Redemptive Dialogue Matters! With Rev. Ruth Perry

In this episode, Ruth Perry shares her journey from a traditional church background to becoming an advocate for women's leadership in the church, emphasizing the importance of listening, love, and biblical integrity in resolving church conflicts.

Connect with Ruth at The Beautiful Kingdom Builders

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Chapters

00:00 Introduction and guest introduction
341:37:07 Rob and Jason discuss aging and health challenges
6694:23:56 Introduction of Ruth Perry and her ministry
11694:24:03 Ruth Perry's background and call to ministry
20222:11:00 Church conflict and family division
26722:11:21 Deconstruction of complementarian beliefs
33277:44:57 The importance of women’s voices in church leadership
41638:51:57 Biblical hermeneutics and cultural influences
496111:05:38 Listening as a key to reconciliation
583333:19:32 Strategies for conflict resolution in churches
666388:53:05 God’s calling and empowerment for women
748611:06:40 Final thoughts on love, listening, and leadership

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome back to the Church Talk podcast with Rob and Jason. We are and Rob, we're in season nine. Yes. We are just moving forward and there are so many things going on, and we're probably not going to talk about most of them, but it's been a good summer so far. We're recording this in late July, and you're wrapping up your month of kind of study leave slash sabbatical slash loafing slash probably busier than you wanted to be.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Yeah, you know what? You always use like terms that it literally is just vacation. I like I cringe every time people say sabbatical because I just don't think after 30 years in ministry that a month it even approaches a sabbatical, which I have not ever taken. I've tried a couple times, but never really, you know, I applied for some grants and things like that, never ever got any funding. And uh and I and it's not a study leave either. It's literally, I just try to disconnect. And and it's funny, right? Because you like you said, there's just a few days left in this. But uh, and you know this because we actually hung out one day last week, but a couple weeks ago, um, you know, it's high school golf season has started. So like I am like walking four to six miles a day out on the golf course with the with the high schoolers, and I've been wearing my golf shoes, which have like zero support. I'm of the age I need a little support or and or orthotic help in my shoes. And so one of my tendons literally has like blown up. And so like I saw an orthopedic podiatrist on Monday of this week, you know, MRIs and and ankle splints and all kinds of things, and it just feels like you know, life at my age is just a constant reminder of how I need to multiply myself because the things I can do always seem to be constrained and limited more and more.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Yeah. Getting old stinks. But, you know, you look good, and that's really all that matters, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's funny. Bethany and I literally joke all the time because she's like, you know, we we have all these people we know in their 70s or 80s, and they're like, aging is not for the faint of heart. And we're like, she's 50, I just turned 51, and literally we can like try be trying to get in and out of bed and like like if it gets much worse, like we don't even want to get that old. Like, Jesus, take us now.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Yeah, I I was literally sitting in staff meeting last week, and by staff meeting it's a Zoom call. Okay, so you know, I'm I'm sitting and and all of a sudden my my back right in the middle just started to like spasm. And by the end of the call, I could barely stand up, and all I had done is sat there for you know 75 minutes, and yeah, I I think it was from work I had done over the weekend, and it just finally said, you know, screw you, and but anyway. So yeah, so enough about our ailments, a couple of old white guys just talking about our guiters and our whatever. Yeah, but we do actually have a guest today, and she's just laughing at us at how pathetic we sound. And and rightly so, let's be honest, right? Uh but that's okay, that's who we are. That's that's that's it. We have with us a special guest because she is now a friend, but before that we had a mutual friend who's actually been on the podcast before and who you know I knew years ago, and we were really best friends uh with that family with Dan and Lisa Wells. But now we have a friend of Lisa's, Reverend Ruth Perry, who is started a ministry called Beautiful Kingdom Builders. And you know, Ruth, I'm gonna let you give more of the details of your life, but I know you are a pastor, you know, Reverend Ruth Perry. You you work in the United Methodist Church. I'm right, right?

