Ep. 5 - Calling Out the Harm: 4 Steps to Heal

You've felt it. Someone in the church said or did something that hurt you — and instead of being seen, you got a Bible verse and a "I'll pray for you."

In this episode, CJ, Steve, and Heidi walk through Dr. Allison Cook's 4 steps to healing from church hurt (Click here for the article)— and get real about what those steps actually look like in their own lives. They talk about spiritual bypassing, prayer request gossip, the weird power dynamics that happen when church people "speak for God," and why sometimes the most healing thing you can do is step away.

Plus: CJ opens up about his walk through addiction and recovery. Steve shares a hospital room story you won't forget. And someone left a casket behind in a tornado warning. You'll have to hear it.

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 2 0:00

Hey, welcome to the Faith Rehab podcast. Today we're talking about church hurt and the four steps of healing.

Speaker 1 0:06

We're also going to hear that Heidi just met a guy and started talking about pap smears.

Speaker 5 0:11

And the time that CJ drank meat water. Yes.

Speaker 2 0:18

Enjoy the show.

unknown 0:29

Okay.

Speaker 1 0:30

Well, welcome to Faith Rehab, real talk about church hurt, healing, rebuilding faith. We exist primarily just to bring comfort and community to those who have been hurt by the imperfections of the church. My name is Steve. I am a therapist and a dad and a husband and a former pastor. And I was a rodeo clown. What? I that's not true, but I just wanted to get a reaction from the other two. That's great. All the other stuff was true. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 5 1:04

I'm Heidi. I am the mother of four boys, and professionally I'm a public speaker, consultant, executive coach, and I am a big fan of Disney World.

Speaker 2 1:17

Ooh, yeah. Nice. Hey, my name is CJ, aka B M I2 High. I am uh I'm a pastor's kid. I used to work for a church. Um, I do have a corporate job, and I have three kids and a wife. And um, I used to dance, and before every show, my my fight, flight or fight. What is it?

Speaker 1 1:40

Fight, flight or freeze, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:42

Yeah, before my pre-show is my body gets so sleepy. I get so even before shooting a podcast, really, I just get really like I want to take a nap. And I'm like, Thanks, buddy. Um I'm trying to perform here.

Speaker 1 1:54

It's weird, but then you would get out there and just bust a move. That's awesome. I guess. Yeah. Hey, um, for the listeners, because we're audio only, you cannot see Heidi right now, but we're recording a few days before um before St. Patrick's Day, and Heidi is wearing a green shirt that says I and then it's got a three-relief clover, I shamrock Pabst, like Papst blue ribbon beer. And she's from the Midwest. That's about the most Midwestern thing I think I've maybe ever seen.

Speaker 5 2:28

Well, I live just an hour south of the Pabst Brewery, and I went to University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, where I met the great-grandson of the inventor of Paps beer. And the first time I met him, I know that's like almost famous right there. Kevin Bacon. And he was like, Yeah, my my great-grandpa invented pap's beer, and I thought he said the pap smear. And I was like, Wait, what? Like, why would you tell someone that like paps beer? Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 3:01

Also, how do you invent that?

Speaker 1 3:05

A pap smear?

Speaker 2 3:07

You know what? Like, sure, you did, Graham.

Speaker 1 3:12

Back in the 1880s, yeah. They were using horses or something. I don't even know. I don't even know what a pap smear has never been to one. So Steven. Anyway, guess what we're gonna talk about today? All kinds of medical devices. Not true.

Speaker 3 3:34

Add it up.

Speaker 1 3:35

Hey, in our last episode, we talked a lot about like church hurt, who has it, how common it is, and really a lot of uh deep talk, I think, about kind of our experiences and hopefully you could relate to some of the things that we talked about. Today we're gonna talk a little bit about what helps. Like, if you've felt some church hurt or betrayed by pastors or church members or friends or any of that kind of stuff, um, we're gonna talk a little bit about what has helped people. And so in the first three episodes, we each told our story and we talked a little bit about what's helped us, and it turns out we were all wrong. No, it turns out that um that all of us have our own journey, and so what's gonna help you might be some things we talk about tonight, and we hope that uh it's gonna be helpful and healing and healing.

Speaker 2 4:34

Well, Steve sent us this really good article by Dr. Allison Cook, yeah, and it is I think it's titled Four Steps to Heal from Church Hurt, and we talked about a lot uh in the last episode about step one, which was also this the first step of recovery, and the step one is define church hurt as abuse.

Speaker 5 4:54

Yeah, can we talk about that? Because I love that she goes there, like she's not being polite about it, she's being she's like calling it out, yeah.

Speaker 1 5:04

You know, that abuse is such a harsh word, yeah, that I think maybe a lot of us would would sort of cringe at that and go, no, it wasn't that.

Speaker 2 5:14

Yeah, I I wrote the quote down that she wrote, she said, church hurt stems from experiencing someone else's abuse of power.

Speaker 5 5:23

Yes.

Speaker 1 5:25

Oh it's do you think it's only power, or I mean, do you think that that's where it comes primarily from?

