The UnlearnT Podcast
The UnlearnT Podcast is designed to help you gain the courage to change your mind about things you never thought you would change your mind about. Our hope is that you will begin to move towards a life of freedom after hearing stories from individuals who have chosen to unlearn some things in their lives.
The UnlearnT Podcast
Talks With Middle Adults: Being Church Ain’t Enough!
Gain courage to change your mind and experience more freedom as we explore unlearning what we thought we knew about the church. Our varied experiences reveal the importance of personal faith and community outside the church walls.
• Emphasis on personal faith beyond church attendance
• Importance of community in living out one’s beliefs
• Unlearning the rigid structures of traditional church experiences
• Encouraging dialogue on faith journeys and experiences
• Acknowledgement of personal imperfections and God’s unconditional love
• Insight into how societal expectations shape spiritual understandings
If you find value in our content, share it with a friend who may benefit as well!
Hello everybody and welcome once again to the unlearned podcast. I am your host, ruth Abigail aka Ra. What's up, friends? It's your girl Jaquita.
Speaker 1:And this is the podcast that is helping you gain the courage to change your mind so that you can experience more freedom. And before we get started, we want to say thank you to everybody out there. Thank you for those that are listening to our community. We appreciate you. Please continue to like, share and subscribe, because if this content has any value for you, it probably has value for somebody else. Amen and amen.
Speaker 1:So uh don't keep it to yourself, folks, Share it, share it, share it. We want to. We want the unlearning community to keep growing. What's up, Queda? How you doing?
Speaker 2:Listen, we just out here living, all right. Living life and life more abundantly. Okay, let me tell y'all something. Abundant life Okay, y'all remember one of them episodes. I was like I'm trying to learn to be a bound. I don't want to be a base. Let me tell you something Abundant life is busy, okay. Abundant life is out here working for the Lord Okay, abundant life. Abundant life keeps you rolling. So we're living life abundantly and it's amazing.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. There's a couple of things that you should know about this episode, first of all. First of all, this is our second recording of it. Let me explain something. What we're talking about today is important, right? We find it very important. It's actually very close to me and Queda's heart and we just we bombed man. That last recording was a bust.
Speaker 2:We were. When I tell you, Ruth Abigail and I were dead tired.
Speaker 1:I hadn't eaten anything. I was like yo, this is not working.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we were like oh, let's just go ahead and record, because you know we can do this in our sleep. No, we cannot.
Speaker 1:No, we cannot, no, we cannot and it deserved just a little bit more honor it did, it did, so we're redoing it. So this is take two and hopefully it is worth. It is worth it. I think it'll be better than the first one. Um, and then the other thing is uh, jaquita, if you notice, her voice is a little, um, you know, shocked. Yeah, yeah, not all the way there, okay, um, jaquita had a preaching engagement recently and Preaching engagement.
Speaker 1:It's hilarious yeah that's what it was. So Jaquita had a preaching engagement and you know, when Queda preaches, she gives it her all, and that means her voice takes the hit, and so y'all, just y'all, y'all forgive her hoarseness on tonight.
Speaker 2:Listen, I'm going to do the best I can. Those of you if you know, you know, I got the throat coat on deck, okay, if you know, you know, okay, cause we ain't letting nothing stop the show on today, all right, so we ready. There, it is All right. There it is. Close captions. If you need it, all right, just turn that little, hit that little CC button, all right, and it'll translate. Sometimes it don't be translating right, though it really doesn't. Sometimes it don't be translated right, though it really doesn't, Sometimes it really doesn't. It's not always dependable, and the way it spells my name Is hilarious, I see you. Okay, that is not it, it's actually hilarious.
Speaker 1:That's not it.
Speaker 2:It butchers my name every time. I be like who is Sequita?
Speaker 1:It reminds me of taquitos, you know, like the little.
Speaker 2:All right, everybody, we want to thank y'all for coming to the episode. I don't know where she was about to go, but we're not following her on today. Why? Because we're going to follow the Lord, all right, we're talking about the church, all right. So today, whatever you were about to do, we're not doing it. I, today, we are here to talk about what we unlearned about the church, about our relationships with God, about faith at the kitchen table. My God, oh boy. And let me tell you something, something about me and Ruth Abigail. Oh, we listen. We might be different, we might come from different perspectives, but one thing about it, two things for sure as the old people say, as the old folks say, we love the church. Okay, both of us work and have worked for, again, middle adult term, decades. You know, you know you're a middle adult when you start counting stuff in increments, I find that to be an unnecessary thing for you to have Decades.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Ruth Abigail, her whole life, all of my life. Wow, she's been at that church. But you know we really do. We love God, we love the church. I love Ruth. Abigail loves his people. We work with the people of God, we work with church. But you know, there were things that as we've grown and as we have kind of just matriculated through life, that we had to unlearn. That's right.
Speaker 1:We did. And so we want to go through those things and we're just going to like, we're going to kind of discuss them, and I think a lot of them are probably common, right, common things that a lot of people have had to unlearn about the church growing up, and this is essentially like it's like okay, this is what we perceived. I know for me it wasn't so much that, like I was taught these things, it's not like these were like things drilled in, but they were things that I observed and I just kind of like internalized probably incorrectly, right, but there was a reason for that, right, like so my brain interpreted certain things and I kind of lived with it until I learned something different, and so that those are going to be most of what we talk about. And again, just to remind you what the kitchen table is, it's things you may have learned growing up from your family or community or general society. So how, what that has looked like over the course of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think it's really interesting. You know, ruth and I we talk a lot about how different we are. And we are, you know, and I think one of the ways that the difference was kind of the most stark at the beginning of our friendship was kind of our relationship with the church, kind of pre-meeting each other and during meeting each other, you know. And so before I got to college, when I was in let's start. Okay, so my family, dad was in the army. We traveled all over the place, lived in Germany, you know, international, lived in Germany for a few years. And when we came back to the States, you know, when I was in Germany, I didn't know what a church was. You know, we lived on base in a foreign country, so there really wasn't church for us there. Or it may have been when we didn't go. I'll tell you that I don't remember no church services.
Speaker 2:But when we got back to the States, my family comes from a very traditional AME church, very family oriented. Everyone in that church I was related to growing up. Cousin so-and-so was over the choir, cousin so-and-so was out there tending to the yard. That's amazing. They asked my great aunt Reed every Sunday to sing a selection Now, sister Pugh, if everybody would just set your hearts as Sister Pugh leads us in a congregational hymn every Sunday.
