The Mezzanine Floor
The Mezzanine Floor is a podcast that creates a space for conversations concerning the christian life as we walk out living in the tension between heaven and earth.
Join our host, Pastor Malachi Maillot and his guests as they wrestle with how we ought to live with a heavenly mindset in an earthly body.
The Mezzanine Floor
Season 2 - Ep 2 - Why Do I Need Spiritual Authority?
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In this episode, Malachi is joined by Pastor Bryan Grant and they take on the topic of Spiritual authority. They discuss what it is, whether or not we actually need it and why it’s important. They talk about their own experiences with pastoral authority and lay out what healthy leaders look like, and what unhealthy ones look like.
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And the Bible, in my opinion, and what I read about this, it actively rejects isolationist Christianity. Actively. You can't reject church and fully embrace Jesus. Because the church isn't the building, the church is the people. We need to model the church, needs to do the Jesus model and serve from the ground up and not lord from over top.
SPEAKER_04Because I'm not your pastor if you make big spiritual decisions and only loop me in after the fact.
SPEAKER_01I'm not your pastor. The people that grow the most are the ones that walk into my office and say, I need help. I want you to teach me how can I be better at this, and I will. Those things right there.
SPEAKER_04Welcome back to the Mezzanine Floor Podcast, where we talk about living in the tension between heaven and earth. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for joining us, whatever platform you're listening on. If you're listening on YouTube, you can see our lovely faces. Make sure you like the video, share this with a friend, and subscribe to the channel. You can also comment on there. It just helps us get the message out. Back with us again. Actually, you were on episode one with us.
SPEAKER_01On the very first episode.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. We were the pilot episode. We have Brian Grant, Pastor Brian Grant back with us today. Thank you for being with us. How are you feeling today?
SPEAKER_01So far, so good.
SPEAKER_04So far so good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm excited. Who is I've been watching all the progress. I remember the first one we put all the content together and then we're like, hey, let's record this. And we actually liked it. And we're like, oh, okay.
SPEAKER_04We literally sat down and we're like, hey, maybe we should just try this out. Yeah, just test it out and see it. But we have you back. Uh so good to be back with you today. We're in the new space. Um, it's been such a nice space to be in. It looks really nice. All the upgrades. So thank you again to Dan and his boys. They did all the construction for us. Um, but we're gonna dive right into the topic today. Um, and we're gonna be talking about um spiritual covering or spiritual authority. Um, and we want to define really what it is. Um, we want to talk about why we need it, and we kind of want to talk about like the good, the bad, and the ugly. Um, because one thing, one thing about spiritual authority, as we kind of get into it, uh, even the even the word spiritual authority can be a very loaded term for people. Um, spiritual covering, spiritual authority. Uh, you know, for some, uh, I would say for some, it kind of doesn't really bother them. Um, maybe, maybe they they like the idea of it, they understand it a little bit more. It brings them that idea of like safety and covering. But I think for maybe in the past, like, I don't know for your experience, but from from what I can see in our church culture uh around the world, I see a very like big hesitation towards even the word authority itself, not even just spiritual authority, um, but like this kind of like pushback against that word itself, because maybe bringing up like anxiety for people, maybe bringing up fear for people, um, maybe bringing up like memory, like bad memories or or maybe trauma for people. Um, but that's why we want to talk about it today on the podcast, because again, this is this is the space that we get to actually dive into some stuff. I think, I think this is a maybe a harder topic to tackle on a Sunday morning. Um, I know that you've talked about it in uh the foundations course that we run at our church. Um, but I wanted to just uh kind of dive right into maybe a definition of you know what is spiritual authority from a biblical perspective.
SPEAKER_01Well, the the biblical perspective is that it's God given, it's Christ-centered, that reflects the heart of God, that the purpose of it is to advance God's purposes in a person's life, but also in God's kingdom, and you do it with the purpose of serving someone else with humility, with accountability, with care, with love. It is much more we we can look at the word authority in culture in general, yeah. And we see all kinds. And if we're gonna even have a conversation about spiritual authority today, we have to acknowledge the fact that we see boundless or endless Christian leaders right now that are absolutely destroying spiritual authority, the name of spiritual authority, the health of spiritual authority by their actions, moral failures, ethical failures, uh, sexual fail, all of these things that are going on. We see Christian leaders are actually crushing that name. And so, even what you said in the opening, when we're talking about spiritual authority, people are scared of it. And you kind of fall into three categories. And in my thought, one, you have you're not a Christian, and then you give your life to Jesus, and then you uh come into a church and you really have no experience with spiritual authority, but you have experience with authority and it wasn't good. You're in a church, you've been a Christian for a long time, and you really don't want anything to do with spiritual history or spiritual authority because of your experiences already, shame, guilt, you've already been controlled, you've already done all those things. And then the third group actually is like kind of like ah, I know what spiritual authority is and the health thereof. And it used to be that the healthy group was quite large, people that understood authority, and I there's definitely right now this real pushback against uh spiritual leaders, against spiritual authority in churches, in churches, even we face this on a regular basis. You and I and and Jamin and Pastor Brody, we face this on a regular basis uh because of the actions of so many Christian leaders that have just failed. Yeah, and what they see is is even if you are in a healthy church, it can actually poison your mind to oh, well, what if my I'm now I'm looking at my leader and he actually said this one time, and now I think that he's not a good spiritual authority. And so we have the even the definition is that it's God given, it is Christ-centered. Those people that in your life are there for a purpose, yeah. And so just the definition of it is even if you know the definition, you have to be willing to live by the definition. Sure.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Um, I think, I think too, like what's like another maybe a little piece of it, like what's the difference between like worldly authority? You have like you have kind of like a governmental authority, you have like a structure of authority that the that we live in. Like, obviously, we have stop signs, we have police officers, we have, you know, like all these rules that we have to abide by. Yeah. Um, like there's like worldly authority that we have to kind of obviously abide by. But then you know, you know, what's what uh what is godly authority like with the difference between those two uh pieces?