Speaker 2 5:35

Um okay, good talk. We're thinking we are not therapists. No, I think when you are a leader in a church, it's almost you're responsible for some of the like God's power type thing. That's a I think a big way of saying it, but you're responsible and you have the power to help in someone else's walk. I'm not I'm not even saying pastors or it's it's it could be anyone, it could be the church janitor or the children's ministry director, yeah, but they have the power to minister to other people, and when they abuse it, and it could be intentional or not, not intentional, but there could be some of that responsibility that they that's given to them that they're not handling well.

Speaker 1 6:18

Yeah, absolutely. I think even how people use the Bible, even though the Bible, you know, is it's full of really, really great stuff, it's full of some tragic stuff, it's full of some really weird stuff, but how people use it the the New Testament talks about the Bible as like a two-edged sword, and so sometimes I think people are coming in wielding the sword, like I'm gonna do some damage, like I'm coming at you with some stuff. And I I think um I read this thing recently and I haven't verified it, but it was in a book, so it's gotta be true. Um that the Bible has uh I think it's 326 verses about slavery, and only two of those verses were speaking against slavery, and and part of the the book was saying that it was such a normal part of society, people didn't know to speak out against it, or or they weren't really right. But how people have used that over thousands of years, and even in this country were see slaves, you should honor your master, you should you know be quiet, be still, and all of those things that now when I say it out loud, we go, Well, that who would think that? That's horrible, that's ridiculous. Like, we don't want any part of that. But people have used the Bible sometimes as a tool to sort of keep people repressed, and I know you know Heidi might be able to speak to this more than me, but absolutely, even though there were women church leaders in the New Testament, people have used this to push women's leadership skills down and leadership abilities down and used it as for their own good, right?

Speaker 5 8:02

I heard it said recently, and I don't know the quote exactly, but when we look at like the Ten Commandments, how one of the commandments is taking the Lord's name in vain, that we think of it as like swearing, right? And in reality, it's like any time that you are pushing your own agenda for evil and saying that you're doing it in the name of God, like that's taking the Lord's name in vain.

Speaker 1 8:26

Wow, that is really good. Yeah, I haven't thought about it that way.

Speaker 5 8:30

It wasn't me who said it, but yeah, it was now.

Speaker 1 8:32

I'm giving you credit.

unknown 8:34

Okay, thank you.

Speaker 1 8:34

Remember what Heidi said? Um, you know, the other thing, when when you say that word abuse, it just comes across so hard that I think as people who want to be thinking good of others, we have a hard time acknowledging that. And yeah, what came to my mind as I was reading that is that in 30 years, over 30 years as a therapist, most of my career I've spent with children and families. And a lot of my career, like I've done groups for girls that have been molested, I've done groups for boys that have been molested, I've done lots of groups for people that have been abused. I've had to report child abuse dozens and dozens of times. It's been an integral part of my career. And what struck me early on in my career is that almost every kid thinks their childhood was normal. And so kids who were in a group having to do with abuse, they all thought their childhood was normal and that they this this is happening everywhere. And it wasn't until they realized it's not normal and you should have been treated better, yeah, that it can be really sort of liberating. And I'm I'm riding this parallel road right now, going, wow, what about if people in some churches and in some situations just went, it's not normal and you deserve better. Yes. I wonder if that would be helpful.

Speaker 5 10:04

Because that was the first thing I thought is if you meet someone who shares their story and they say to you that they were abused, I think most reaction that's like kind and compassionate is oh my gosh, I'm so sorry that happened to you. But sometimes in the church, when we say that this happened, we try to minimize it like somehow it was our fault. Like if we would have done something different or better, it wouldn't have happened. But when someone shares their church hurt experience, being able to say to them, Oh my gosh, that should not have happened. I'm so sorry you experienced that.

Speaker 2 10:39

And I like what Allison Cook wrote in here, um, because it says, if that church represents God, then how could they be wrong? What if I'm the problem? What if I deserve what I got? And I think that's that comes out a lot too in church, where you're like, they represent big G God. And I'm just who am I to complain to that person, or who am I to bring this up to the senior leaders or the board, or even just my accountability partner? Yeah, I'm I don't want to disrupt God's work over there, and so but that's also a responsibility that they also need to be accountable for on the other side. They have a great responsibility.

Speaker 1 11:18

I think one of the things that has complicated my own walk is that one of the things that I wanted to do is really follow Jesus. Because I wanted to really follow Jesus and do it well, I studied a lot of theology and really tried to get my arms around what's what's right, what's the right way. And I think there was something very liberating to realize I'm not the first person in 2,000 years to get it all right. But because I wanted to get it right, and because I think we all want to get it right to some degree, that if we get it right, that means somebody else is getting it wrong. And if we point out what they're getting wrong, we think we're doing them a favor. Right. And really what we're doing is is dismissing their journey, dismissing their experience. And in some ways, like what Heidi said earlier, we're taking the Lord's name in vain and saying, Let me speak for the Lord on this and tell you what you really should be thinking. And boy, I did that a ton. And I want to apologize to everyone out there who I hurt because it's okay, Steve. I forgive you. Yeah, CJ, thank you.

Speaker 5 12:31

Because it is when it's framed that way, like the Lord told me or God's really laid you on my heart. I want to be like, bitch, why are you just talking to me? You know, like what's he gotta tell you?

Speaker 2 12:43

Yeah, would it be easier if he just went directly to you?

Speaker 5 12:46

Right?

