Latest / Faith Rehab / Ep. 15 - Death of a Pastor’s Wife | Our Take on the Netflix Series

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Ep. 15 - Death of a Pastor’s Wife | Our Take on the Netflix Series · Faith Rehab

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This faith rehab episode touches on abuse.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: If anything you hear today resonates with you, we want you to know that there are resources available.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Flyingfreenow.com is a great resource specifically for Christian women and the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Click the show notes for more information on both.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you and enjoy today's episode.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_06: Hey, welcome to Faith Rehab Podcast.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_06: Today we're talking about the Netflix series Death of a Pastor's Wife.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna learn that Steve is a little bit of a Diet Coke snub.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna hear about Heidi and her obsession with the Wizard of Oz.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: Enjoy some way.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: Sing it, girl, sing it.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, welcome to Faith Rehab Podcast, real talk about church hurt.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: We are just a safe place for people to come and share their stories and experiences and what's helped them and where they're headed.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I am Heidi Brandt, aka T M I too high.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And a fun fact about me, I used to tell people my name was Dorothy when I was little because I love I love the Wizard of Oz and I collected still collect things from the Wizard of Oz.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: I wore ruby red slippers to my wedding.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I have a tattoo of really slutty Dorothy on my arm.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Of what?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Sloppy Dorothy?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Slutty, like pin up pin up Dorothy.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Am I allowed to use that word?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Dorothy.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: I love uh the Wizard of Oz.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, that is a fun fact, Dorothy.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_06: Hey, my name is Christopher.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_06: Fun fact, Tin Man was my name.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_06: No.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_06: Um aka C J aka former BMI too high.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_06: Now I'm BMI I lied because apparently I'm not as BMI too high.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_06: So um I have college story.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_06: I have this recurring dream that I always have.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_06: In college, one time I was enrolled in a class the whole semester, and I didn't know I was in it until my the professor was like, Hey, I know you didn't attend any of my lectures, but if you if you've passed the final, I'll pass you.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_06: What?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_06: So I ran to the class, sat down, looked at the first question, got up, smiled at the professor, and turned in a blank exam.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, no, nice.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_06: What was the class?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_06: Physical anthropology.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, you can't fake your way through that.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_06: It's a study of anatomy of creatures that don't even exist anymore.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_06: So I thought maybe I could scrap something together and pass it.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_06: No.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_06: Oh my gosh.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_06: He just laughed.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_06: He knew who I was, and I was like, but I used to sign up for so many classes and drop a few, and I guess I forgot to drop this one.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: That is fantastic.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_06: I passed it.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_06: I graduated.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Where did you go to college?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_06: Sacramento State.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_06: Go Hornets.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_06: Go Hornets, Stingers Up.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_06: Stingers up.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_06: Stingers up.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: But my ex-husband husband is allergic to bees.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like that seems insensitive to those that I'll you know, I'll let them.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_03: You know what else I do?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Stingers down.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: For Josh, Stingers down, Josh.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: He he called me one day and he said, Are you home?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I am.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, I need you to take me to the emergency room because I've missed so many bees.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: I dropped him off.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Do you think I can like hit up TJ Maxx?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and he goes in and the doctor said, Mr.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Peterson, we promise we'll do everything to keep you alive.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, text me when you're done.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be across the street.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm learning a valuable lesson about my life-threatening diseases.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_03: Do not under any circumstances call Heidi.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: Her name may be Heidi Joy, but it really is Heidi.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: I'm out of here.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_06: Allergic to bees?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_06: Well, my college is Hornets.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_06: That's what I'm saying.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: I've taken different.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: If you had taken anthropology, you'd know that.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: A Hornet is different from a bee.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_06: Oh boy.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: Don't even get me started on discovering things here.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yellow jackets.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_03: Steve, who are you?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'm Steve.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: I am Heidi's uh bee expert and will never go to the ER with her ever for any reason.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I am Steve McNitt.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: I have been a therapist for 30 years, but I'm not your therapist.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: So you get all this and more for free.