SPEAKER_01Godly authority is built to strengthen you, to build you up, to equip you, to um encourage your calling and not contain you. As I what I believe that spiritual authority really is versus worldly authority is really there just to make sure you're not breaking the rules. Sure. You're not going off the rails, you're staying within the guardrails doing the things, and which spiritual authority does as well. But there is a different level of care and pastoral um that comes from a spiritual authority versus what the world will offer as authority, and it comes down to the difference sometimes to are you a boss or are you a leader? There's a difference. Um, you would say that, like we're looking at spiritual authority. I'm gonna respect an RCMP officer because he has positional authority. They have a gun. Yeah, there's that too. They have they have weapons and they can do things that I and they're tougher than I am, and I'm willing to because that they've been placed in that authority, but they're there to make sure that I just don't speed, blow the stop sign, do something dangerous, but you're not like trying to hurt people, and they don't care, they don't care about my my spiritual life as much as just making sure that I don't die or do something that kills someone else. Where a spiritual authority is there to actually protect you, to cover you, to walk you through things, to actually pray with you, engage with you, tell you when you're you're tell you the truth, yeah. And truth and love, and not just shy away from the truth because it might hurt your feelings, as what we see even in our our worldly culture right now. Well, this will be a tough conversation, so I'm not gonna say it, but I'm gonna let them go into destruction. I'm gonna let them even what we're seeing in our everyone can do whatever they want because no one's willing to actually speak the truth. A spiritual, healthy spiritual authority will be willing to go to Malachi and be like, Malachi, what you're doing right now is actually causing you destruction. And the long term of this is your soul is gonna be not in a great place. Your life might actually be destroyed because of the actions you're taking.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, totally. And I I think you even just mentioning um, you know, kind of the the world that we're living in right now, we see a lot of moral failure in leaders, um, which is which has caused a lot of I would say church people and non-church people alike to just not trust the church or to lose trust in the church. Absolutely. Um, which is obviously unfortunate because I think that um, you know, it's kind of just like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, like everything, like if the if a church leader fails, it's like, well, the whole organization is is now tainted, which is obviously like unfair and yeah, really untrue because um there's a lot of good churches, there's a lot of great leaders, there's a lot of um healthy churches. Um you talked about that. We're gonna kind of get into uh a little bit of that later on, but um, I think you know, maybe maybe coming back to like why this conversation matters and why, you know, why are we talking about spiritual authority? And I think I think it matters because we live in a very independent world. Like we live in a we live in a world that that says be independent, like do everything on your own. Yeah, and and and the it highly values like a personal freedom to essentially, you know, do what you feel, do what you want. And that's the the kind of like the highest um value is like be independent, don't do anything uh, you know, like you don't want to like rely on anybody else around you. Um and maybe maybe like what is what is the problem with that kind of viewpoint? What do you do you see a problem with that whole scope? And obviously, like I do, but like I just want to kind of get your perspective on, you know, around that kind of like idea.
SPEAKER_01That's a really good question. It's it's interesting because you would have an argument for people saying exactly what you're why is this, why does this matter so much? Because our own blind spots and our own sin, our own um viewpoints, it's it's so often uh like I can use an example as uh someone who gave their life to Jesus. We met a couple of young men that gave their life to Jesus during COVID. And in that time during COVID, they were following YouTube pastors. And in that time, they were they had lots of worldly, worldly perspective, worldly thoughts, and they were going through every YouTube pastor you can possibly think. And they were, we want to be submitted to God, but we want to do what we want to do. We wanna we want to keep doing drugs or we want to keep having sex and we with this whoever, we want to do all these things, and not one of those things is actually is is uh in a place or in a position in their life where they are actually being healthy and whole because they're just doing what they feel like in the moment, right? Like there's times that I'm saying on I want to rage or freak out on someone because they did something right a coffee line. Some guy says something rude, and I just want to bark back. The Bible tells me that I have to be smart with my words. The world would say, Well, you can just say what you want and do what you want. Well, that the effect of that is there's consequences to my actions.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so if we're looking at the independence, what do we see right now with people doing what they want, feeling what they want, uh, saying what they want, being what they want? We got all kinds of different types of people that so many of those things lend towards mental health problems, emotional health problems, spiritual health problems, all because there's no boundaries. There's no, you can do whatever you want, say whatever you want. Well, I'm a Christian. I believe that Jesus is my authority. That means I can't say what I want, I can't post what I want, I can't do what I want, I can't act the way I want. I'm under authority. And those things actually don't bring me uh destruction, they actually bring me health, they actually bring me life, they actually put me into healthy relationships. It actually means that I have a healthy relationship with God, not because uh because I'm not doing the things that because what does the Bible say the wages of sin is death, those things that aren't good for me, me deciding one day that I'm I just want to do what I want, say what I want, and drink what I want, ingest what I want, read what I want, all of those things lead me towards being bound, not being set free. Yeah, that's right. Spiritual authority brings freedom. Me having freedom in because of Jesus and my relationship with him, and actually having guardrails about my life and how I'm a dad, how I'm a husband, how I'm all of those things means that I have health and a future, whereas those other things will just destroy me, they'll break me down. You'll you'll see all of a sudden my mental health goes out the window, my emotional health goes out the window, spiritual health is gone. Yeah. And I'm doing and saying things that I would never do before because I didn't have guardrails.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And you see that exactly. You see there's not, you don't have to go very far to see the destruction of people's own choices, right? Right. And so, you know, we we need, and that I was that's the whole thing with God, God created us to desire community and to actually be in community with each other. Um, and in that community, there has to be some sort of give and take. Um, and obviously there has to be, you know, obviously in in churches we have a pastor who's kind of like leading over the the church, but they're not again, we're the the point of a pastor is not to just lord over. And we and we've talked about this before, but yeah, you know, practically it's it's what you talk about, like actually caring about your life and and pastoral care and accountability, not just with you know, the person being accountable to that pastor, but the pastor being accountable to the the church saying, hey, like this. Absolutely. It's like a living in a transparent life. Yeah. Absolutely. And it's you know, everyone can kind of see in. Uh, and it's kind of a scary place to be for a pastor. You know, obviously there's there's the teaching aspect, there's there's uh like exposition of the the Bible to people and actually discipling people, uh, and then there's the part of a correction that a lot of people don't like. And you know, we kind of see that like the practical pieces of that. Um, and and and when it's when it's healthy, those things are operating properly. But I want to talk about quickly, and I don't want to, I don't want to stay here too long because I think we probably could easily just stay here for the entire podcast. Um, but it kind of gets complicated. And I and I I had this written down because I didn't want to like say it wrong, but it's I I I've written down not all spiritual authority reflects God's character.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04Right? Not all of it reflects God's character, and we see that obviously in in a lot of stuff that's going on in the North American church, kind of what we see uh, you know, obviously on social media, but you know, what happens when what happens when spiritual authority is abused? You know, what what can people do when that's actually being abused? What can they how can they see those? You know, we're gonna talk about red flags and green flags, but but how can they start to like understand, hey, that's probably not a very healthy thing that I should be a part of, or you know, maybe, or I think we had like talked about like is it am I being abused or is it just me? Yeah. Am I just am I just you know, inserting kind of my expectations into this, or am I actually being, you know, spiritually abused? How do I kind of decipher those two things? I think that's really important for people.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think the that's a really great question. I think that you do have to do in a self-assessment because we live in a culture that automatically says that just because you have been uh corrected, uh that immediately means rejection. Like correction doesn't mean rejection. Uh a correction uh and you're speaking the truth to someone so much time. So you have to do in a self-assessment. Am I being proud in this? Am I wrong in this? Is my uh is this in my blind spot? But then if you're looking at and then there's a there's a myriad of things that you would need to just almost situational too. But you have to be, but yeah, yeah, in any relationship if with my wife, even I have to be emotionally intelligent to to know what's happening, whether or not she's abusing me, or whether or not she's just having a bad moment and we're in an argument, versus her just verbally abusing me on a regular basis or emotionally or spiritually. So when you look at what a spiritual pastor or a spiritual abuse looks like, one one of the first things is is they're not accountable to anyone. They're just they're doing their own thing. If you ask them um, well, who are you accountable to, and they they can't tell you and like I'm accountable to myself or it's the Bible's or like I'm accountable to God, I'm accountable to God. That's a big red flag, yeah. Um, but we I would always say follow the Matthew model where if you see something and you go to the pastor and then you bring someone with you, and then you go and you're like, okay, well, now there can't be correction. So one, if they're if they're they're not accountable to anyone, if they tell you to do things in secret, they're like, Well, don't tell anyone I said this, or this is what's going on, or you ever hear them say that that loyalty to them is loyalty to God, not true at all. That's absolutely the exact opposite of what uh spiritual authority would say. In fact, we are called as leaders to serve and lift up and to build up, and we wouldn't be called to loyal to those types of things. That and so, like if you ever hear you hear this every once in a while, not as much anymore, but you I've still heard it a couple of times, don't touch the Lord's anointed. Yeah, that's spiritual abuse.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I remember I remember hearing that as a kid.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, like kind of scared to ever like talk about somebody. But they it's usually done because of insecurity of the leader, and as soon as a leader ever says that, because the context of this of that scripture, like what is the context of that scripture?