Speaker 2:And so it was a time, ok, and so you know it was. It was, it was a, it was a time. So you know when I. But there was just a moment where my family stopped going to church. Really I think it was after my parents divorce and we kind of moved and did a lot of different things, didn't go to church for a while, but then I joined Ruth Abigail, the gospel choir, my Lord, ok, the gospel choir. Ruth Abigail, the gospel choir, my Lord, okay, the gospel choir, and that kind of changed my life and changed my trajectory and gave my life to the Lord right before college. And so that set the precedent. I think that set a precedence for how I encountered faith, differently than Ruth, who has a very different kind of priest story background story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mine was very, very different, almost the exact opposite per most things that me and Queda are. I mean, I grew up in church. I was baptized at six years old, but I was there from birth. My father was always a minister, is currently a pastor, and I also went to a Christian school, like kindergarten to 12th grade. I had Bible class five days a week all through school. We would memorize portions of the Bible. I mean, this was you know, we had a memory verse every week. We would. As we got older, the memory verses got longer till we got to chapters where we had to memorize them. Right, uh, and so I mean it is when you think about it, but we, we was out here quoting John one, not one verse, one John one.
Speaker 1:like these people, had us quoting the whole chapters, while Luke two, I could quote the entire thing for you right now. And so you know I grew up in that. And so you know I grew up in a missionary Baptist church, a traditional Black Baptist church, and then I went into a multi-ethnic community church and that's where kind of my teenage years were spent church, and that's where kind of my teenage years were spent. And so I entered college and me and Queda you know, kind of connected, when I was really kind of tired of church and I was, I was tired of I was just I was a little burned out from it. I mean, it was my entire life. And so, and for me I I had to re-engage some passion with my relationship with God. When I got to college whereas I think Queda was finding it, it was very passionate. Like I wasn't passionate, I was committed to what I knew. I wouldn't even say I was committed to God at that point, I was just committed to what I knew.
Speaker 2:That's such a good distinction.
Speaker 2:That's such a good distinction.
Speaker 2:That's such a good distinction because I think, if I look at areas of my life, even right now, where I felt like I got stuck or I felt like I needed to be through a situation or a season where he was able to convince me that there was so much more to life, so much more to him, than what I knew.
Speaker 2:And I think you know, when I think about, like what we've unlearned or what I've unlearned, I think that that's kind of one of the principal things that what you know can set a full precedence for how you will engage God for the rest of your life, as if you don't have to learn anymore. And I think that because when I entered church, when I entered into the world of faith, I was very much like I was like a sponge, I was soaking it all up and everything was new, everything was fresh, everything was like an adventure and I didn't question anything. Right, it wasn't until I got to the point where I felt like I knew some, that I knew a lot, I knew a good bit, that I started getting stuck, but as long as I kept kind of the mindset of I don't know anything about this you know like this is.
Speaker 2:this is a brand new experience, a brand new. You know, this is all. This is all something that I'm partaking in and I feel like and that wasn't on our list, but I felt like I needed to point that out that it was when I felt like I didn't know it. That's when I moved forward, but I had to unlearn this idea of knowing, of knowing it all, of having it all and having the framework already being all you know, of having it all and and and having the framework already being like I know the Lord, you know, y'all can't trick me and I also don't want to learn anything about how you know. Know the Lord. Yeah, no, that was also sorry. Last point, that was also a point of tension in our friendship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I was about to, I was just about to go there Like I think that, um, what church? So I think what I, what I had to unlearn, and one of the things that we wanted to say was what church looked like and what it was supposed to look like, right, um, and so I love what you're, what you're saying, like this idea of unlearning that no, no, unlearning knowing like that's really good, that's really good and I, I agree, I think that's it's.
Speaker 1:You know, it's a trap, like um, there's a, there's a, there's actually a term for it. Um, oh, I wish I could remember it. I can't remember it, but it's essentially a term for when you get to a point where you become the expert in something and you start to, uh, you, you don't, you, you kind of close yourself off to new knowledge about anything, and that's, that's really how things start to.
Speaker 1:you know, decline, I mean, you know, I've I've heard the term used when it comes to companies. Uh, you know you, you get to. You look at IBM versus like IBM was at the top of their game. They were doing all the things you were doing with computers when Apple came in and took them over because IBM was the expert and they weren't willing to do anything or learn anything new. So, the new kid on the block came and shifted it and they couldn't ever keep up.
Speaker 1:And so it's like this idea of knowing like it really does make you stagnant, idea of knowing like it really does make you stagnant. And I think I, I, I, I came into my college experience, um, with this knowing attitude of I'm just going to keep on doing what it is I've been doing, and I and I and I ran into a wall because my experiences in college with church were very different than the ones I had growing up and that's what brought me a lot of internal tension, because I was fighting, learning something new for a while. I was fighting that.
Speaker 2:No, that's so good, though, because I think for me. I remember constantly being told I was on the fast track. You know like and and it was, but it wasn't like a. It wasn't like a fast track Like look at how much further Jaquita is than y'all. It was like a fast track, Like look at how behind Jaquita is and she has to catch up. And so I felt like I had to run at full speed with God.
Speaker 2:And I remember when I was in college, I remember God constantly pulling me to the side and saying rest in my love. And I was like what do we need to rest for? I'm behind, I can't rest because they're going to like if you're behind, you're always thinking people are going to realize that. I think that that was something that was in the back of my mind as a baby believer. Is that I was like people are going to recognize that you don't really know what you're doing. And even now, as a leader, sometimes I sit back and I'm like people are looking at me. I'm like, yeah, they're going to recognize that like girl, you are an imposter.
Speaker 2:Wow, do you know that, like, you don't have the same faith story that these people have? You didn't grow up going to church five days a week, you know, and being in three Bible studies and two choir rehearsals, and you didn't have those experiences. I mean, I did some, you know, but when I got to college it was I had to ask my friends. I remember I asked my mom Christmas for Christmas, get me a Bible, cause y'all were talking about stories I had no idea about and the church we were going to. I remember he did a deep dive on Ruth and I was like I ain't even know, this woman was in this Bible. Who else is in this Bible that I don't know about?
Speaker 1:That's real. That's that's actually really real because, um, I think that growing up in a church, growing up with I could understand that, well, I couldn't like it's so, like your experience, whatever your experience with the church was growing up, um, whatever there's a new, whatever you, I never experienced the newness that you're talking about.
Speaker 2:I never experienced that.
Speaker 1:I was actually talking with um, cause my husband was the same way, like he, ty, we were just talking about this not too long ago and he didn't like I was like hey, you remember learning about this in Sunday school? He was like no, we didn't, we didn't talk with him and also I'm not even sure I was paying attention, right, like so you know, I think. And so I said, and I remember telling him he was I was like I, I, there's a, there is a small envy I have of of people who have your story, because I don't know what it's like to have that kind of newness and passion for, for, for um, biblical things or even things of church, because it's it's I've never been excited about it because I've never had to be um and that's why.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean it's. It's really interesting and I don't.
Speaker 1:And I and he looked at me like he was like, don't ever say that, like you kidding me, I, I wish. I said like I wish I had what you had.
Speaker 2:You know, it was one of those things like no, I was entrenched, yeah, you were swimming in it. You know day and night. You know you went to school. You went to a Bible school. You came home to a preaching daddy Right, and you know, and your mama, you know, one of the faithful saints that's right for real.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and sorenched as a young adult, which I think is different because it was a choice. Right Like I came, I got exposed outside of my home. You know it was really my friends saying we're going to join the gospel choir because they could both sing, like all my friends could sing except for me. And I joined and that was the first prayer I had. I was on the gospel choir and I realized that and we weren't, this wasn't no, just like a little, a little community church choir, like we were going to competitions and you know competitions, and the leader was Kojic and you know Kojic, our Kojic brothers and sisters and choirs that's the Clark sisters, claire and Clark Sheard Don't play with it, they do not play about them choirs.
