Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture invites you into transformative conversations at the intersection of faith, culture, justice, and the way of Jesus. Each episode, host Joshua Johnson engages guests who challenge conventional thinking and inspire fresh perspectives for embodying faith in today's complex world. If you're curious about how cultural shifts impact your faith journey and passionate about living purposefully, join us as we explore deeper ways to follow Jesus in everyday life.
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Shifting Culture
Ep. 333 Toni Collier - Why Healing Can't Happen Alone
What if healing doesn’t happen in isolation, but only in community? In this episode Toni Collier talks about her new book Don’t Try This Alone and the hard-won lessons she’s learned about vulnerability, resilience, and the necessity of others in our journey toward healing. Toni shares her story of brokenness and betrayal, the seasons of hopelessness she’s endured, and how confessional community became the place where God met her through the presence of others. We wrestle with questions of trust, forgiveness, church hurt, and what it takes to build relationships that reflect the love and presence of Jesus.
Toni Collier is the founder of an international women’s organization called Broken Crayons Still Color and helps women process through brokenness and get to healing and hope. Toni is a speaker, host of the Still Coloring podcast, and author of two books: Brave Enough to be Broken and her latest release, a children's book, Broken Crayons Still Color. Toni is teaching people all over the globe that you can be broken and still worthy, or feel unqualified and still be called to do great things.
Toni's Book:
Toni's Recommendations:
Forgiving What You Can't Forget
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Don't waste that call. Get up, get healthy, be honest. Do the hard work. It's hard, and it's gonna build resilience in you, and you're going to be able to one day look someone in the eye and say, You know what God's coming for you. You know how I know it, because he came for me. And that's been the greatest part of my honestly, of everything, is that I was weak enough to be comforted so that I know how to comfort others.
Joshua Johnson:Hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, our culture tells us to go it alone, that strength is independence, that resilience is self sufficiency. But what if it's wrong? What if healing real? Healing doesn't happen in isolation, but only in the presence of others that's at the heart of my conversation today with Tony Collier. Tony's story is raw, marked by brokenness, betrayal and the kind of pain most of us would rather hide. But it's also a story about the radical possibility of healing in community, about how vulnerability and confession, when practiced with others, can become a pathway not just to personal wholeness, but to reshaping the church into something more honest, more human and maybe even more faithful. This isn't just about Tony's journey. It's about ours. What does it mean to stop trying to muscle through life on our own? What does it look like to borrow hope from someone else when we don't have enough for ourselves? And how do we begin to imagine a community where weakness isn't a liability for the very place where God shows up. That's the conversation ahead. I think you'll find it a beautiful, raw and challenging conversation. So join us as we learn to not go it alone. Here is my conversation with Tony Collier. Tony, welcome to shifting culture. So excited to have you on. Thanks for joining me.
Toni Collier:Yeah, let's do it. I'm so excited and grateful to be on, and I think it's gonna be great.
Joshua Johnson:Okay, let's dive deep. Right away. Are you ready to dive
Toni Collier:deep? I have a motto on my podcast, go deeper. Go home. Okay, ready? All
Joshua Johnson:right, so we're talking about Don't try this alone. So your your new book that's out, want to make sure that we could heal in community, that we can't do this by ourselves. We live in a crazy, individualistic society and a culture where we think that we have to do everything by ourselves. I want to know some of your story, so just bring me into some of the the brokenness of Tony and then, and then, where did you find places where you tried to isolate or do it on your own? And then, How'd you make your way to community?
Toni Collier:Okay, I do. I'm gonna be honest with you. I love this go deeper, go home thing. There's been so much brokenness in my story. And you know, we don't have to fall into the pain comparison trap, because all of us have had brokenness in our life. We live in a fallen, broken world. This is what we've been dealt, the cards that we've been dealt. And for me personally, there's been so much. I mean, I was exposed to pornography when I was just a little girl at seven, my mom was very sick growing up, my counselor would call it parentification, this idea of like you becoming a parent too soon, but just had to take care of my mom out of a place of survival. And really, I would say that a lot of my story and the brokenness that's in it happened because of that. I didn't have a mom that was able, physically able to protect me. I was exposed to so much. I lost my virginity at 13. I started drinking and smoking, doing alcohol, drugs, partying, all the things, okay at 14 and 15 and 16 and so promiscuity and wild partying, all those things are part of my story. When I was just 19, I graduated college. I graduated high school in three years in college, in three years. I was a little bit of a nerd, but I kind of lived this double life where it was like nerd in school, but then like crazy party girl, for real, for real, and ended up getting with a guy that I knew for like, three months, and moving from Texas, where I'm originally from, to Georgia. And I was like, let's go. Let's get married. Let's do the thing so bad. It was so so bad, so fast. Okay, a lot of verbal abuse started off as verbal abuse turned into physical I ended up having a daughter in that marriage and getting a divorce when she was just one, I wanted to create more safety for her, and ended up getting saved at 21 and got into church ministry, which is still crazy to me. Every day I wake up, I'm like, Lord, are you sure? Because I don't really know what's going on here. Are you sure you want to use the crazy, wild party girl? He's like, yep, bring yourself on. And after I got a divorce, I honestly thought that ministry was over for me. I had a lot of church hurt from my first church, and I thought my redemption story was starting because I got remarried to a pastor, and I was like, This is it, baby, I have arrived. Okay. This is it. It's gonna be great. We were married for eight years. He had a son, and the truth is, I was hiding in the marriage. Year two, I found out about infidelity, and there were just repeated acts of infidelity over and over again, sex addiction, and it got to the point about two years ago where my ex husband called me and confessed that he'd been extorted, and there was a video, and there's just so much more infidelity that I did not know about. I honestly thought that we were healing and growing and our marriage was taking a turn, and it just wasn't, it just wasn't at all. And that was the moment where I think I probably felt hopelessness for the first time in my whole life. Even with all that trauma and brokenness and all the things there, was still just like this Teletubby spirit that I've got in me that's like, everything's great. Life is good, frolicking around. And what happens, I think, naturally, when we get on a healing journey, is that we kind of start ripping those band aids off, and we see that it really, there's some wounds there that need surgery, and there was a lot of wounds that needed surgery. And as a public figure, you know divorce is hard. Divorce in public is even harder. And there was just a point where I knew that I couldn't do it alone, and that was the point where I reached out to friends my community, and I realized, maybe for the first time in my life, how desperately we need people, how desperately we need them, and that's why I'm here talking about this book. Don't try this alone, telling people not from a place of pride or even leadership honestly, from a place of personal conviction and doing it wrong a few times, that truly, we should not be trying to live this life alone, especially trying to heal alone. And so there's a little bit of a go deeper. Go home for you.