Speaker 1 12:47

Yeah, yeah, that's funny. And you know, what do we say then? Oh, maybe you weren't listening, or maybe he tried, or maybe whatever. Um, you know, we just sort of pile on that. And I, you know, I I will say, and I'll repeat this probably in every episode. There are so many great people who are trying to make great walks in their faith. And so clearly I don't want to bag on everybody that is part of a church or part of a ministry or any of that, but there are people who will, you know, exert sort of and push forward like this is really you really need to hear this because this is really from God. This is it, this is the thing. And I think that can be abusive in that that maybe they're right, or maybe they're right for them and not for me.

Speaker 3 13:35

Right.

Speaker 5 13:36

The other idea that I really like that she talks about is spiritual bypassing. I think that that's something that I've experienced a lot in my life. And Steve, you sent me the book, and I recommend everybody read it. Emotional healthy spirituality.

Speaker 1 13:50

Really great.

Speaker 5 13:51

Like spiritual bypassing is when someone's not willing to talk or confront what's really going on, they just kind of slap, you know, we're gonna pray for you, or we're gonna pray about this, or here's this Bible verse. And it just bypasses whatever that person's reality or experience is. I don't know if that if I'm describing it well. Is that how you would define it? Spiritual bypassing?

Speaker 1 14:14

I think so. I think another good word for it might be um minimizing. Yes, you know, you're going through all of this, and I they sort of minimize it by going, Well, that's great. We'll pray for you. And um, and sometimes that's exactly the right answer. And sometimes the right answer is, no, no, I really need your help. Like, you gotta come over and help me build a gate. Like, we gotta do this.

Speaker 2 14:37

Right. For context, Steve just helped me build a gate, so shout out to Steve.

Speaker 1 14:42

Yes, yes, it took and and what did I say like halfway through? I said Jesus was a carpenter, he'd have had this done in an hour and a half. Yeah, it'd take a couple hours. It's okay.

Speaker 5 14:51

It took us like all day, and he would have fed all the neighbors with like a loaf of bread.

Speaker 1 14:57

Yes, it took us all day. Um, yeah, such a great point.

Speaker 5 15:01

And I think that sadly, out of good hearts, you know, we we go, we're really trying to help, but uh sometimes just ill-equipped to do it, or just naive because I I have met wonderful, wonderful Christian church people who have lived in a bubble, and I don't think it's a bad thing to live in a bubble, like have really been protected from a lot of the hardships and difficulty that other people can experience. And so I think when we talk about like they say things with good intentions, they really don't know how bad it really can be for some folks, and so they don't have anything to offer because it's just not their own experience.

Speaker 1 15:48

Yeah, yeah. Can I tell you a funny story about that? I'm sorry, this is really horrible, but um, I have a son I've mentioned, I don't know if I've mentioned it on any of the episodes, but I have a son who's had leukemia and he got leukemia when he was 10 years old. He spent 161 nights in the hospital, but there were times when he could have visitors and there were times when he couldn't. Well, one of the times that he could have visitors, a woman said, Hey, can I come down and visit? And she came to uh the hospital room and she said, I didn't really know who she was, to be honest, but she said that she had been uh my son's Sunday school teacher and really loved him and really wanted to come and really needed to be there. And so she came and five minutes into the visit, she turned towards me, she started crying, and very, very, very genuinely said, Oh my god, do you know how hard this is for her? And I'm like, I don't mean to make fun of her because genuinely she was very, you know, she was very distraught by she saw him in pain and it was very hard. And and she said, Um, you know how hard this is? And because I'm a little bit of a smart aleck, I said, Yeah, it's gotta be really hard for you. And then I've told this story a thousand times, so you know I got a laugh out of it. Um goodness, but you know, like I think it accentuates your point, Heidi, that sometimes when people haven't gone through something and then they do, and they kind of like minimize your pain rather than saying, Oh my god, Steve, how are you guys putting one foot in front of the other? Oh are you guys experiencing this deal? How it I hope your son's gonna be okay. Like it was do you know how hard I'm sorry, I can't even say it with a straight face. Um, it's so wrong. Listen, if if you're gonna go listen to a different podcast now, I I get it, I understand. Now's the time.

Speaker 5 17:52

No, but it's so true. I mean, even when I went through my divorce, it was like it people aren't just thinking, like, why is this happening? That there were people who are like, Why is this happening to me? As if I was making a personal vendetta against them by leaving my marriage. You don't go to someone's funeral and cry to the widow about how you lost their loved one. It's like be there for them, right?

Speaker 1 18:18

Yeah. Another thing that can fall under this same sort of abuse of power is how we take and pass along prayer requests. You know, it's it's sort of a form of gossip, you know, sometimes like, hey CJ, how you doing? You know, we need to pray for our friend Jimmy because well, just pray for him. He's going through a lot, he's his sobriety, you know, he he messed up and his wife's about to leave him. So let's just pray for him. I mean, and then we don't we don't actually take that moment and pray. We just go, Oh, yeah, yeah, pray for him.

Speaker 5 18:55

But it's an abuse of knowledge and information, yeah, or the people who even ask for they even ask for information. Like, I just want to know how to pray for them. I'm not gonna tell anyone, you know.

Speaker 2 19:07

Yeah, right. Those are two great tips on how to gossip and hide it.

