Ep. 3 - Steve: Pushed Out of the Church I Loved

In this episode of Faith Rehab, we sit down with Steve McNitt to hear his personal story of church hurt—what happened, how it impacted him, and what helped him move forward.

Steve shares the painful experience of being pushed out of a church he loved, navigating betrayal, leadership conflict, and the emotional weight of losing something that once meant everything to him. At the same time, his family faced an even deeper challenge—his son’s battle with leukemia—which reshaped his perspective on faith, pain, and what truly matters.

Through it all, Steve opens up about anger, grief, and healing—and why he never let people’s actions redefine who God is.

Faith Rehab is a podcast about church hurt, healing, and rebuilding faith.

We create a safe space for honest conversations about spiritual disappointment, doubt, and the process of finding hope again—without pretending or having all the answers.

Co-hosts: Steve McNitt, Heidi Brandt & CJ Mateo
 Produced by: CJ Mateo

Contact us at Faithrehabpodcast@gmail.com
— we’d love to hear your story.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Thanks for tuning in. Today we're going to hear about Steve's story of Church Hurt and what healed him and where he's headed.

SPEAKER_02 0:08

You're also going to hear about me locking myself and my four-year-old outside of our house.

SPEAKER_05 0:13

You're also going to get to hear about how CJ killed his dog with a finger gun.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Oh my gosh. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Okay, right, right, right. Welcome to Faith Rehab, real talk about church hurt healing and rebuilding faith. We decided that we would start a podcast so that we could create a safe place for people to share their experiences and some of the church hurt and what has helped them and where they're headed. I'm Heidi. I am the mother of four boys. I like to call them my dragons because uh when Game of Thrones was on, I ordered a t-shirt that said Mother of Dragons because I thought it meant that you were a mother of boys. And then I was getting all this attention from Game of Thrones fans, and I realized that it had something to do with the show that I didn't know anything about at the time. So now I'm a Game of Thrones fan. Started watching it because of it. Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

I love that show. Hey, my name is CJ AKA B M I Too High. I got three kids. I could get the same shirt. Did they have a you could? Yeah. But anyways, um, I also missed out on going with my dance crew on an MTV dance competition because I had to go to law school. Wait, and you know the worst part about that? I dropped out of law school. But you went to law like you got into law school, yes, and then I missed my stardom on MTV because MTV is dead now.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

I missed it. I missed the train. Regret. How did the crew do though? Uh they lost, but it's okay. They tried their best.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

So you didn't end up on MTV or going to law school. I know.

SPEAKER_05 2:06

Uh, anyways, Steve, how are you? Wow, that's uh interesting facts, and I'm afraid of what Heidi's gonna say about mine. I'm Steve. I am a father of two boys, both biracial, both adopted, and both better looking than anything we could have created. Um I concur. I never went to law school, but I do have a master's degree in social work, and I've been a licensed therapist for 30 years. So I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. That's right. All the advice that I give, you get for free, and you can take it if you like, unlike my clients. Um mostly I worked with teenage boys.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Welcome.

SPEAKER_05 2:48

So, how are you guys doing?

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Great, good.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

I had a rough start this week.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Uh, the other morning, my wife took the two older kids to the dentist, and my job was to deliver my kid to TK class and come back, get dog food, and feed the dogs.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

When I walked out of the house, I had the wrong keys and my wife was already gone. I locked me and my little four-year-old out of the house. Oh, and I had five minutes to get to his class. And I did not want my wife to be like, You can't even do that. Oh, so I put him on my shoulders and I said, Hey, we're gonna go on a little adventure, and I ran to his class. What? With him on my shoulders about a mile and a half. Wow. And did you make it?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

You introduced yourself as BMI too high. He ran a mile to bring him to class.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

He was late. It's not like I ran a five-minute mile.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Did you ever see the movie with Dustin Hoffman um that was about the divorce? What was that movie called?

