?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so you look at all aspects of who God is, what God is.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh a really important one is he is triune in nature, right?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: So you go, okay, well, I'm I'm made in your image, but I'm human, I'm not you.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: So what's my triune reflection of you?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's body, it's mind, it's spirit.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so to devalue the body, or to lesser degrees the mind, because the spirit is what the church thinks of when they think of being the church, is doing a great disservice to understanding your world, your life, your mental health issues.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, um, you can't, you know, the the theme verse of this series we're in is, you know, where Paul says, Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you were you were made by God, you were bought at a price, therefore honor God with your body.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he's talking to a bunch of people in Greece who are new converts, who their original pastor and prophet before Jesus did his thing, and Paul came along as their pastor was Plato, 400 years prior.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: He was their chief voice.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: They're living out of his teachings, and his teaching was in a simplified version simply this spirit good, he would have called it the soul, soul good, intellect amazing, body problematic.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: He called the body a prison that would eventually become a tomb.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so Paul comes to this Greek culture and says, You gotta stop thinking that way.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: You gotta quit de-emphasizing the body as just this means, a problematic means to a greater end, which is your intellect and and and the strength of your soul.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and he and and Paul comes instead of saying your body's a tomb, he says it's a temple.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: You are literally the house of God.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that's biologically he's talking.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um he's given a sexual ethic when he uses that to say that to them, but he doesn't say that in any other epistle to any other church because they're not in Greece.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: They're not working with Plate Plato's idea and it was deeply affecting them because he keeps having to confront these issues of of sexual ethics, all these ethics of morality, because anything having to do with the body, food, he talks a lot about food, you know.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he he goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 15, he sums up by saying, Hey, if the dead aren't raised, if the resurrection, the crux of our faith, if if that didn't happen, eat and drink and be merry for tomorrow you die.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: In other words, going back to a Platonian idea of don't treat your body any particular way, use it, abuse it, but you take pristine care of your spirit and your intellect.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: And Paul comes and says, No, we're triune.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where I'm so passionate because, like I said earlier, when you start to understand what's happening to you biologically when you're anxious and it's becoming a disorder.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: Or when you start to know what we now know in 2026 neurologically about why you have OCD, it starts to give you an understanding that A, there's help, and it's not pray harder.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Will prayer help?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: We know that.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: We know what it does biologically to us, but the church has limited it to worship when it sucks, which means sing, turn on worship music and sing.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: There's healing properties to that, of course, but it's so much bigger and more holistic than just the platitudes we throw at church.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: The body is not a preamble to spiritual care, it is spiritual care, right?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like uh if you look at look look at okay, look at what what God does with Elijah when he's at the I mean, he's at the end of his rope.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's at the very end of his rope.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: He is depressed.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: He says, sleep, food, sleep again, sleep, then we'll talk.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, right?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, no, no, go take care of your body, sleep, eat some food, sleep again.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like this idea isn't just a first century idea.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's we've separated them, and I think when you look at some of the spiritual practices that we engage our body in.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'm training right now.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Carter inspired me to take a really long spiritual walk.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're gonna be walking an ancient pilgrimage, and I the and I'm training right now, and I'm doing all the walking, walk six miles this morning.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is deeply spiritual.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: 100% it is connected to all of it, right?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I hear differently, I feel differently, I experience differently when my body is engaged in these spiritual practices.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when we're talking about mental health, it is so easy to isolate it into well, it's just a mental thing.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's an all of these things, right?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: As Dallas talks about the way in which our heart is formed and renovation of the heart is it isn't just the things within us, too.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: There is a social component that feeds into all of this.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is why community matters.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is why when you were talking at the beginning, staying in the dark is so it feels like the right thing to do in the moment to stay quiet and silent, and it is the it's feeding sugar to the cancer to stay quiet, to stay silent.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just think that's such an important aspect of formation is to understand they're connected.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you know what's interesting is um like they're doing all this work, and Eric and Chadino is uh from living in Colorado, but in Colorado, they're just looking at all of these beautiful rivers for fly fishing, and the work that they are doing on these rivers to make them an ecosystem for brown and rainbow trout to um just kind of flourish.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and there's these the the the kind of the terminology that they say that needs to happen are riffles, runs, and pools.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and the riff, the riffles are like you want when you start to kind of see like the the the little bit of a waterfall, but the there's a little bit, there's a little bit of like kind of energy going on.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have these runs, and then you're gonna have these steady waters at these pools.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and there's something about all of this that creates the best kind of ecosystem for the trout to kind of endure and last and and flourish.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think in some ways, like if you look at a lot of parenting, you've had right now, it's moved from helicopter parents to snowplow parents.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: And they basically said, we want no riffles and we want no runs.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: All we want are just safe pools.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then life does what life does, and kids experience riffles or runs, and they're like, I don't know how to function.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: What's wrong with me?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I think beginning to recognize, man, how do I look at my life and go, oh, okay, this is a part of the like the riffle.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is a part of like the the part of and and and I have more of a tendency towards anxiety, where I have a more of a tendency towards worry, where I have more of a tendency towards like perfection or OCD or depression, and not with shame.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like I even our semantics matter.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: People are like, um, I'm anxious, I'm depressed.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: You feel depressed.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: You are not that.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you feel this.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: So let's let's understand like this is a this is a part of you that is coming online, and you can speak for that part of who you are and what you're feeling, but that's not that's not the entirety of who you are, because like you said, Chad and Eric, you are divine and dust, like you, you are wonderfully made.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: But now once I recognize I have more of a propensity towards anxiety or uh perfectionism, well, what's the best way to actually attack that and and and and sit with that and be kind to that?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then also, what is the sugar to that?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Social media might be the sugar to my comparison or anxiety, and it might require me to have to put something down, or it might require me to actually live my life in boundaries of hey, sleep matters.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: Elijah, go to bed.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, then eat some food, go to bed.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like what if the body matters, how I'm taking care of it, what I'm putting into it, what I'm feeding it, my and and again, like what Orbrig was talking about is that sticky stuff of heart, mind, body, the soul integrates.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, integration.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: And sin disintegrates.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's so good, Carter.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's what sin wants.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Sin wants your heart thinking one and feeling one thing, your head thinking one piece, and your body detached from it all.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you live like that, how are you living with true fullness of presence and agency?