SPEAKER_04Do not touch the Lord's anointed.
SPEAKER_01It had it actually had less to do with um uh to do with actually touching the Lord's anointed in that moment, and we use it out of context towards leadership so we won't be questioned. Um, I'd I'd have to go back into just researching just that whole thing, but it it had nothing to do with me as a leader, you coming to me and I say to you, Well, no, you can't actually question me. That's not servant leadership at all. It had context in another area. But when someone says that, they're actually doing it because they're insecure, they don't want to be questioned, they have are trying to get something done that they want to do. And if you go through the model of all scripture of how Jesus operated, or even Paul and Timothy and Silas, and you'll go through Acts and Acts 16, how they they would come together to make a decision, all of these things were done um together with an idea to serve each other, not to lord over each other. Yeah, so touching the not the Lord's anointed was a way that people use that scripture to lord their position over people. And then you have a saying that I absolutely love and I use often. You said spiritual authority is like soap, the more you use it, the less you have. That's true, right? I love that saying. I've used it with my kids, I've used it in teaching because it is so apt that when as a pastor, if I'm working with people that love me, care for me, honor me as the pastor, trust me, not only do I love or do I appreciate that they have that, but I value the fact that they put their trust in me so much that I want to serve them, not lord over them. And if I ever have to use my spiritual authority in in a in a in a way that is outside of biblical context, I've actually eroded the trust that I have with them and I have less authority next time than I did before. But if I'm coming into it with a relationship with the idea to serve, to grow and equip and put someone people into places and to to see them grow, then my authority is intact. And in fact, I grow in that relationship with them and in more spiritual authority to be able to lower to bring that to people.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think uh there was a there was a scripture that uh I think it was actually Pastor Brody talked about it on Sunday, but in this context, I think it kind of relates as well. Um, but it's by their fruit you will recognize them in Matthew 7. Um and it's this idea that like you know, you know someone is living a life of accountability because you'll see the fruit of their life. You know, you you know someone as actually being transparent in their life because you'll see the fruit of those things. You're gonna see a fruit, uh you're gonna see those good things that are coming out of that that person. Like you're gonna be able to actually trust that person because they're they actually mean what they say, right? They when they when they say something there, and you talked about like using your authority in a situation when it's like, you know, spiritual authority is not there to like govern over someone, just to make someone do something for you, but it's like, hey, like I see a potential in you. Yeah. Like I see something inside of you, I see a gift inside of you. Absolutely. And and I want to like come under you and actually help you discover that for yourself. Yeah. So I want to push you in this way. And obviously, you can only push people so far to where they want to be guided or or or taken to. And that's and that's where that's where that that staying comes in. The authority is like soap. Like you don't want to, like, you're not there to just like be like, hey, I'm your pastor. You gotta listen to me. Yada yada yada. That's it's it's and those are really like really bad, like bad situations to be in. Because again, like you're saying, you're losing trust with somebody because you're just pushing people with this bulldozer mentality, yeah. Where it's really it's the opposite. It's the opposite. It's the exact opposite. It's like I come under somebody because you know, God's giving me authority over their life, but it's like, okay, I like it's more of like God's giving me insight to see, hey, I see something. That you don't see. Yeah. Right. And that's really what the whole church community is is for is is helping each other and like helping each other's blind spots, helping each other uh, you know, grow in a direction and not um obviously like go in the ditches, right? And so that whole thing, like with by by their fruit, you will recognize them. You can actually see through those things.
