The Tilted Halo
The Tilted Halo podcast has a refreshing and honest perspective on the challenges pastors face in their ministry and those involved in ministry as a whole. Hosted by Pastor Kathleen Panning, who has seen it all, this edgy show explores the idea that we all have a "tilted halo" - a recognition that we are not perfect and all make mistakes.
Through personal experiences, interviews with fellow pastors, leaders, and insights from scripture, this show offers advice and encouragement for those struggling with the weight of their imperfections. From burnout and rude awakenings to personal failures and shortcomings, The Tilted Halo provides a safe space for pastors to share their struggles and find support from a community of like-minded souls around the globe.
With a focus on authenticity, vulnerability, and humanity at large, this podcast challenges the notion that pastors must have it all together and invites listeners to embrace their humanity and lean into the grace of God. Whether you are a pastor or someone looking for a fresh perspective on life's challenges, The Tilted Halo is a must-listen in the search for hope, healing, and a renewed sense of purpose.
The Tilted Halo
EP 46: Why Your Story in Faith Needs to Be Shared
What happens when our spiritual beliefs clash with our identity? In this episode, Matt Gill, from DO THE DAMN THING Productions, talks about his story, sharing with me the struggle of being a gay man in a devout Christian family. His journey of self-discovery, highlights the crucial role of acceptance within faith communities and reveals the harmful effects of judgment and condemnation. We'll talk about managing insecurities, the power of God's love, and the unique strength found in vulnerability, emphasizing how important sharing our individual stories is in uplifting others. This episode concludes with a reminder of how important it is to keep a strong connection with God as your foundation while navigating life.
Welcome to the Tilded Halo. This is a new podcast and it's for anybody who's a woman in ministry. You might be a pastor like myself, a bishop, a priest, a rabbi, music minister, elder children's minister whatever your title is, you're absolutely in the right place, especially if you're someone who loves your ministry and you're doing it well and you're feeling pressure to sometimes be perfect and deep down inside, you know you're not, and how in the world to deal with that? And, men, you're absolutely welcome here too, because this is about ministry and the same thing can happen to you. So you're all in the right place. Let's get started with the show. Welcome to another edition of the Tilded Halo, and I am so delighted to have a very special guest with me today Matt Gill Hi, chief of what is your exact title?
Speaker 2:I'm the production director for Do the Damn Thing Productions.
Speaker 1:I knew it had to do something. Like production director, I wanted to get it right. Got to know Matt, so what was it about three years ago?
Speaker 2:something like that. Yes, man.
Speaker 1:And in working with Tiffany, who is head of Tiffany Largy, and Do the Damn Thing and all that.
Speaker 2:She is the CEO of Do the Damn Thing, but actually Tiffany Largy Business Strategies is kind of the name of our company here. She's the one who created Do the Damn Thing and the movement of Do the Damn Thing, which has brought both of us together.
Speaker 1:Right and the idea is doing the business and the dreams that we really want to do, which is partly how I got to doing this wonderful podcast here in the DTDT studio.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And Matt, you've got a powerful story that's, I think, really important for people of faith and faith communities to hear, because number one is personal and it's your story Right. Number two it can help, I hope people understand the impact that faith, both positively and not so positively, can have when we become judgmental Right In many respects. So I don't know exactly where or how young you want to start your story, but you know, I grew up in a very close private Christian family.
Speaker 2:So growing up I went to church every Sunday. I went to a private Christian school. I was one of those. So I love microphones, which doesn't surprise me why I went into production, because I had always. I always felt very comfortable, either behind a microphone, in front of a camera or on stage in front of an audience Like to me, that feels home, that feels comfortable. I would go to Sunday school and I would come home and I would go out and I pretend like I was a preacher and everything that I just learned in Bible study.
Speaker 2:I would regurgitate in my own way and pretend like I had an audience. Growing up, my parents felt. My mom always thought I was going to be a news reporter and my dad thought I was going to be a youth minister. Oh, and what I love is I get to do both almost in how I get to sooth the world. Now, growing up, god and the relationship with God has always been incredibly important to me. I always felt the presence of God, I felt his guidance, I felt his word and I was very involved in church, both during school. After school. I was one of the drama kids that were in all of the plays and the musicals, and so I spent a lot of time in church and around church. What became a struggle is the older I got, I realized that I felt different. I felt different than other people.