Speaker 5 19:11

Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 19:12

Yeah, it kind of reminds me of, and I don't know if we can do this as like a a call and response kind of thing, but but when we were talking about why is it that people give you these sort of superficial or sort of like Bible answers or whatever? And I just wonder, you know, you guys both growing up in the church, what was modeled for you? Like, what did you ever see people do when there were hard things?

Speaker 5 19:38

I loved my church experience, and I don't think I mentioned this. I was a pastor's kid, and my dad and his identical twin brother, get the notebook, married sisters. So my dad and his twin married sisters. So my cousins are genetically closer to me than half siblings. We're called double cousins because we have the same genetics on both sides.

Speaker 2 20:02

So you look like your cousins.

Speaker 5 20:03

I do. We all look so much alike.

Speaker 2 20:05

That's crazy.

Speaker 1 20:06

She has a cousin that I that I met that they look so much alike, and they I would say they act alike, but I think Heidi might hate me.

Speaker 5 20:14

I always say I'm the medicated, I'm always the medicated version of my cousin. But no, it's like us in surround sound when we're together. But we so we, you know, we were pastors' kids, and it was kind of an anomaly that you know twins were running a church that were married to sisters, and then they had a pretty public divorce. And as tragic and as hard as it was, both of them it gave us permission to just be messy. Like we continued going to the church that kind of came from that church, and so there was no expectation to be anybody but who we were, and even though people had their opinions and judgments and ideas, who modeled for me like how to be a part of the church was our mothers who courageously showed up after the fallout because of their faith. And we could just be who we were, like they I don't know that that and I think that attracted other people from similar situations to just kind of create a community of uh what is Rich Mullins call some what's the ragamuffin gospel? Is that Brennan Manning?

Speaker 1 21:21

Like just this idea that the it becomes a ragtag group, yeah.

Speaker 5 21:25

Yeah, yeah. What's the I like the island of misfit toys? It was like you actually stood out if you were the opposite of that.

Speaker 1 21:32

Yeah, that seems like a very unique church experience because I don't know that most people would say, Oh yeah, we were just messy and people accepted it. What what about you, CJ? What was your church experience? Like in in terms of the modeling of how do we handle these people that are messy?

Speaker 2 21:50

Well, I I love Heidi's story because I'm trying to think now of when did I first get that experience of being having permission to be messy? And I don't think I mentioned this before, but I struggled with porn addiction and lust for many years. And then even when I got married, I had to deal with it. Me and my wife, God bless Samantha, she's awesome.

Speaker 1 22:13

Amen.

Speaker 2 22:13

I went through recovery and 12-step and all of those things. But it was then when hey, I can't really hide it now. I'm it's kind of like the cats out of the bag. I'm struggling with this and I'm going through a recovery thing. And it meeting those people for the first time in those circles, we're like, yeah, finally, like I'm broken. Yeah. And that was my model for me. Broken people that are being honest. And I feel like that was the first time where I could be like, okay, this is how to be Christian. Let's start broken.

Speaker 3 22:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2 22:45

Instead of, you know, I'm the I'm the pastor's kid and I'm just doing all these things and going to church. And that wasn't a bad experience. And I see a lot of benefits and and a lot of good memories in that. But in terms of my walk, that was the first time where I had to start from a broken place and see how people navigate through that and being okay with that, like oh saying these things that they're struggling with out loud. Then I really saw people in the church. Like I could just name some pastors that really modeled it for me. Yeah. With this new lens on where I could just be messy.

Speaker 1 23:18

Well, you guys are lucky. You've both found really great, great sort of accepting, grace-filled models.

Speaker 23:24

Yeah.

Speaker 1 23:24

And I was thinking that for most of the people that we're addressing on this podcast, and I know this has certainly happened to me, where um a lot of people, you know, if I asked for prayer, they wouldn't know what to do, or they wouldn't know how to help, or they wouldn't, you know. And so I I see a model in churches where, and we've talked about it on the last episode, where it was kind of like, Hey, I'll pray for you, or hey, maybe you should meet with the pastor to to, you know, talk, or hey, maybe you should uh take some time, or you know, maybe you should step down from ministry. That happens a lot when people have a little bit of messy, then they're like, Well, why don't you step down from ministry for a while? And those are the things that I think in some ways sort of pour gasoline on a fire that is you know already burning and and maybe filled with ashes. And but it sounds like you guys were sort of and thank god you found those really healthy models because I think that's probably part of why you're here is yeah, I want to be that for somebody else.

Speaker 2 24:30

Yeah, and I do think just to bring it back to the steps, like I think what we found early on was we were able to name it, name what was the big thing, the big elephant in the room, and then move on from there.

Speaker 1 24:41

So yes, yeah, it's so honest. Should we move on? Ready?

Speaker 5 24:46

Yeah, all right.

Speaker 1 24:47

The second one is to separate the church hurt from God's character. What does that mean to you?

Speaker 5 24:52

I think that's where a lot of my anger comes from, is because when I don't feel like God is being represented well, it just makes me angry. And then that that's my own issue, right? Like I have to be able to understand that these are human people and that these human people are not God. They're they're supposed to be representing him, and some of them aren't doing a very good job at it, but to be able to keep that differentiation that like God's character is mercy and and justice and love and and radical compassion. And church hurt usually doesn't come from those things, church hurt usually comes from injustice and lack of mercy, you know.