SPEAKER_05 3:49

Kramer versus Kramer.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Kramer versus Kramer. Yeah, he like runs his son to the emergency room after he busts his face on monkey bars. Like that was a very heroic thing. I feel like you went from being shamed by your wife to being like super dad, CJ. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_05 4:08

But wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Because I don't know what happened. You got him to school, and then what?

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Oh, there's more. And then I'll I for a second, because I the shame of not bringing home dog food. I almost walked the other direction to get the dog food, but I I know myself. I would have never survived to walk back with dog food on my shoulder.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

You would have died. I know.

SPEAKER_05 4:30

I'm just picturing you. You're sweating from running to school. Now you're trying to carry 50 pounds of dog food home.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Yeah. So I take my wife. I'm sorry I failed. And all she said was, I'm getting the dog food.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

I'm like, you know how much students said like they're out of dog food.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

I went to all the stores, no dog food. Yeah. While I stood on the curve to wait for her to get me back in the house.

SPEAKER_05 4:54

Thank you for tuning in while Heidi teaches you how to lie to your spouse.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Well, I'm the one that's divorced. So what does that tell you?

SPEAKER_03 5:11

Add it up.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Well, today we're gonna interview Steve, if that's okay. We're gonna turn the tables because I feel like he's kind of done the interviewing for CJ and I so far. Yeah. We've been hogging it. So how's that feel, Steve? You want to be on the hot seat?

SPEAKER_05 5:26

Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

I would really love to hear like how is it that you ended up a pastor before you became a therapist?

SPEAKER_05 5:34

Yeah, it's it's um, it was a little, I don't know if you know anything about whitewater rafting, but when you're going down a whitewater rafting, there's a lot of stuff that goes on, and then every now and then there's like this spot off to the side, they call it an eddy where it's all clear. And so I um I started my career as a high school teacher. I taught uh high school social studies and I coached football and wrestling and track, and I have the honor of having coached a girls state champion in California, shot putter. Now um she was second place the year before I got her, and the girl that beat her graduated, but I'm sure it had a lot to do with my coaching. Very sure of it. All you're very sure of it. Wow. So um when, like I said, my kids are adopted, and when my wife and I were deciding, like when we were going through infertility treatment, we had decided that if we were gonna make any changes in our life, that was the time, or else we're gonna have to wait till we're in our 50s when our kids are grown. During my coaching career and my teaching career, I had lots of kids that you know, I just had a heart for the underdog. If they were, if they just had somebody who would pay attention to them, they would do fine. And and I did. And so at that point, I thought rather than telling those kids to sit down, shut up, or I'll fail you, open to page 38 and do 19, you know, questions on World War One, um, I decided I would go back to school, get my master's, and become a therapist. So I did that and uh worked mostly with kids and families. Then that was in Southern California. And then when we moved up here to Northern California, I started attending a great church. I had been when as a teacher, you get paid more if you go to school, right? If you get more continued education, and I didn't want to take like seminars on how to make bulletin boards or you know puppetry in for third graders or something like that. So I went to seminary and took seminary classes, and because I was a social studies teacher, they accepted it. So I went to Fuller Seminary, and all the Fuller graduates were glad to know I did not graduate, so I will not, you know, stain your name. Um but I when I became a therapist, I was like working with kids and families, but I had really at a heart for people, you know, before the Great Depression, before the the Great Depression in um the 20s and 30s.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Were you around for that?

SPEAKER_05 8:10

Well, no, I was not around for that. Just fact-checking, Steve. Contrary to popular belief. I was not, yeah, thank you for fact-checking. But during before that, the church was the only social services. The government had no social services, only the church. Here's a fun fact child protective services, we call in this state CPS. Yeah, yeah, that grew out of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. So we had a society to prevent cruelty to animals before we had one for children.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Wow. It's very American, I think.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Spitfits.

SPEAKER_05 8:45

I just had this idea that the church, you know, could serve people in their needs more holistically, cheaper, better. And um, and I when I started attending this church, we started talking about how we would serve our community. And so the senior pastor asked if I would come on staff and do it. And I said, No, you can't afford me. And he said, We'll figure it out. And they did.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Now, wait a minute. I'm sorry, yeah, I need to interrupt you because I'm curious, like what because you're married, right? And yeah, Susie married a teacher, yeah, and now you want to make this leap to ministry. What was that like for her?