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_03: And my fun fact is tied to I got up way too early for this episode.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: I forgot we had changed the time.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so I was really, really sleepy and decided to just shotgun a Diet Coke.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: And then Heidi said, Why don't you go back and take a nap?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: But here's my fun fact: I'm a Diet Coke snob.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, for real.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like if you come at me with Diet Pepsi, you're taking your life in your hands.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you don't even come near me, bro.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_03: I don't even know what this is about.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: And a Diet Coke is good, but a Diet Coke from the fountain is better.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_03: And if you want the apex of the Diet Coke arc, McDonald's.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: McDonald's.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_03: McDonald's.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: And it, I don't know why.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: I that clown back there has got something going on with his Diet Coke because it's the best.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, a regular Diet Coke is good.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_03: But this time of year, fun fact, they have not every year, I don't think, but they make one that has lime in it.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, come on now.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't gotten that one out of a fountain, but at home, that's real nice, Clark.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_06: Wow.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Do you drink coffee in the morning?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: Negative.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: Never have, never will.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_03: I don't like coffee.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, people would invite me to coffee, like, you know, what's your favorite?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'll pick up Starbucks.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: What's your favorite coffee drink?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I always say, Diet Coke from McDonald's.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_04: Really?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_03: You want coffee with me, you're dicking two stops.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_06: There's a coffee shop near my place, and every time I order, I just do coffee black, right?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_06: He always says, Oh, I like that bitter like my family.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_06: I was like, it makes me laugh every morning.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, he's great.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: I love that guy.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: He needs to be on here.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_06: So dark.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_06: Cool, cool.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_06: Um, good to see you guys.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_06: Heidi, you're awake.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_06: I am.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: I had to get up super early this morning, take my my kids to the DMV.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Fun.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I don't wake up for anything.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not sure.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Why were you being punished?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: What did you do wrong in your life that you had to go to the DMV?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: My two middle kids are getting their driver's permits, and Josh is speaking at a camp.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's certain responsibilities that I do not take on as a mother.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: I give them to Josh.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: He's really good at the apparently dropping off at the ER is one of them.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And he felt bad.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like he knew he was like, I got an appointment at 8 a.m., an hour away.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, this is how I die.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can't get up that early.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_06: Oh goodness.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: CJ, what are we talking about today?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_06: Today we are talking about a Netflix special.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_06: We never did this before, but we we actually all watched a show separately, of course.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_06: And we're gonna talk about it.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_06: And it's it's called uh Murder of a Pastor's Wife.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_06: So let's get into that next time.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_03: It's not called Murder of a Pastor's Wife.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, it's called Death of a Pastor's Wife.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: Spoiler alert.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's not even brought up the whole controversy.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_06: We're leaving it like that.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: I think we should let's get into it.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's the whole controversy.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_03: Was it just a death or was it a murder?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: You should watch it.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_06: Was it a death?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, I was gonna spoil it.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_06: Never mind.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_06: Let's get into it before I spoil it.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: We are not sponsored by Netflix, so we uh cannot uh tell you whether or not you should watch it.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: It just brings up some stuff for this podcast that we thought because it's trending, it's number one in the nation right now.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_03: Lots of people have seen it.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: We probably let's talk about it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, by the time you hear this, it may not be number one in the nation anymore, but it'll probably still be on Netflix.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: And um, shout out to Netflix if you would like to sponsor Faith Hope.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: Faith Hope's called Faith Rehab, Steve.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: Faith Rehab Podcast.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: Contact us, please, FaithRehab Podcast.com.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_06: Wow, that's quite the intro.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_06: Should I do should we do a short one?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_06: Just in case that's uh uh just in case.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um all right, CJ, what are we talking about today?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, we are talking about uh Netflix series that we actually screw it, let's use the long one.