Speaker 2 25:40

Because I think Dr. Cook is basically saying, hey, do the research, see what God says about this one issue that you're dealing with. But I could see Heidi's point of view is like, why didn't they do this? Why didn't they, you know? But um, in the end, I think, yeah, at least you need to dive in to see what God's promises are and just kind of remember like remind yourself of like ground yourself and neutralize the situation, absent of the abuse that happened, what does God say about this and understand that people are people, God is God, and those are really different.

Speaker 1 26:13

But you know, in our normal brains where we sort of extrapolate, if these people hurt me, then maybe all church people are this way, or maybe you know, my son turned me on to a song years ago called People Suck. And um, and in the chorus is essentially people suck, people suck, people suck, people suck. Um, and there's no hope in that, by the way. Don't don't go look it up, don't don't spotify that, don't do any of that. Yeah, you know, you now know everything you need to know about that song, but I think that sometimes when we go, Wow, these people are not meeting my needs the way that I need them met. And I think that no matter who you are, that's gonna be true because the needs we really need met can only be met by a loving, compassionate, grace-filled, higher power that is God. You know, I'm I've been married this year, we're gonna celebrate 40 years of marriage. And um, thank you. I can tell you that um no one has pissed me off more than my wife, no one has brought me more joy than my wife, yeah, but she can't meet all of my needs, and you know, I think that if I had put that on her and really stayed on in that, like she has to meet all my needs, it's and and that's the only place we're ever gonna get met, then I would be sadly disappointed. And believe me, if she had tried that with me, whoa, I would have disappointed her, which I do anyway. Yeah, um, but to separate the church hurt from God's character, that God is a loving, gracious, powerful, amazing God, and church people aren't. Right, yeah, and if we try to get our eternal and spiritual needs met by temporal and sinful people, it's just never gonna match up.

Speaker 5 28:16

Yeah, but do better, church people do better, please.

Speaker 1 28:20

I will say this. This may be the only time I ever plug my book, but I wrote a book, it's called Simple Enormous Love. You can get it on Amazon. But what the reason I wrote it was for this exact reason. The subtitle is Everything I Ever Needed to Know About God. I learned in Romans 8. And in Romans 8, it starts with there is no condemnation, none, zero. If you somebody's condemning you, it's not God, and it ends with there's no separation, that nothing will ever separate us from God's love, nothing, not height, nor depth, nor angels, nor principality, none of that, nothing. So if you ever think of anything, it's not that's not happening, and to be able to go, that's the God I need, that there's no condemnation and there's no separation.

Speaker 5 29:06

Which was so comforting to me when I was younger. I remember I went to a Christian school, and so memorizing Bible verses was a part of our curriculum and learning that verse and just being so like caught up in that and just thinking, this is amazing. But if this is what God's word is saying and this is how the people around me are judging my dad, for example, for going through divorce, like I was there was just such a disconnect for me that even as a middle schooler, it wasn't lining up. And it's just such a good reminder that when we're in those moments of frustration, man, I mean, I've got friends right now who are in it with their their friends at church, and it's like we have to remind ourselves that, and we have to remind ourselves that that is also true for the people that are hurting us, even though I wish it wasn't.

Speaker 2 29:54

I wish more churches, maybe this is like a church leadership thing. I think they need to constantly be reminded of their responsibility and their power and what they could do to people if they abuse it.

Speaker 3 30:06

Yes.

Speaker 2 30:06

Maybe they just get so complacent and they just do their thing and they're and it is a hard job. You're throwing a concert, maybe multiple concerts every week and turning it around. I don't know a lot of jobs that could do that, but just be reminded that how you treat people like could really affect you know a lot of things.

Speaker 1 30:24

Yeah, you know, we are talking about people that have been hurt by that, and definitely all three of us are people who that have been helped by that. Yeah, but also that when we're going through it, to remember that who did it and who loves us may be two different people, you know, that that God loves us no matter what, nothing's gonna separate us, and whatever church hurt we're having or any kind of relational hurt we're having, that's not from God. He's not the one going, Well, let's see. I haven't messed with CJ in a while. Let's give him a little flick. Yeah. So step three.

Speaker 5 31:02

Number three, recover your power. Yes, prioritize your own emotional recovery first. Wow. I mean, how important is that? Because I know for me, my reactionary gut instinct is like slash the tires, go after them in the lobby, you know, don't make eye contact, talk about them behind their back. But really did they make movies about you, Heidi?

Speaker 1 31:29

Are there vindictive movies?

Speaker 5 31:32

Dateline. Like I said, I I I don't this is my dad, after years of being out of ministry from the divorce that happened like in the late 80s, in the early 2000s, had it had uh an opportunity to start speaking again at one of the churches that kind of came from the church that my dad and uncle were a part of. And my dad became like a regular speaking pastor while he was doing his full-time job as a public speaker. And somehow, like some rumor got started, and I actually I know where the rumor came from, that basically 25 years after the fact, there was another pastor that wanted to air all of his dirty laundry. Steve, were you a part of that? Whoa, were you not a part of that meeting?

Speaker 2 32:21

Steve, did you start that?

Speaker 5 32:23

Was it easier?