SPEAKER_05 9:26

Yeah, I had already been involved with ministry for quite a while. I'd been doing Young Life for a long time. She had been involved with the church.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 9:33

The church we were involved with in Riverside, I had done every role except senior pastor. I'd been on the board, I'd started committees, I'd done uh preaching, I'd done all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Was it a conversation that you had with her?

SPEAKER_05 9:45

Like absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Okay, sorry, I'm not trying to.

SPEAKER_05 9:48

It was kind of like, hey, um, you know, they want me to go on staff. I know I was a teacher, but and she's like, Oh, well, that seems like a bad idea. And like we both prayed about it and stuff. The the better response was her mom. Her mom, who was Catholic, said, Well, why doesn't he just become a priest? Mom, he's married to me. He can't be a priest. So, another way that I disappointed my mother-in-law, I'm sure. So, yeah, there was a conversation, and I went on staff and became a pastor because it was a it was an independent church, it was part of a denomination, but it was had its own bylaws and stuff, and so I got ordained by the church, the local church, and still ordained by that same church and still friends with the people who go there and pastors and and whatnot. Um, so yeah, that's how I became a pastor. So therapist, pastor, and then after I left that church, which we can talk a little bit more about later, then I went back to um becoming going back to mental health. And most of my career I had my own private practice for a little bit, but most of it's been in public mental health. I worked in juvenile hall, I worked in a prison, I worked in jail, I worked uh for people that were on Medi-Cal, we call it in California, most states call it Medicare. Yeah, mostly poor people, families, schools, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Wow. So when you're looking back over the scope of your ministry in church, what would you say was your biggest church disappointment or hurt if you can talk about that?

SPEAKER_05 11:35

There's two that stand out. One was that same church where I had been on staff. I had been serving there for eight or nine years, I think. And one day I get a phone call. Not one day, I I shouldn't say that. I had been um leading at the executive level. I had been the teaching pastor, I was the director of evangelism and lots of different kinds of things, teaching and and doing all that kind of stuff. I got a call on Mother's Day when I was with my mom. The senior pastor said, Hey, I I think you ought to be praying about whether you still belong here or not.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_05 12:16

Yeah, it was that's my reaction. I was kind of shocked. Um, he had gone on a sabbatical, sort of, and then came back. And not too long after that, we had this conversation. And I said, Where is this coming from? Well, I don't know. It just, you know, it seems like the church is going through some changes, and I just, you know, maybe you ought to be thinking about whether or not you still belong here and and whether you fit in and just pray about it, which was code in the past for we're about to let you go.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_05 12:50

But you should pray about it. So it was sort of the Christian version of yeah, here's your 30-day notice. And what was really strange about it is I uh in our next meeting, I said, you know, every year that I've been here, I've asked you for a review, like a job review. Tell me how I'm doing. So you've all you've ever said to me is really positive things. You've never given me a review, and now you think maybe I don't fit. He said, Well, you know, you should be praying about it, and and there's some things that are changing, and and um I'll I'll kind of cut through a little bit of the chase. This was August, and when I we were kind of going back and forth, and it was a really hard decision for me because I loved that job, loved it. Loved doing the ministry, loved it that I was in full-time ministry, loved it. I oversaw nine staff people, and we oversaw about 500 volunteers in different ministries to the community, lots of different kinds of things that we were doing in and for the community. The hard part was I kept thinking, but I love this job, but I knew that if I fought it, that I might split the church. And I wasn't gonna go start my own church. I just didn't want, you know, if I badmouth a pastor who's their somebody else's pastor, I knew that that could really be detrimental to the church. And then a friend of mine who has a lot of wisdom, a fellow guy named Steve. So you know he's great. Yeah. Um, he said, you know, I don't know that I would ever work for somebody who didn't want me. And I said, over breakfast, hmm.