SPEAKER_03 3:51

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

And you you serve or do you serve two churches now or just one? I can't remember.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

I have two churches in my current appointment. In my previous appointment for the past three years, I had three churches. And so I'm feeling like it's just about uh a lot less work to have two, even though they're somewhat larger churches.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Well, I mean, Rob and I can barely handle one. I don't even have one anymore, and I can't handle it. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Well, and actually I have a friend who planted a church in the United Methodist Church, and he was told by the district superintendent that listen, even when we get to the end of your three-year funding window, we're gonna let you just focus on that church plant. We'll revisit funding. And I think it's two district superintendents later now. He got to the end of very generous funding for three years, and they wanted him to take five or six more churches to get more funding. So he actually stepped away from the United Methodist Church and is actually planting with us now because he's like, I, you know, I it's it's a it's a full-time job focusing on my one small new church. Like, I can't take five others.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

When I got the call to take the first appointment with the three churches, I'm coming from a Baptist mentality and I've never seen this before. And the pastor that I was talking with was telling me that he had three churches that needed a pastor, and I would be doing all three services every Sunday, and it would be considered quarter time, and so the math wasn't mathing.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

But I was like, yes, absolutely, an open door to ministry. Sign me up. I'm so excited. Yeah. But it is, it's a different book here in the United Methodist Church. It's a lot to get used to making that transition.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Yeah. It sounds like we need to revisit Mitch Harrison and uh, you know, burnout interview that we had. Maybe, Ruth, this isn't actually an intervention, just so you know. Could be.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

It could be. Well, although, you know, Jason, as she as Ruth was saying that, I I did think, and Ruth, I loved just sort of the energy you said, like, hey, an open door to ministry, I'm in. Like, I don't know that, you know, kind of the whole multi-point charge is a great place to be forever. But as kind of an initial kind of open door, I I do think it's a great thing because it's like, hey, are you called to this or not? And if you're only called to it if it's easy and simplified and pays you a ton of money, maybe that's not a maybe you're not called. So I, you know, there there's tensions on both sides, and I I I appreciate even just the perspective that you kind of provide when you're like, hey, this was an open door to serve Jesus in the church, and so I'm gonna be all in on that. That's that's a great way to think about it.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Maybe that's a good place to start too, right? Just let like set this up. Get tell us a little bit about you and your faith journey, and even you know, as that spills into your church experience, both growing up in a Baptist, but now being a United Methodist, you know, pastor, minister, elder, I guess. Or you would be considered an ordained elder, right? In the Methodist church.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

I'm currently a local licensed pastor. I got my license last year. Before that, I was a lay supply. So now I have full sacramental rites. They call I can consecrate communion and I can, you know, do I get weddings and all of that. And I'm gonna take course of study classes because the seminary I went to, Gordon Conwell, doesn't offer the Methodist required courses that you need to become ordained in the church. So I'm gonna take those classes now over the next few years and work towards ordination, likely. Or I may just stay as a local licensed pastor because I'm in a rural context and my husband has a small business, and I don't want to be itinerant the way that you know United Methodist ministers, when they're elders, they sign that, yeah, we'll go where you send us. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Well, tell us about how you got to this point. Like, did you grow up in the church? Like, did were you like some rebel that you know ran?

SPEAKER_03 7:55

I mean, now I am, yes. But growing up, I was a good Christian girl. My dad was a Baptist minister in the conservative Baptist denomination, and both of my parents had church upbringing, like they'd gone to Sunday school and church as children, but they both convert, like had that, as Wesley would say, like that warming of his heart as young adults, and they were really on fire. My mom became a Christian during the Jesus movement. She was in Washington State, and my dad had a cell block conversion in Boston. He was an art student and he had sold some drugs and he was looking at a conviction and he made a deal with God. And when the judge gave him parole, he walked straight to a church from the jailhouse. And he both of my parents, I have always lionized my parents growing up. I just thought they were amazing. And I've always loved the church because they were so passionate and involved in ministry. The church has always been my like next closest thing to family. I've always considered church as family. And we've had a lot of cool experiences growing up as a pastor's kid. We also I lived in South America for three years. I have three brothers, that's why I keep saying we. But so I got to be a missionary kid too. And then when my family settled in Booth Bay Harbor, Maine, when I was a freshman in high school, and my dad had his first senior pastorate. He'd always been an associate or a youth pastor or some other designation. And so this was his first senior pastorate, and he we my parents did that ministry together really for 13 years. My mom was always a twofer directing the choir and you know, helping with the deaconesses and having meals every Sunday and just running herself ragged as a pastor's wife. But I always loved the church and I couldn't wait to be in ministry myself, although I grew up complementarian, and so all I imagined for myself would be volunteering in the church. And that's what I've done. I'm 45 now, I've done that for 42 years, volunteered in the church. I went and got a music degree at Gordon College so I could lead worship in church, and then I went to seminary and I got a Christian education degree so I could teach in the church. And I'm just super grateful for so many aspects of my upbringing and the experiences that I've had growing up as a pastor's daughter and a missionary kid. Uh it's a lot of really wonderful things.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