Joshua Johnson:Thanks for going deep. Thanks for going deep. Yeah, when you said you finally hit this place of hopelessness, you just, you're you're done, you're hope like you don't have hope anymore. Some people think that hope means maybe if I change the morality of the story, like there's some hope, or if I, you know, do something different, that's going to be my hope, yep. But so then, once you hit hopelessness, even when you're trying to do the right things, what was true hope for you? Where did you have you found true hope? Yet? Have you gotten there, if not, that's okay, but we can get there together.
Toni Collier:Have we really arrived at all
Joshua Johnson:anyway? We'll never we'll never arrive.
Toni Collier:But what I say now, I run some women's course groups on healing. We do like, eight weeks once or twice a year, and one of the things I tell these women at the very beginning now is that hope really is just a belief that things can get better when we get to a point where we actually don't believe that there's more for us, that God is doing a good work in us, that actually the pain is not worth it, but it's 100% not wasted, that anything and everyone can be redeemed, which is kind of Hard to say, especially in a situation like mine, where I had a whole marriage end an unwanted divorce, because someone wouldn't change, right? I still do deeply believe it, because I've seen it, and I've witnessed it, and the truth is, we have a hope. It's anchored in Jesus, and also it's anchored in the way that we show up, right, the way that we believe about this world and what we can offer, and that's where the hope is coming from. Me, it's like no, no, no, I've bounced back before. I've seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living before. It's okay, like I can get back up again. And I think for many people, it's just hard to believe that for themselves, and so that may just mean that, like me, in a moment of hopelessness, you need other people to give you hope, to let you borrow hope until you can hope for yourself
Joshua Johnson:again. We're in a day and age, though, where community has let us down. We are in places where we've looked up to to leaders and they're not the people we thought they were. Yeah, there is different types of abuse. There's there's other things that community is like, Man, I don't want it anymore. I want Jesus. I don't want his body. I where people are at, yeah, for some strange reason, Jesus decided to use humans, yeah, his hands and feet to be the embodiment of him, to absolutely that we need one another. How do we continue like? What does healthy community look like? How do we build some of that health? Yeah, air that it actually reflects more of Jesus than it does our broken humanity.
Toni Collier:Well, I think one of the things that you first said touches on one of my points, and it's we've really put a lot of eggs in the pastoral leadership basket. We are quite literally putting people on pedestals that we want to rip them off of when we realize that they're human and our tension is that, you know, Jesus came. To level the playing field like I don't know what happened somewhere along the way with the church, but somebody convinced somebody, and a whole generation of people, that Jesus did not level the playing field, that actually pastors and leaders and your favorite Bible teacher and your favorite worship leader have somewhat developed this access to God that everyone doesn't have and that's just not true. And and so I think we start there. It's that we are all human, and we cannot make pastors and leaders our Savior. We actually have to let Jesus be our Savior, and we have to stop putting people on pedestals. And it's it's our responsibility as leaders as well. I am very like anti celebrity culture in the church, I'm just not in for it. And the truth is, yes, consumers, members, followers, whatever you got to control your desire to idolize people. But as leaders, we also have to push back on it. Oh, wait, no, that's weird. Don't do that like I'm imperfect, I'm flawed. We also have to practice being vulnerable and honest about our flaws. I think nine times out of 10 you get into a relationship with someone and you get hurt because your expectations aren't met, because you've had expectations that don't align with their abilities. And so what happens naturally is that people start exposing their addictions, not you know, all these different things in a relationship, and you're shocked and disappointed, but it's because there was a lack of vulnerability and honesty. If you get into a relationship with me, you will know very quickly I have ADHD, okay, blame it on my mind, not my heart. I may forget things. I may forget to call you back like I struggle with this, you'll know these things about me on the front end, because I'm not afraid to be vulnerable about who I am and my weaknesses. I'm not afraid to talk about my past addictions and the things that have really held me up. I'm not afraid to say I had to stop with alcohol completely because I don't have self control in that area. It is what it is. And the Bible, and my knowledge of the Bible, does not change that weakness, but it gives me the ability to say, here is a weakness. This is where I may fall short. This is what you can expect. And now you get to actually see that God is big. Because if God would still use me a crazy, flawed ex addict, crazy party girl, then he can use anyone. And I think that's the tension in us trying to build community. The last thing I'll say about this is actually not my words at all. I was just filming with um, two incredible leaders, Crystal Evans Hurst and Sheila Walsh, and they said something so profound that changed the game for me when it comes to betrayal and building community and trusting again. Sheila Walsh said the beauty of the 11 outweighs the betrayal of the one. And she was talking about the disciples and Judas. Come on. The truth is Jesus knew Judas would betray him, and he allowed the other disciples to see it happen. He also knew that Peter would betray him. Let's be honest. There was a couple betrayers in the group. Okay. Peter would deny even knowing him, which is such a crazy form of betrayal, and he would show us what it looks like to go after Peter again, to believe in Him again, to love him again, to put boundaries around him, healthy boundaries, because boundaries are biblical, which maybe is another conversation. But Jesus taught us that we can have these friendship circles, and we can trust in people again and believe in people again and rebuild everything again,
Joshua Johnson:vulnerability and weakness. Of Paul's boasting in his weakness and saying, you know, the power of Christ will come through me like so that Christ could be lifted up. How do we do that? Well, when we think like, Hey, I'm just gonna dump, like, trauma dump on on people. Like, that's gonna be weakness. And so Jesus is actually working in here, but that's not actually healthy and good if we trauma dump. So what does it look like to to really, truly be weak so that Christ can work through us?