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: You then all of a sudden your feelings are gonna take over, your negative thoughts are gonna take over, something you're gonna be stuffing, you're and and you're just gonna be chasing.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: But the more you can step back and go, oh, okay, okay, this is what my heart is saying right now, and and bringing that connected to who God made me and what God's word says, and what I know to be true about the beauty and the brokenness of me, this is what my brain is telling me right now, um, or it's wanting me to look at a situation and tell this story or this narrative.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: All right, how's that true to what the the more that you can just be go slower and almost tend to that river and tend to your soul, the more I've just started to see like them become stickier.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: That visual is so powerful that sin wants to disintegrate you, and the the work is reintegration to be integrated.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I experienced it this morning.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: This morning, um, something was said to me that hurt my feelings.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: I woke up this morning, I was still hurt.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: My head was spinning, and and I went into a loop, and I decided, well, I know I have to take this walk.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna take this walk, and then I'm gonna ask the Holy Spirit to help me see what this thing is that's making me feel this way, and I'm gonna use this walk with my body and the Holy Spirit, my soul, and then the things I'm learning.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the truth there is work involved.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: There is.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: We we say, we say I'm doing the work because there is work.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: I have to learn new patterns of thinking, I have to understand where my predispositions uh point me.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: I have to understand a feeling, and that's okay to recognize a feeling, but not to let that feeling loop.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have patterns of thinking, and no joke, this morning in that two hours, which it took me two hours to walk six miles, I experienced integration because my body was moving, my the Holy Spirit was speaking, I was thinking about, and the Holy Spirit was lighting up some things about hey, you know that what you're feeling is real, but what you're thinking isn't necessarily true.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: You you're in a loop, buddy.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're looping.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: And what else could be true about this?
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: And what what you're so worked up about, do you think the other person even really knows they hurt your feeling?
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and and honestly, that that visual carter is so powerful because I experienced firsthand, I literally finished my walk, and I felt a settledness in my spirit, in my body, in my mind, and it helped me walk into the next space completely different.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I I probably have to do that multiple times in a day, but that idea of reintegration and that sin wants to disintegrate you, you can feel that, right?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because like if you can get all three parts pulling in different directions, if we can believe a few lies, if we can sit in uh darkness and silence, I mean that's this is brilliant.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: But think about this too, Eric.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: What was happening even underneath the surface to the story that you described?
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: You got out and moved, and the way that the wondrous way that God made our bodies, and Chad, you know this from working out and being an athlete.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: The endorphins, all of a sudden, the endorphins start working, and which which all of a sudden settles the cortisol.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and and it this is this is why like uh you don't even have to be spiritual, and you can walk into a gym and and and feel better.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's not gonna be the full stickiness of your soul, but you can actually feel better.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're taking your body seriously, you're taking the way that your body is made seriously, and and and the way God wired us.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's studies right now that is showing you that if you volunteer, you live four years longer.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: That just by giving serving, like it is more blessed to give than to receive.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that if you actually do give, you are they call it the happiness trifecta.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin are on full display, you live longer.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: And cortisol isn't attacking your body, you have something to live for, and so all of a sudden, this is like the the the pieces of how God shaped us and formed us.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the more that we live in tune to that, to Eric, the what you've described, or Chad, what you're calling the people of Ridge Point into, what that does is it, and you use the beautiful word parks, it settles us into our own skin or into our own temple, and we get to move through that, which when you're around people who are a non-anxious presence, you're like, I kind of want to be around that person more.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like they feel really safe, that's true.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: They, you know, and doesn't mean that, but it but that that and I love that that word you said, Chad, and then I'll shut up, but like that that sanctifying work is nasty.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: It is hard work to like, because you have a choice.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: You could be like, Oh, I just want to stew on that.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to get out of bed, I don't want to walk that six miles.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: I get more energy from being frustrated with that person, but you know what?