SPEAKER_01And and uh conversely, you can actually see when people aren't. Yeah, and you and like you want to be able to turn around and are there people you're leading. Like if Matt Pastor Malachi was to turn around behind him and see what's following him, he would see a group of 20 kids and a group of 60 youth kids that are following Pastor Malachi because he doesn't lead like that. He leads with honor, he leads with respect, integrity, leads with love and care. So when Pastor Malachi turns around, there's people following him. Those that lead like that, they have people that are afraid of them, they have people that don't want to be with them, then you have churches that and people that uh that leave because they just they would don't want to be a part of that type of leadership. Yeah, and so you can tell a good leader not just by the fruit of their life, like Pastor Malachi's life shows fruit. Appreciate that. Thank you very much. It shows fruit, but not only does it show fruit, the fact that people are following him willingly, yeah. And and if I was to talk to any one of those youth leaders, they would tell me, yeah. Because I know a lot of them. They're like, no, Pastor Malachi's hard on us in a good, like in a way that that actually has helped me grow. The the immense impact you've had on my son, my daughter, because of the type of leader you are, that shows what the fruit of that actually is. Like you're building a team of people that are actually going to grow and mature and potentially one day maybe take over the youth department. Hopefully, one day there's someone there that will want to do that. But hopefully it's not for you. Your life, your life, Pastor Malica, is showing what that fruit actually looks like and how to lead those people. And and you're seeing that actively. We're seeing it like live every every Sunday, every Tuesday.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's and it's it's tough too, because like we even talk about that idea of fruit. It like takes a long time for something to to flourish. You can't just like build something in a day and expect it to be you know long-lasting. Like it takes it takes a long time to build something that lasts, right? Um, and I think I think in in terms of building stuff, I think we see a lot of people in this idea of deconstruction where it's like where people have maybe grown up in church, you see a lot of it. They they grew up in church, they had um and I and I want to be careful when I say like like telling this, like saying people have a shallow faith on things, but it's almost as if um, you know, for me, I'll just say from my own experience, like for me growing up, my my faith was really not my own for a very long time. My faith was not decided by me, really. And not not to not to point fingers at anybody, but that's just the immaturity of me. I was me too. And I'm sure you could probably say the same thing. My my my faith really wrote on my parents. Yeah. Um, you know, pastors in the church, leaders in a church for a long time. Um, and obviously, you know, family stuff happens and like your life falls apart, and all of a sudden it's like the faith kind of goes out the window. And that's when you know it was really like a shallow faith, because when a bad situation happens, um, you know, and everything kind of breaks down and everything falls apart, if your faith has fallen apart, you know, it wasn't really built on much. That's right. And so, you know, you see a lot of people that have, you know, grown up in the church and they've, you know, maybe, maybe rested their faith on their family or their parents, or or they've put their faith in like a person. Um, and you see a lot of that. You say, and and and now you see, like we were talking about people falling away from the faith, uh, moral failure in the church. And all of a sudden, because that person put their faith in that person that was on the platform, all of a sudden they're like, well, everything is out the window. Yep. And and that's what you see with this kind of deconstruction era, I want to say, people walking from the church, walking away from the church and really maybe even faith altogether. Like you see, I see it on Instagram all the all the time, like these cheesy posts, like we left church and this is how better our life is. And I'm like, okay, well, okay, I get it. Like maybe you are part of the wrong church. Yeah, like okay. Oh, yeah. But but as but you have to uh also pose the question, like, where was your faith? Like, where was where was your faith? Was it in that person? Was it in that, you know, uh that building? You know, what what was it in? Because obviously it wasn't in Christ because Christ is immovable. We we have to build our lives on that. So again, coming back to this, this kind of common phrase, um, and maybe back to that idea of living in community and where people were very independent and we praise essentially that independence and and doing what you feel. And and you hear a lot of this like, can I just be a Christian and not go to church? Um, you know, can I be, can I follow Jesus and not really like have to, you know, answer to some human, right? Some pastor. Why do I have to, why do I have to attend a church? And why do I have to uh you know be a part of this really flawed community like that I don't really trust anymore? Um and what would you what would you say to someone like that? Maybe that's a big question, but um, you know, can I follow Jesus without being a part of the church or under authority?
SPEAKER_01No. All right, moving on. Let's get it. No, uh, you can start out on your own. I'd like I 100% believe that people have been, I know people who've given their life to Jesus. They they went they talked to their friend at a devo at a uh like a prayer meeting. Sure. And they went home and a week later they gave their life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they didn't they didn't need something to like push them to that. There was a revelation of the Holy Spirit. Absolutely, Jesus and that right. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01They had that moment, they gave their life to Jesus, and then they went and they in our modern times they went to YouTube and they did all these things they're supposed to, but you're searching. Yeah, you can you can start off on your own, but you won't go far. And here's what I mean is that church, the building, isn't people, yeah, it's not a preacher. It's we talk about this at church all the time. We are the church, and the Bible, in my opinion, and what I read about this, it actively rejects isolationist Christianity. Yeah, actively. Uh I even have a scripture that says Hebrews 10, 24, 25. Let us consider just how to stir one another up. Yeah, you can't do that on your own. No, you can't be on your own, you can't fully follow Jesus and reject his church and his people and his design for what spiritual authority looks like. You just can't do it. You can be on your own, you'll end up doing your own thing, saying your own things, starting your own religion. We got we got a guy right now in in the news that had a hit list of 14 people, and he was on by himself, living on his own property, and he was gonna kill 14 people, 14 pastors that he had a list of, but he had been living on his own and had his own authority. He was his own authority. I just followed Jesus. I felt the Lord was telling me to do this all on his own, with no one, yeah, with no one telling him that hey, dude, you're kind of losing your marbles. Yeah, you shouldn't be doing this. You can't, you can't fully follow Jesus with and reject his God's design for spiritual authority. Yeah, it actually is it's incredibly hard to do. I believe that God built it that we say this too, is it God built us to be fully known and fully loved? In that fully known and fully loved means that we have grace for each other, mercy for each other, forgiveness for each other, we push each other, we challenge each other. Hebrew says we stir up one another to love. I don't always love other people because they're hard. Yeah, and my wife will be like, Hey Brian, you need to wear your Jesus pants right now, and just to say, like, or you gotta discipline, you gotta discipline your children. Um, and like she's like, put on your Jesus pants because I'm angry and I'm not, but she'll stir me up and say, No, that's not how we discipline our kids. Yeah, that's not how when I have a man come into my office and he's expecting counsel, and I'm like, You're complete, my flesh is saying there's nothing that can bring you around. And then I'm stirred up, like, no, God's called me to love on this person, to build them up, to to see them grow and mature, and God's gonna do something in their life. We stir each other up. You can be on your own for only a short period of time. You can you have we have that that we say um the theology in a vacuum. Yeah, I need Pastor Malachi's view on theology to challenge me to make me better in the word of God. I need Jamin, I need Pastor or Pastor Brody, I need the the perspectives of Dania and our team. We need all of those people around because they see things that we don't see sometimes, and they're gonna challenge us to do things, but you can't do it on your own. Yeah, it's no, it's just a hard no.
unknownYeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04And I love what you said too, is like it we're we're called to like not only stir each other up, but build each other up and and help each other like uh correct each other, yeah, right? Like call each other out in obviously in love. And you can't, yeah, you can't do that without without having a relationship with people. And obviously, if anybody's been in a relationship with anybody, they know it takes a lot of work, absolutely, or their you know, relationship isn't very good. Yeah, um, and and that's kind of what we're talking about with like time. Everything takes time to build. And so um, you know, I I have the same viewpoint of church, like for for sure. Like you, you like I love that you talked about you can start on your own, and you don't necessarily need a church to be saved. Like that's that's a great place to start, is on your own, because you actually know that it was real, that you know that it wasn't just a moment in worship, you know that it wasn't just like an emotional response. It was actually you felt like, hey, you know, God's speaking to me and I'm gonna make this decision. And then you just can start searching. And but yeah, like you, like you said, you can't make it far on your own because you will you will become your own voice, you'll become your own voice of reason. You'll you will not know, you will you'll not be able to bounce something off of somebody. You won't be able to say, hey, is this right? Is this wrong? Yeah, absolutely. Right. And and obviously that's just not how we're supposed to live.