You described yourself kind of like you grew up as a good Christian girl. And then uh as part of that, you talked about now you were a rebel, right before we hit record, as you were ripping on Jason and I for our golf games. You said that we could call you Ruthless. So there's obviously like a bit of a bit of a process or a story. You actually talked a little bit about your deconstruction, how you, you know, you did that. So tell us a little bit about that and and like what's the reconstruction looking like?

SPEAKER_03 11:05

All right. Well, that's a gnarly story. So I had this great experience studying music in college and then studying education in seminary, and I met my husband in seminary, and he grew up in a Pentecostal denomination here in North Carolina, so we're in Virginia now. But we settled in Maine after we finished school and had our first kid. I really wanted to be near my parents. And we went to my dad's church, and my brother was his associate pastor, and there got to be so much conflict among all the leadership of the church, not just my dad and my brother, but all the elders. And there were um particular characters in the church that had toxic personalities and ownership. So the conflict in that church just bubbled into the ugliest thing that ever could have been a really terrible church split that involved all my family. My dad and my oldest brother haven't spoken to each other in nearly 18 years, I think. So my dad doesn't have a relationship with four of his grandchildren all this time later. And my parents ended up divorced and just like the conflict ripped apart our church family and our nuclear family. And I had this, I had the church and my parents on a pedestal before this. I had made it through college and seminary still with my complementarian beliefs, even though I'd had a lot of experiences being mentored and in leadership. But I was still, you know, we just my husband and I just went default mode into the way we were raised with traditional roles. And I started to feel, well, between the conflict in the church and me overfunctioning as a good godly woman who has no needs and I'm just pouring out for others, and now I have small children and I'm volunteering in the church and I'm working and I'm doing all the things, it was the most horrific, like hitting a wall. I remember in seminary we read Stages of Faith by James Fowler, and I was so puzzled by it because I couldn't understand. Like, how could anyone doubt your faith if you're a good Christian? And then here I am, like for the first time. It was the ugliest time of my life going through being shunned by people I considered to be family and losing all those close-knit relationships, and then losing my own, like the stability of my own family as my dad and my siblings and my mom, like all the things going on there. And I remember just really being broken by that and having some aha moments as I tried to make sense of what had happened of this perfect church and my perfect family, and I started reading books about um emotional health and conflict and about codependency, and I started like unraveling all the things about the culture that I had been raised in. And I just I mean, it's been 18 years of my reading this now, and it's been a long process. What I discovered was that if they had included women's voices at the table at my church, there would have been so much less damage and harm. And that was the big aha for me, where the fruit of complementarianism didn't seem to be uh flourishing. It wasn't flourishing for me. Yeah, yeah. And so I was really questioning, and then at that same time I was in a Bible study. I can't really I think I was actually a couple years later, I was in a Bible study, and we were watching a Beth Moore video about all the things we inherited in our faith and in our salvation. And she said, And some of you are called to be leaders, you've inherited leadership. And I heard the audible voice of God say to me that I was called to be a pastor. And I looked around the room and nobody else seemed to have heard that. And I said to my dad later, I heard the voice of God tell me I'm called to be a pastor. And he told me about um the Wayne Grudom and John Piper book he had read about biblical manhood and womanhood. He's like, Yeah, I don't think you can. I don't think that's right. And so I just started reading actually the next day, a college chapel dean posted a recommendation of a book about women in ministry, and I ordered it. And so it was like a sign from God that I was on the right track. And I also got to meet two different couples that were in co-pastoring roles, husband and wife. And I got to see that modeled for a couple of years, and then we ended up at Dan and Lisa's church. By this point, I read a ton of books. I'm all fired up. I met my friend Becky Buck at Dan and Lisa's church, and together we started the beautiful kingdom. We called it Warriors at that time because we were thinking about Calus Custis James, how she talks about that word Azer in Genesis 1 and 2, the help me. That it's really a strong ally, and that in the other places it comes up in the Old Testament, it refers to God, and often in the context of military battle. And so we call ourselves the beautiful kingdom warriors, and we were gonna empower girls and women to find their gifts and their callings in the kingdom and use them. And that's how that got started about 10 years ago, I think, 11 years ago, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Wow. That's that so you you're the kind of person that you know I I'm not gonna speak for Rob, but I would love to have in my church, you know, like just because you don't you're not waiting for someone to ask you, you're not waiting for permission, you're not waiting for but you also respect the just the the the structure of church. You understand that, and you've seen it abused, right? And so you you've seen it fall apart, and so like having a a a I mean, in essence, a fireball like you, right? That that says, hey, we're gonna if if we're do if we're serious, then let's go, you know. So I just I want you to hear that, man, that's awesome, and uh I really appreciate that. I I'm just curious, as so I I wanna this wasn't in the notes, but uh you said something about the the split in your parents' church and all that. You said if they're if they would have allowed some basically female voices at the table, it could have I can you let's dig into that because I'm not disagreeing with you. Like I I have seen where that would help, but I'm just from your experience, like why why do you think a female voice in that particular instance could have made some differences?