Toni Collier:Yeah, I think it's actually two things. I think the first thing, and I've always said this, people are like, whoa, Tony. You're so vulnerable. You're so honest about your story, like we know everything about you. And the truth is, people may know everything about me, but actually you know everything about me in certain seasons and certain timing. Because I think the litmus test for us, the filter that we have to put our vulnerability through, is, am I bitter about this or hopeful about this. The truth is, when I first found out that my ex husband was still cheating and was being extorted and had, like, sent all this money to this person, it was crazy. I did not process it well, on social media, I actually started being a little feisty, a little subliminal. I went on Facebook, took my marriage relationship status down. Changed it to single out, because I got some spice in me. Okay, the spice is there, honey. And then I had a leader, friend, two leaders, Gerald and Reed, and they text me, and they were like, hey, this doesn't look great. You don't need to do this publicly. You got to figure out another way to do this. I ended up putting an advisory. Board in place to kind of protect me in some of my weakest moments, and steward me and lead me to better decisions online. Because I've always filtered leadership and vulnerability through this filter. And the filter is, Are you hopeful about it, or are you bitter? And I was bitter, and time needed to pass for me to heal so that I could get to a hopeful place and talk about it from that place. And the truth is we know that. We know the difference of somebody posting a status on Facebook, looking crazy, telling all their business about to lose their job, okay, because they didn't put all their business out there. And we know when someone has healed enough to be hopeful about the pain, and that's the litmus test. The second thing is that we have to form friendship circles. I talk about this in my new book. Even Jesus had circles, and we see them so clearly outlined. If we were to crack open our Bibles, the truth is his most intimate circle was him and God. There were moments where no one else was around, except for him and the Lord, his most intimate, vulnerable moments outside of that circle, the next circle was just three disciples, actually, not all 12. We see that in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he only brought three clothes, Peter, James and John and them suckers, still fell asleep. Let's talk about that. Okay, they did but, but the other disciples, for some odd reason, we're not invited into that vulnerable space. He only chose three, and we see the through line of Jesus's trust with Peter, James and John, post crucifixion. Then we see the other disciples. We have to get good at creating circles that can be shields for us to share our vulnerability until we can share it with others. There has to be your three. There has to be God. First, take a pit stop at the feet of Jesus and be vulnerable and honest. That's your practice ground. And then who are your like close people? Who are your people that are safe, that you can trust and be honest with, and that, I think, shields us from being all up on social media, looking crazy like I was,
Joshua Johnson:when people have betrayal after betrayal and get hurt and say, I'm gonna open myself up and I'm going to then try to actually cultivate these close friendships so that I could be okay I get another betrayal. How do we continue to foster community so that we can continue to heal, even though we know that, hey, Judas is there in the room. We have our betrayers. It's happening, yeah? How do we continue in it? Like, it makes me want to give up at times. Like, okay, here it goes again. Yeah? Like, so what's what
Toni Collier:do we do? What do we do? I'm gonna be honest. This is a spicy answer, but I had to do it myself. We have to look inward. Oftentimes, some of the reasons why we end up in repeated situations where we've been betrayed is because we attract it. Oh, jeez. The truth is, I attracted unhealthy men in my life because I was unhealthy and I wasn't unhealthy by choice. I had a dad who's an alcoholic, very verbally abusive in so many ways, we have since redeemed our whole relationship. That's another conversation. It's beautiful. I'm grateful for it. But the truth is our most formative years in the way that our neuro pathways form is from zero to 13, we are learning how to be treated and how to treat others during those years. So whatever that cultivated in you, you carry that into all your relationships. And that's what I did. I attracted men who were aggressive, yelling, screaming, and thought that was love, because that's what I saw in my dad. I made men my savior instead of my partner, because I didn't have a Savior. I didn't get saved until I was 21 I was, you know, deep in the trenches of all kinds of sin, and at the end of the day, we as humans, we we have this thing in us that the Lord, I think, has put in us that we crave for something and someone to follow. And the problem is we exchange God for everything else that's easy, my boyfriend, my girlfriend, addictions. I mean, for me, alcohol, we drugs, all kind of x, all that stuff, because we, our bodies, are longing to be deeply connected to someone who's trustworthy. And that's in Jesus. And so I definitely think the first thing that we have to do is look inward heal some of the things that we have. I know that the future of relationships for me will be healthier because I can see things now that I didn't see before my unhealth.