Speaker 2:We was back then. It was rough and tough. If you wasn't on that note, it was like you are the weakest link. I just remember being on the choir. I started off in the soprano section. Y'all can tell Even by my hoarse voice, there's not a soprano anywhere on the inside of me. There is not. Thank you, ruth. I don't need any commentary for you. Y'all know how, ruth, get about my singing, okay, we don't have a good relationship when it comes to me and singing.
Speaker 1:I think you're an amazing speaker. I think you have just the highest, anywho.
Speaker 2:Anywho, right Started off in the soprano section, they kept stopping the choir, like stopping the whole rehearsal, like ah, something is wrong in the soprano section. And then I just slowly dipped. So I dipped over to the alto section and they started stopping it. They was like somebody's just a little off or they were like the alto's not loud enough. I need y'all to sing full voice. And I was like I don't have no full alto voice to give you. Okay, all I got is this whisper Okay, that's all I got for you.
Speaker 2:And so but that was my first prayer was like Lord, please help me to sing well enough just to stay in this choir. And I really felt when I felt God move. The excitement from that, I think, is what really began to propel me in believing that God wanted to interact in my life. And I think that it wasn't. It wasn't the, you know. I think what I had to I hadn't yet learned, but what I realized that I later had to unlearn was that God moves outside the doors of the church. This was before I had ever really stepped foot into a church on my own volition.
Speaker 1:You get what.
Speaker 2:I'm saying, and God was moving in me in the high school gospel choir, you know, and I didn't even know what I was singing about. But one day I just sat and talked to my friends and I was like, hey, how do I do the salvation thing? Because I just need to make sure, because it hit. There was something building. That was a relationship that wasn't based on traditions or routines or orders or structures of a building, but it was a relationship that I walked with God in and then he walked me into church.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a really important point, because church for most people growing up really just existed in a building and like, and I think what you just described is really what the church is supposed to be, which is a community. I mean, at the end of the day, church is community. It's community of one accord.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that can happen anywhere, right, like so I mean, when you think about it, like I mean the earliest churches, there were no buildings, they met in houses and they really experienced. I think a lot of most people experienced God the way you did, in the context of a safe community where they were experiencing people relating to God, like that. That is that's the way that people entered into this idea of a church and so. But we have gotten, you know, and I I was, but again, I was very much in the. I was in ingrained in the institution, so ingrained in the institution that, as I got on my own, I didn't really understand how to encounter God, not just outside of the church. In fact, I'll be even more blunt and say this I wasn't interested in encountering God outside of the church because I felt that that was my time. It's like cool, I got you on Sundays, the rest of the. I was definitely one of those people Like I got you on Sundays and then I'm, I'm gonna do what I want to do, but I got you on Sunday, and that's because I, because I was so ingrained in the institution and I think you know, especially those of us who grew up in the South. That was just a part of our lives for a lot of people, even if you weren't like religiously that's not the word I wanted to use Even if you weren't consistent in it, like I know you weren't but you were familiar. Your family right was a part of it. You had like, so it wasn't like it was foreign to you and most people.
Speaker 1:The institution of the church in the South is not foreign, um, and and so that that's. I think it can. Um, that familiarity can sometimes be detrimental to our, to our progress in understanding our relationship with God. Um, and so what it was for I won't say it was detrimental, it had to fight that. That was something I had to fight as I continued to move and find the way that I was going to allow God to encounter me outside of the church. I wasn't really interested in that. I just felt like this is what I do, I'm going to go to church. Cool, I have no problem with that. I'm cool with going to church. That's what I do. I wouldn't even know what to do on a Sunday if I didn't go to church.
Speaker 1:So, but, um, I think, I think that point of church, you know, unlearning that church happens inside of a building. That's a very recent development, I think. Uh, cause y'all we did a little research, cause you know we like to prepare Um and uh. Let prepare um and uh. Let's see here. I think it wasn't until I mean shoot, it wasn't until a couple of centuries that buildings were even formed right where, like, meeting space is the way we know now. Of course there was the temple back in the day, but that wasn't like I mean, that was where people made sacrifice and all that, but it wasn't a gathering space for anybody except for the teachers. I mean, they engaged with regular people to just show up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were meeting in houses.
Speaker 1:They were in houses.
Speaker 2:In the upper room. Thank you, you know like.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh sorry.
Speaker 2:Keep going. Y'all felt the disrespect, didn't you? You felt it, didn't you? You felt it. I know y'all felt it. Okay, because it was present, it was the disrespect was with us in the room, okay.
Speaker 2:But you know, I really I love what you said about church being community, because I think one of the things that I had to unlearn, especially when I went to divinity school, was the idea that learning God happened inside of the building versus inside of my lived experience and you know, and so like I was taking everything I was learning in church and I was like this is the, this is the golden rule for the rest of my life and God had to start, and not that it wasn't, and not that it shouldn't be, but I was not leaving room for God to reveal and to illuminate on relationships, on how to build community, on how to speak faith outside of the church. Right, it's easy to talk to people who talk just like you. You know what I'm saying. It's easy to relate to people who look like, act like, believe like and think like you. But when I went to divinity school, I felt very othered, and it was funny because I felt othered while also being a part of a majority. And what I'm saying is, like you know, like in divinity school, it was a lot of people who claimed the same faith but expressed it very differently, expressed it very differently. And I started. Labels were flying around, you know, like oh, I'm a conservative, oh I'm a theoretical, oh I'm a linguistic, oh I'm evangelistic, oh I do New Testament, oh I do Holy Ghost, oh I do Jesus only. And labels were flying around and all of a sudden I found myself dodging the labels, but it was very, almost impossible to do because people needed a way to classify you.
Speaker 2:You want to know one of the most hurtful moments that I had in college, and I still remember this to this day. I was talking with a friend. He was like a year or two older than me, and I remember I was talking to him and this man called me to my face a Bible thumper. And I was like what do you mean? I had never even heard that term before. And he was like, yeah, because you know, you and your friends, some Bible thumpers.
Speaker 2:And I was like I was like what do you even mean? Because at that time I think this might have been like junior year. So you know, I was fresh on my spiritual kick junior year. You know I was at an all time high but I had never thumped the Bible at him. You know, like I had never, you know I had never told him or tried to, you know, tell him anything, but it was just what he was reading from my life. But I realized it became something that I tried to like, resist. Yeah, like, because I want it to be seen as moderate and not as any any of the extremes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Cause what's your? You said something earlier, this idea of what did you say? Okay, hold on, let's work it back. So we talked about the Bible. It all aligned.
Speaker 2:Oh man, what'd you say? Give her middle adult a little time to process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, give me a minute.