Speaker 2:We were taught that being gay was wrong. We were taught that if you are gay, you're going to hell. We were taught that being gay is a choice, and I didn't. Growing up, I didn't really know what gay was Like. I didn't know.
Speaker 2:I knew in fifth grade that I had a crush on a boy that named Ricky Larson that I knew I could never talk about because it was not right. I still didn't understand what gay was. You know, it's fascinating how I hear of people talking about gay people being pedophiles and that it goes to the sexuality of being gay. I was in fifth grade. I had no idea. I didn't even know anything about myself really at that time.
Speaker 2:So the idea of being gay or being attracted to a man, I knew I had a crush. There was something about this individual that I was attracted to and that I wanted to have more in my life. That's all I knew at the moment. But I also know that if I were to say that I was gay or come out in any way, that, one, my parents would not approve of it. Two, the church was not gonna approve of it and that I was gonna be condemned to hell forever and live this miserable life. So I chose to keep things a secret. I chose not to allow myself to feel what was just coming up for me. So I lived in the space of trying to be numb, of not going there. What's interesting is that I never felt like it was God's punishment, like I never felt like I was being punished in any way. But what I didn't understand was that if this was wrong, why would God make me this way? And I felt that there was something wrong with me.
Speaker 1:Did you feel it was your responsibility or that this was something that somehow?
Speaker 2:you had created. I would say that, based on how I was raised and based on what the church said, if God made me perfect and God and I was born into this earth, and then if this is wrong and this is something that I did and that only I can change, but I didn't know how to change it, didn't know who to talk to because I would instantly be set into the space of being judged and it made no sense. Honestly, I think that was probably the biggest part of growing up is like I didn't know. We have now there's so much information that people have access to. Back then growing up, I had the Encyclopedia Britannica. I remember those, yes and all of the what 25 or 27 different volumes, and so the amount of information that we have access to now didn't exist back then, and so I don't think that I knew where to get answers.
Speaker 2:I just knew I felt different. I remember crying myself to sleep at night, praying that God would fix me. I remember feeling like there was something different about me, which meant that the results, the happiness, joy, the love that other people felt wasn't for me Because I had this being gay as my disability or my problem, and I was made to, as I think most of us feel that if we are gay then we are wrong and we are wrong, we are shunned, and when we are shunned or pushed away we are forgotten about, which means that God does not love me. But that went against everything that I was raised of. God is love, and God loves all Except Except right, so none of it truly made sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So how did you navigate that? You know this not making sense, yet feeling that the church was important in your life and God was important. But all of this stuff was one day God loves me. Next day, I'm condemned to hell. You know this total roller coaster of, and also hearing other people talk about people who are gay as being, I don't dirty bad wrong.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:all of the above All of the above and you know, there you are hiding in the midst of this, but the church you love, that's really not loving you back, in spite of what they say.
Speaker 2:Here's the thing you hit the nail on the head when you said the word hiding. For me, my story is about being gay and the lack of acceptance within the faith-based community that I felt. The truth is, we all have secrets. We all have things that we're holding onto that we won't tell the rest of the congregation. We're not gonna go tell Sister Mary because she's gonna be talking to so-and-so and then tell everybody before you know what the whole church is all about. Your business. We all have secrets and we all have these moments that we try to hide and we try to put on this mask and we end up forgetting who we truly are because we have so many masks that we're wearing. We have a mask that we wear when we're with our family. We go to church on Wednesday or on Sunday or even on Saturday, whenever you go, and you have a mask putting on a front for those people. Then you go to your friends and you have another way that you're acting with them. Then you have your own spouse or your partner, your home environment and your different person. You get to be. You're all these different people because you're trying to manage other people's insecurities. You're trying to manage their judgments. You're trying to manage what they feel and so you step away.
Speaker 2:We live in a life especially those that have been, have been in hiding Anybody that's part of the LGBTQ queer community have lived a life of pretending to be somebody else. So then we tell them you just be you. They don't know who they are. Same thing for somebody who has lived a life of secrecy or pretending, or many people are in relationships for a long period of time that they know is unhealthy, that they know is violent, that they know is not feeding them and they stay in that relationship and then for so long until somebody comes along and says hey, you need to be, take yourself out of that. And then you get the courage to move to your next and then you feel lost because your identity and everything is back on who you've been pretending to be Right.