Joshua Johnson:I mean growing up, if you have these disordered attachments that you know, hey, this is what you were given. Attachment to love is not safe, and to others. How did you start to form a healthy attachment to God so that you could actually see that he's the the one, he's the savior, he's the one that is trustworthy, that you could go to, that you. He will not forsake you in the
Toni Collier:middle of things, well, there's two things. Number one, I had to develop a faith of my very own. I had a very fragile faith at first. At 21 I got saved. I hopped into a church that didn't really have a good discipleship model. So it was like the pastor, the pastor, the pastor, the pastor, and his depiction of God was, God's going to be mad at you if you don't do what he says that if you don't tithe enough, do enough, serve enough, like very performative, very prosperity gospel, that's what my faith was formed in, right? So then, when I started to get mentors in my life who were a little bit healthier, who had a little a better view of God and who he was, they started to say, you know, that's not true. The Bible actually says this, right? Which is honestly the tension with prosperity gospel, because ain't barely no scriptures being used at all, okay? Or they're being thwarted with no context. They're dry and they're skinny and they are used to prove a point versus proving a Savior. You know, it's crazy, but anyways, so at first, I had to develop enough fortitude. And also, again, this goes back to community, enough trusted people around me to help me reshape my faith in God. I went to a new church, North Point, ministries under the leadership of Andy Stanley for almost eight years, and it totally changed the way I see I saw God, because at that church, a healthy God was rooted out of a healthy church environment, the people were healthy, and so they pointed to a version of God that was true and pure and healthy. No, God is not turning his back on you because you didn't give the $100 in the tithe. Call, okay, no, he is longing for presence and witness with you. He wants to equip you, show you, talk to you, comfort you. All these things that I just did not believe God could do. I mean, I was just like, shocked. I was like, well, he's so nice. What happened? It's like, Well, duh, you know. And and I think that starts with us choosing again, counseling community and a healthy church really help it matters. But the truth is, our faith starts and ends with us, and so we have to develop a personal relationship with the God of the universe enough to know His voice that when you go into a church that pretends that it's his voice and it's not really you know it for yourself.
Joshua Johnson:We also live in a culture where some pockets of Christianity worship a idealized version of family with mom and dad, two kids, yep, my picket fence, and this is what God's intention is for family. Jesus said some crazy things, like, hey, unless you hate your mother and father, brother, sister, you can't follow me. And he says you're going to form a new family. Like this is we have a new family now, when we're with God, how do we navigate singleness and marriage that's good and a new family and we're looking for places of healing and growth, and what it looks like for us as believers, I
Toni Collier:love that you asked that question because it gives me the opportunity to offer up the reality that I Have a weird family dynamic to some people, right? Like, I'm a single mama. I've got a 10 year old strong will blessing who is just giving us a run for our money right now, my sweet daughter, Dylan, I've got a three year old boy, Sammy, who is he just runs. He just runs, and he jumps off of things, and it's crazy work. And then I have an au pair that lives with me, a living nanny from Brazil. It is just like people are like, What is even happening right now? Very interesting family dynamic. For a long time, I felt like if I wasn't married, I would be discounted from doing ministry. And the truth is that wasn't just a belief that lived on the inside of me. It's the reality of so many things that have been insinuated about marriage. I was sitting in church the other week, and you know, I do love my church. I think they're doing the best they can, but they handed out these little flyers, and it was for a parent's night, if you want to get better with parenting. I turned the flyer over, and it was like, moms and dads, husbands and wives, we can't wait to see you as we all learn how to parent better. And it just is like, Oh, well, is this just only for like, husbands and wives? Because I'm a parent, and why wouldn't they say husbands, wives, single parents? Like, why not? And I think it's because of what you're talking about, society has painted this picture that the abundant life only comes in a certain package, and what a belittling way to view God. What? What? What a prime opportunity to put our God in a box to somehow make people feel like again, the the playing field is not leveled, and he can only bless certain people in certain. Situations that just makes him small. And I don't know about you, Josh, but I want a big God. I want a God that can defy all of my norms. I want a God that can show me that it doesn't matter if I'm single, married, divorced, one time, two times, that he still has goodness on the way for me. And that's what we should be telling people, that goodness is on the way. My friend, any of downs, she's been single for years and years and years and years, never been married, doing ministry, crushing it. She goes. We need to make sure that every single human on this earth knows that the abundant life is possible for anyone. If the path looks different, great, but the abundant life is available for all sons and daughters, single or not. And I'm hopeful, though, truly, I feel like there's a wave coming that's getting used to that in ways, but we've got to reiterate it, because we're kind of like reworking a theology that got thwarted. So we're really going to have to be intentional about talking about it.