SPEAKER_03 14:39

Right.

SPEAKER_05 14:40

Then I went home and really literally sat on our bed and cried. And my wife came in and she had never seen me like that or since. And I said, I I have to resign. And she's like, What? Like, you love that job. I go, I know, but I I I I'm I can't. And so that was August. The reason I tell you that's August is that um the church gave me a nice severance and all of that. A couple of the board members were upset. They called me, asked me to come back. You know, would you please we're gonna work it out? Don't worry about it. And I'm like, no, sorry. It that's water under the bridge.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

So it was May Mother's Day when he called. Yeah, and then it was really August when you decided it was time to resign. Yeah what what what did May to August look like and feel like for you? Even like what was Susie experiencing? Because I know that sometimes people in the church can talk. Like, was there buzz about you possibly not staying on? Like, what was there any or was this like a shock to everyone when it finally came out?

SPEAKER_05 15:53

A shock until August. Like nobody knew, nobody talked to me except for the pastor. Well, Susie knew we talked about it. Okay, but it was it felt weird because it felt like I don't know if you've ever seen um the that movie The Green Mile, but they're they when they're walking the guy to the execution, they are just yelling behind him, Dead man walking, dead man walking. So I felt like a dead man walking. Although I was trying to clump on to what can I hold on to? Okay, so maybe I won't do preaching. What else? I'm I can still run these ministries. Well, one of the ministries, you know, had been run by um by a woman who was pretty close to the pastor, nothing inappropriate, but just yeah, they were very close friends and and anything like that. And so um nobody really knew. Like the bot the board hadn't talked to me, the pastor and I had had several conversations, and I was trying to figure out this sort of mental gymnastics of okay, well, maybe there's a still a place for me here. So from May till August was sort of figuring that out and seeing if the what would make sense. And by August, I was like, no, I've got to go.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

And that moment, in the moment in your bedroom when you're breaking down, like what what did that feel like for you? Was that just like a letting go? Was it a because you said you know, Susie hadn't seen you like that before or since? So what were the tears about?

SPEAKER_05 17:33

Yeah, I think it was sort of a tidal wave of grief. And you know, the picture there's something that you really love, but you can't do it. You know, I maybe how I don't know because this never happened to me, but maybe you know, people who love to ski and then they break their leg and they can't ski anymore. Yeah, or you know, people that you know um have some hobby and then they lose their eyesight and they can't do it anymore, kind of thing, where it was a very traumatic experience. I mean, it was really, really rough. Um, but I knew at that point, you know, and thank you to my friend Steve, who because at that point it was very clear like no, you gotta get out.

unknown 18:22

Right.

SPEAKER_05 18:23

It gets a little bit worse in that um in August, once I finally decided, the the board, you know, and I had some conversation with some board members that wanted me to come back and and wanted to talk things through. And and it it turns out that the pastor hadn't talked to them, even though he told me he had, and had really been kind of undermining some of my ministry with the woman that he was close to, had lied to the board and me about that. And then he didn't ever announce it. And so my son yeah, my son got sick in January. I have a son that's had a lot of medical issues, he's had leukemia twice, and he got sick in January. And so in January, finally the pastor got up and said to the church something along the lines of, hey, you guys know Steve McNitt, and um, he's been a pastor here for a long time, and anyway, his son has leukemia. And by the way, Steve doesn't work here anymore. Um, and it it probably wasn't exactly that. I wasn't there, I was at the hospital um with my son who had leukemia, and but it was you know, for months they hadn't told anybody, so that was probably the hardest part for Susie. Is that people would come up to me and they'd go, Hey, when are you gonna preach again? And they'd go to Susie, Hey, is Steve okay? Like, we haven't seen him around in a while, you know, Steve doing okay, and so I think it was hard on her because we didn't have any like NDA or anything, we could talk about it all we wanted, but we knew that if we talked too much and in the wrong way, that we would be doing damage to the church, and I didn't want that, right? Like I there was a part of me that was wanted to wave my fist and go, you son of a gun. Yeah, without that.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

And that's being polite.