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually gonna tap in and I'm gonna I'm gonna actually walk this the rivers of my soul, and I'm gonna see how you take me from that riffles to that run to that pool of settledness, and and we're gonna do it again, God.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna do it again.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: So good.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, uh what I love about these kind of podcasts where you know there's a theme, but then we talk it out.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: And what I love about that is I think we landed somewhere that felt divine in terms of the glue, the reintegration of body, mind, and spirit.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: Huge.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um huge.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_02: Stop secularizing your body and spiritualizing your your your spirit and your soul, um, or your even your mind.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, um, we're we're we're doing oxytocin this week, Steve, and we're doing serotonin next week.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: And the the main text for serotonin is literally parks what you mentioned, which was the Elijah story.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh oh.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: When he literally having suicidal ideation.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: And keep in mind the day before he had just won a battle against 300 of his enemies, 300 against one.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's Hollywood level victory.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: He should be he should be unafraid of everything on planet Earth now, and one woman from a large long distance makes.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: One threat to his life, and now he's under a tree by himself, wanting to give up, and he's having suicidal ideation, and God does not throw verses at him.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: Nope.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: And there is, I want I want the listeners to hear this.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: There is a time and a place to recognize that what you need most is verses.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: Spiritual discipline is recognizing what you need most in that moment, not doing all of them perfectly the same amount.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's sometimes you need to read the Bible, sometimes you need to eat more broccoli, and sometimes you need to get the kids and go bowling.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, Steve, speaking to the fishing stuff, and I'll wrap it up with this.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: I I heard a quote recently where it was more a proverb and had layers to it.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: It said, uh, a man can go to church and think about fishing, but he'd rather go fishing and think about God.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: And to me, there's so many layers in that.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: You know, as a pastor, I'm supposed to get mad at that because I'm like, no, a man's got to be in church.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: But I heard I heard what the that wise person that said that was getting at, which is like the goal isn't church attendance.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm believe me, I want people to come to church faithfully.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's value in it.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: But the goal is where are you finding God?
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that is spiritual discipline, which is sometimes the holiest thing you can do is not go read the Bible for an hour.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's I'm going bowling with my family.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's I'm going for a run, like the the great runner said that broke the four mile first.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: I feel that why do you run so incessantly?
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because I feel the pleasure of God when I run.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and so um a big part for me of dealing with depression um was getting past the sec sac secular sacred divide that I think is so detrimental to our formation when it comes to God.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_02: All things are God's.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh C.S.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_02: Lewis said it best: the only ability the devil has is to take that which God has made and to pervert it.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: He does not have in and of himself the ability to create one thing, it is all God's.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: The earth and the fullness thereof is his.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: He has copyright on everything that we've secularized in the church world.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_02: And um when you're most depressed or anxious, find the joy that you've been told isn't spiritual and lean into it.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: Listen to that album that is perfect for you every time while you're walking to get those endorphins up so you'll think clear.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: Your brain will function at the God ordained level it was supposed to before um decay entered the picture.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_02: Do those things.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um find what find what most energizes your life and your heart.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: And if you do them honestly and intently, and you look around at why you love it and be grateful, you've done as much for your depression as something else I do, which is sometimes take medicine, another another podcast for another day.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes that is the best medicine on planet earth.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, is you were fully alive and you directed the glory in being fully alive, whether it's fishing, bowling, hiking, sports, art, music.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: When you come fully alive, you bring glory to God.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_02: And um and when you go through difficult, dark seasons of the soul via mental health of any kind, and you keep inviting God, and you don't isolate and you find a few trusted, beautiful people that you trust with confession, you are literally living a life of worship.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: You have God smiling ear to ear, while sometimes tears are your blanket.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_02: And uh that's taken me 52 years to realize, and now I want to shout it from the rooftops.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: Man, if any one of our listeners right now is in a dark place, you're not alone, and there is so much hope, and there is so much um help for you out there.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_02: Find that safe person.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you have one.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: Find that safe person and muster up the energy to confess and and and watch what starts to happen after that.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: Love that.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, listen, two of the best preachers I know are on this podcast right now.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna drop in the show notes um links to both you guys, but particularly this series you're in, Chad.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: What a powerful, what a powerful, uh, what a powerful series, man.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, um, thanks, dude.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: Always love you.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: I know you'll be back on the show.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for just sharing literally heartfelt uh reality of this.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of people who need to hear it, so thanks, bro.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: Man, I love you guys so much.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: Get after it.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: Love you, bud.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: Love you guys.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: See ya.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's gonna do it for today.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: If something landed for you in this conversation, don't just let it sit.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: Take it with you.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: Carry it into your week.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about it with someone, let it do something in you.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to go deeper, click on the link in the show notes.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back soon with more.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: But until then, keep following.