Speaker 2:This is what happens sometimes okay, yes, thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if it takes too long producer, Joy will edit.
Speaker 1:She'll figure it out. But I think the thing that I'll go with the Bible thumper thing for a minute, because I think that's it's really interesting you said that you were that was offensive to you there it is the idea of the idea of a lived experience, right Like this idea of allowing God to live, to understand God through the way you live on a regular basis and connecting him and the relationship you have to your lived experience. This is, I think that's really interesting kind of leaning into. That church is outside of the building piece.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people growing up including myself to a certain degree, I'll say another point that we discussed that we have to unlearn is that the church is not perfect. And here's how I think these things connect, because if we establish that the church is really people and it's a community, then but for whatever reason, a lot of us have this are ingrained in this idea of the church is what happens within a building. Many, many people, including myself for a season, especially growing up, did not connect my experiences in the building with my lifestyle outside of it wow that was not something I paid attention to.
Speaker 1:I just did what I thought was the right thing to do. I didn't really. It wasn't like it was like you know, I was doing it consciously. I was really just doing cause what I knew and and I think that a lot of people are turned off by um, by the faith, by Christianity, because there's a disconnect between in the building and out of the building.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:And there's you know what I'm saying. Like so many of us don't actually pay attention to our lives outside of the building, even though that's where the experience of God and of other believers happens most of the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, and I think, just to play into that a little bit, it plays on this idea that holiness is built by checking off the boxes.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I attended church, I went to Bible study, I joined the choir. I usher on Sunday mornings versus holiness being crafted in the way that you live outside of the building.
Speaker 1:Right and like this idea of this Bible thumper that you were saying a lot of people. That is the truth, but this is the reality, I think. I think a lot of people feel that because their lives are disconnected at the end of the day. Now, I said what I said, so I and I say that I say that in love, cause I've been there, all right. So I think, and I think it's on both sides. Let me be clear, that Bible thumper language is very, I mean, it's not meant to be a compliment, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's meant to be offensive, like you know.
Speaker 1:You're throwing your religion at me, that kind of thing. Okay, and I really wasn't? Well, no, you probably weren't, but here's the reality. There are some people that do, you know, there are some people that do. Obviously, I'm still a little hurt. I understand. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I'm giving you a moment because this person sorry, let's, I'm sorry. I'm giving a moment because this person ain't even in my life anymore. You know like I could feel that I don't want to move past it. I'm sorry, cuida, oh no.
Speaker 1:I'm fine, okay, if you knew who it was, you would be like okay, okay, okay, yeah, um, but, but no, I think, but that, that that actually. But there are some people that do throw their religion at people and a lot of times they do that because their lives are disconnected. And then there are some people that do throw their religion at people and a lot of times they do that because their lives are disconnected. And then there are people that feel like the religion is thrown at them when it's really not. It's because their lives are disconnected. So, but when your life is connected to, uh, what Sunday morning, can I say this Get in there, all right, all right. So I just give me a minute, cause I'm going to say something and I don't know it's going to come across.
Speaker 1:One of the things that bothers me, and it bothers me, it is nuts. It is something I grew up with. Okay, altar call. We know, we know. Well, if those of you that don't know what altar call is, people come up and it can look differently. Right, like, I came up with people, you know. They came to the altar, they asked for prayer, or you could join the church or you could ask to be baptized. Those were kind of the three options that were, you know, at play here. But there are other altar calls that are a little lengthier, you know they last a little longer, you know people, it's a little bit more dramatic. I'm just, this is just what. It is. All right, I didn't grow up with a dramatic.
Speaker 2:Dramatic is a crazy word, Ruth Abigail. But, it's true, though let's. Let's be real, but the Lord, be moving at some of the monsters.
Speaker 1:So, so let me. Let me say this I agree, and this is well. This is where my pet peeve. Moving doesn't matter if it doesn't move outside of the building. Now, I'd agree with you there, and this is my issue. We have people that are going to altars every week for the same thing, over and over and over, and there's no change outside of the building. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. The altar can't help you. You have to take what happens and move it outside of Sunday morning. I'm done. I'm not going to get on that stoop.
Speaker 2:No, listen, apply the word, apply, apply, apply, apply. Let me tell y'all something. I just want to. I just want to cut in real quick For those of you who know what the fivefold ministry is. Okay, you know that there are five principal gifts, ministry gifts that Jesus left in the earth. All right, you have the apostle okay, who built and established and found different sectors of the faith, different people, different groups of believers. You have prophets, right, who speak on behalf of God and edify and challenge the body of Christ. You have pastors okay, who love and shepherd the people and pour into the people Okay, you have evangelists who go out there and they build up the church. Then you have the teachers Okay, ruth Abigail is a teacher. Okay, ruth Abigail. Teachers give you the word. They don't care about how it sits with you. Okay, they give it to you. They're like hey here is, here's the truth Deal with it.
Speaker 2:Take it to the pastor if you need to be consoled.
Speaker 1:Not going to lie, that's actually. I appreciate that Cause that's true I do. I do have that gift. It is what it is, I can't. The truth is what it is and sometimes it just needs to be said the way it needs to be said, and that's just the reality. Listen, I look, I love a good altar call. I have no problem with it. But if that is but it, if it doesn't shift your life, you have wasted your time. Let me tell you something, just one more, just, just, just, just just.
Speaker 2:I just have to the preacher's hands doesn't have magic. Sometimes they do. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not magic, but they got a little Holy ghost, but go ahead.
Speaker 1:What I'm saying is what I'm saying is that's not enough. You, you, you, having you going up and and the preacher, and the preacher, pastor, prophet, whoever it is, whoever you happen to engage with, puts their hands on you, puts the oil on you and you fall out. Oh Lord, thank you, lord, I'm delivered. And then you go out, don't change any behavior. You ain't delivered. Listen, listen, listen. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry. I'm going to sum up my good sister's word and I'm going to tell you Jesus had altar calls and when he finished working with somebody, what he would tell them is thy faith has made thee whole. Go and sin no more. Don't go. He gave instructions. He gave clarity about what the moment was, about what he did in the moment, and there was an instruction for how to maintain what he did in their lives.
Speaker 2:No-transcript calling pastor in for different situations. You know, calling other people, calling and asking and saying I need, I need, I need, but not changing, not being willing, not being willing to really evaluate ourselves. And I think that a lot of times, a lot of times, church culture, the thing that I had to unlearn about the church and it might be surprising, the thing that I had to unlearn, but I do think that it made me a better preacher, it made me a better minister. I had to learn that church needs to be challenged to move forward. That it's not I had to learn. And again, I learned this in divinity school.
Speaker 2:If you were with me during my divinity school years, you know I talked a lot of junk about divinity school, but when I look back at it I'm like I'm so grateful because I would not. I would not be able to do some of the things I do in the way that I do it. I do it. I'm able to appreciate the church and love the church and also lovingly speak to the church about what God is intending to do next, that we might miss if we don't position ourselves.