SPEAKER_05 20:20

You could do that now if you want. You wanna yeah. I mean, really, I I was angry and I was hurt. Susie actually ended up going to a a board member and saying, You gotta set up a meeting with me and the pastor, and just kind of like, Hey, you lied about this, you lied about that, you lied about this. And why don't you have the I mean, literally, she said, Why don't you have the balls to get up there and tell people he's left? Yeah, like man up a little bit, would you? I love Susie. And um and he still didn't. So that was one where it kind of like I mean, the hurt of the church, and and CJ talked about this in his episode a little bit, but uh the church is both a uh community and a corporation, right? Yeah, and the community is what we go for, we love it. There's hugs, there's happy people, there's lots of activities, there's nice music, it's so great. The corporation part is we gotta pay for the lights and people get paid to work there, and you know, people get fired from there and stuff like that. And so the corporation part really, you know, even though there were hundreds and hundreds, it's a pretty big church, about 2,500 people, but there were hundreds of people that I knew and loved and cared about and had performed their weddings and been to their funerals and that kind of stuff. That um it was kind of like, well, I can keep going here. But it was really tough.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

And it was happening at the intersection. Of your son getting sick, and you know, I think that it was it was about the love that you had for the people and the love that you had for ministry that was like felt like it was being taken away from you, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Yeah. After they you resigned, did you stay at the church?

SPEAKER_05 22:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 22:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 22:23

I mean, it was a church that we loved, and wow, there wasn't a lot of other great churches, and so we were gonna try to like keep going.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

That's amazing. Like, even when you said you wouldn't talk about it, like the maturity that you had and the reverence that you had, like I just because that that wouldn't be me. I'd be slashing types in the parking lots.

SPEAKER_05 22:46

Well, believe me, there were coffees and lunches with people where I kind of let loose, but yeah, but I knew it wouldn't do any good in the church. And you said maturity, but I think you mispronounced insanity. Um hard word, and so it was it was not a great time, but I would tell you this, and this is gonna sound really really sick. My son getting leukemia puts so much of my life in perspective.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Oh, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_05 23:16

Yeah, like what matters and what doesn't matter, boiled down to we want to keep him alive and we want to focus on our family, and so everything else was just kind of nothing, you know. It was it didn't matter, yeah. My um, I coached with a guy named Danny, Danny Ariano, rest in peace. And he used to say, It's mind over matter. I don't mind because you don't matter.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

I need to adopt that.

SPEAKER_05 23:43

That's so and it was kind of that thing where it was like, I I it was a lot of stuff, and there was a lot of crap, and people were calling and asking about this and that, but um but also that same community of people, I will tell you, rose up and supported us through a really, really dark time to the point where people were bringing meals, what you would expect. People were doing chores, what you might expect. There was a woman who wanted was so desperate to do something for us, anything for us, that she came once a week, went to our backyard, picked up all the dog poop. That was her thing for us. Do you ever remember same joke?

SPEAKER_02 24:25

In case you need to get dog food. I know, yeah. Steve, uh I was just thinking, like, did you ever see it as the timing of God that that whole thing happened and then the cancer came almost like, hey, Steve, I need you to slow down because I need you in another season right now.

SPEAKER_05 24:45

I do think that um when you're in ministry, people come to you with their needs. And I think you know, some of them, I'm gonna exaggerate a little bit, but if if I had been still on staff and after service, somebody would have said, Hey, will you pray for my uncle? He's got a hangnail. I would have lost it. Like, I don't want to hear about your uncle. My my kid has leukemia. What do you got? You know, yeah. I feel like so. Yeah, I do think it was, I don't know that God um makes things happen, but I do know in Romans 8, where it all things work together for good, right? That me not being on staff, not having to deal with all of that, having just a regular job where I could go eight to five and then go to the hospital. I mean, that was a blessing.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

What do you feel like helped you get through that? Because you know, we talk about our church hurt and what helped and where we're headed. Like, what were the things that kind of helped you not talk trash about what was going on, not leave the church, heal your heart back to stay to stay in that community. I mean, that's incredible.