SPEAKER_03 17:47

Well, that had been my church for 13 years, and so I knew the people really well, and there were a lot of really wise, mature Christian women in the church. But because of the model of male-only elders, on the elder board there were men who had just become Christians within five years or less serving as elders, and there were a lot of people on the elder board that were self-employed, like they didn't have a collegiate kind of personality, and it was a small rural church, and I think that there were a lot of dynamics in the church of tribalism and like ownership, and this was our church, and you guys get hit the road, and we'll just get another pastor now. And I think that women are just naturally more empathetic, and this is my biggest critique realizing that the the great number of Christians who do not love their neighbors well, and that's including your pastors and your pastors' family as well, and just get allowing conflict like that to get to the point where people are being so ugly. Yeah. I don't know. I think women may have mitigated that some.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Yeah, absolutely. I I think so for sure. So, Ruth, I was I was kind of the little town that I grew up in in northern Ontario, Canada. I got saved at 14, and the only evangelical church in my little town was a Wesleyan church. So I, you know, that's kind of where I was discipled and kind of grew up spiritually and uh then was ordained Wesleyan when I went off to to college and started serving, you know, in the local church. So um, you know, my experience from the time I was like 14 years old on um has been in egalitarian settings, you know. So I have like that that's kind of been my default mode. And it's always interesting to me because I, you know, I talk to a lot of pastors. I'm thinking of one right now, and he says this to me all the time when we engage in this conversation, um, you know, he will say, Man, I have so many great female leaders in my church. My church would be better, you know, if I I was allowed to let these gifts and skills that are present obviously, you know, be used. But then there's this really weird thing. And it's kind of like, but the Bible ties my hands. Like God has obviously placed these gifts in these places and in these people. And then for some reason, like, you know, my reading of the scripture just says, well, but they can't. So we got to follow the rules and we're just not gonna do that. And then, and I mean, we see this culturally over and over and over again, just all of the rotten fruit that not allowing a diversity of voices, female voices, kind of female leaders in the church has and is creating. So, you know, maybe like just you know, riff on that for a minute. Like this, and we don't need to get into the biblical arguments. There's plenty of people, tons and tons of books, even recently, kind of flying around. I've read all of them because this is a a topic of great importance to me. But like, I mean, it's weird, right? It's weird for somebody who says, like, I'm gonna trust God and be led by the Spirit to say, I see God doing something, but the Bible says that I can't.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

