121. How To Talk About Church Hurt Without Tearing Down Faith with Scott Martin

This is a shortened version of episode 113 for Content Christian Media Conference. Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

Gratitude And Podcast Milestones

Nancy Bruscher 0:00

You found ordinary people extraordinary things, and I'm your host, Nancy Brewster. We talk to ordinary people, just like you, about faith and hope. It's Thanksgiving week, and I'm so thankful for you. Ordinary People Extraordinary Things Podcast would not be here without you. With a heart of thankfulness, I want to give you a couple of quick stats. We celebrated our four-year anniversary this month of over 14,000 downloads in 113 countries. The number one downloaded country is the United States. But Singapore is our second most downloaded country. I am praying you practice even more gratefulness this season, and I am truly grateful for you. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for sharing.

Meet Scott Martin

Nancy Bruscher 0:48

Now let's get started with Scott Martin. Welcome to Ordinary People Extraordinary Things. I'm so excited to have Scott on. Scott, thanks for being on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Hey, it's my pleasure. Thanks for inviting me to come on and for a chance to talk.

Nancy Bruscher 1:01

Yeah, I'm looking forward to our conversation. Yeah, me too. If people don't know who you are, can you give three words or phrases to describe yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yes, three words. I would describe myself as playful, studious, and stubborn. So those are I like to have fun and sometimes I probably have too much fun because I try

When Church Hurt Pushes People Away

SPEAKER_00 1:20

to have fun with everything.

Nancy Bruscher 1:21

Well, we're gonna talk about, I guess we'll just use the word church hurt because that is a common phrase. How do you think that this hurts people who are not in the church? If they have this common phrase that we see, do you think that's hurting people from wanting to be a part of the church?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Yeah, I'm I mean, I do think it really does. Because, you know, anytime whatever the group is, you can pick whatever group. If you hear something bad about this group, hey, this group is whatever, selfish, manipulative. It makes you not want to do that. And I think the term church hurt, I want to be careful when I say this. And so I hope I hope you'll hear my heart on this. I feel sometimes like we use it kind of like we use the word trauma, that I'm really grateful that we live in a culture that recognizes trauma. Because I think for a long time we just didn't. We just like, oh, you're fine, get over it, like walk it off. You're you're gonna be okay. But now that we recognize that, like, no, there's people have experienced real trauma and that does things to you. I think that's I think that's healthy. I do think sometimes as people we overuse that and we'll say things like, oh, this was this was trauma. And it's like, well, no, it wasn't good, but it wasn't necessarily trauma. And I kind of feel the same way with church hurt that like I don't want to deny that there are some people within the church that have done some horrific things. There just are. They have abused their power, they've manipulated people, and that's the stuff I

The Church As Jesus’ Bride

SPEAKER_00 2:50

need to think. I think sometimes we need to separate from just we're we're human beings.

Nancy Bruscher 2:54

The church is Jesus' bride. What does Jesus feel like when we talk badly about it?