Speaker 2:And I think that if I had not moved from that childlike observance of believing that everyone in this building is perfect, everything that is said is perfect, everything that is done is perfect, that there's no ill intent, that there's no, there's no, that the people who are moving in here don't need healing and deliverance and perspective and that they don't need God to still move, it goes back to that knowing part, like we cannot assume that the church knows everything. The church is the bride of Christ. We are not the Lord, we're the bride, you know, and we are still learning his ways higher than our ways, his thoughts higher than our thoughts. We're still learning and growing, and so we have to assume that there will come seasons where we will be challenged because we messed up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know there's a Barna does a lot of story stories, uh stories, a lot of um studies on a lot of things. Um, but, uh, they do, they do a lot of uh statistics and things do a lot of surveys around church. 60% of young adults that were raised in church uh, often end up walking away. That's, that's the reality right, and often it's because they feel like they didn't have the space to ask tough questions.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:And so what you're saying, this idea of challenging the church, asking, asking real questions, um is a reason when people don't feel like they can do that, when you don't open the door for accountability. That's really what we're talking about here. You, we end up, um, we end up losing uh, we, we've lost a generation. Right, they have. I mean, we have not lost it. Well, all right, we are. We have, we have temporarily uh, been separated from a lot of a generation, and I, and, and there are statistics saying that there is a trickle back, but the re. But the reality is, though at least I know, I hear a lot of um. I work with young people, we're teenagers, and one of the things that I have found to be the best um way to explore ideas is to ask questions. Like, I ask more, I try to ask more questions than I do, to give answers, to help them to actually make sense of certain things, and we just were not encouraged. It's not, and, again, I didn't grow up with anybody telling me don't ask questions.
Speaker 1:Now, some people did, some people was like you, don't question God, like that was, that was like the no-transcript don't question your mama, you don't question your daddy, yeah, your grandmama, your auntie, which is like we want to what, no question, was a very unhealthy you know, that's just a toxic way of of of trying to, you know, teach, I get it. It's like, you know, there's some things you just won't understand. I understand, understand the principle behind it, but if you don't, if you're not, if that's not broken down, then you, you, you know, you end up, um, allowing for, uh, this, this resentment, almost to build up like okay, or just mistrust, distrust Like I don't, okay, well, what are they not telling me? Or where are they trying to hide? Or, you know, what is it that they are trying to? Like? They don't, they don't know certain things and they're trying to make me believe something that doesn't make any sense and nobody will explain it to me, like those are things, and so I'm just, I'm forget it, like I'm not even going to continue fooling with this when I get out of here.
Speaker 1:I'm out of here, and there are a lot of people that felt that way, and and I think that we have to be honest and we have to open up the door for asking questions. Sometimes we won't have the answers A lot of answers we don't have but the questions should be asked and engaged, even if it's not going to a final concrete answer, it's just a matter of being open to wondering about things that are really just, you know, above our understanding. I mean, there are some things we're just never going to understand. Yeah, I just I think that that that is. It's a salient point to me, because I I think that we could help a lot of people who truly are lost by by engaging questions that haven't been engaged before.
Speaker 2:Listen. If any of the seasoned saints, any of the middle adults, all right, my churchy middle adults hear me. Hear me. If you want some practice answering hard questions, I have a suggestion for you Go serve in the children's church, go serve, go teach in the youth Sunday school. Okay, I've been doing it since 2014. Let me tell you, these kids will ask you some questions and you'll be like what. One time we were teaching on baptism and the little baby said so, wait a minute. So if I go down into the water and I leave my old man down there, I leave my old person down there and I come up a new person. This is what this nine-year-old said in the middle of Sunday school. She said so if I get mad and need to tell somebody that I'm mad, can I go back down into the water and go find that old person and bring them back up, literally okay. They were like how can I find the old man? How can I get him back? Listen?
Speaker 2:let me tell you something I never know what. I'm walking into Sunday to Sunday. We don't know what have. You can get a child to understand that you have upped your teaching game.
Speaker 1:And, quite frankly, you can explain it to anybody and it's like that is actually. You make a great point. It is the hardest thing to explain a lot of things we learn in church to young people, to young people. But if you can do it the way we say it put the cookies on the bottom shelf, put it within their reach where they can grab it right so they got to climb up no ladder and get it. Put it on the level where they can get it, get on their level, explain it there and if you can figure, if you can do that with a child, then you can do that with an adult, because really we're not that much further than than children. We have a lot of the same questions. Let me tell you something. Yeah, I bet an adult had that question. Hey, can I go back and get him because I really kind of need her right now.
Speaker 2:But ain't it, but it looks different. Right, like they might be saying like can I go back and get it? But they're also saying will I lose? Who lose the part of myself that I've identified with not being perfect? That's right. And trying to strive for perfection and trying to strive to be righteous and holy and to be kind of like at the apex of Christendom right To have the perfect persona Will I lose the ability to make mistakes? Will I lose the ability to not always get it right, or will I have to continue to contend with the part of me that that isn't always light and right? That's so interesting. How do I contend with darkness?
Speaker 1:That's so interesting to me and I get that. But it's like what is the church doing wrong that people have that thought? I mean because immediately I'm thinking about Romans seven, romans, chapter seven what Paul is is essentially having this internal. He's expressing an internal thought, not internal. He's expressing an internal thought, not internal internal battle with himself of you know, I want to do what's right, but I don't. And when I, you know the things that I want to do, I don't do the things I don't want to do, I do and just this. And he goes through this litany of this battle of you know this, this is who I was, this is who I want to be. This battle of you know this, this is who I was, this is who I want to be, and I don't really know how to handle that tension and and so, and.
Speaker 1:Then he outlines that reality and then he ends it with this idea of um in Romans, romans, chapter eight, that there's no condemnation for him who is Christ, jesus, because when you're in, when you're in Christ, that um, the struggle is what makes you uh, uh, let me say the best way to say it the struggle is what gives you, is what makes you know whether or not you are in Christ or not. If the struggle isn't there, then you like that there is. That that's, that's a sign that Christ is working in you, because you always going to have to contend with the old person. That old person didn't go away. That old person isn't going to go away, but it doesn't rule you anymore, it doesn't control you anymore, but it's still who you are because you're still human. You are on earth. You won't have to contend with it, but Christ gives you the um, the strength through the Holy spirit to actually live and not be controlled by who you used to be. And so this idea that I'm going to totally lose that it it's.
Speaker 1:I know that's so interesting because I think we have to be much more clear about that. And in the church and that church, I want to say clear about it, in the church. I'm going to stop saying that because I think that the church is clear about it. I think our issue is going back to what we said earlier. We don't take what we learn in church outside of it. We don't apply it. Earlier. We don't take what we learn in church outside of it, we don't apply it and we don't talk about it with each other the way that we do on Sunday. We don't repeat the conversation, so you forget about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you have to make the word revolving in your life, not something that you walk in and walk out of, but something that's walking with you, and a lot of times that's how we treat church, you know, and I think that that's kind of sometimes, depending on, like, what your childhood narrative was, that's how maybe church was represented in your home, was represented in your home. You know, I just had a thought, you know, because, again, my family, again a lot of us, went to church but would not have probably considered ourselves to be like, super religious, like you know, like I, to be honest, I still have to remind myself to say grace. I'd be like you know, whereas for a lot of people that's like, hey, you know, how could you not pray over your food? And I'm like because I did not pray over my food until my 20s Like it just wasn't a thing, you know, and so.