Speaker 1 32:25

No, I did not start that. I've heard a lot of people, but not that one.

Speaker 5 32:28

They had this like board meeting where they were gonna put my dad on trial and determine whether or not he was worthy enough to continue ministry at this church.

Speaker 1 32:37

Why would you think I would be a part of that?

Speaker 5 32:38

I wasn't there because I thought you came to support him. For some reason, I thought maybe you were there to support him, but I was fired up. I mean, I was 25 years old, I went in there guns ablaze and who are these mofos that are giving my dad crap? He was so honest about his story from the beginning. He wasn't hiding anything, and now you're saying that because he was divorced, that disqualifies him from being in ministry 25 years later. I mean, I was hot. And I remember sitting down with the board and my husband at the time and the pastor that wanted to pull my dad out of ministry. And there was friends and family that came to support. And the pastor said to me, or to the group, like usually when people have these conversations, they they kind of talk a bunch of fluff and they leave the 10% of truth out. So let's go to the 10% first. And I said, This is bullshit. I mean, I was just like, and I he wrote a letter to our senior pastor because my husband was a youth pastor at the time, informing him of like my foul language and how they really need to consider their their pastor and his wife because of, but like, where's their space for that? Like when things are just so backwards and wrong and broken to have that kind of emotional response. And so the idea of prioritizing your own emotional recovery first, I don't even know what that would have looked like for me. But there's value in that because then you're not reactionary, you're you're like CJ, you said earlier, you're coming from a grounded place instead of from that who said it, I'm going after them.

Speaker 1 34:31

I don't know that that's wrong, though. That was genuine, you know. That I think part of recovering our power is being real. I mean, one of the things that we've talked about in this on this podcast is we want to do real talk. Why is that? Because why would we ever want to dance around something this important? That for you to be able to say that word in that way at that time was probably a bigger powerful moment than if you had said, pretty pleased with sugar on top. Would you reconsider? Um, you know, and that because you were being passionate and genuine, I mean, I think there's no better example of than Jesus being passionate and genuine in the temple and overturning tables, or Peter, who's passionate and genuine and cut off the ear of a guard, you know, that those are those are stories of people that were passionate and genuine because the someone you loved was being picked on and there was an injustice. And anybody in their right mind who says, Hey, 25 years after a divorce, you're still disqualified. Let's get back to that abuse of power. I mean, that's not in the Bible, there's no like that's not the 11th commandment or anything. There's not like you know, in uh I make up Bible names sometimes, you know, in in Amalia chapter two, it doesn't say that that I think you being passionate and genuine for somebody that you're compassionate towards was probably very healing for your dad, and it was probably very genuine to go. I mean, maybe he was even embarrassed, like, hey, that's my daughter speaking, but you know, how much more powerful could it be than someone who loves me and is gonna stand up for me?

Speaker 5 36:23

Yeah, we need more of that. We do, no more of this dragging people through the mud, right?

Speaker 1 36:28

And I think recovering our power is understanding that that may be. I'm gonna jump off the story of your dad for a minute, but you know, for some people, there may be people listening right now that are going, I'm enduring church right now. Yeah, and you may need to leave, you may need to go find a new spot, you may need to go find some new people, you may need to lick your wounds a little bit before you are able to get back into the fight. You know, recovering your power is really, I think, an alignment with God because sometimes we give our power away to people, and if we can get aligned with God and do what God is nudging, then we're recovering our power in a way that is, you know, the power of God and the Holy Spirit working with us. And even in other faiths where they might not call it the Holy Spirit or whatever, but there are times and places where we need to recover. I want to follow my faith in this way, and people are not allowing me that I need to find my people.

Speaker 2 37:34

I I think this step three of the recovering your power, it could be loud, like heidi and loud and real, and or it could be a boundary where you you separate, like what Steve said. In my in my case, when I was on staff and I I separated, I resigned and I left. When I was returning back to church, I think I returned too soon. And I just remember being so distracted between me and God because I was just looking around, thinking whatever you think about in church. I think a lot if you if you're like a PK or like a ex-staff member at church, you you get in the nitty-gritties like, oh, that slide changed too slow, or oh, look at that, you know, look at this, look at that. So I was just being so distracted and not getting anything. In fact, probably leaving more bitter. And so if I would have took which I did, I took the time to just not go to my church and just take a you know, step back and then really connect in my devos or talking to people or going to other churches and being like, yeah, I have to go to church. And I if I'm distracted by anything, then I need to just uh set that boundary until I am ready.

Speaker 5 38:44

To heal, to heal a little bit more before you were you you knew yourself well enough to know I need to kind of put myself into a mount until I can get it together and then I can re-enter.

Speaker 2 38:56

Right. And I was able to go to the church that I used to work at, and now it's just every time I go back to the church, I'm getting I'm I'm receiving like how I was before I was a staff member. And I think that doesn't happen. I wish that happened more where you were on staff at a church and then you were able to come back and then feel that the reason why you fell in love with that church in the first place. Sometimes it gets really tainted by all this church hurt, and it's it's it's sad. And sometimes you need to leave. Yeah.

