Jason Daye 
Welcome to FrontStage BackStage. This week we have a hand-picked highlight that we believe you will find valuable. If you do, we invite you to listen to the full conversation. You can find the link to the complete episode in the description. As always, please like, comment, subscribe, and share, so we can continue to bring you meaningful ministry content, helping you and pastors and ministry leaders just like you flourish in both life and leadership. Are you ready? Let's go. How do we begin to address if we recognize there is kind of unhealthy, toxic shame in our lives? How do we begin to address that, especially as pastors and ministry leaders, as we look at this idea of, again, we mentioned earlier, not feeling like we're good enough, wrestling with shame, and shame could be because of things that we have done, things that we have not done, right? Where would he, where do we go whenever we recognize this talk of shame in our lives?

Ken Shigematsu 
Yeah, in First John, the apostle says perfect love casts out fear, including the fear of rejection, which is at the very core of shame, and so to begin with, I feel that it's, it's really important for pastors and anyone, ministry leaders, whoever, to live from a place of recognizing that they are the beloved, and in order to do that, we need to savor the fact that we are loved. Kurt Thompson, someone who I interview in the book, he's that Christian psychiatrist and friend, points out that it only takes two or three seconds for shame to form our consciousness, but it takes 60 to 90 seconds for an affirmation to form. So, shame, for whatever reason, is much stickier and more salient in our consciousness than affirmation, and so in the mornings I set aside some time for silence, and at the end of that time of silence I will imagine God the Father saying over me what He said over Jesus at His baptism, as I did this morning, I'll close my eyes, take a deep breath, and I'll say, Ken, as though God was speaking. You are my beloved son, in you I delight. Take a deep breath, repeat it again, Ken, you are my beloved son, in you I delight. Take a deep breath, repeat it a third time, Ken, you are my beloved son, in you my delight. And so I want to begin this day out of a sense of feeling and sensing my belovedness, and if people think that's inappropriate, the Apostle Paul teaches that if we are in Christ, as he says in Ephesians, that all of the love and affection that God has for His unique son, Jesus, He has for us, so it's perfectly appropriate, and then I heard Gabor Mate, who's a Vancouver-based physician and author, being interviewed. As far as I know, he's not a religious person, I think he's a Jewish ancestry. But a successful CEO was in a conversation with him, and the CEO admitted to struggling with feelings of darkness and shame, and said, Dr. Matte, when I'm feeling down, when I'm feeling this sense of not being enough, what do I do? And Dr. Mahdi said you should go for a walk, ideally outside, but if you can't go outside, walk somewhere inside, and then bring to mind a memory of someone who loved you, and you should be in a different space, psychologically and psychically, and so one of the things that we can do is we can bring to mind someone who has loved us into being, someone who has loved us without condition, or almost without condition, maybe remember how they loved us, and that person's face and imagining that memory can be a window into how God loves us, and so for example, sometimes on my Sabbath day I'll take a long walk on the beach with our golden retriever, and I'll bring to mind some of the memories of how God has loved me through people. And one memory that I brought to mind recently is of being a three-or four-year-old boy. We were living in England, I was at the pool with my dad, I couldn't swim at that stage in my life, being three or four, and my dad carried me to the deep end of the pool, and I remember feeling afraid but safe, fearful but loved, and I thank God for my dad, who has passed away a few years ago, but his memory and his life in my consciousness lives richly, and so that becomes a window of God's love in my life through Him.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, that's excellent, Ken. And kind of, as we process through this and think through some of the practices that we can engage in when we're feeling this sense of shame. How does God's grace relate to healing our shame?

Ken Shigematsu 
Yeah, that's a great, great question. You know, if we've received affirmation or approval, it's likely because we've done something well. So, when we were students back in our student days, if we're out of school now, maybe we aced the test, and we were praised by a teacher or a parent. Maybe we performed well in a sporting event, or crushed it at a musical performance, and we were honored or affirmed. And as pastors and ministry leaders, maybe we preached a good sermon, or we led a meeting well, and we were praised because of it, and because almost all of our praise and affirmation occurs when we either do something well or have been quote good, we're conditioned to believe that love is dependent on our performance, that it's conditional, and even if we're Christian ministers of some kind, at an unconscious level, if not at a conscious level, it's hard for us to really believe that God loves us without condition, and when we can tap into the fact that God is a God of grace, who loves us sometimes, despite ourselves, despite our flaws, that is, that is really freeing, and ironically, when we realize the vastness of God's grace, how wide and long and high and deep it is. According to Scripture, it's God's kindness that inspires us toward repentance and to draw close to Him. And so, if we can be reminded of grace again and again, that will help us overcome our shame. Because understanding grace, the experience of grace, and the experience of shame are incompatible. They're like oil and water, they can't be together. If I had an empty glass here, which I don't, I could try to empty the glass of air by holding it upside down, or I could fill it with water. The second strategy is a lot better, and if we can be filled with a sense of God's grace, that will flush out the sense of toxic shame that we may feel.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, I love that. That's beautiful imagery.

Jason Daye
FrontStage BackStage is a ministry of PastorServe. Here at PastorServe, we love walking alongside of pastors and ministry leaders. If you'd like to learn details on how you might qualify for a complimentary coaching session with one of our trusted ministry coaches, please visit PastorServe.org/freesession. Now, FrontStage BackStage is more than just another podcast. In fact, we create an entire toolkit that complements every single conversation. You can find this toolkit at PastorServe.org/network for this episode, and for every episode in the toolkit, you'll find a number of resources, including our ministry leaders' growth guide. In the growth guide, you'll find both questions and insights that are pulled from the conversation that you and the leaders at your local church or ministry can process together to consider how this content relates to your particular ministry context. Again, you can find the toolkit at PastorServe.org/network. Now we hope that you are finding this content valuable, and if so, we'd love for you to share, comment, like, follow, subscribe. That engagement is incredibly important, and also, please take a moment to give us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your engagement and your reviews help other pastors and ministry leaders help find this valuable content. I'm Jason Daye, and encouraging you to love well, live well, and lead well. Thank you, and God Bless.