Speaker 2:But I remember when I came back from college, I remember visiting my cousins and you know I had been to visit my cousins. I took Ruth Abigail to visit my cousins. Okay, listen, all right, my cousins, you know it's a good time, you know it's a fun time, they're fun people. Anyways, I was over there and you know I was just sitting down chilling, talking, and then they, literally they kept saying like they was like, well, you know, jaquita is a Christian. And I was looking around like I'm sorry what, and they was like, yeah, yeah, because you know, jaquita's a Christian. And I was like, aren't we? But we all identify as Christians, but for them, the lifestyle of a Christian not the belief, but the lifestyle of a Christian this was before I was a minister, this was before I think this might've even been before I was even a religion, major Right, but the lifestyle of a Christian to them was very distinct from the belief in God and I had to.
Speaker 2:It took me aback because I realized that I was. You know, now I look back and I was like, oh yeah, the Lord set me apart. But I felt alienated. I was like my family doesn't know what to do with me right now, and not just like my you know, direct family, but like the cousins, my age, my peers, were like we can't really fool with you because of your not because of your belief, because nobody in that room would have claimed to not believe in God.
Speaker 2:And I think that that was a distinct point that I had to learn was that I would be recognized not by what I said but by what people perceived from me said, but by what people perceive from me. And it took me a while to be able to contend with the perceptions of other people about how I carried my faith versus how I saw myself. Like there was an identity shift from me accepting that, okay, I am a believer and this is the life that I'm committing myself to, the way I perceive that versus the way other people perceive that. That was a hard time for me.
Speaker 1:What things? Because I think this speaks to another unlearning point that we talked about. This idea of your amount of church attendance or your closeness to the church doesn't equate to holiness or righteousness. It doesn't make you more right with God because you spend more time in church. Those two things don't match, and those are things I think both of us have to unle, had to unlearn. I think that what the point you're making is very interesting, um, because you have a lot of people who spend a ton of time in church, but they may not have said that you know, that grew up in it, that spent a lot of time in it.
Speaker 1:I know there's um, you know my brother, who you know, and he, he would not say that he was a Christian, um, and, but he, he has high risk. He believes in God, has high respect for the church. He would not call himself a Christian, though, and so he was actually hanging out with a couple of um, a couple of guys who are, uh, pastor's kids, and I remember him telling me that he was like yo, they are wild. He was like I don't eat, I'm not. Even the stuff they were talking about was like. He was like yo man, like I mean he was, he was blown away, right, and, and let me, let me be distinct. They're not just pastors, kids, but they're pastors in the church, so, so like, and he was blown away and he was just like yo, like it's, it's crazy what what they were telling me they were involved in. And he was like I would never do something like that, I would never be involved in something like that. But he doesn't claim to be a Christian, but these are two pastors and I mean you know they're around the same age, they're in our generation.
Speaker 1:I know that's not a shocker, probably to most people. It was to me when I first got to Divinity School, because I know we talked a lot about that, um, but, but I make that point to say this idea of righteousness and being right with God is not an automatic equate. It doesn't automatically equate to how much time or how connected you are to the church, uh, but the lifestyle piece is so interesting because people even outside the church look way more at your lifestyle than how much you go to church. Like that's like they people who are not like I'm cool on church, I don't even. I don't even fool with all that christianity stuff. I'm believing god. You know he's my he's. You know I respect god, he's my lord and savior. People will say that and and cool, no problem. But they don't necessarily consider us to be a Christian. But they look at lifestyle before they look at church attendance. But people in the church hold our church attendance up and I know, like in you know, growing up I definitely was in that camp. Like you know, the amount of knowledge I had, the amount of church I did made me closer to God, like I had that it wasn't something I said out loud but it certainly was something I think I really believed.
Speaker 1:I used to struggle when I when I was, when I would pray at night because they told me to pray, so I prayed. I was very much a do you know I'm going to do what they tell me to do? I really didn't. I'm cool doing what you tell me to do. That's cool. So I used to pray. They say you should pray and you should particularly ask God to forgive you of your sins.
Speaker 1:And I remember struggling if what did I do wrong today? I couldn't figure it out. I really did like legit, I was like I don't know that I did anything wrong today, but I would try to find something, because I was like, surely I did, but I can't tell you what it was. So I I learned how to pray God, but give me for the things I don't forgot I did. I just cause I don't, I don't know, I don't know what I did, but I said that because I figured there was something wrong. I did, but but in my heart of hearts I really felt like I didn't do anything wrong. I did everything right. I'm doing everything they told me to do Like, and so so I had, I had to unlearn that, that that being being close with God was not, did not equate being close with the church, and I think you know that that my, my, I think the thing that grieves me honestly about a lot of people who grew up in church is that we learned more about church than we did God.
Speaker 2:Y'all, y'all, you know, I, when I was in college, you know, I told you, I told y'all about how the Lord would tell me constantly rest in my love, rest in my love, rest in my love. I remember it. It dawned on me so clearly how well I knew God as king, but how little I knew of God as father, because I was okay with him ruling and reigning. But I could not understand love, devotion and relationship. I articulated it but I didn't live in it. Yeah, I lived in. Well, I follow the Lord, I'm obedient. Okay, I don't, I don't break rules. I was very, uh, very attentive to learning order and learning what people thought I should do, but my relationship with God was I was growing in my gifts, but I was not growing. I was growing in relationship with God, but it was transactional.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right you know it was a thank you, lord, for my blessings. Hallelujah, yeah, oh, thank you, Lord. You protected me because I almost got in an accident. But Lord, the Lord loves me because he protected me. But when you learn? I think one of the biggest things that I unlearned, especially as a middle adult looking back at my twenties, was learning that God loved me when I was flawed and not when I was perfect and not just when I was perfect.
Speaker 1:Romans 5, 8, right God demonstrated his love for us, and that while we were still sinners While we were yet sinners, and you know, by the way, that was one of the ones we had to memorize, obviously, yeah, so, but, but, like to your point, I didn't get that when I was memorizing it, I that did not click with me, like I didn't, because I didn't. I'm with you, man, like that, that truly um, that really was, uh, um, something that, that that I had to grow into as well, like God loves me, loved me before I decided to love him. To be honest with you, that's really what broke me and that's what brought me closer to God. I mean, you and I were we, we I was in college, we were friends, and I had this moment. I was by myself in my room, um, and this is like the summer before sophomore, no, the summer after sophomore year, I think, um and uh and I. I had this moment where I was like, um, I was just, I was lying and I kept thinking about the fact that that very thing, right, I knew my real heart. I was starting to get familiar with my real heart and not the heart I let everybody else see. And it hit me like, in spite of all that, I had all these things I didn't deserve, including these friends who put up with me, who I never really understood true friendship before, and God blessed me with friends that understood me.