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_06: Sounds good, yeah.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_05: Add it up.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: CJ, uh do you want to do like a little recap without too many spoilers of this Netflix special?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_06: I'll try, but I'll just warn you this is your spoiler alert right now.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_06: We might just slip up.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_06: So if you want to stop this and watch that, then go for it.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_06: But it's a story about Mika Miller and her she married her pastor, JP Miller.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_06: She grew up in the church, she was a young worship leader, and she got married to someone else.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_06: And the pastor, JP, she was just the pastor, he actually married both of them.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_06: Eventually, uh, they were both married to different people, they had an affair together, and it it just kind of went into this whole toxic relationship that kind of no one knew about.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_06: It had something to do with abuse, um, sexual assault, all these things, and all covered up by the law because it was hard in that state to have like you can't really do charges against your spouse or anything like that.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_06: So there's a lot of things, uh, a lot of bad things happening in this relationship.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_06: Eventually, it led to her separating from him, but he was still trying to what's it called, stalk very control, very controlled, controlling her, trying to control the narrative to protect himself as a pastor, and led to her going through a very dark path.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_06: And this is the controversial thing.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_06: She supposedly committed suicide, and she called 911 from a a park and said, Hey, do you know where my location is?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_06: It's like, and then I'm about to kill myself, and that's kind of where it ended.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_06: So who, whether it's a murder or a suicide, it's still all up in the air.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_06: So we don't know.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: One of my takeaways, thank you, CJ.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: One of my takeaways from this was that he was so charismatic, and he helped grow the church, and people loved him because he was so personable and he was there for everybody, and he was really very, very uh attractive as a person.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, physically attractive, right, but also just people magnetic personality.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and so when things started going south, people didn't believe her because he's such a nice guy and he loves God.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: And that when she tried to get help, people sort of covered it up for really kind of two reasons.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_03: One is the church didn't really have any power, like he was all of it.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_03: He the board were all his friends and family, and uh, you know, people that wanted to confront him really didn't have any power to do that, and because he was so charismatic in terms of magnetic personality, the church grew.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, like a lot of churches, if we get rid of the pastor or if we confront the pastor, what's gonna happen to the rest of us?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_06: Which seems pretty common.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Heidi, do you have anything you want to add to that story?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think it wasn't until a new family came to the church, right?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like she kind of created a friendship with a newer person where she felt safer to open up who was kind of like not maybe buying in like everybody else was to protect the pastor.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And she saw the red flags, and um, I just I think the reason that the story is so relatable because there are themes and elements of it that are experienced probably at churches all over the country, like personality-driven pastors that grow the church that everybody loves and idolizes, and struggles that go on in a in a married couple who are part of ministry like that, and who are your safe people, and when your livelihood is at risk and your relationships are at risk, how do you manage and navigate all of that?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, you must have really connected with this being, you know, the pastor, death of a pastor's wife, and obviously way different scenario, but I'm sure there's a lot of themes that you experience, right, Heidi?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and I think what was unusual, or I don't know what the word would be, a very good friend of mine who's not church, she grew up Catholic.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she watched it and she was just like, I was just so shocked.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is that how it is inside of a church?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's like it's so normal for me because I grew up in it, that it's like, yeah, like there's the messaging towards women around sex and how women should present themselves to their husbands and be available to their husbands.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yes, that is a rhetoric that I my ex-husband never preached on that stuff, but I know that that was a very real pressure for women in the church.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: And if you watch the documentary, a lot of the clips that they show of him preaching are like around a woman's obligation to take care of their husband's physical needs, and it it started to feel like grotesque, like oh, it was actually sort of threatening.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: If you don't, there's gonna be 20 other things that will attract him before he gets home tonight, right?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, so I'm gonna I wanna pause right there for a second because one of the things that I said, CJ actually is the one who told me about this special and said we should watch it, and uh I did with my wife.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the things that I thought is when people see this, if they're part of a church, they might get some red flags of like people they know or churches they know or places they've if they're not part of the church, they may go, see, that's why that's why I don't show because look at how crazy those people are, and and this special, I will just say, I think is an extreme.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's not one of one, it's but it's on that end of there's um, you know, there's some stuff happening that it's not happening everywhere, you know.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um but I do want to get into it.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_03: I just want to kind of if you see it or if you hear crazy stuff about a church and go, see, that's why I don't go, then we'll talk about that in another episode about how to figure out whether things are healthy or not.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: But right, but so so we came up with a set of questions, and I want to just kind of jump in there, Heidi, and I thought you sort of let it off really well.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what factors, what are the things that make people stay in kind of a dysfunctional church relationship?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when you watch this special and you go, Hey, Micah or Mika, or however you say her name, things were bad.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like, why did she stay?