Speaker 2:So for me, my story is about being gay, but for other people it's about being in a relationship for too long. It's about saying yes too many times when you really should be saying no. It's about the generational secrets that we have been keeping of that uncle of somebody did something, or somebody was touched inappropriately or something happened, that parent did something, or that aunt got an abortion and she's never talked about it, those secrets that have been kept in the family because we're afraid of judgment. I had to get to a point where I stopped managing other people's insecurities. What I realized is that I know God has never left me, Even in my darkest moments. I went six and a half years of using crystal meth and during that time it was because I didn't want to feel the drugs, the drinking it numbed me. I didn't have to feel I honestly I felt like there were moments that I lost my soul because I was in such a pit of darkness Wow. But the one thing I will always remember is that I always felt God's presence there.
Speaker 2:That's powerful to know that you felt that, in spite of In spite of and that's why I don't believe that God will ever forsake me. According to Christianity and what the Bible says, that's what the Bible says. That's what that says the God I serve. I know he loves me. I know that I am made of Him. I cannot do and serve the way that I do without Him. The space of stepping onto a stage and being able to share my story and touch the heart and the soul, that's not me. That's God working through me. I am very well aware that I am on a mission and I have a goal on this planet and that's to help people fall in love with themselves the way that God wanted us to be, to help people feel the freedom I lived 44 years of my life hiding. That's a long time, a long time. We don't have to say it like that. She's like that's a long time.
Speaker 1:But the reality is some people live their whole life Not just 40, but 60, 80 years hiding Exactly Families like you talked about spend. That that's why Felted Halo is called what it is, because we feel the pressure to manage our own insecurities and others to feel perfect. One may know perfectly well or not Whatever that perfection is, whether it's being straight when you're gay or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's really taking a stand for yourself and understanding that you're not broken, no matter how dark things feel. You're not broken. There's nothing to fix. There may be new decisions that you need to make. There might be some choices in the environment that you choose. It may require you to take a look at the people that you're spending your time with. It may require you to take a look at what are the things that you are feeding your soul, feeding your mind. What books are you reading? What music are you listening? What shows are you watching on television? But ultimately, making that decision for yourself and then sharing it to the world is what gives you the freedom, the freedom that God has designed for us to have the freedom to love, the freedom to be loved.
Speaker 1:The power to let other people know that they are loved too.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I don't even want to say in spite of, but even through who they are, what they have done, and out the other side to something bigger, better, more beautiful. That is what God wants for all of us. I've shared on this show many times the beauty of the diversity of this world. What would it be like if everybody was like Matt?
Speaker 1:It would be a fun time, but it would also be a little bit boring and the same thing. If everybody was like me, there would be some ways in which that would be a lot more peaceful, but it would also be boring, right, because we wouldn't have that diversity that's there and that beautiful in pouring into each other that you have poured in to so many people since you shared your story and that has allowed other people to be free and to share their story too.
Speaker 2:Our stories, and our stories are the are the thing that has the answers, it's the thing that holds our freedom. It's the thing that it's the. It's our secret weapon. Like I always say, it's almost like our superpower. It's the one. Your story is the one thing that is that nobody else has. Nobody else has your experience, nobody else has your joy, nobody else has your sorrow, nobody else has the. The moments that you have felt. Only you have that, and within those moments are the solutions to. You have moved through them and created your own solutions, which therefore the solutions for other people, which is why we here at DTDT are a preach.
Speaker 2:You need to tell your story. You need to first take a, take a look at the mirror and be able to look at yourself and Own the truth of what you've been through, own the truth of the decisions that you've made, own the truth of the feelings and the results that they created. Look at that, own that and then begin to share. And that's truly the biggest part. And that's the scariest part. Yeah, yeah, because that's the part. That is, you don't have control over. You don't have control over how your family is going to respond. You don't have control over how the public is going to you know, going to take what you're receiving.
Speaker 2:When you came, when you started Doing your podcast, there were things that you were talking about that in in the industry and in the faith-based ministry industry were like You're gonna talk about that? Yeah, but you have to. Especially when you're, when you're in a space of guiding people right and and and Sharing his message of love, you have to share the good, the bad and the ugly, yeah, and I commend you for creating tilted halo as a, as a, as a vessel To bring healing for other people, to do what other people and other pastors and leaders have not done.