SPEAKER_01No, you know, and spiritual authority is God's design, not man's. It wasn't it wasn't us that we just decided the way we operate should be biblical perspective of how we do it, but you can't reject church and fully embrace Jesus because the church isn't the building, the church is the people. Yeah, right. You just can't, you can't do that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So I wanna I wanna kind of switch gears maybe a little bit here. Um, because I think I think looking at examples is like we we've touched on a few examples in this in scripture, but I think the best example of of someone who modeled what spiritual authority looks like and what authority looks like is Jesus. Um you know, he it's it's it's interesting that Jesus had all authority. Yeah, he had he had there was there's a few scriptures that really like were really funny to me. There's like moments where he's getting taken away at the Garden of uh Gethenamine, if that's how you say it. I've Gethenamine. It's like the worst pronunciation for me, and please forgive me if it's awful. But the Pharisees, you know, they're coming and taking Jesus away for trial. And and he kind of he's kind of like telling his disciples to like chill. Because like, you know, Peter he takes a sword, swings it, takes someone's ear off, people are scattering, people are like, what the heck is going on? And there's all this kind of like craziness happening, and Jesus kind of looks at them, he's like, guys, chill. Like, if I wanted to call down all the angels of heaven, I could right now, yep, I could in this moment, but I'm not going to because and I and I think that every moment of his life, he was kind of showing um how to absolutely you know live, obviously to live in peace with like even even in evil governments, like the Roman government was not good a good government, like it it was literally the most oppressive government towards the Jewish people, and and the whole the whole thing of like the Jewish people thought that Jesus was gonna come back and and destroy the government. Yeah, and that was their whole view. Yeah, and he's like, Well, no, guys, like it's not what I'm here for. This is not what I'm here for, first of all. And then he began modeling, you know, that's just that's just like how we live in our society. And you talked about how, you know, spiritual authority is not from man, it's from God. And that's our our whole governmental system was in was put in place by the church. Yeah, right? Back in the day. Yeah. Like our whole our whole system was based around the Bible. Yeah, it's built on the values of Christianity and the church. And obviously, we see it moving away from that, which is which is a sign of the times, obviously. Um, but you know, you see Jesus, he had all authority, but he didn't, he didn't like openly just rebel against even like the evil authorities at the time. He was respectful, and he showed us that you have to have a grace and a mercy when you walk. And so, um, first of all, like how did you know we're we I kind of briefly talked about, but how did he like model that spiritual authority in other ways? Like, and and who had who had the authority in his life, and you know, what does that say about us?
SPEAKER_01Well, if you even read into the scriptures in Jesus' life, um, he submitted to his father, yeah, he submitted to his parents, and he actually submitted to the the lawful authority of the day. Yeah, right, as we're called to. So those are the three things that you see actually in scripture. It was but he modeled it because even if we go to Matthew, where it it talks about um us, how do we serve? How do as leaders, how do we serve? Jesus modeled this by serving his his disciples, by serving people around him, by loving and and and loving from like here up, not lording from over.
SPEAKER_04Well, it's when he like washed the disciples' feet, right? And they were all like tripping about it because they couldn't they couldn't imagine a teacher that would actually get down on his hands and knees and wash the dirty gna, like they didn't have the same kind of shit. We had when they had like sandals and all kinds of nasty. Everything everywhere is just disgusting. But like that whole idea of of Jesus just showing us to serve well those who are essentially under us.
SPEAKER_01He modeled that to us by and he said if you want to be first among us, you have to be last. Yeah. And what do we do? What do we see in our I do you know what, uh Pastor Malica? I want to, but I really, really want to be able to say that church culture is different in some of these respects. I think that there's a lot of things that we do really well as a church culture, not just KCC, but church in general. Uh modeling servant leadership the way Jesus does isn't Jesus does is not one of our is not in not all churches the strongest thing. I want to be able to say that the church culture is is is so much better than this, but we need to model the church, needs to do the Jesus model and serve from the ground up and not Lord from over top. Yeah, we see that the we're being told what to do, how do we do this? And Jesus modeled this with every aspect of his life. Uh how he served his disciples, the washing of the feet, the the even when you read um when he would go to these these um like the parties where he turned water into wine, he wasn't there as the Lord. People had already known about him, they'd heard about him, they knew what he can do, but he came in just to and he made water out of wine, not because he was he or wine out of water, not because he was trying to prove how powerful he was, but he was serving that family. It was actually his mom that was like pushing him to do it.
SPEAKER_04This is gonna be embarrassing for our family because we're supposed to be providing all this wine and all this food, and I need your help, Jesus. Like all these pushing him.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, drank way too much, and I need your help here, right? Like it is one of those moments when he but everything that he did was just a model of of how how he even talked to leaders. Like he he was the Messiah, the savior. He had actually been going around. Um miracles had followed him. People would there would be crowds of people trying to touch on his hem, or the the guy that was sitting in there and knew Jesus was coming, and he yelled his name and he ran towards Jesus, and he stopped in the middle of a crowd of people, and he looked to this man that was running to him and said, Come. Or he stopped outside of uh of where the lepers were. There's tw there's 10 or 12 lepers. I can't remember the exact number, but there's ten or twelve lepers. He heals them all. Eight of them run away, and only two came back. And he didn't do it because he was he was proving how powerful he was. He's like, No, God's called me to do this, so I'm gonna do it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01He was serving from the ground up. Yeah, the the the man that was sitting next to the the the the the well.
SPEAKER_04There's almost like no, it was like it was like he was showing that there was nothing too big for him. No, like there was nothing that was too small for him, and there was nothing too big for him. Like he he he didn't have like, oh, I'm way too busy for this. Great perspective. Like you you see a lot of love that like I I was I always love that Pastor Brody does this, you know. It's always funny. People, people, you know, in the lobby, they'll they'll they'll see Pastor Brody, but they won't actually know that he's like the pastor until he gets up on stage and like that guy was just like chatting up with me before the service, like but you don't you don't see a lot of that because it's like this kind of like as soon as I you know get into this position, I'm just too busy for everything else, right? Like my position is too important as you know, Pastor So and so. I'm gonna go sit in the you know, I'm over yeah, I'm over these things, and and no, no, no, like condemnation to people that do that. Um obviously, like like with huge, huge churches, like sometimes it's just overwhelming. But at the same time, it's like this idea that I just I love that our our pastor does this, but it's it is really what Jesus was doing. Like he was just like he was always in he was always interrupted, yeah, but he was never like angry about those interruptions. Never. He's like, okay, well, look like wherever you're wherever you're leading me, God, I'm gonna go and do this.