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it was partly her marriage and how she made money, um, and you know, lots of things, but well, why why what makes people stay in churches that are that are bad or in uh ministry relationships or small groups or you name it when it's crap?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_06: What I really liked about Micah uh is that she's she told a friend that she had a chance to leave, like to go to a different kind uh city or something far away just to get some distance from the toxic part during the divorce part where he was stalking her and all these things and popping her tires and all that.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_06: But she said, No, I can't.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_06: And the guy also had like extortion material, like naked pictures of his wife, and that's right, and even posted one and took it down.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_06: So crazy.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_06: But even with all that, Micah wanted to stay still for the church.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_06: She had all the reasons to leave, but she just loved the church so much she didn't want anything to harm it.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_06: And I've never experienced that, but I could I I really felt when they started sharing that her heart about not leaving and finding shelter, or that's why she stayed in the the marriage for so long, even all all the abuse that she went through.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_06: She just loved the church so much.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: So she was afraid that if I expose the pastor, yeah, that the church would just crumble.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_03: Because it had when he had his affair before and got divorced, the attendance went down.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: Which happens, you know, and amidst the scandal.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: But she cared so much.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: What do you think that is, CJ?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: What do you what do you why?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, I think she found her identity as the first lady, the pastor's wife.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_06: Her entire support system was the church, so destroying that would destroy her support system.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_06: These are all subject I don't know, for sure, but if you identify with a church and you like dedicate your whole life to it, you want it to succeed, you want it to be a happy story.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_06: And maybe that's what led her to that.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think what resonated with me is the the beginning, you learn her childhood story and the split that her mom and dad had, and which is very similar to my own story.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sick, so that's why my voice is like two registers lower than normal.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: Very nice.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: But I think for myself, having come from a a family of divorced parents, I felt extra pressure to like redeem what was broken in my first family through my marriage to Josh.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so to admit that there was any kind of like issues within our marriage, I was almost dishonoring what I felt like I was carrying out as a person who wasn't going to make the same mistakes as my mom and dad.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then being like validated by people inside of the church for your singing or the way that you serve and having church family, which can be just as dysfunctional as your first family if you come from a dysfunctional first family.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's actually just like reproducing the same wounding that you can have in your actual family in a church.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: It actually seems very normal and familiar when you come from that kind of background.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: But then being hitched to someone who is this pillar of virtue and seen by everyone in the congregation as this like wonderful person, and you get to be attached to them even when you see their flaws, makes you feel more valuable and worthy.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I think that it almost becomes like a just a pattern of functioning that's really unhealthy, but it's it's it's normal, it's what you know.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and I'll add one more thing.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: I felt always like I had to protect Josh.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: So if anyone said anything uh bad about his preaching, his sermons, I was so defensive because as his wife, I just wanted to make sure that nobody ever like hurt him.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it gets messy, it gets really messy.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think that's really well put.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I um one of the things, especially when you talk about uh family, one of the things that I have done in my career over 30 plus years is spend a lot of time with people who have had histories of abuse.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: I run groups with young children, uh middle school girls, uh offenders.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: Uh you know, it's kind of weaves its way through mental health.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: And so one of the things that was probably the most shocking to me in my career is that no matter how a child was raised, they think that's normal.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_03: So I would be in these groups of children who have been physically or sexually abused, and they would be telling stories that they thought was normal.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_03: And because they thought it was normal, well, then everybody must go through it.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_03: And when they find out not everyone is going through it, it's sort of it's sort of a seismic shift in their belief.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_03: Because the people that we honor and respect and trust, we think we give them an elevated status, you know what I mean?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_03: So if if my dad, who is supposed to love and protect me and and be wonderful, is wonderful in 80% of what they do and terrible in the other 20%, and I think, oh, it's just there's they're great people, and I think this gets translated to pastors, ministry leaders, small group leaders, bosses, political folks, you know, people that are in office that we go, if we elevate their status, then we sometimes forgive whatever crap they're doing because we love and respect them.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: Does that make some sense?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: It it really does.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's funny because there are people.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: You know, two things can be true.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_03: You know, the the the guy in Micah's story was very magnetic and really cared for people.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's true.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_03: He also had over the course of his life multiple affairs and was so sexually driven and dysfunctional that it it hurt a lot of people.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: Both can be true.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: And we, if we dismiss the bad because of the good, we're gonna be the victim, no matter whether we were, you know, whether we had an affair with him or not.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: That really a lot of the church was his victim.