Joshua Johnson:If you're saying, you've said over and over already, that God has leveled the playing fields like, Okay, we all play our part. We all have responsibility in it. Then, then I have to show up for other people. I can't just say, hey, somebody else is going to do the work it now is on all of us. Yeah, and so. So how do we shift that mindset? How do we move into a place where I actually have a role and a responsibility to the community around me. It's not all about me. I'm not a consumer. People are not just going to feed me and feed me and feed me. This isn't just about my healing and grow. It's for the healing of our community. Yeah, I have to do the work and show up and take responsibility for what my role in community is,
Toni Collier:you know, it's interesting because I did a podcast season and I talked about this concept of being the one or the 99 and I did it because I felt like we do exist in a generation of, honestly, if we're just gonna be 100% of weak Christians, okay, and not in the way that it's like I'm going to submit my weakness, but in the way that says I'm not going to get back up again, because I actually enjoy being a victim. I want to be, you know, in a place where people are serving me, and I get to serve at a women's shelter here in Atlanta, once a month, I teach a healing class, and I can tell you know these women, they have been abused and trafficked and prostituted, and all these in jail, in and out of jail, losing their kids. And for many of them, they are fighting to not be a victim, because that's all that they've known. And I just feel like they inspire me so much because they are living out what it looks like to be the one right to be the one sheep that's lost and abused and hurt and broken and all the things and for God to come after you and comfort you in that place, but not to stay there. God did not leave the 99 to go with the one and stay in pain, stay feeling lost in the wilderness. No, he goes to get the one, to bring them back so they can be a part of the 99 again, the truth is the 99 being the 99 is hard. It means you have to stand in the trenches. It means that you're going to be offended and you're going to have to turn the other cheek. Being the 99 is a narrow road. This is not wide. And I also think we have convinced a whole generation of Christians that when you say yes to Jesus, all the things get good. And I said, Well, actually, y'all lied. Okay, all of y'all suckers didn't lie. Because it actually got harder. Because while there's a target on my back from the enemy of our souls that's trying, with everything in him to get me to sin and be separated from God, I want to be the 99 and I'm okay. Let me say this. I'm okay with being the one, and we have to be okay with being the one that needs rescued, sure that needs rescue. But I also thoroughly feel like it's a privilege to be the 99 to stand strong with Jesus and to go rescue others. What are you freaking kidding me? It's beautiful. And the truth is we have to do our work to get to a place where we are rescuers, where we can go back and grab people with God who doesn't even really need our help, but has just somewhat decided that we get to be a part of this thing, which is amazing, but don't I mean, don't waste that, don't waste that. Call. Get up, get healthy, be honest. Do the hard work. It's hard, and it's going to build resilience in you, and you're going to be able to one day look someone in the eye and say, You know what God's coming for you. You know how I know it, because he came for me. And that's been the greatest part of my honestly, of everything, is that I was weak enough to be comforted, so that I know how to comfort others.
Joshua Johnson:So good. What else do we feel good? You know? Yeah, yeah. A lot of people say, Hey, you're just a sheep. You're dumb. You just need to be fed and fed. But if you look at sheep in a pen, they won't be pent up like they will scream and yell to be let out
Toni Collier:floors and sisters, yes, they're yeah, there's
Joshua Johnson:their. Whole life needs to be in the pasture, on the hills, out of the pen. And what we have done in the church is we have said, Here you sheep, stay in the pen. We'll feed you. That's good. What you're calling us to is being part of a 99 that goes out of the pen and goes with the shepherd to rescue the one to be that part of healing. It's beautiful,
Toni Collier:good. Well, I like how you put that. I'ma steal that one. I will reference you. I do want you to know
Joshua Johnson:you could have it. You don't even need to reference me. I'm sure I stole it from somebody else. That's what we all borrow from each other. That's good. What does then healing start to look like in community? How do we grow into a better place? What is, what is the healing journey with Jesus and community starts actually look
Toni Collier:well, I only know this, and only have the authority to say this because I've done it wrong, and over the past two years, I have fortunately been able to do it right. The day that my ex husband called me to tell me about this infidelity, he was being extorted. He had to tell me there was a video. It was crazy. It was interesting, because I was actually not home. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, but I was in Nashville, Tennessee, and I was filming a show with a Christian Network, and the next day, I got this call from my ex husband. I get off the phone, and I was like, Lord, what do I do? And I just felt an impression on my heart to call my friends. Now, lucky for me, I have been in what's called a confessional community for almost four years. It's seven of us. We have all come together and committed to doing a life of very deep vulnerability, and every month we get together on a three hour zoom call and we confess, which is just as scary as it sounds. Okay. Never gets better, but what? But what we're trying to do is build the muscle of confession that we can get to a point where we're so comfortable with our flaws and mistakes and our imperfections as humans that we share them in community, and then we're met with the power of witness. It's crazy that the day that I got the call from my ex husband, two of the women in my confessional community, two of my closest friends, were in the same hotel because they were also filming with this Christian Network. Now we live in two different states and cities, and they were there, and I just felt the Lord impress on my heart to call my people. And thankfully for me, we have a God that plans for our pain. And I called my friends, and they were right there, and I told them everything. What's interesting is that I had confessed a lot of things in this confessional community, but I never talked about all the infidelity we had been through, because I thought, oh, that's in the past. Like, that's not going to happen again. And so I was able to share everything with them year two, finding out about infidelity, finding discovering videos between my ex husband and assistants, like, nasty, I mean, just stuff, like really, really horrific things that I got to share with my people. And you know what they did? One of them ordered me room service because she knew already that when I get really anxious and I'm under stress, I don't eat, she quite literally, was like the hands and feet of Jesus. The other one text me this long prayer that I still have to this day. And she said, From this day on, I want you to create a little note of all the god wings that God will do for you in this season. Now I am fresh in the trauma. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about, but she she knew because she wasn't in trauma. This is the power of community that can quite literally be our strength when we don't have our hands, when we don't when we our arms are too weak, our legs when it feels like we're going to give out and fall to the ground, like they get to be this. This is why it's so passionate for me right now. Is because I've walked through what it looks like to live on the offense and not the defense, to have a reserve of people that that caught me when I fell, that didn't have to pick me up off the ground because they caught me when I was falling because they were already there. That's what it looks like. And you trust them, and you share with them, and you allow them to help you. My friends created an Amazon wish list for me, my kids in our new house, like I can't even tell. I mean the countless things my friends financially support, prayer, everything they were everything to me, everything, that's how you do it. Folks show up, sell all your business again and again and again, until you close people you know
Joshua Johnson:share your business as a confession community. I think confession is so key to our healing, we often think, you know the sin is too much, or this, this thing that has been done, we've done is way too much. We want to hide it. One of the things you write is being found out. Is not a punishment. Surprise. Why is the exposure of sin? Why is the confession so important to our he. Process. What does that do for us?