Speaker 1:That's the hope and the prayer for. But it, yeah, that's also the joy that we get to share with other people, to hear them, you know, realize they can do that too right For other people, for the people in their faith community, for the people in their you know family sometimes. And you know as, and even for themselves, because that's where it starts.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:We free ourselves, then we can be an agent to help free other people than that.
Speaker 2:And that the greatest gifts that I've been able to see since coming out is the freedom that it's given my family. My mom, I'm like, maybe a couple months after, as I told them when I was young, I Told them in my early 20s, and so they knew, but I never publicly had spoken about it, about being gay. And I, in 2020, I told my parents. I was like, hey, I'm coming out publicly and they were like are you sure you want to do that? My dad was worried about my safety. My mom was like you know, I just want you to be happy, but one of the greatest things when I did that was watching them begin to share pieces of their story. Hey, you know what? I've never told you this. And dot, dot, dot. My mom shared with me something really big that she's been holding on to for 40 plus years and she said me oh, I've never told anybody and, seeing the amount of relief on her from just she didn't have to carry that alone anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was huge Seeing my cousins being bolder now and hearing their stories of how they're standing up for themselves much more. That's the win. Yeah, that's the win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the other side of that that I really am so concerned about is that as faith leaders whether it's professionally or within any particular congregation, as a member who's a leader we really carry a heavy responsibility of when we say God doesn't approve. We're speaking like God in that moment and it is really not for us to condemn anybody. That's God's and God's alone. If God is going to do that even, and it is for us to say I'm not comfortable with this or think about the ramifications, those kinds of things, yes, we can do that, but when we start judging people, we're taking on God's role in any kind of position we're in and you felt that judgment, and there are so many others who have left the church, for sure, because of that same sort of judgment and the harm and the misrepresentation of God and God's love that we do in the process. No, I may not. I do not agree with the way everybody lives their life, but others don't always agree with the way I live my life, those both ways.
Speaker 1:But when we give these pronouncements and hearing the effect that had on you reminded me of that and of the responsibility within any faith community Christian, jewish, muslim, hindu, whatever it might be that those kinds of pronouncements can really hurt people and hurt people, hurt people.
Speaker 2:Exactly. One of the interesting things I think that has always gotten me is when seeing people who are not willing to go out into the community and really touch the people that are hurting the most. They stay within their church walls and they wait for people to come to them, and then we're gonna judge you when you come in our doors because you live this way, you do this, you do this, so we're gonna judge you while you're here, but yet they're not willing to go out into the community and be with the people who need them the most. They're not willing to go out and to serve the homeless or to go out and serve at different things, and yet they're the ones who are teaching about love, but they won't go out.
Speaker 2:Now, jesus spent his time not with the people in leadership, not with the people that are in church. He was there with the prostitutes. He was there with the people who had terminal diseases and he was spending his time and his love to them. Why don't we see more of that in today's world? In today's church? I don't even feel the love, bless you. I don't feel the love of the church that was there when I was growing up, and I think it's because we've gotten so stuck in our judgment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree with you on that. Yes, we get all choked, yeah, but I got a little something stuck in my throat.
Speaker 2:But I'll tell you the one thing that I think that has always helped. I'm very grateful that my parents gave me a very strong foundation and then I developed a relationship with God very early on and I have kept that relationship. It looks different than maybe what some people says is the right way, but I know the 100% that God's got me and I will always get him.
Speaker 1:And that's most important. Thank you, Matt, for sharing your story, for being here and for helping me with the Tilted Halo. Anyway, thank you.
Speaker 2:I'm proud of you, Kathleen.
Speaker 1:And many, many respects. So to all of you watching and listening. Come back again next time. There will be another episode. You have been listening to Tilted Halo with me, kathleen Panning. What did you think about this episode? I'd really like to hear from you. Leave me some comments. Be sure to like, subscribe and share this episode and catch another upcoming episode. For more conversation on ministry life, mindset and a whole lot more, go to wwwtiltedhalohelpcom, where I've got a resource guide and other resources waiting for you, and be sure to say hi to me, kathleen Panning, on LinkedIn. See you on the next episode.