SPEAKER_01Well, the even even the story, I love the story of the paralyzed man with the the his four friends, cracked through a roof, yeah, lowered him down, and he didn't say anything. He's like, Who's gonna fix that wall? Come on, and he just he dealt with the the sin and the the issue right there, yeah. Just and and I would say that even in our own church, we we've been modeled that for generations of leaders in our church, yeah, because they want us to have a church as legacy, they want us to grow. And Pastor Brody's mission, like I I love watching even Pastor, we have we have a lot in the those who don't really know us, we have a lot of real great pastors in our church that actually came before Pastor Malachi and our team and Pastor Brody. That we stand on the shoulders of these men and women that built this church, yeah, but modeled so many good things to us because they want to build a legacy of leadership. Yeah, I don't want I I don't want to be like there's tremendous pressure um that people can't see when you're a pastor. Especially in our positions. We're in a decent sized church, we're responsible for a lot of things. There's a lot of pressure on us to teach well, to lead well, to be perfect, to be perfect. And like there's been times where Natalie and I are having an argument um and we're going to Costco, and then church people show up and we put on the mask because we're like we just have to just feel like it's crazy the amount of people you see at Costco, man.
SPEAKER_04Like Costco is a crazy my brother-in-law is is visiting us and he's he's like, Man, literally everywhere I go, you meet you see people that you know. He's like, Are you guys like famous or something? Like, no, just know a lot of people. Just a lot of people know us.
SPEAKER_01Well, and when we're standing in the lobby of church on a Sunday morning and someone comes up to you and greets you and says, Hey, I saw you, and I've never met them before, said, No, I've been watching you online for three months. I'm like, cool. Yeah, it it's a lot of pressure to be honorable, to be men of it, men and women of integrity, to be men and women that are gonna honor God with our lives and our actions and everything that we do to sp to lead people well spiritually, knowing that I have backup and I have a team around me that when I make a mistake and I screw up and I need grace and I need forgiveness, that the team's there to support me because we have such spell uh healthy spiritual authority in our church. Yeah, we've not been perfect, no 100% not. No one's perfect, right? Not at all. But man, if we're gonna live the life and lead people, leading them the way that Jesus modeled it for us is the way to go.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So I wanna I wanna just talk, kind of maybe do a little brief overview of like um, you know, what to look for in leadership. I know we talked a lot about some of the red flags. Um, you have leaders that maybe are isolated, um, they don't really have someone that they answer to, um control-based leadership, um, maybe fear-based motivation. Um, you know, I heard I heard a pastor say this, you know, there the the grace period is gonna end on your life if you don't, you know, get some of these things in order. And I'm like part of like part of that is true, but like at the same time, it's like it's this, it's this idea of fear-bost fear-based motivation, like motivating people to to quote unquote get right with God out of fear. Um and that's really not what we're I don't I don't believe that we're called to do that. Like it's and and it actually says in scripture that it's his kindness and mercy that calls people to repentance. Absolutely. It actually it's it's the it's the overwhelming good that calls people to repent. So there's fear-based motivation you have to watch about, like we talked about guilting people. If yeah, if someone's guilting somebody to do something, um if they're if they're if someone's not this was this was one that we talked about, we didn't really fully explain it, but if someone's not willing to do those little jobs, they're it's almost like they're they're too big for something small. Oh you have to like watch out for that, like and I and and I and I have to check myself to make sure that I never get into that place. Absolutely. Um like there's a difference between like deleg delegation and and just making people do things for you, right?
SPEAKER_01Like you and be and you have access to a platform. Sure. Right? Yeah, right. And and you're right, you can you can get to that place um where all of us and we had it, we had a situation at here a long time ago. We had a a worship leader, won't say who the name was, that or where it wanted to be a worship leader and said, Well, I won't serve at with youth, young adults, or our LC or our lake country council. campus until you let me sing on the big stage. And that person, because I was leading the team, yeah, my wife and I at the time said sorry. And that rarely were they on stage ever again. Yeah. Because you weren't willing to actually serve the areas that needed serving in, and your I you just wanted a platform. Yeah. And if you want a platform, that means I don't know that I can trust you on a mic. Yeah. I don't know that I can trust you leading other people because you're looking to be famous or popular or have influence. And you gain influence almost by not wanting influence.
SPEAKER_04Right, Mike Well got God appoints the humble. Yeah. Right? He lifts up the humble. Absolutely. And you you can't really be fake humble.
SPEAKER_01It's not easy to see fumble. No, it's not going to work. We should never use that again. Edit that out.
SPEAKER_02Some more red flags uh you know we talked about was you like fumble it it was a fumble alright no it was a it's a fumble get that on the t-shirt it kind of works now that I got uh Damon's perspective.
SPEAKER_01Well I was dad joking that and it turned into something okay I don't know what happened.
SPEAKER_04Oh my goodness. Rarely rarely um we talked about sorry get us back on track we talked about that that idea of like don't question me. Yeah um common use scripture uh you know don't touch the Lord's anointed and I'm pretty sure that was talking about like Saul and David I'm pretty sure in that context.
SPEAKER_01Yeah Israel okay the Israelites of that time don't touch my anointed nation yeah yeah yeah not an individual pastor in a church saying don't touch the don't touch me because I'm super powerful. Yeah yeah that is an insane stretch and I've heard it and I've heard it like I've heard it too it's crazy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah um and then there's the other the I don't know if we talked about this but this like pressure of performance um over character. If you know I would say if you see that run away.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely I and and we see that we see that in so many young leaders right now where they have lots of charisma but they have no character. Sure. It takes and and which isn't like a bad thing because there's there's giftings of God absolutely if they have spiritual authority that are actually guiding them yes on the guardrails so they're spiritually accurate in their teaching they're spiritually they have a spiritual life like a a prayer life a devotional life that's actually leading them towards those things. Those are I agree with you 100% but if they're outside of those things you'll find out real quick.
SPEAKER_04Yeah right it'd be the fruit yeah you'll see the fruit really quick um and I I want to look at some some green flags that we we talked about um a humble person not a fumble person um someone who like we talked about that that word it's kind of like a buzzword now but like servant hearted leadership like someone who's bring that word back someone who's who's willing to like do the dirty jobs like I'll go set up chairs I don't care like if there's no one to set up chairs I'm setting up chairs. If there's no one to clean the bathroom we're doing I guess I guess I'm cleaning the bathroom right like there's there's no there's no job that's too small small. Yeah and and I think that you can see that and it's not that and I and I actually think that you know Pastor Brody shouldn't be doing those jobs. Right. But if you if we all just decided to take a vacation you know that Pastor Brody would be in the sanctuary 100% setting up chairs. And he has led he has led worship I think he did that in like youth and young adults I remember I remember coming to this church and Pastor Brody he was the he was like the the guy who kind of like filled in all the gaps. Yep yeah that was the guy like he was like on worship he was preaching he was running youth he was running young adults um but like look for a leader like that like not that again not that I think that Pastor Brody I don't think that he you know should have to do those things. I think obviously there's a thing of delegation that's really important that leaders need to learn because there's a problem on the other side where you have leaders that are just like doing everything because they can't give up control.