Toni Collier:Brene Brown has this quote. She says, We are imperfect and we are wired for struggle, but we are still worthy of love and belonging. And the truth is, this makes me want to cry. How much more does it mean to be worthy of love and belonging when someone can look you in the face and say, I know everything you've done. I know the nasty, dirty stuff that you don't want to tell nobody, and you barely was honest about it with yourself. Okay? I know everything, and I love you the same that changes you. It changes you. We can all love the perfect patty, the righteous Ryan. It's easy. We all have that one friend that one friend that just doesn't stop smiling. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's like, you kind of want to, like, hit them, just to see what they would do. You know, those people are so easy to love because they're showing up with the charcuterie, they've got the golf clubs, they're bringing water and Gatorades for everybody. That's easy stuff. The friend that you know that you barely want to invite, when you invite them, it changes them, because it shows us a love on the earth that only comes from heaven, a love that says, while you were still in sin, I loved you and I sacrificed everything for you. And when we get to be my friend, Anne Voskamp says, when we get to be Jesus with skin on. When we get to live a cruciformed life for other people, we get to remind people that there is a Jesus who loves them like this. I'm not leaving the room. I'm right here. And the next time you have something that you need to confess, it's way easier, because, you know, these people aren't leaving, and it changes you
Joshua Johnson:that sounds like what the church is supposed to be.
Toni Collier:Right? They meant by Ecclesia is this? Is this what was happening in Acts in the upper room, when everything had, when everyone had everything they need, because everyone gave and showed up. Oh,
Joshua Johnson:that's what it is. Amazing. We I know people that have had hidden sin for 25 years, yeah, and they're forced to confess some other time, and it's just a confession that doesn't mean anything. It's but I truly believe that if we have what you have, these confessional communities, that we normalize confession, that's it. You build the muscle, and you build the muscle over time, over and over again, this long term, hidden abuse and sin, come on, it's gonna get exposed so quickly, and it's just gonna be, like, thrown away. It's nothing, it's nothing. What? So I want to know, how do we start to build these communities? These are important, like, I this is gonna heal the church?
Toni Collier:No, it is truly. How do we build these things? How do we build it? Tell me. So I actually write about this in my new book. I have a chapter on confessional communities. And honestly, I've been doing like, women's course groups, like 50 to 100 women eight weeks, two times a year. And after the course group was over, it was like, bye, girl. Like it was just kind of over. Well, when I started in my confessional community, I was like, Man, I need to, like, maybe take my course group of 50 to 100 women and offer that they continue to do life together. So my last two course groups have transitioned into confessional communities, and I can't even we, we like, do a lot of surveys because we really want to know that we're being effective. And my goodness, we last month, literally just last month, one of the women that are from our course group, and I will get to how to build a course group, I promise. But I want to distress the importance so that, you know, it's important to do this and to really go deep. One of the women from my last course group, she called me. She was like, Hey, we've had an emergency in our confessional community. I'm like, oh my goodness, call me. What's happening? One of the women in the conventional community that had transitioned from the course group passed away. She had a daughter with severe autism and cerebral palsy and just a really, really difficult situation. And those women, strangers that had never met in person, on met on the internets, on a zoom that Tony Collier put together, were at that funeral for her pulled together. Resources showed up, and this is the thing that makes me emotional, is that I think about her daughter, who, I mean, gets to see what it looks like for a group of practically strangers to say, we will be the church for your mama and for you. I can't even imagine the ripple effect of generations that that daughter will get to witness, because these women practice witness. And the truth is, it's simple, truly. Some confessional communities start with strangers, complete, actual strangers. The concept is came from a brilliant psychiatrist named Dr Kurt Thompson. Has radically changed my life, and he literally will put strangers in a room. They will commit to meeting one time a year or one time a month for however many hours. And within the confessional community, the template, if you will, is asking the question, what are you grieving and what are you longing for? What are you grieving and what are you longing for? And truly, it guides the confessional community. We also go through something called story, liturgy. So once you form your confessional community, that may be for you. If you're in a small group and you're like, Hey, y'all like, the Bible study is kind of cool, but like, Y'all want to go deep about some real stuff. You know what I'm saying? You could start these conversations within the context of your small group, your sports group, your pickleball team, your family, I mean, all these things. And we go around the room and we talk about what we're grieving and what we're longing for, and no one ever responds with a solution. This is actually the key, instead of solution, which is like left brain logistics, we turn that sucker off, we go straight up right brain. When you said that, it made me feel this, because oftentimes when you get in a room full of pain, when someone says something about their pain, and it impacts you deeply, it's because it's touching up on something in your story. When you say something like, Oh, I got this scripture. And if you do this, it detaches you from their story and points them back to another source, which is a really valid source. But when we're in the room, we get to be literally Jesus with skin on for each other. We invite the Holy Spirit into the room, and then we stay present. We just practice withness. I'm not here for solutions, I'm here for withness, and we stay consistent. And you also need leaders, okay, because a titanic that's going down needs somebody to turn the ship. Okay? So you have a leader that's coordinating these calls every single month that's intentional about keeping everyone connected, that starts the group text so that you guys are together and practicing withness throughout the month, with before the call. And that's it, meeting and dwelling together. That's it.