• 22:58
  unknown: Yeah.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: What are your thoughts on all that?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's actually a very powerful way of putting it, is that the entire church was his victim.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because I even think, you know, I grew up believing that you were called to ministry.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so, even like, what does that mean if I get in the way of God's calling on Josh's life and I screw up his calling because of my selfishness or because of my needs not being met?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think you sit in it longer than you're comfortable with until it comes out sideways, because not only do you have an obligation to the church and your husband, but you also feel the pressure of what God has called that person to do, and you don't want to interfere with that.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: But we do elevate our pastors and we elevate our political leaders and they're human just like we are.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_03: What take us inside your mind, body, soul, spirit.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: What does the weight of that feel like?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can't breathe.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like so much pressure that that a lot of people in the church think that they understand, or they'll say, like, it's so hard being a pastor's wife, or or they'll say, you know, you can just be normal when you're with us.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, I can't, because the it's it's it's different.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Josh can't take off his pastor hat.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's who he is, it's how he's how he operates and how he moves through the world.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you're when you're in that space, it's suffocating.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, there's a quote that I wrote down, I don't even know where I got it from, but um, it's not that people don't see the dysfunction, it's that the leaving costs more than the staying, comma, until it doesn't.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_06: So I think like when you're like talking about the I can't breathe part, that's where it's getting to the part where like this is not worth, this is not worth it.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_06: I have to tell something or I have to do something or something like that.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_06: But yeah, the I'm sure they're counting the cost of what it if I leave now, how many people will get hurt?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_06: How big does my life change after this?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_06: And at some point, you might burst, like what she did.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_06: She just had to leave, she had to get a divorce.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if I've ever shared this before on the podcast, but I had I gotten to a point inside of my marriage where I was drinking myself to sleep.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was bulimic and anorexic.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was really killing myself because it was too painful to feel what was happening.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I started recovery and I had to write myself a letter like 15 years backwards.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if you could go 15 years back, what would you tell her?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then write yourself a letter 15 years in the future, and what would you tell her?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember sitting with the pen and paper thinking, I'll be dead.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: If I live this way for 15 more years, I'm not gonna be here.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: So something's gotta give.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we would record these videos during COVID that are probably still on YouTube, and I would go back and watch them the next morning to see if I was slurring my speech, if I was making sense, because I was so drunk that I don't even remember what we were recording.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_03: But that it's one of those things that I know about why people use drugs, alcohol, porn, whatever.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: Because it works, it feels good.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: And so those first couple of drinks probably felt good to help numb you.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_03: But that is an incredible amount of pressure.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: And Heidi, I think I speak for everyone when I say I'm glad you're still here.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Me too.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: It hasn't been 15 years yet, but we'll see.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm only five years away from it.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's yeah, I think I was 35 when I did that exercise because I remember thinking, Oh, I was 20 when I got married, and I was I'll be 50, you know, in five years.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just a wild way to pull yourself out and be objective a little bit.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_03: CJ, we have to give her a contract extension for five years to make sure that we can keep track.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: Have that drawn up, would you?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: You're our our former law student.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's right.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_03: So one of the things as we talk that makes me really curious is that even listening to this, if you don't go to church or haven't ever been invested in a in a faith community, you're going, see, those people got problems.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_03: These same problems are true in politics, in work, in small groups, in your wood club, in your Boy Scout troop, whatever you're a part of, your your running club.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: But in the church, we assign so much more to it because we want people to be godly and we want to go listen to godly people and we want to be led in a godly direction.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: Is this a line that people have to hopscotch back and forth?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_03: Or is there a way that we can figure out who's really godly that I can really listen to, really attached to, and really grow with?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because she found that older woman to live with at the end that she said was kind of like a grandmother to her.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think about Grace's uh episode, that podcast that we did with Grace, when she said I thought I was being sanctified through my suffering.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: And when we assign our worthiness, like we try to spiritualize our s situations because we can't make sense of it.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that finding finding people who are spiritually healthy and safe is a hard is I I don't know the answer to that, Steve.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: What about you, CJ?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you measure that?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_06: I think Steve said like with trust with any relationship, you just give a little and test it.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_06: I always have I'm always bothered by there's some people that just give this their full loyalty to somebody.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_06: And I mean they forget that people change, you know, just like people have good things and bad things about them, so you should be open to examining every time and testing that trust.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_06: But I'm so fortunate to have just you two, a bunch of people in my life to be able to trust.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_06: And I hope everyone could find those type of people, but I think to find it is like give a little, see how that goes, give a little bit more about yourself, see how that goes, and build that trust with people.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_06: Now, the hard part in this story is that everyone was drinking the Kool-Aid, like all the elders ignored the whistleblower, they even not fired, but when one of the the lady preachers found out about a second affair, called him out, say you tell the elders, or I will.