I mean, I get it because I read the Bible that way too for 30 years. And I was convicted and convinced that that was the way it should be, that men had spiritual authority in the home and in the church. And so I get it. I think I was a sincere saved Christian as a complementarian just as much as I am now as an egalitarian. But really, the biggest thing that I've learned early on in my deconstruction is how much of my views have been impacted by the culture that I was raised in. And then you have to piece apart, well, then are we reading our culture into the Bible? Because nobody wants to do that. I mean, we're all trying to be faithful to the Bible, and we're all trying to follow Jesus, follow Jesus in his ways, the best that we're able to do. And so just trying to. Pull apart the pieces that are from the Bible and what is from the culture that we were raised in. And I remember early on in my deconstruction of complementarianism, my husband and I went to a church planning assessment and we were asked, is this a hill that you need to die on? Of me being a pastor and having a title pastor. And I was like, No way, no, it's not at all. I just want to serve the Lord. And that was probably 10 years ago or 12 years ago. And in that time, since then, as I've continued to learn and study and hear the stories of women and have my own experiences of not being able to find room to use my gifts in the church, it's absolutely a hill I would die on because it's not just harming the church where we're sidelining so many of our witnesses, but it is harming the women who are gifted and called as well. I feel like it has caused me spiritual harm not to have the freedom to use my gifts. And I've looked for ways. I mean, this online ministry that I've created is an avenue of me to use my gifts and calling. And I know that a lot of complimentarians assume that I'm coming from a critical spirit at times. Because if you say something in disagreement with another person, we all just naturally are defensive. And I'm really not critical. I mean, I admire the faith of my complimentarian brothers and sisters and their heart for Jesus. But I really do feel like this is a mistake. And the God calls and gifts women, and we need to empower them and train them and equip them for ministry just like we do the young men in our churches.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Yeah. And and just uh, you know, something that always occurs to me, because again, people want to make it about well, you know, I can serve because I have certain body parts that you don't, and you can't because you don't have those, right? And for me, this has always been an issue of, you know, is is God really unable or unwilling to use certain people to do certain things? And I just don't see it that way. I think God can use anyone to do anything. And I still remember back in college, my Bethany and I, my wife and I had just gotten married. We still had another year of college to go. And I was part of some youth thing that caused us to need to be in the town our college was in. I was a youth pastor to church like an hour and a half away. But the the night that I we had our planning meeting, we stayed with some friends in the town our college was in. And so I remember getting back to their house. Bethany was in bed, they were in bed. So I just flipped the TV on because I was a little bit wired as a whatever 20-year-old college student. And it was like the religious channel. So I'm like eating a bowl of cereal, watching the religious channel. And there was this uh her name was Katherine Kuhlman, who was like a Pentecostal, you know, person who did lots and lots of crazy cool things for for God. And somebody was was saying to her, Well, don't you think that uh that God had a man to do this ministry you have? And I loved her answer because again, you would think that, you know, like someone might be critical and kind of you're coming after me, I'm gonna fight back. And she said, Oh, absolutely, but he was not willing, and I was available, so God used me. And I just was like, that is outstanding.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Well, and and part of what I I've noticed, and and you use this language on your website, and and you know, the beautiful kingdombuilders.com will obviously put a link in the show notes and so forth, where you've got a blog, you've got a podcast, you've got a you know, a bunch of resources there that I, you know, flipping through some of the podcast and listening to some of the the guests that you have, you explore the biblical you know, interpretations and the hermeneutics involved and and all that stuff. And so you've done the work, the biblical work. So I don't, even though we're not gonna dive into that because we just don't have time to go through you know all of that. I want people to know up front, you have done that work. So this isn't you just saying, I feel like I should be able to do this, so I'm doing it. It's no no no no that there's biblical exegesis that took place to get to this point. But you use some language that I really I just really liked. You talk about this idea of a redemptive dialogue. And I as I what I could see what you meant by reading stuff, you know. But as you think about that, and and and I think a lot of our pastors and listeners, they they aspire to redemptive dialogue. I'm not sure they get it right all the time. I mean, I don't, I know I don't. Could you just take a minute, like explain what you mean by a redemptive dialogue and what that looks like in real life?