SPEAKER_05 25:53

Yeah, it was easy to stay in the it was easier to stay in the community after January because I spent so much time at the hospital that I didn't go to that church very often. I'd go midweek for worship, but on weekends I was at the hospital and there was another church nearby that I would attend because it was near the hospital. Um, so I wasn't there a whole lot. I think the thing that helped me the most is that I never um I never confused what was happening with God orchestrating it or doing it to me. I never looked at what was happening as, oh my god, God hates me. You know, that sometimes we think when bad things happen, oh God's mad at me. I I knew it was the same God, still loved me, still all of his promises are true. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There's no separation, nothing can separate me from God's love. That no matter what pain I was feeling at the time of the church or in the hospital with my son with leukemia, none of that was gonna change how much God loved me and how much grace God had for me and that God died for me. None of that was gonna change that.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

That's just such a good focus to have because I I'm listening to you and I'm just thinking so much of my hurt has manifested itself as just anger towards people in the church. Like your situation could have made you so angry. And I you probably were angry, but angry and wanting to express that anger. And so I'm impressed because that's not how I function or operate. Like I still have very many unhealed places in me because of my anger towards people in the church.

SPEAKER_05 27:44

Yeah, and you're shifting your whole focus and you're saying, Yeah, but God well, I hope your son never gets leukemia, but but it does help with perspective. And I I hope you don't. The last thing you should hear from me is that I had no anger because I was very angry, I was very bitter. In fact, I kept thinking I was I got angry at God. Like, God, you say the workers are few. I'm a worker, bro. Do the math. Like, what are you what are you doing here? Um, and there were plenty of people that I talked to about my anger. It just didn't seem like the you know, in your circle of friends, there are some that are safe. Yeah, and as you get further out of those circles, they're not as safe. And so those people who's the pastor who was involved in this was still their pastor, yeah. And so I could badmount them, and you know, then what? Then they get mad at God or leave God or walk away from the church, whatever. It wasn't that didn't seem like the right thing, even though I had plenty of anger, it was anger that I was expressing, and and it wasn't it didn't end in January. Like I still had anger. There's still times when I can rile myself up and go, that punk, those people, how come somebody didn't whatever? Yeah, yeah, you know, don't feel like wow, you handled it perfectly, because that's certainly didn't.

SPEAKER_03 29:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:11

But our family had to rally around our own pain, but also, and then you know, in January it became a big distraction. We didn't have a lot of time or um or the luxury of just kind of you know crying in our beer, so to speak.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

Yeah. And I I think I have experiences too where I felt like I was wrong by a pastor, and it took me a while to figure out, yeah, pastors could be horrible to people, but they are also very much doing God's work out there. Like, as if like just because a pastor does one bad thing, so like what you said, they are someone else's pastor and they are doing God's work. So it's like you can't really if you talk bad about whatever's going on, you could really affect someone else that's having a good experience and him leading other people to a good place. So it's like both true. Yeah, he was bad to me, but doesn't mean he's not useful to God.

SPEAKER_05 30:15

I also don't want to give pastors an excuse. Like, you don't have to give him a pass. I didn't give him a pass. I yeah, I went to his board who could have fired him and told him about the you know things he had been lying about, the things that had actually happened. So I was I was up front about that. I wasn't giving the pastor a pass because well, he still loves God and stuff. He does, and he has gone on to do lots of great work, right? Um, so both can be true. You're right about that, CJ. But people that are listening, if they have been wronged and they want to leave a church, they should.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

That's actually what I want to ask you, Steve, because I know we we need to talk about like where are you headed? But I have friends right now who are experiencing things similar to what you're sharing that are just like uh throbbing in emotional pain over their disappointment from leadership in the church. What would you say now to comfort them when they're in this period of staying in the church that they've been hurt by? Um, where you know, people within the church are kind of drawing lines in the sand. And like, what is advice or comfort that you would offer them to kind of encourage them?