Speaker 1 39:25

I mean, I I I'm not advocating everybody go leave your church, but I know that there have been people that I've worked with and and known that to go to that church, you know, that they loved and take some time to heal, but the the church hadn't changed the things that were hurting them, you know, whether it was a pastor or whether it was a you know a certain style of thing that that they they needed to go so that they could, that's how they were gonna exercise and reclaim their power, was to be able to say, I'm doing this that way. Um, and maybe you guys are younger than me, you could answer talking about this, but it seems like a lot of young people, even people that grew up in the church, but a lot of younger people like they love Jesus but don't want to go to a church. And I wonder if that's because that's how they're reclaiming their power. I'm gonna have a relationship, I'm just not gonna have it in the way my parents did, or their parents did, or their grandparents did, or whatever.

Speaker 2 40:26

Yeah, she mentioned something about it's not your job to have empathy over the powers that hurt you. Sometimes you might think like you have an obligation, like, hey, I am the kids' ministry second grade teacher. I have to keep doing this for the kids. Sometimes you just gotta be like, don't the church will move on whether you're there or not. God's in charge. So prioritize your hurt and step away for a little bit. God will take care of whatever you're leaving behind. You're not, you're probably the great, you're probably good, but you're not that great. You know what I mean? So um just prioritize your your emotions and yourself and your your healing before you step in so that you could be if you're hurt and you're in church, you're just gonna hurt more and hurt more people more.

Speaker 1 41:09

So sometimes serving out of obligation is just gonna make you more bitter, right? Um, but speaking of that, the last one, step four is reclaim your spiritual practices.

Speaker 5 41:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1 41:19

And so, you know, service is certainly one of them, you know, after recovering your power, reclaim your spiritual practices. And the the thing that stood out to me with in this, and I think when we did, you know, episode three, when we did my story, one of the things that helped me in healing and working through is I never stopped reading my Bible, which has been a practice of mine for decades. It wasn't like I started new practices, I just kind of dug into them and went, This is meaningful to me and it's important to me, and this is how I grow, and this is how I am connected. And so I'm gonna I'm gonna really reclaim that. I'm gonna make that mine again.

Speaker 5 42:05

Yeah, I think for me, I didn't want to have anything to do with worship music, the Bible, the church people. I wanted to be outside in nature with God. And that was my medicine and my church for probably four years.

Speaker 1 42:23

What a great way to do it though. I mean, you know, Jonathan Livingston, who's the um Jonathan Edwards, great evangelist years and years and years ago, says that nature is God's greatest evangelist. That you know, when my wife goes out in nature, she goes, There must be a God. And when I go out in nature, I go, There must be a bear around here somewhere that's about to attack me. So for different people, it's gonna have a different sort of grounding.

unknown 42:51

Yeah.

Speaker 1 42:52

What about you guys? You know, when we've all told our story, what what spiritual practices kind of helped you?

Speaker 2 42:59

So I noticed, and I I think a lot of I a lot of church staff will understand this. You could be going to church whatever, four days a week, five days a week on Sunday, and still not go to church. I would go and I would be the guy that listens to every sermon on both campuses and edit it out. It's like a video editing thing. I would listen to the sermon after I think for four years I listened to every single sermon on both campuses. It would be a job to me because I would have to find that thing to put on social media, whatever it is. After I I left the church and I had to go back into my insurance job, which was lame. I had to double down on getting a relationship with God and saying, Hey, for four years I know I was at the church, but I'm so sorry, less like I need to talk to you again, you know. And so yeah, I I did, and this is what I had to do. I told Steve, like, I need you to actually hold me accountable with the discipleship action. Like make sure I am in the word or do some type of devo because when I'm in this insurance job, I'm the worst. It took out the worst of me four or five years ago before I went to church. And so I just know what it could make me. And so to deal with the church hurt that I had, you know, whatever I was dealing with, my feelings about the church, but also um for the staff people, sometimes we get in this rhythm of church thinking we're doing church and not going to church at all. That happens a lot more than a lot more often than you think. And so sometimes your staff people, you just gotta make sure you're they're connected to God. And when I got out of that, I had to reconnect big time before I went into the private sector.

Speaker 5 44:43

Yeah, I think that that's it's such an interesting um way of looking at it. Like I think about they'll call it like silent quitting, you know, when people go to work every day, regardless of what they do and they're there, but they're not really there. You do it in our marriages, we do it in our work space. I've never thought about it in the context of church, but how many people just kind of passively participate? And I I immersed myself in authors that thought radically different from what I grew up believing. And I would read articles and listen to podcasts, and TikTok became TikTok was my morning and evening devotionals. And it was like the deconstructionists and the reconstructionist to remind me that there are so many different ways of seeing and experiencing spirituality in God, and that that was like freeing and healing for me, not so that I could go back and tell everybody like this is how it is and this is what I've learned, but to just take a beat and that breath of like, okay, like other there are other people who are who are in this too and don't have the answers, and I don't need the answers. And when I'm ready, I can go back and feel re-engaged again because I've had that reset.

Speaker 1 46:05

It's interesting in this country, and I can't speak for others because I don't I've never lived there, but in this country, we sometimes take in knowledge like that's the most important part of faith. If we memorize scripture, if we can quote scripture, if we can do that.

Speaker 46:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1 46:22

Whereas, you know, for the first 1500 years, nobody had a Bible.

Speaker 3 46:27

Right.