SPEAKER_03 26:51

I had a really transformational experience in college where I went on a mission trip to Washington, D.C. And the whole week we were looking at the top the issue of racial reconciliation. And I had signed up for a Habitat for Humanity trip. I had not signed up for a racial reconciliation trip. I didn't know I needed a racial reconciliation trip. I didn't know what I didn't know, but what I learned that week was that I needed to listen better to people, that I had only been listening to one narrative or one side of an issue, and there was a whole lot I didn't know. And that when you're sitting up close with someone and hearing their story, you can't help but love them and empathize with them. And again, as Christians, we're called to love our neighbors. And so I think when we are unable to listen without being defensive or without wanting to critique or correct, that that's when we really start to love someone, when we just let them be who they are. And that's another thing I've realized growing up as a good Christian girl, I got a lot of affirmation for my meekness and gentleness and quietness of spirit and willingness to serve, serve, serve, serve. The church has always, and my family has always just given me a lot of positive affirmation for those things. And as an adult now, I've had to learn that I'm very disconnected and disembodied from my own self and my own needs and my own thoughts. I'm just a people pleaser to the core. And that's not authentic. And so I've had to learn how to use my own authentic voice as well as listen to other people's own authentic perspective and to share that with people who maybe aren't always ready to hear it. And I'm not when I'm having a conversation with someone like this, I don't feel like I mean, this is a beautiful conversation, but this is redemptive too. We're talking about really important things that are consequential and matter in people's lives. It's consequential how we believe God intends women to live in their home and in their church in ways that men can't even imagine if they're not having those conversations and hearing what is it like being a woman in the church? Yeah. And just being willing to hear that. And I think the redemption is that we love each other better and we do then work together for flourishing. A lot of complementarians like to say that this causes mutual flourishing. But really, what causes mutual flourishing is when we're able to be the person God made us to be, not the person that our culture wants us to be.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Yeah. I love that. Yeah. And Ruth, even as you said that, I I'm thinking back to I was when I was part of the Wesleyan church, I was at a seminar that was just for a small group of us that Ed Stetzer was doing. And, you know, Ed Stetzer's a complimentarian, but he in that thing actually said to us, um, he's like, Man, I wish, biblically speaking, that I could figure out the egalitarian thing. He said, because your your theological belief on this actually offers more hope to the world. It intersects better with our culture. Like in every way, it is more redemptive. And to me, that was like very encouraging, you know, and I think that's exactly what you're saying. Like, we want to to give people hope and help. And yeah, I mean, and I think that it's absolutely true that God wants all of us to flourish and he wants to to redeem and restore and use all of us to be a part, you know, of his beautiful kingdom. Amen. I'm I'm preaching to the choir, huh?

SPEAKER_02 30:38

Well, and and you know, Ruth, this is an issue that in our tribe can often divide, is the bottom line. And and and we, you know, we we say that we have a big tent, and and both an egalitarian and a complementarian are both welcome, you know, and and we really try to make that a reality, but but honestly, without the redemptive dialogue, it's really hard to be in the same tent. And and and I love the way you phrase that of you know, really redemptive dialogue is about learning to listen. It's not so much learning how to say your piece kindler, gentler, whatever, you know, it's about learning to listen and then in the process, you know, being able to articulate your side, but understanding the perspective of the other, so that it's truly a conversation. It's not a you know, it's not just a diatribe or a monologue in that way. I mean, if you're looking into you know a a network of churches and generically speaking, and they came to you and said, Hey, help us navigate. We're not trying to convert egalitarians to you know, some or vice versa, but help us navigate that. What are some things you might say to them, some things to think about?

SPEAKER_03 31:56

Are you talking about like resources that they could read or avenues of just giving women more freedom in the church to be who God called them to be?

SPEAKER_02 32:05

I don't I didn't really have a spec specific answer. I was more than if if a network reached out to you and said, hey, we're really struggling with it, we've got some major division happening, or or we see it coming if we don't find some way to resolve the tension and not necessarily change everything, but to help help these two perspectives coexist, you know, within a family of churches. I don't know, are there some things you might suggest to them to do? Not that they would fix it right away, but I don't know, ways you might suggest they they approach that.