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Your bride, like when you talk about bride, and you could you could flip the metaphor around and say husband too if you want to, but your your spouse, most of us are gonna know, like you would know, you and Chris have been married for a while. Like, he's not perfect, right? I know that I know that my wife is not perfect. I'm not gonna stand here and say everything about her is perfect, but at the same time, you better not talk trash about my wife. This is this is my wife, this is my bride. This is I would do anything for her, I would give up anything for her. As much as we may acknowledge you're not perfect, you still don't back talk it. Because one, it's just an issue of respect for her, but also even for me. And so I think Jesus using that metaphor of this is my bride, that lets us know how he feels about the church. That the church isn't just some club that he started, like, hey, here's this this club, and you can join it if you want to. That no, this is my bride that I gave my life for. And yeah, I know she's not perfect, and I'm not gonna pretend that she's perfect, but when you talk bad about my bride, I actually think I take that harsher than than Linda would. If we found out that someone was, oh, someone's saying this about my wife, she would be hurt and she would be upset. I actually think I'd be more upset, and I think that's probably the way that Jesus feels. Now, I want to be careful that I do think it's okay, and we should as a church, we should be able to acknowledge when we've messed up. We should, we should, we we should be the first to admit, you know, we got that wrong, or that's not right. Or if someone sometimes we're blind to that and someone calls us out, we should be able to admit, yes, yes, we we were wrong, we did that, we repent. But I do think we have to be careful that we're not getting into gossiping, destroying Jesus' bride. Because again, one day, and I don't I don't say this is a fear thing, but like one day we stand before God, one day we stand before Jesus, and it's like, hey, what what did you say about my bride? How did you how did you treat my bride? Because how you treat the bride is an indication of of how you treat Jesus. And again, I'm not telling people like if if people experienced like abuse or things like that within the like within the church, there's a whole lot of difficulty that and I'm not telling you you should get over it and go back to that church, and and I know there's a long healing process, but I I do think we're not always always cognizant of who or what we're talking about. That this isn't just like you know, I like this organization or I like that organization, that that this is the bride of Christ, of which his spirit is alive within this body, he's redeeming it, he's restoring it, this is how he's working within the world. And so, too quickly we just get mad and walk away. Whereas what would it be like? Like Jeff is a good example, but there's a lot of other people that are examples. Man, I'm gonna pour my everything into making the bride of Christ as good and as beautiful as it can be. This is the hope of the world, this is Jesus' bride, this is what he's chosen, this is what he staked his mission on, it's what he staked his kind of reputation on. And so, how do we build it up instead of just tearing it down? Yes, how do we talk honestly about it? How do we repent? But how do we work to build it up to make it better as opposed to just trashing it? We are one embodiment of this universal family, and so even though I may talk real well about Southeast, where we go, like, oh, Southeast is great, Southeast is awesome. If I'm over here trashing this other church, well, that's not any better. They're just as much his bride as we are. Jesus says in in John in the Last Supper as he's praying, that the world will know that you've sent me really by the oneness of the church. And Steve, he's our missions pastor, he was saying that he goes, Yeah, the world doesn't know, and partly to blame for that is because the church isn't one. Because we're divided, because we divide amongst ourselves and we talk bad about ourselves and we gossip about

Healing Steps And A Leader’s Apology

SPEAKER_00 6:55

ourselves and we put each other down. That the center of our witness is our unity and our love for each other that's founded on our love for Jesus. For people that have experienced church hurt, no matter what that looks like, you're an individual who's experienced it from a leader, or you feel rejected from the church, or maybe if you're even a pastor that's felt rejected, I just one, I just want to acknowledge that and say, we see you. And I think that I think that's legitimate. And and I think that hurts because pain always hurts the worst when you experience it from places that you feel like you shouldn't. That's why it's hard from family, it's hard from the church. And as a church leader, I just I want to apologize for that. And I really do want to say I'm sorry that we we should be better, we need to learn. But I also want to encourage you to don't let that be the end of your journey. That that's why I think a healthy view of church, a healthy view of leaders, a healthy view of pastors is yeah, we're all human. Again, that doesn't excuse some, but just what's one small step? We said it, but I really believe it. Like a lot of times we get hurt, our our biggest hurts come from other people, but that's where our healing comes from, too. And the church is an incredibly healing community when it's at its best. And so, how how can you begin to take a step?

Nancy Bruscher 8:09

That's really

Favorite Verse And Closing Thanks

Nancy Bruscher 8:10

good. What is your favorite Bible verse?

SPEAKER_00 8:13

So, my favorite verse is actually Acts 2024, where Paul's talking about he says, I consider my life worth nothing, if only I can finish the task that the Lord Jesus has given to me, the task of testifying to the good news, kind of like Paul. I just kind of feel compelled by that. But that's what I want to share good news with people. And I just like how consuming that is.

Nancy Bruscher 8:32

I can't wait to hear how God is going to use these words. I'm just so thankful for this time. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yeah, thank you, Nancy. I did too. Thank you so much for for what you do and for this and for having these conversations. It's important and I know it's really helpful for people. So thank you.

Nancy Bruscher 8:48

Thank you. On Ordinary People Extraordinary Things, your story is his glory. I pray that this conversation has really impacted your heart. I know it has for me. I'm so thankful that you are part of Ordinary People Extraordinary Things. Thanks for continuing to listen and share these stories with others. I'll see you in two weeks for a brand new episode.