Speaker 1:I was at a school I really didn't, really probably shouldn't have gotten into. I mean, I was good but my grades were not as good as y'all's and so, you know, I wasn't sure I was supposed to even get in. I realized like the family I had, the education I had, the opportunities I had the people I knew, all of that was given in spite of me understanding who I really was. And when I connected that truth, it broke me. And I think what broke me was I was like yo, like there are way better people that should be getting this life, cause I know of other people who probably love God more, pray God, pray to God more and more sincere than me, who are living in conditions that I couldn't survive and so, but why me? And that's what broke me.
Speaker 1:And, and I remember after, um, I remember you and I talked not too long after that and you told me that you heard something different and I and I I said yeah, like I feel like this, this was my, this is, this is me, um, I wouldn't even say recommitting. I think committing for the first time I knew a lot. I was in the motions, I did my thing, I was good at what I did, but I had never really committed. And this was me like committing my heart to God not just my mind and my actions, but my heart and um and so that that was. But that's what broke me is like it's not transactional.
Speaker 2:You don't have anything to transact Like, wow, you know what I'm saying, that part when you realize how unbalanced the scales are, that, like you know it is not. I spent so long. You know. I remember, ever since I was, ever since I gave my life to the Lord, like ever since I joined that gospel choir, people started pulling me to the side and saying there's an anointing on you, there's a gift on you. I see the light of God shine. It got to the point where I could spot them. They would get that little look in their eye like, and I was like, oh Lord, they better come, tell me something. And I would start scurrying.
Speaker 2:I remember I used to be one, because we used to travel with the gospel choir and we would go to these different schools and there was always somebody at another school who was going to pull me to the side to tell me I was anointed and gifted. And did I? Did? I know I was supposed to be a preacher. I mean, the Lord would not let up and at this time in my life I wasn't trying to be nobody's preacher, okay, I just wanted to be saved. But I remember I spent so long telling the Lord I'll come when I'm good enough. I'll come when I'm good enough. I'll come when I deserve it. I'll come when I'm worthy, I'll come when I fix this or when I fix that.
Speaker 2:And there was, like this invisible warfare that not only did I believe it, but there was a warfare that was set up to keep me in that mindset, because it was always something happening that seemed to confirm that I wasn't ready, that I wasn't good enough, that I shouldn't do it, that God didn't want me preaching or teaching or leading anybody. There was one point where I felt like I wasn't even good enough to touch people, and it wasn't because I had done anything so bad, it was just that this, this feeling of unworthiness, that didn't even come from the church, that didn't even come from um, it came from my own. You know what I learned in my healing class, which, if y'all haven't done healing the heart yet, how that your girl, like my um the coach I did it under she, she'll run you a session real quick. But when I, what I learned was that there were needs in me that had gone unattended and I had to, I had to learn. I didn't realize how much it impacted my faith life and that I needed healing in order to see God correctly. Yeah, that's good and so that was a journey.
Speaker 2:And we don't realize sometimes. You know when, any area let me say this any area of your life that you stressing and striving and trying to be perfect in, you got an imbalance there and you have to recognize. You have to recognize you have to glory in your infirmities, you have to say, lord, my strength is made, your strength is made perfect in my weakness, and I have to recognize that I'm not going to have it all, but I can submit it all.
Speaker 1:Man, that's really good and I wish that the church, I wish I got more of this growing up, and if I did, it's not what I took hold's, not what I um, what I took hold to. But even like in, you know, in Bible class at school, like when I was growing up, um, talking more about the um, talking more about the imperfections of, like these, you know, kind of glorified biblical characters, right, david and Esther and Daniel, and you know, you know, pete, all the disciples and all the different people that we, we like to to lift them up right there, and and and these great, these great people. It wasn't until I got older that I started to hear more about how imperfect they were, but growing up, I heard more about how not perfect, but what they did, that was great, right, those areas. And it creates a false goal, right, like. The goal is like okay, I want to be as brave as David, right, I want to be as committed as Daniel, I want to be as bold as Peter, right, I want to do all I want to. That's what I'm going to try to do, right, and I'm going to be as learned as Paul. Whatever I mean, whatever it is right and we don't. We are not often, I don't think often enough Well, I would say I was not often enough reminded of the weaknesses of these people.
Speaker 1:Now, you know some things. It's like, you know, yeah, your story of David and Bathsheba. You know David killed her husband, slept with her. You know some things. It's like, you know, yeah, your story of David and Bathsheba. You know David killed her husband, slept with her. You know all that. You know it's bad, it's real bad. Right, you hear that, got it, but but like that.
Speaker 1:First of all, that wasn't the only issue that David had. There was a lot of other things. When you look deep into his story, like that that there was, there was, there was real problems with like he had, he had struggles with insecurities, he had weaknesses he had. You know all all that, right, we talk about the wisdom of Solomon and also and we glorify his wisdom of Solomon In the streets I mean my God, in them, streets, I mean my god like in them, you know, and and and, completely overrun by his, uh, by his lust, quite frankly, like that's, that's, that's what, that's what that was. So it's like, okay, well, what? Like the same guy that's wise, can't control his, his, his, you know, doesn't choose to control his sexual desires, right so like.
Speaker 1:But those are tensions that I don't remember dealing with in the church growing up, when we were hearing these stories, and I think if I'd done that more, I'd spent less time on the things that were great about me and started to understand that, yeah, there are things and gifts that you have and there are things that you've done that are good, but that's not what I want you to glorify. The idea is you can't do enough of that to deserve me. That's the whole thing, right, you can't do enough to deserve what God can give you. But in the church it felt like that was my job was to do enough to deserve.
Speaker 1:And even though I could tell you theologically that that was incorrect, my actions did not say that, um, and and it it turns people off and it makes, it confuses people, um and I think that's again going back to your experience like with your, with your family, like it, they don't have an expectation of somebody. It's like, no, if you know you, you this is we different? And it's like, well, not really. And the reality that we're're not that different. We might do different things, but we are not different. Yeah, I have just decided to put, uh, put my, I've decided to release the fact that I am imperfect into, into into God and into Christ. Maybe you it, but we're still the same imperfect.
Speaker 2:Like, uh, to be fair, at that point in time, I probably wasn't. Um, that's fair. Yeah, you know, like I, and I think that that's something that I I I probably have unlearned the most of is how to communicate not only communicate faith, but, in meekness and humility, continuing to walk forward, and how I relate to people who don't relate to God in the way that I do. You know, I think that there was a time where I was approaching people with the you need to get it right, all right, and here's what right is. Yep, you know, but it was the diversity of Divinity School that, although I still do have quite a keen eye for right and wrong, ok, but it was.