SPEAKER_05 31:37

Do what's healthiest. The healthiest thing might be to stay and reconcile some things, or the healthiest thing may be to get away from the people that are hurting you. And this is true like in every kind of relationship that where people are hurting you. You know, I think God is the God of reconciliation and would love every relationship to reconcile. Yeah, but that's not really realistic if people aren't both working at it. So if people are getting hurt by a church and the church is gonna continue to hurt them, they need to do something healthy.

SPEAKER_03 32:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:17

And sometimes that's leaving. But I do think, and I this part I I probably feel the strongest about is that there's a difference between the church and Jesus. And you know, Jesus never left me or forsook me like that promise. He'll I'll never leave you or forsake you. Jesus promises a better future, promises peace. Paul starts every one of his letters by saying, May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. And so we can be praying that for ourselves, and we can be trying to experience that for ourselves. And imperfect people are part of a church, and um, they are probably gonna hurt you. Just like I'm married to an imperfect person, even though everyone who knows her thinks she's more perfect than me, including me. 100%, but we hurt each other.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:19

If you can work through it, great. If you can't, then you can't. Even Jesus, when he sent out the 72, he said, Listen, if somebody doesn't accept you and shake the dust off your sandals and keep moving. Yeah, it wasn't like, hey, go back and tell them what they're wrong, go back and work, you know, let them abuse you, none of that. Just shake the sandals and keep moving. That's good. Bye, Felicia.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Do we still say this? Bye. We still need to hear where you're headed, but I do I I want to thank you for saying what you did, Steve, because I think it's gonna help so many people. Like that gave me goosebumps when you talked about there's a difference between the church and Jesus, and kind of that's that is where we're headed, right? It's pointing people back to the truth instead of our own, like the same criticism that we give the leadership and the folks in the church who are missing the mark. It's like, oh yeah, I guess I do I do that too. You know, I'm also guilty of participating in the hurt.

SPEAKER_05 34:24

There's uh I I know I shouldn't cuss on this, but I will. Um, Michael Fronti, who I love, is a singer, and he has this song called Bad Shit Happens. And it and the chorus is something like bad shit happens, but good shit happens too. And I think wherever we focus, we're gonna see. If we're not looking for good, we're not gonna find it. Totally. We don't have to necessarily look for the bad, it seems to find us no matter where we look, but we do have to keep looking for the good. Yeah, and so I don't I don't want people to think that our goal for this podcast is get back in church. Yeah, I don't think that's our goal. Our goal is that people are on a journey and that we acknowledge that churches and people in churches have hurt folks, and that we just keep encouraging people. I want to keep encouraging people to keep working through it, yeah, and realize that sometimes people suck. And most times, just kidding. It's never Jesus that sucks. That should be our t-shirts right there. Right. It's never Jesus that sucks. That it's um that people sometimes hurt us, and Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

SPEAKER_02 35:43

Jesus doesn't suck.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

JDS.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

I think for anyone, it's good advice to just like, hey, if you're going to a church, don't expect everything to just happen for you. Just, you know, it's the ones where you go to church and you think everything that happened to me in this church, Jesus is doing to me.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

That's just little expectations that you shouldn't put on the church because people run it with God, you know.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

There should almost be a disclaimer, right? Like, you know how if there's certain movies like the strobe lights could cause seizures, like it should just be the beginning of the service.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

We're gonna let you down, we're gonna hurt you. Yeah, you really shouldn't have one that dressed to church because it is not flattering on you. Be blessed.