SPEAKER_03 32:40

Well, my first thought is just going back to all that studying I did on how conflict escalates back when that church split happened so many years ago. And when we have lines drawn in the sand, and then the natural progression of conflict is that it's just going to divide and get the divide is gonna grow and you're gonna dehumanize the other person and you're gonna think less of each other. And so that's not what we're called to do as Christians. We're called to consider others better than ourselves and to lay down our lives for others and to serve, not to lord authority over others. And so I really think that I mean, this conversation, we could talk about so many different issues and go back to this, where as Christians, what we are called to do is to love and serve. And I really go back all the time to start with listening. If you can get to the point where you have that skill to hear someone out and then just accept that that's who they are, that's and assume that Jesus is powerful enough to save them, even with their wrong-headedness about something. I think that that's really important. And for a whole movement, maybe what you want to do is get a cohort of, you know, people some just choose a few people that represent different views to have those conversations that would re be representative of different views within the organization and call in some conflict resolution assistance from you know, experts that would help you discover like ways to get along and continue your important mission work, no matter where you land on this issue, but also just believe that Jesus is powerful enough to save even those egalitarians and the feminists and the Democrats, you know, just Jesus is powerful.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

I that's I think that's important because I I grew up in a very complementarian tribe, you know, and I remember like the way it was presented to me was if if you allow women into certain you know roles, you are basically inviting the devil into your church because you're breaking scripture, right? And and and it wasn't that the women were the devil, it's not that. It was it was you are breaking a rule.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

Disobeying God.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

Disobeying God, and therefore your church won't experience blessing, it won't experience God's presence. And that's a hard, I mean, to me it it anymore. I look back as like it was superstition more than anything else, right? I mean, it because I don't think the scripture actually points in that direction, but that's a different conversation. But but there that's a really hard thing to overcome. And and so when you talk about listening, I do think some of it is from the egalitarian perspective, is listening to the fear that isn't about women exactly, you know, and and I know there are some men who want to be complimentarians simply because they get to keep power. I get that, I know that's a piece of it. But I honestly, you know, for a long time was a complimentarian because I was afraid God wouldn't He would withhold blessing from the church if we and so understanding that then changes the way that I would address, you know, if someone was asking me my stance on it, it's it to me, I was like, I understand if you're coming at it from that perspective, boy, that just changes the dialogue as we're you know, right, right talking about. Did you have to kind of overcome any of those type deep-seated, like uh, you know, superstitions almost? I don't know what else to call them.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

I was so fearful when I was a complimentarian and when I was a younger Christian. That was a big part of who I was. I was fearful about sharing my faith with others, even because I had the weight of their salvation on my shoulders. And I have found a lot of liberty and liberation from that fear as I've learned about the unconditional love that God has for me and that it's not something that I have to strive for or earn. And I was never anyone who has like one of those testimonies of I was a drug dealer or I was in the Hells Angels or something. I've there's really it's a boring life that I have to share, but it's a beautiful testimony.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

You weren't in the Hells Angels?

SPEAKER_03 37:09

I wasn't, no, I missed opportunity. But I just I've had this actually, it was right, okay. So all the best things I've learned about God have happened during really hard things. And it was at that same time when the church was splitting and I was 30-something years old, and I started watching Brennan Manning videos on YouTube and his old gravelly voice. And someone had given me one of his books, I think Abba Father in college, and I had read it and didn't really impact me at all. But at this period of my life, when I'm broken and hurting and searching and trying to make sense of what happened to this family and this church that I thought was perfect. And his message of grace and unconditional love is really what I think gave me the freedom then to question the narratives and the scripts and the lessons that I had learned growing up for 30 years in a conservative Baptist denomination. And I've never wanted anything but to follow Jesus. I'm sincerely doing my best, and I know that I'm wrong about a lot of things, but I speak them out loud, and I've learned that that's a great way to learn and grow too, because people will correct you when you are just vulnerable and sharing what you think about something, or you get to have an interesting conversation about how they think about it. And so as I've kind of grown in the unconditional love of God, I've also grown in the ability to be wrong about stuff out loud and enjoy that process because God loves me, even when I'm wrong about stuff.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Ruth, as you're sharing this idea of like listening, right? Starting with listening, even sort of starting and ending with listening, you know, I mean, I think that's a powerful thing, but it's also such a difficult thing because especially in our culture, you know, truth is such a huge value. So if I think that my perspective or my stance is right and that yours is wrong, you know, for so many people, that just completely takes away their ability to or capacity to listen. And it makes me think a buddy of mine was in uh marriage counseling one time. He told me this great story where uh, you know, because he kept wanting the counselor to be on his side and see that he was right and his wife was wrong, you know, and and so at one point his counselor said, Man, Phil, you know, you make you make a lot of really good points. In fact, I I think you're right. And he was just, you know, puffed his chest out and is like, yeah. And he goes, So, hey, here's the deal. You can either be right or you can be married. Pick one, you know, if you and and it was such a a powerful moment in his life, in his marriage, to see that in all of his sort of gripping and grasping to be right, he was actually undermining and damaging something that was far more important. And again, that I I'm not saying any of that to say that truth, you know, should should be, you know, subservient. But, you know, sometimes, especially with these secondary and tertiary issues, we just get so hellbent on getting our opinion to be the right one that we we can't listen enough to actually know whether that's even the case, you know. So I I I really appreciate you know you saying that. Because I think again, some people will be like, well, that's soft. You know what? Try just listening and not running your mouth, not saying your peace, and just trying to love people and actually believe that Jesus is powerful enough to love, to save, to correct those people if they are wrong. You know? What a what a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