Speaker 1 46:28

Like you only went to church and someone will read to you. And after that, there were Bibles printed, but unless you were rich and could read, you still couldn't. So for 1500 years plus, most people couldn't read it. And so what did they do for their faith? It was about transformation and it was about obedience. You know, sometimes the best spiritual practice we can have is to be obedient. You know, we don't have to know all the scriptures, but if we know one that we're supposed to obey, how about we do that? You know, and I think you know, I know people who know a crap load of Bible verses, and Heidi's one of them. She was one awards, Timothy Award winner.

Speaker 5 47:11

Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 47:12

As uh knowing all the Bible, but yes, I do. But also, um, for me, if it's love your neighbor as yourself, if I just practiced that, yeah, it would be life-changing and radically so. The reclaiming our spiritual practices are has something to do with understanding, it also has something to do with feeling and has something to do with doing. Yeah, I like that. Well, we've covered a lot, we've covered four different things that will help people. Um, I hope it will help people, yeah, you know, working through their church hurt. Some of these things have certainly helped us, and and I know I'm thankful for that. Me too. And um, before we transition to another part, I just want to encourage people to engage with our socials as the kids call them. And um that makes me sound so old, doesn't it?

Speaker 5 48:04

So I don't think people say socials.

Speaker 1 48:06

What do they say?

Speaker 2 48:08

I don't know anymore.

Speaker 5 48:09

Find us on LinkedIn, just find us.

Speaker 2 48:13

Kids know how to find us, you know, look us up on the Goog.

Speaker 1 48:16

Yeah, yeah, give it a goog.

Speaker 5 48:18

Hit like and subscribe.

Speaker 1 48:19

Yeah, yeah, and interact because we think we're gonna try to get some people on here to do some interviews and keep working through some of the things that have caused people some hurt and also let us know what you think would be helpful, and we'd be happy to do it.

unknown 48:38

Okay, all right, right.

Speaker 5 48:39

Sometimes we talk about such hard and heavy things, we gotta end on a light note. So we're just gonna like rapid fire, talk about what are what's like a funny church story that you can tell in 30 seconds or less. I'll go first. Okay. Uh my ex-husband was doing a funeral, and the casket was in front of the church, and the tornado sirens went off. I live in the Midwest, and so there was like this moment of dilemma. Do we all go in the basement and leave the casket here? Or do we try to take the casket down the stairs into the basement of the church to get away from this tornado? And uh, we all went to the basement and left the casket. Thankfully.

Speaker 2 49:20

Thankfully, the church didn't get low risk for the person in the casket.

Speaker 1 49:24

They're already I mean, also, would the church if it was gone, would they have been talking about a different kind of resurrection or what it what would they be doing?

Speaker 2 49:32

Like, it's a miracle.

Speaker 1 49:33

That's the way to go.

Speaker 2 49:34

Yeah, it's a memorable funeral.

Speaker 5 49:36

Yeah, isn't it a song I'll fly away?

Speaker 2 49:39

Oh yeah. King of the holy man, it's hard to follow that one, but I have one it for those who are in the hospitality department. Um, I remember at my dad's church, they were preparing the fancy water where it's just like water and lemon or water and and strawberries or whatever. And then I was um there was this one where I was looking in and I was trying to figure out what fruit was in it, but I just poured it and I drank it. And while I'm drinking it, I'm staring at this tank, and in the middle there's a section where you could kind of put the fruit in, right? And it just goes into the water, and I just keep looking at it. The more I look at it, the more it looks like a piece of frozen meat. And that's exactly what it was. It was a big chunk of meat that they accidentally thought it was they thought it was frozen strawberries and they put it in there.

Speaker 1 50:29

You're charging bologna water.

Speaker 2 50:32

So I said, Is this a ham in here? Like, what is this? And they they quickly fixed it. I think I'm the only one that got poisoned by the bags. I think it's sick, right?

Speaker 1 50:42

That is water that is fantastic. Um okay, I have a few, but I'm only gonna tell one, and I hope you think it's funny because I thought it was hilarious. I went to this small church and they did communion in different kinds of ways, and one time they did communion where they had like three stations in the back, and whenever you felt like it was time, you went to the back and you took communion. There was a loaf of bread, but it was King's Hawaiian sweetbread.

Speaker 5 51:07

Oh, that's where I got.

Speaker 1 51:10

And then there was like a little uh chalice of like grape juice, and you could take your King's Hawaiian sweet bread and dip it in the juice, and and um it was very nice, and it was kind of a moving kind of uh you know service. So we've all experienced the body and blood of Christ, and the they release the kids, and the kids are in the back just grabbing big handfuls and just throwing down the the King's Hawaiian sweet bread. And I'm like, they are destroying the body of Christ right now.

Speaker 2 51:42

I love it. I would have been one of those kids.

Speaker 5 51:45

Oh, I'd be pulling out the dip being a lady from the Midwest. I'd be like, who wants a spinach dip for this sweet Hawaiian bread?

Speaker 2 51:53

If you guys got church story, you you you should send it to us because maybe we could like shout it out and just talk about other people's church stories.

Speaker 1 52:00

That would be great. Love it. All right. Well, it's hard to end after that, but thanks for listening to Faith Rehab. And I hope this was great. And as usual, we hope most of all that you will be blessed. Be blessed.

Speaker 3 52:18

Be blessed. Bye bye.