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_06: And she ended up doing it, and they just ignored, they didn't believe it, or they just ignored it.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_03: Well, they said they didn't have any power to do anything about it, right?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: There was no disciplinary stuff, and so she left.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_06: God bless her for leaving, and you know, being having integrity, but a lot of people didn't have enough people in that church didn't have that um to protect her, yeah.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: And Grace said that too, didn't she?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like, she's like, then you end up being gaslit by an entire church community, right?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: I would say this though.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: I know when I left uh my job at the church, that I left kind of really under the same guise.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: This is somebody's pastor, this is a church, there's a lot of good here.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to like be problematic and split the church or divide it or you know drag anybody down.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_03: But so I want to flip that that if you're if you're looking for spiritually healthy people, and by the way, we're gonna do a whole episode on just that.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: If you're looking for that person and you see somebody that you think is pretty healthy and they leave, don't ask them publicly why.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_03: Go have coffee with them.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_03: Go um take a minute to hear their story.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: Because lots of people leave churches for lots of reasons.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_03: I'm moving.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, we left a church to go somewhere because our son worked there and he kept telling us, This is great, you should come.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, when our son who doesn't like church says, come to this church, you go.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_03: And so there's lots of people that leave churches for different reasons.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_03: But if you find somebody that you really sort of like and admire, go have coffee with them and go, Why are you leaving?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: And and ask them, you know, don't ask it like that, why are you leaving, brother?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: Horrible.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_03: But to just go, hey, I'd like to hear your story.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: And um, if you feel comfortable telling me why you're leaving the church, I'd love to hear it.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_03: But I think that search for for healthy people is a good one.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_03: And and I'm gonna pick on CJ for a second because when I met CJ, he didn't trust me because he didn't know me.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_03: I still don't.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: When I met CJ, when I met CJ, you know, we had it was a process of getting to know right him and getting to know I didn't trust him either in terms of I didn't know him.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: I thought we would just you know infiltrate his small group and see what happens.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: But um, over time I've come to trust CJ enormously, like with so much.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_03: And is he gonna let me down?
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: Probably.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, he stole my connect four game, so of course I have a giant connect four game in my garage.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to get rid of it.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he looked like I brought it, I brought it over to his house and borrowed it, and I I need to come back and get it because I don't think it'll fit in his car.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_06: Um, but I I I would say this though, because like this happened recently, and it I think it relates.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_06: If you're finding someone to trust, there's a time where me and my wife were having trouble recently, and Steve just came over with tacos, and I know he's a therapist, and I know he could do a lot of stuff, but he didn't even bring it up until like the very end.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_06: He's like, You want to talk about it?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_06: If not, it's cool, we eat tacos.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_06: But that's the kind of thing where, like, yeah, I would trust him because even when I'm feeling down, he wouldn't like either bark at me or give me like some therapy advice, or he's just there to be there, you know what I mean?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_06: So I just I really hope you could just try to trust people more and do that, find those relationships that really build into your your village of support.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_03: Friends, you have no idea how much tacos can heal.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_03: Go ahead, Heidi.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's what I would say because I'm trying to put myself back in that space of being in so much emotional pain and not knowing who to reach out to.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what a safe person looks like a safe person has no agenda.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: A safe person doesn't say, why did you leave?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: because you're trying to get them back to the church, or you need to go back to your marriage because that's what God says you need to do.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: A safe person says, I am here to listen.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: We can talk about it if you want.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have to talk about it.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not here to give you advice or to judge you.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here to just sit with you in this because it's hard.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that what's really difficult as well is that when you are a leader in the church, there is a certain level of presentation and image focus because you are trying to, you know, whether it's worship music or you're trying to engage people and help them connect to God.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so there is a sense of betrayal that people in the church feel when they hear, well, what do you mean your marriage isn't what it looks like to everybody else?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's because I played a part in that.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was trying to prop up the image that we were this great family and we had this perfect marriage, and that and and so that can be very shocking when people are processing that.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, wait a minute, it's not it's not what I thought it was.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's it's hurt happening on different levels.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that it's so much more nuanced than you know, the the kind of preaching he did, or the the extramarital affairs he had, or his obsession with sex, or her unwillingness to open up.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_03: Just to be clear, we're not talking about Heidi's ex-husband from the year we're talking about the guy, the guy in the pastor or whatever his name was.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right, right.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry, Josh.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_06: Josh is great.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: He was wonderful, it is wonderful.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: He's a wonderful, wonderful person.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're still very good friends.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_03: Heidi has an aunt.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you've ever heard this from your aunt, but um she I've heard her ask me and at least one other pastor this question Who do you have in your life that you will tell you when you're full of shit?