Speaker 2:It was when I found, when I was in divinity school, I worked at a United Methodist church and I, you know, although my church is interdenominational, like my home church, we're very much Baptocostal, more Pentecostal than anything else. But I spent all my time in divinity school working for the United Methodist Church. I worked at the Wesley Foundation at the Tennessee State University OK, I do claim them. Ok, they're part of my story. And I work for the General Board of Discipleship, I'm like working for the governing body of the United Methodist Church and it was working in those places that I learned that God doesn't have to only move in spaces that look like mine. That's good. A few other pastors and mentors that impacted me and the way that I see ministry and the way that I interact with God's people, as much as Reverend Michelle Morton, who was my supervisor at the Wesley Foundation, and we did not see eye to eye on everything doctrinal there know, like there were some things like. I remember we had a whole conversation about communion one time where we, we, we had to, we had to come to terms with. I work here, okay, but you know, and I'm going to abide by the order of the house, but you know, but learning to respect each other in difference and hold up the gifts that God plays taught me that the church was universal. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:If we, if I, were to go to a church in Africa right now, they would probably like shun some. They'd be like y'all, not for real, yeah, y'all, y'all know, y'all ain't got it all together. You go, you know. You hear people say stuff like that. If you go to a church in Ghana, you know. If you go to a church where people have different life experiences. I learned that the church was so much bigger than my very small experience with it, and I learned that God. I learned that God wants us to interact and engage with each other and not isolate ourselves away from each other.
Speaker 1:I think we have to hit this last point because I just think it's really important that unlearning that church will give me everything I need, and I think that you know we're kind of seeing that a lot now. Uh, but churches, uh, and I wish I, I wish I wrote it down. But Dr Darius Daniels, he, he says it in a way I really like, like, um, uh, church will, huh, how do you say it? Essentially, he said he has this I, I gotta find a job. I've tried to put in a comment or something if I can bring it up, but essentially, like you know, I churches, church can't give me everything. Right, there are some things that that I have to get.
Speaker 1:I have to get outside of it because it's not designed to give me everything we talked about earlier. Like this idea of community most community, I mean church. You know church service, that we you know. Like this idea of community most community, I mean church. You know church service, that we you know that a lot of people attend, most people simply attend that on Sunday mornings, and then you go and you do your life Right, and it's like that's great.
Speaker 1:But it's akin to watching a YouTube video and on on cooking and then never cooking, like you know. So you've watched and you've learned how to cook, but you never cook. We didn't learn how to cook, and so I think that we have to, but you don't do that without. Even if you do cook, if nobody else tastes your food, how do you know that it tastes good? Right, my Lord, it is a communal experience. It has to happen outside. I was waiting, that was good, that was excellent timing, like it was like right there. I mean if you had waited too long, we'd have missed it, but you didn't, yeah, you didn't miss it, uh, but but yeah, I think. I think like understanding that you know we have to have community. And then there are expertise outside the church, such as therapy, counseling, all these things. Some churches have them, but that's not coming from the pulpit. You know and understanding that there are things and processes that you need. There might be, you know, there might be classes that you need to take in order to understand some things about yourself.
Speaker 1:All those different things right, and I would caution anyone because I love folk I would caution anyone who attends a church, who has found most of their church experience in a place that would have you believe that they can give you everything because they can't, and that that becomes manipulation. And that's where a lot of people have lived in a manipulative state with the church that they have either grown up in or or have have attached themselves to at some point. Where you don't need anything else, right, where you don't need anything else right. That's a lie and that's not. That is not true, and and it's it's um.
Speaker 1:So if, if that is uh, is the is the underlying message? Um, I would, I would ask some questions. I would ask some questions and and start to diversify where you get the information you get from, because a lot of people get caught up in that, like a lot of people get caught up in this, and this false narrative of my church has everything I talked to my past about everything. You don't need to be talking your past about everything. You. You need to diversify your voices. You need to diversify your voice.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, don't stop talking to you, no, no, no, I'm sorry, I should. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that should be the only.
Speaker 1:Ruth about to have y'all out here. No, but I'm serious though, like, but I'm saying it shouldn't be the only person you talk to. I'm Irish, to say it like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, have life, have life, have life, and that more abundantly. You know, seek an abundant life where your relationship with God is the underpinning of everything you experience. Your relationship with God is the foundation of your experience with church. Your relationship with God is the foundation of your experience with your job, your career, your vocation, your family, your friendships. Your relationship with God has to be the underpinning of it, and I think that for a long time, we allowed church to speak to our life instead of allowing our life to speak to church.
Speaker 1:So, allow.
Speaker 2:Come from the inside out, Because that will also make you a better servant. You will go back into the house of worship and you will go into that place intending to give, instead of always thinking that I got to come here and get fixed. I got to come here and get fixed. I got to come here and receive. Some of us some of us not all of us some of us have been in the same spot for too long and you have to allow God to flip you from being just merely a recipient to being a key player in what is happening in that building, especially middle adults, because we are at the season now where we should be finding ourselves in positions where we are beginning to serve. I saw this Instagram video of the girl who said that she knows that she moved to the next season of her life, because she's no longer just you know first name she's sister. So-and-so Okay, it's time, middle adults, for you to become sister and brother, so-and-so Amen.
Speaker 1:Amen, hallelujah, wow, all right, we ended that on exactly the note we needed to end it on. Well, folks, thanks for listening. Thanks, queda. I will say this is miles better than the first one Miles. Miles, I mean if we had released what we had, y'all, I don't even know if y'all would still follow us. Bro, it was pretty bad. We was all over the place it was not that bad.
Speaker 2:It wasn't that bad, it really wasn't that bad. We just weren't content and we wanted represent this, especially this particular topic.
Speaker 1:Well, I wish I had a little more voice to give y'all, but I gave you what I had. Thank you, Jaquita. Thank you for sacrificing your voice. It's a sacrifice for the people we appreciate it, that's all right, we appreciate it. She resisted y'all, but I made her do it. Yeah, because Ruth is a tyrant.
Speaker 2:Okay, and it wasn't even that I was resisting. I just wanted Ruth to be like listen, I know, I understand, I feel what you feel, but we have to go. And Ruth was like I don't care what your voice is doing.
Speaker 1:You know what the you know what the you got to record the two lowest. You know. If you ever take a spiritual gifts test, you know what my two lowest ones are. My top two lowest ones, let's all take a guess, go ahead. Hospitality. Hospitality and mercy they're my two lowest. What do?
Speaker 2:you want me to do?
Speaker 1:Okay, y'all pray for me. Y'all pray for me. It's not my strongest gift, so I apologize if I was inconsiderate.
Speaker 2:I told y'all that's such a teacher, that's such a teacher. No hospitality, it is no mercy my my teaching and administrative.
Speaker 1:I absolutely so. So thank you, queda. We appreciate you for uh sacrificing uh for the people and we appreciate y'all listening. And again, y'all, if this is valuable, share it with somebody else. We want to keep growing our community. All right, that's it. Let's keep unlearning together so that we can experience more burrito. Thank you once again for listening to the unlearned podcast. We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode. Feel free to follow us on facebook and instagram and to let us know what you think. We're looking forward to the next time, when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom. See you then.
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