Joshua Johnson:That's good. I think facilitation of groups is, is really important to figure out how to do that. Well, I mean, we you run into those things all the time. Those groups can go off the rails if you don't have someone knowing how to we
Toni Collier:didn't have some off moments too, you know. So we like, Yo, When are we meeting again? Okay, wait a minute,
Joshua Johnson:you know. So how do you turn off the solution mode. How do you turn that off? Like we're it's ingrained in me to be the Savior. Like I want to be the Savior. I want to fix it. That's I'm still learning it. I'm like, I'm learning it with my wife. I'm like, Okay, I know you don't want me to fix it right now, but I sure want to fix it right now. How do you turn that off?
Toni Collier:You know? It's the viral video of, like the woman with the nail in her head and and she's like, I have such a headache. And my husband is like, well, there isn't No, no, you're not listening to me. I have such a headache. And he's like, but if you just let me just pull it out, you know? And the truth is, we're made in the image of God. So yeah, we want to save. We are mirroring a savior, of course, and Jesus showed us that sometimes weeping is the only solution. I mean, gosh, can you just imagine when he's in front of Mary and Martha, their brother has died, and he's been dead for four days. And what's interesting about that day thing, and the reason why they bring it up is because in that context, in that time, there was kind of like the superstitious belief that your body hovered over you for three days. There was a chance you could come back to life. Lazarus is dead for four days, and Jesus comes back on the scene, and Martha Lokey gives him some grace. She At first, she was like, Hey, where were you? If you were here, my brother wouldn't have died. And she gives him grace by saying, I know Lord, like I know that he's gonna, you know, rise again in the end days when you return, I know. And then Mary comes up, and she is pissed. Okay, let's just call it for what is. She's so mad. She's hurting. She didn't even leave the house to go see Jesus. At first he had to call her to him. She comes to him, Where were you? Why don't you save my brother? And Jesus looks around the room at the two women crying, and there was there said, there was also some other people in the community that was consoling Mary. He's looking at his people, and he starts to cry. And the question that you want to ask yourself is, now, Jesus, you know You about to raise this man from the dead, why wouldn't you just tell them? Why would you just as a matter of fact, Jesus, we've actually seen you heal someone from a different city. Yeah, so why don't you just speak like, why didn't you do that? And I just think that Jesus wanted to model to us that, yeah, he is going to work all things out for the good of those who love Him. And it's okay for us to grieve too in the waiting. It's okay. It's actually holy. Presence is holy. Withness is holy before the solution comes before the cherry on top comes. Jesus showed us that. And I just think we get to model it. And I think it heals us truly, truly. I've seen it. It
Joshua Johnson:does. It can, yeah, but, man, it's so hard when, like, hey, there's it's real, like I, I know that I just want Jesus is going to weep with me. He's present with me. This person is sitting here, present with me. That's great. But also, you want a solution? I want
Toni Collier:it to go away. But no, tell me, though, no, you know, it's interesting. We have this saying in our confessional community, and we're a group of seven women who, like all do the same thing. We're leaders, we're speakers, podcasters, authors, all the things. And so we are smart. We can come up with solutions. And we have this saying in our confessional community, because, again, those three hours are saved and separated for withness, and we're all very well connected, and we're all very smart. So we have this saying in the group, when you're ready and not before. We say things like, hey when the call is over, if you'd like, I'd love to talk through some solutions, but when you're ready, and not before. Because what's easy for all of us is to rush through the pain. We want to get out. We want to get to solution. I just kind of sort of believe that that messy middle is where resilience grows. It's where capacity grows. I tell my woman, women in the healing course, I'm like, Guys, healing is not about somehow getting to a point where a perfect life magically appears. It's about creating capacity to hold the pain, and that capacity is created in the valleys when you let yourself feel it. And that's what we're doing. We're fostering a separate time for us to just be with each other, not void, eventually, of solution, because we have to work, you know what I'm saying. We have to get out of things that are abusive. We have to, you know, all these things. And I think we do surgery when we just let it be about with this for a little while.