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_03: And um pardon the language if you don't like it, but everybody needs somebody in their life that will tell them when they're full of shit, that will tell that we'll be real with them.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: And clearly, this pastor in this special didn't have that.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: And when people did, including his wife, or I should say wives, because there are several, um, he didn't take it, and instead he relied dysfunctionally on a call from God and went, you know, I'm um Jesus loves me, and God told me I should cheat on you.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what he was saying, but um, it just wasn't going well.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_03: I I wanted I want to do something if I can.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_03: We're at a time where I want to start thinking about how do we wrap up because we've always said, you know, our mission is to do real talk, and I think we've done some of that today, and we talk about healing and we've talked about that a little bit, and then what helps.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I let's kind of come up with some stuff if we can to put our listeners.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_03: So if you're a listener and you're in a church, you never want to go to church because this is the kind of crazy stuff they do.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_03: We want to talk to you for a second, or if you're in a church that's bad and you have been thinking it, and now you know, all your spidey senses and all your Holy Spirit tugs are going, something ain't right.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, then we want to talk to you for a minute, but I'm gonna ask the question and pitch it to you guys.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_03: What can people do?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, one thing I've been thinking about is this.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_06: Um, I wrote this down spiritual abuse survives in complexity and silence, it can't survive in simplicity and community.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I I Well, that is so good.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_06: And I just remember in my recovery with um porn and less, and you know, it's an ongoing struggle, but isolation was part of that, and isolation and secrecy, and it enables abuse.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_06: And the only thing that really helped me is going simple, getting rid of all the distractions, going simple, focusing on a couple boundaries, and having community.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_06: Heidi shared with us something where this lady went through a bunch of abuse similar to this, and she just said, I'm I'm crawling back to church by simplifying my theology.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, where she literally read Proverbs 1 every day and prayed for, and that's what she's currently in.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_06: Growing up with the church, and that's where she's crawling back to the church.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_06: So I think if if you are experiencing abuse or you just don't want to go back to church from something that happened in the past, how can you make a path to get back?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_06: Whether you're just praying or crawling or reading a verse or reading, you know, just crawl your way back.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_06: You have time, there's no rush, but a direction is better than none.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_03: There's a story that I love, and it's in the Bible, and Jesus finds this uh blind guy, well, the blind guy finds Jesus, they connect, and Jesus heals them, and then the blind guy goes back home, and his parents and the friends don't really, you know, they they're in shock.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you now you can see, like, this is amazing.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_03: But but Jesus did it on the Sabbath, so others religious people were questioning him.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_03: Why did you do this?
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_03: How did you do this?
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_03: They they question the blind guy, and they go, Hey, was he, you know, was his theology right?
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: Was his this right?
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_03: Was his this right?
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_03: And the blind guy says this is a really great line.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_03: All I know is I was blind and now I can see.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_03: If you want to figure out the rest about him, go do it.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_03: And and I think that when we talk about simple, simplify our theology, when I'm struggling, I go back to Romans 8 because it's foundational for me.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_03: It starts with there's no condemnation, and it ends with there's no separation.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_03: And that reminds me of who God sees me and how God sees me.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_03: And even Jesus said, Listen, there's 600 laws.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_03: What are the most important?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_03: I love whoever asked that because that's my kind of guy.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_03: Give me the give me the list, you know.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_03: And Jesus says this love God and love people.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_03: And if we're doing anything else, we're not in the top two, and you don't have to stand understand everything else, but find a place where they're loving God and loving people.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm constantly being reminded of during these recordings that we do is that we can't confuse who God is and his character with how the church shows up.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like the church is gonna let you down, the church is gonna disappoint you, you can have every assurance in place and still fail.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: The church is not God.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: Your pastor is not the authority on God's like I don't want to say this wrong, but like your pastor isn't even the authority on what God says for your life, right?