SPEAKER_05 36:24

And I think that you know, we're gonna do future episodes really on a whole myriad of things that people get hurt by in the church, and it's not surprising to me that lots of people leave a church and never go back. Yeah, it's not surprising to me because sometimes in some churches, the one that I'm talking about wasn't one of them, but in some churches, they try to convince you that what horrible things they're doing is God's will, or what terrible things they're doing is because you know Jesus told me, or because I'm more holy than you and you don't understand. And I think that the more we know Jesus, the more we can understand that. One of the things that I have made a practice of, and it's really helped me, is that I read the Bible almost every morning. Mostly I read a book in the Bible and then I'll read one of the gospels. And the gospels are the um, you know, the biographies of Jesus because I want to know how he lived. And so then I'll read another book and then I'll read one of the the gospels, and I keep going there because if we want to live like Jesus, we should study Jesus. Yeah, and I think if we want to live like CJ, we should study CJ. Don't do it, yeah. Don't do it. That's right. But the more we study Jesus, the more we understand what he was like, and the more we can understand when people aren't like that. Yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

That's so well said. Well, Steve, thank you for sharing your story. I think it I said it before, but I think it's really gonna help people.

SPEAKER_05 38:08

Well, thank you. You guys are very kind.

unknown 38:14

Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_05 38:15

We always try, we talk about some heavy stuff here, and we always try to end with something funny, which is usually Heidi. And so, welcome back to Irreverent Stories with Heidi. Take it away.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Thank you very much. So, we had a wonderful student leader in our ministry at church when we were part of youth ministry who had a brain aneurysm, and she was on life support because they were waiting for her dad. So far, we said it was gonna be a funny story, and you're talking about a brain aneurysm.

SPEAKER_05 38:45

Okay, I don't think this is gonna be funny at all. I'm kind of nervous right now.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

Her dad lived in Louisiana and was driving to Chicago so he could say goodbye, and they were keeping her alive on life support because she was also donating her organs. I don't do dying people, like it was just so uncomfortable for me to be in that room. It took everything in me, and the whole time I was just praying out loud to God, like, help me see her for how I remember her and not what she looks like right now. And all of a sudden, we are in the ICU. A pizza delivery guy shows up to the room with like a dozen pizzas stacked from his chin to his arms. And he you, I mean, it was like something out of a movie where you could hear the beep, beep, beep, beep, and she's dead essentially.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

And I'm standing in the room, and he goes, Did somebody here order a pizza?

SPEAKER_00 39:44

And it was because there were so many people at our church who came and just kind of like sat Shiva and prayed in the waiting room, and someone who couldn't be there decided to like bless us by delivering pizzas and only had the room number.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

And so this poor pizza guy shows up with all these pizzas, and it took a minute where I'm like, Oh, they're in the waiting room, they're not here. But I'm sure he tells that story where he walked in and was just like, Is this some kind of joke?

SPEAKER_02 40:17

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_05 40:18

I hope you tipped in well.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

It is a good comic relief. I mean, what more? I mean, after that, you need something. Really? It's really sad, but pizza.

SPEAKER_05 40:28

Yeah, it's very sad, and also a little comic relief.

SPEAKER_02 40:32

Yeah. Can I tell a quick story? Yeah, yes, my dog was dying. It relates. And um, we were we brought her in, I think her tummy, her stomach twisted. So we brought her in to euthanize, and the doctor was getting the shot ready. We're we're saying goodbye. And one of her best tricks is when I go bang and she plays dead. And so I think you know where this is going. I did bang for some reason. I don't know what possessed me to do that trick one more time, and she passed. The the doctor came back and was like, Oh, you don't need this shot, she's gone. She actually died, and so I took it as a blessing because he he she saved us like a hundred bucks on a euthanasia shot. So wow, so it was like right after a death, that comic relief kind of just like we'll remember this type thing, and it's one of my What was the dog's name? Jazzy, the best dog ever.

SPEAKER_00 41:32

Did Jazzy visit you when you were staying at the hotel? Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

From the last episode. That's a reference to the last episode where CJ went to a haunted hotel. R.I.P. uh. good stories and the pizza guy.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Yeah. May you be blessed. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 41:56

Well, um, thanks for listening. And um, this has been great. And we hope that you'll tune in next time where we talk more about stories of things that are dying.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Thanks for listening to Faith Rehab. Tune in next time where we talk about church hurt, what it is, and you can just learn more about it. See ya.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

And with that, be blessed. Be blessed, everyone.