Joshua Johnson:Yeah, witness is so important. We, my wife and I worked with war refugees for a long time in the Middle East. And like at first we we went to the Middle East so that we could see Jesus be known in places he's not yet known. Wow. And we realized working with war refugees like part of it is actually being the presence of Jesus in those places. It's not just about telling them about Jesus. It's actually being like Jesus with them. I remember someone had their four day old daughter passed away like so they come out there, the war refugees coming out of the war and, you know, and then another tragedy happens. This four day old daughter dies. And we come over and like, what do you do? What do you say? And so we're sitting there, and all i i Just remember, it's my wife went up next to her, and she said, hey, when Jesus's friend died, he wept, he cried, and he's weeping with you, and she just put her arm around her and just sat there and just held her. And sometimes that's all we could do, but sometimes that's the best thing, yep, that we could do,
Toni Collier:yeah, the best thing. I love that so much, and I love it for the person who says, Well, I'm not a communicator, I'm not a writer, I'm not a podcaster, like, how can I be Jesus? For people I don't have these gifts and talents. Presence is enough. It's just enough. I don't have any other fancy thing to say. All I know is in some of the hardest moments of my whole life these past two years, it wasn't the donuts that my friends brought, it wasn't the furniture that they put in my house. Sometimes it was my friend Aaron, just quiet on the phone while I wept that those it's like seared into my brain that I had people that would just be with me, that didn't expect anything from me, I didn't have to articulate all the things I was feeling, that they would just let me cry. That takes a a strong, faithful friend. To say, Man, I could offer up so many different things right now, but presence, I know, is what you need, and it's enough. Truly.
Joshua Johnson:Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, that's beautiful. So what is your hope for your readers, the people pick up, don't try this alone. What do you hope that we Yeah,
Toni Collier:I think the first thing is, I really hope that the book validates pain and brings out bravery from that place, because I do think it takes bravery to be honest about what you're going through. I think from that place of being brave enough to be honest, I deeply, deeply pray that people would start to get bold, that they would start to put themselves out there. I mean, it's awkward. It's awkward as an adult, you know, like, Hey, you're gonna be my friend. What are you even talking about? Like, it is just difficult and awkward, and it takes a boldness that says, I know that I can't do this life alone, and so I'm going to fight for it. I'm gonna get back up again. I'm gonna trust again. I'm gonna believe that there are 11 out there that I can trust, even though that one betrayed me. I'm not gonna let anyone take away my opportunity to have people that see me and know me and soothe me and create safety for me and secure attachment. I just I pray that bravery comes. I pray that a boldness comes, and then when you have built a solid community, my prayer is that you would be a good friend. That's been the awesome thing about my story is that I've seen so much pain and I needed to be rescued from so many things that now I know how to rescue I know what people need, because I've been shown such a grace and a love and just I just have the best people in my life. I have prayed for them. I've had hard conversations with them, like we have had ruptures, is what we call them, and we have repaired them. But now I can like because I've experienced what it feels like to have good friends. I can be that to other people. I can be that to my children.
Joshua Johnson:So good. If you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give?
Toni Collier:Hey, close your legs. Okay. Uh, I'm sorry that one just came out of me. It's true. Um, maybe it's something more profound that's going to come here in a second, but that was the first thing that can Okay, um, no, but I, I was, um, I've been a performer my whole life. I've been on stages. I graduated high school at 16, college at 19, like, I mean, just run, run, run, run, run, check off the to do list all the things like it was about doing. And truly, I wish I could look at 21 year old Tony and say the greatest thing you'll ever do is be a daughter of God, like not do anything. It's like the greatest thing you'll ever do is be like you will just learn how to just be, and I'm still learning that. But that piece of advice, I think, would have helped me invite people in sooner. I don't think I would have been in pain alone for so long if I would have known that I didn't even have to do anything to be loved. Okay, so that's my second answer, but that first one remains true, dang it. Okay. You're loved.
Joshua Johnson:You're loved so deeply loved. Yes, anything you've been reading or watching lately you could recommend,
Toni Collier:ooh, that's a hard okay, so I read good boundaries and goodbyes by Lisa Turkers. Game Changer. I am clawing. I'm talking about clawing because I don't want to read it forgiving what you can't forget. It's like the prelude to my book. It's like, if you're having a difficult time trusting people, that's where you start, and then you'll come on over to my book. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, but, my goodness, it is. It's just been like the hardest thing for me to forgive, you know, and I just don't want that to hold me back from a really fruitful life of community and withness. But those are the two.
Joshua Johnson:Well, that's good, because you know what forgiveness does? It releases you from the chains that you're carrying, not from what someone did to you or anything else. That's it. It is, it is a beautiful thing. It's so good. And it's Yeah, it doesn't give people excuses at all, but it releases you from the chains that you've been carrying. So, yeah, forgiveness. It's want it, but the secret sauce. It is the secret sauce. Is the secret sauce. Tony, this book, fantastic. I really want people to go and get this book, learn how to actually do it with a community, to heal, to come together, start these confessional communities, because these confessional communities will heal the church. We've come up with a solution. We know it to consult your church. That's right. And so Tony, this has been fantastic. Is where can people connect with you? Where would you like to point people to? Is there anywhere specific you'd like to get have people get the book?
Toni Collier:Yes. You can head to my website. It's tonyj collier.com, T, o, n, i, j, c, O, L, L, I, E, R, everything is there that you need. I hope you dive in. I hope you grab some of the freebies that's on the website too. Those are super helpful and useful. And I hope you grab the book. Don't try this alone.
Joshua Johnson:Perfect. Well, Tony, thank you for this conversation. It was fantastic. I really enjoyed talking to you, thank you for going deep right away, and it was fantastic. So thank you. Thank you.