SPEAKER_01That's another red flag. And Pastor Brody used to say to me all the time he said Brian if you're doing it that means someone else can't yeah and then you're not taking an opportunity to serve from someone else because I'm setting up chairs, doing tables.
SPEAKER_04And another one that we we didn't talk about, I think that we just get into weeds about is someone that's willing to admit fault. And I'm sure that you've in in in a lot of counseling sessions I'm sure you've seen a lot of this you know trait in people and I would say it's more and more and more like this kind of narcissistic narcissistic view of like I'm never wrong.
SPEAKER_01You know don't run. Yeah. Run far don't stay if you see a leader that's controlling that's ruling by fear that all these things that you're saying I I I lean towards extreme in some of these things. Not to like you can call them out because that's if you're just a congregation member that's not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to go somewhere where you're going to be treated respectfully and with healthy leadership. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I would say a healthy um leader is someone who encourages questions. Absolutely uh encourages dialogue encourages feedback um you know someone who's willing to like talk about problems right and you and you said that maybe it's not the congregation's job to like come to the past I think I think there's some things that like because I've said some stupid things on stage. Okay. Um I I've I sometimes I look back at some of my sermons that were recorded and I'm like why did I say that like why did I say that's an embarrassing thing or just or things just incorrect theology wise and that's and that's where like it talks about in the Bible where you you take um you talk to the leadership and like you take someone with you. Like you you go to that person and you say hey like this was this and this was that and if and if that person is someone who's just like shoots everything down and I don't want to talk about it like that's someone that you probably want to think about maybe okay this is maybe not a good situation or maybe you know we need to elevate this further. But someone who actually encourages those questions and says hey that yeah you know I actually like you're right on that or or hey let's talk about that further. Why do you think that um someone who we just talked about it uh points people to Jesus and not themselves. Oh man you know churches that are built on one person um they quickly crumble when that person screws up yeah when that person screws up because they're going to uh because people are not perfect no whatsoever and you're basing your whole relationship with God around your relationship with your pastor.
SPEAKER_01Yeah and they're on this and literally they're on a pedestal and and that's the sad thing is that no matter what there's gonna be people that are there for you. Yeah right yeah no matter what you can't really avoid that but you can mitigate a lot of that by being the type of leader you're saying we're called to be yeah we're called to be transparent we're called to be accountable accountable I don't actually think that accountability is a is a a a suggestion I think it's a requirement yeah and you have to be under accountability healthy accountability if you're not if to me that is a massive red flag dangerous place to be it's a dangerous place to be not for other people I would say it's for more for that person if they're not accountable. Well and it will be for other people if it's not dealt with yeah and that's what we see with all these these internet pastors that are just famous but with no accountability and no theological background.
SPEAKER_04Well there's a there's actually an interesting post and it was funny because you I saw it too you pulled it up and I was like I know what post you're talking about. This is a powerful um powerful statement that they wrote I don't know who this pastor is but he wrote a post um and it says I'm not your pastor. I thought this was really interesting. Yeah uh I'm just gonna read it because it's it's really really good and it really pertains to a lot of the stuff that we're talking about. It says I'm not your pastor if you make big spiritual decisions and only loop me in after the fact I'm not your pastor. It's pretty savage. Uh if you say I'm your pastor but you only want me there when things go left um I'm more of a spiritual paramedic and not your covering. If you listen to my sermons but live your own truth we're not in covenant you're just a subscriber. Uh if I can inspire you but can't correct you then I'm just a motivator not a shepherd if I'm only useful when you're hurting but when you're but not when you're hiding I'm just a pacifier not an activator. If you bounce from voice to voice and this is really a lot of what we see you were talking about kind of jumping from YouTube pastors to to whatever chasing vibe you're chasing vibes over truth. You don't want a pastor you want a playlist and he says uh I thought this was really good. Let me be clear pastoring is not just preaching.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely very very small 5% of our job.
SPEAKER_04Yeah but it's what people see right and and and obviously he's probably coming from a bigger platform but he says uh pastoring is not just preaching it's a covering that's exactly what we're talking about. You can't say you're covered when you keep stepping out of alignment. You can't call it divine counsel if God's not using or if if God's not using the voice he placed in your life pretty intense but so so relevant. Absolutely and I'm thinking that he's probably just kind of sick of the culture of just jumping from thing to thing and you know um the the in and out kind of person who sits at the back and they they leave really quickly and they you know go to this church, they go to that church they it's nothing wrong with going to different churches. But if you're just going because you know I like what they have to say over here I don't like what they have to say over here you know they they've got a good buffet over here you know like I'm gonna it's like that you're just kind of picking and it's like a buffet style theology where you're picking and choosing what you like from the buffet and you're kind of leaving the vegetables and you're leaving the the stuff that you don't like. And it used to be Brussels sprouts for me but I love Brussels Brussels sprouts now. But you know you're kind of like picking and choosing and and obviously like I love what he said like it's if it if you're not covered like that that's exactly what we're talking about. Like you can't you know say I'm your pastor if you don't actually you're not actually in covenant with me. You're not actually like walking with me. And it's not he's not demanding out of it at anything like he's not demanding anything he's saying hey like I'm just giving you the truth here. Yeah like you don't actually want a pastor you just want someone that's gonna give you a TED talk and motivate you right and that's a problem.