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like we we can go and worship together and we can hear the message that the pastor brings, but it's our personal relationship with God at the end of the day, and it's learning how to trust that because that's not going anywhere.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's the thing that's gonna stay with you wherever you end up going to church or worshiping, or if it's staying at home and watching church on television or listening to a podcast or reading a spiritual book or going to the sunrise, which wouldn't be me because definitely not.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I I love what you're saying because I think we long for we crave certainty, we crave it, you know.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_03: We want to be able to make decisions with 100% accuracy, and because of that hope, when we put that hope in a pastor or in a song or in a politician or in a neighbor or in our husband or wife or partner, we want that, we want that certainty.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: And the hard thing for us in the faith world is there's some mystery, yes, and we may long for certainty, but there's gonna be some mystery that if we could fully understand God that he's not big enough to worship.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_03: And if we fully give our hope to a pastor going, well, finally this guy gets it, and he's gonna, or this woman gets it, and she's gonna, if we put that kind of hope, because we're craving certainty, then we may just need to learn how to live a little bit with some mystery.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: That one of my favorite books is by Peter Ens, E-N-N-S, and it's called The Sin of Certainty.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he talks about how like certainty is the opposite of faith.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like faith is we don't have the answers.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think about, you know, Steve, your son had leukemia when he was younger.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know what it's like to sit next to a sick kid.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: When a person is physically hurting or dying or wounded, we don't tell them why they're wrong.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: We don't sit there and go, well, if you would have done this, you should have done that.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like when a person is spiritually wounded, treat it with the same reverence and gentleness that you would approach a person with any kind of physical ailment.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a time for you to tell them where they screwed up and how they did things wrong.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's a time to be just to hold space and to listen and to pray and to support.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_03: That's really well said.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm I want to say too that because I think sometimes Christians get labeled or fall into the, well, then we should check our brains at the at the door.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_03: And as one who has really done a lot of uh research and work and and apologetics is what people call it when you're trying to figure out what's the truth, that we don't have to check our brains.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of really physical, historical, there's so much evidence and proof and all of those things about the Bible, but it's not ever going to be certainty.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's the part that you're talking about.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_03: That they're that as it's kind of like when I married Susie, I knew I was making a commitment and I knew she could do it.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_03: Like I knew she could be married for a lifetime.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_03: She was that kind of person.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_03: I knew she could do it.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't sure if I could.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_03: And so taking that step to go, I think this is right.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's good.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna do my best.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_03: And listen, 40 years later, I'm still hoping that we can continue to work on it.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, the bad part is when you say till death do your part, one of you has to die to get that all the way full.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_03: So we still got a ways to go, maybe.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_03: But I I do think that there's some mystery in the faith that we have to be okay with that God is God.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_06: So sometimes I think about like this, I get this imposter syndrome doing this podcast.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_06: Um, because there's the the naysayers that are like that theology is blah, blah, blah.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_06: I don't think you heard our podcast very well, but we we interview a lot of people I normally would never ever talk to, just because my circle does not get there, right?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_06: But we've talked to people with very different things, and our podcast is about being safe people for them, and that's what we're trying to tell people to do too.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, like we're not people, you know, we have Jewish people coming on, we have ex-Jehovah's Witness, and we have gays coming on, and people that have gone through a lot of dark stuff, and we're just here to be like, mm-hmm, we're here.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_06: Like, we're not being like, well, what you did wrong is, you know, there's enough of that going on on online, and it really racks my brain on how much labels we have on Christianity.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, since uh Heidi recommended a book, I'm gonna recommend two books because I think it does they both do such a great job of simplifying theology.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's an author named Bob Goff, G-O-F-F.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: He wrote his first book, it was a um a bestseller called Love Does.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_03: And it talks about how if God is love and we're trying to become like God, we got some work to do.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_03: Like Love Does.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_03: By the way, he's a great storyteller, really fascinating stuff that happens.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_03: You it's very entertaining reading.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_03: The other book that he I just reread because I felt like I needed an influx in this particular department.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_03: He wrote a book called Everybody Always.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_03: And it really sort of answers the questions like who's my neighbor and how often, like, who do I love and how?
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody, always.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_03: And um, I think that's the way God sees it.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_03: I really feel like God sees it as like if we're asking who's my neighbor, we're asking the wrong question.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_03: If we're asking, you know, who should I love, we're asking the wrong question.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_03: We should be asking, how should I love?
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_03: How should I include?
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_03: How should I accept?
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_03: How should I embrace?
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_03: And um, and it's gonna be messy, probably.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I love what you said about our our um podcast because we hope we're doing that.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_03: And make sure you put in the comments how you think we're doing, and we have an email address that we can respond to you and whatnot.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I and I think we'll put in our church notes too that at the end of this Netflix special, they have a website that they've dedicated called wanatalkaboutit.com.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_03: And it's wanna like W A N N A, the same way I would text it, wanatalkaboutit.com.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_03: And um, and it's for people that are hurting and for people that are um struggling.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I looked it up, looks like it's real solid.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_03: Heidi, wrap us up, figure out how to put a bow on this and let's go.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for listening to our podcast.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think this has been one that I was most reluctant to do, but it ended up being one of my favorite conversations because this is real talk about church hurt, and you can't always put a bow on it.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: But when the answer is love and love how God does and help draw people closer to Him, then I think that's as neat as we can wrap it.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for listening and be blessed.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: Bye, guys.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: Bye bye.