I had uh someone offer to debate me last week or a couple weeks ago on my Facebook page. He's like, let's go live and debate. And I was like, you know what? I appreciate the offer that might be fun, but that's not really my interest. I'm not trying to pour any energy into changing anyone's mind about something. I'm trying to reach people who are hurting and trying to make sense of their call and their constriction on that. And I'm not trying to change people's mind who are convinced one way or another. But the thing that I've learned as I've changed my mind is that it costs a lot to change your mind. And a lot of people aren't willing to pay that cost because you're gonna lose community and you're gonna lose relationships. And so I wouldn't even know if I had a debate with this person that I don't know in real life. Like, I don't know what it would cost him to change his mind. And I don't, you know, that's not what it's that's what not what I'm trying to do. But mostly I'm trying to help the people who, like me 15 years ago, were completely broken and lost and trying to make sense of their faith and try to hold on to their faith and make it past that wall and find the freedom of unconditional love in Christ.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

Well, if you find yourself in that position, you need to go to the beautiful kingdombuilders.com. You need to reach out to Reverend Ruth Perry. You need to find out how you can get connected, and and I think she will be an amazing help to you. Um and I I think that that is such a beautiful picture, too, not just of this one particular issue, but as pastors and leaders, as we look out under a congregation and really into our community, approaching it as these are people that I need to love as much as I need to convince them of the truth. First, I need to love them. And that just changes our approach to ministry in so many ways. And so I I just think that's beautiful. And I encourage all those who uh are regular listeners or irregular listeners or first-time listeners to take a minute and and and soak on that and think how that might impact the way you uh move forward in your ministry. Ruth, thank you for your time for for the ministry. I thank you that you were able to redeem the pain that you went through. I and I just it's just as as I know it's a horrible story, but it's a beautiful story, but it's and Rob and I both have gone through times, you know, that yeah, it was the pain that actually taught us our greatest lessons. Um and and so I just want you to know we we hear you and we see that, and we thank you for doing all that. So thank you for your time. And for our listeners, I we will see you again next week. You can check out the uh show notes to find out more ways to connect with Ruth. Uh and we always love hearing from you. And uh, we are doing some things. We've got our YouTube channel up, and we'd love for you to zip over there and check out. We're posting uh different content, and uh, of course, go to the website and we're gonna we're gonna get a monthly newsletter started here shortly. And uh, if you want to be part of that, go to the website and just sign up to be part of that. It's really simple, and I promise we don't sell your information. Uh, you won't be getting falls from insurance, and if you're getting spam calls, not our fault for once. Hey, have an amazing week. We're cheering for you. We'll see you soon.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

Thanks for joining us today at the Church Talk Podcast. We hope the conversation encouraged and challenged you. We would love to hear from you. Email your questions or comments to Jason at Churchtalkproject.com. The Church Talk Podcast with Rob and Jason is brought to you by the Church Talk Project. We work to engage, equip, and encourage pastors and church leaders around the world. Thanks for listening.