SPEAKER_01That is a problem and the the what do we see we it we can we can't blanket every church like that. No no no that's a hard thing to do but that is what we see in Christian culture. It's a large reality. It's a large reality because that's the reality of our current culture is that you can't speak to me and if you tell me the truth you're actually hurting me by telling you the truth as opposed to if I see something in Malachi's life the most loving thing that a believer can do a Christian can do a pastor can do is go to that person and speak the truth to them in love. Yeah not let that truth or the lot the thing in their life destroy them. But that's not what our culture is and that actually invades now how do we pastor people and and from a pastor's perspective who has coached um and done multiple couples now that my wife and I we do a lot of premarriage counseling and coaching as well as marriage coaching the most the people that grow the most are the ones that walk into my office um and say I need help I want you to teach me how can I be better at this and I will those things right there. If you say that that to any pastor and you walk through that with them you will grow and grow and grow and grow the moment that um they tell you something truthful and you run away which happens often I'll speak the truth to someone and they just don't come back because they didn't like how I said it or the way I said it or it was actually way too true and they don't want to actually be confronted it. And in my opinion those people that jump from church to church of uh church to church avoid planting roots in a church because then it might get too real. Yeah. Because the life that you and I have had to to live together for eight years at KCC means you we know each other. We've we've had some really good there's been moments I've wanted to leave okay I will be honest. There's been moments I've been wanting I've wanted to run away and but you can't no you can't because we're we're one we're called here and two that just sets you up for failure later if you if you just leave because it got too hard. Yeah right and I need the people I have around me it's absolutely vitally important to my growth my safety my protection the like all of that and that's what we it being a pastor right now like I had a I had a 75 year old pastor tell me you guys that are pastors right now have the hardest that that has ever been there for pastoring ever. And I was like that was not that encouraging like thank you for that. Thank you and now yeah but but he says God's also equipped us in a different way to be able to walk these things out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah and that and that's really kind of a great place to wrap it up too because I think um you know we we really talked about like the benefits of that and I think the the main the main thing of why we need it is it's really meant to cover you. It's really meant to help you grow. It's meant to protect you um and if it does anything else it's not spiritual authority. It's not it's not the right kind of authority. It's something else. And and I and I really hope that today you know we're able to help you see those things. Obviously this is a very big topic and it's probably one we'll come back to yeah um but uh you know I did want to leave with a few questions and these would these would be not just not for you to answer obviously but for people to to actually ask themselves um you know maybe thinking about this idea maybe they're maybe there's someone that's maybe you're someone that's you know watching today and you you're struggling with this idea of authority um maybe you've you know there is there's real abuse that have that has been happen that has happened in people's lives there's that we're not like negating that whatsoever but there's also this other side that we were talking about where people just don't want to hear the truth they don't they don't like to be told what to do they don't they don't like that feeling even though they know that it's probably something that they need. Yeah um but really these are just some questions to maybe ask yourself if you're either struggling or maybe maybe you're good maybe you like have a great perspective on this awesome thank you for listening uh but really I think I think today like we're just trying to help shed some light on that but some questions here to ask yourself maybe you want to write these down if you're watching or whatever uh but it's it's who is who is allowed to speak in your life right now who is allowed to speak into your life um because we talked about that whole idea of community if you're if you're on your own you're in isolation you're you're just you're listening to your own thoughts you're your own authority you're your own kind of like yes or no this is right this is wrong and then you have guys that are on the news you know with a with a list of people that they're gonna go kill. Obviously like that's very very extreme but that's kind of where it can lead to um is you know who is who is actually allowed to speak into my life and not just like someone to you know agree with me right that's the the you want someone that actually disagrees with you most of the time because then it'll be someone that challenges you and it's healthy. Yeah and it's and it's healthy but yeah who is allowed to speak in my life right now um another question am I avoiding accountability in the name of freedom? And we talked about that this whole idea of um that's a great question. What the culture praises is you know obviously independence uh you know freedom to do what I want how I how I want when I want whatever I want to be um but am I you know am I avoiding accountability just to be so I don't have to answer to anybody I would say that you're actually setting yourself up to have to be bound more than be free by avoiding the accountability that's right yeah um next question uh you can ask yourself is have I you know confused spiritual hurt with spiritual abuse and so um that's another one where it's like well am I just am I being abused or is this just me?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_04Um am I just am I dealing with traumatic things that I haven't dealt with or am I or am I not dealing with things that I haven't like experienced in my life and you know old hurts or is this actually you know an unhealthy situation and hopefully some of those green flags red flags were able to help you kind of decipher that.
SPEAKER_01And it you know that's a that's actually that's a really fair question too because sometimes we the we actually project onto our spiritual leaders or pastors church leaders the things that we actually are struggling with that actually have nothing to do with church but because I my dad abused me or my mom abused that kind of I have that kind of relationship those things are actually the struggles of my life but I'm projecting this over here because it's actually not easy pickings but almost like oh well that's the the next thing and I'm just gonna put the outlet goes there.
SPEAKER_04It's like a coping mechanism. And really and really that's a great if you you know if you've had you know spiritual hurt or like traumatic things happen to you in your life for sure that's a great place to go is to get counseling absolutely not um and talk to somebody don't don't obviously struggle with those things alone but if that's you you know is if am I using those things if this is actually like is this a red flag or is this just me? And then last question is you know if you have had your trust broken and I would say that I would say majority of people have had their trust broken at some point whether it's why you know a friend, uh a spouse um a teacher a leader church um doesn't matter I'm pretty sure that the you know we've lived long enough and we've made enough mistakes that you know I've probably broken people's trust without knowing it. But in and the question would be am I willing to trust again? And how do I know when it's safe? And again I think going back to those uh those green flags are like is that person humble? Is that person looking for your best interest? Are they are they actually willing to you know talk to you on a Sunday morning and and then you're not you know you're not just like another person in in a seat um you know there's there's things to look for the fruit of those things to look for.
SPEAKER_01You know like just my own part of my own story is I come from two major church splits in my life um and both cause traumatic uh experiences for my family for my dad for my mom for us as we're growing up in these two massive splits um and I asked this question am I actually willing to trust again and how will I know what's safe because I will tell you anyone who's listening is that there is good churches out there. There is good pastors there's good leaders there's good places to be and you won't find them sitting at home avoiding them if that's because I do believe that God's built us to be in community. Yeah not just a like a hiking group that doesn't talk about I'm talking about like real biblical church community God designed us this way and just know that wherever you are there's churches out there that want to love you care for you and see you grow and mature and be and be what God's called you to be.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. Well uh I want to just wrap up today's episode by saying thank you for being on the podcast once again. Thank you uh thank you for talking about such an interesting difficult topic.
SPEAKER_01It's not an easy one to tackle um but I I really hope that uh you know as we as we close I hope today uh this topic encouraged you and helped you maybe brought up some more questions uh you know you can let us know in the comments yeah I was gonna say like if I I don't know where you what uh how you end this one it um but I would say if you do or are you someone that's struggling with this type of question or you are actually dealing with this stuff like that right now our team our pastors people that are in our church we know we've walked through this many of us have come from places of church herd and if you just want more information or you're even looking for a prayer or just like how do I handle this we'd love to be able to chat with you and communicate with you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah yeah always reach out uh you can reach out through YouTube whatever uh go to our church office yeah yeah church uh website kcc.net email us whatever you need but yeah we we just hope that this encouraged you and challenged you as well uh and hopefully hopefully you learned something so don't forget to uh you know make sure you like this video share it uh share with someone that maybe is you know has questions or just like something that's interesting to them uh and subscribe to our channel so you don't miss the next episode and we'll see you next time on the Mezzney floor
