Cultish: Out of the Cults & into the Church, Pt. 2

Hey what's up everyone, we are super excited to announce that we will be making our first appearance on the road in Simpsonville, Kentucky July 28th and 29th at the

Called to Freedom conference. If you are disentangling your faith after experience in a hyper -fundamentalistic or legalistic church group, this event is for you.

There will be panel discussions, table discussions, inspiring testimonies, all from Christians who have rebuilt their faith, and even a game night guys.

It's a weekend of rebuilding theology, rebuilding community, and rebuilding faith through God's words.

So definitely check that out. Also Jerry and I are going to be speaking there and we're also super excited to meet you in person.

You can register for the conference today at bereanholiness .com forward slash conference that's

B -E -R -E -A -N holiness dot com forward slash conference. Also until May 31st you can use the promo code

CULTISH in all caps at checkout for $50 off the purchase price. We hope to see you there. Now back to the episode.

Welcome back to cultish everybody where we enter into the kingdom of the cults but we're doing it a little bit differently for this series.

Right now we're going over how to disentangle from cults or false assemblies and we're talking with Naomi Wright and also

I know you're hearing my voice this is a super sleuth but don't be afraid Jerry is still with us so praise

God for that. And I want to start off this episode real quick just by reading a section of scripture and then

I'm going to ask Naomi a question. So here we go. It is Matthew 19 verse 29 all right it says and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or fathers or mother or children or farms for my name's sake will receive 100 times as much and will inherit eternal life.

I mean that's a promise that we have from Christ when we're leaving behind a false system of belief to follow him giving it up right like he knows what we're going through.

But Naomi how do you bridge the gap between somebody who has gone through spiritual abuse or trauma and for them to fully realize that promise given to them by Christ in scripture.

Well that one gets an emotional response for me hearing you read it made me tear up a little bit because those losses we feel them right we feel them deeply and I mentioned to someone not that long ago you know a woman older generation than me which is so appreciated when we can have those kind of relationships and I just mentioned like this this can be hard and she looked at me without missing a beat she goes but girl

Jesus is worth it. And I'm like amen to that yeah Jesus is worth it. And so it's acknowledging first really what

I even just did and speaking of my own story it's acknowledging the reality of those losses and that deep grief and the recognition that people aren't replaceable.

So we're always going to miss them we're always going to hurt for them we're always going to be praying that it changes that we get that apology because that heals a wound in a different way and to get that reconciliation to have that person back in our lives like we continue to hope and pray for that and I encourage people to continue to hope and pray for that I'm like that life is still alive here like that life isn't done you know so continue to to hope and keep the door open and that's my approach is the door is open you know people can come they can they can come back and want to have a relationship and like let's talk about that you know maybe there's boundaries needed or whatever it may be but like we want that restoration we want that like we we could just feel that this is not how it was designed to be like it's just gosh this is not right.

And so acknowledging that first is so important and continue to continuing to acknowledge that reality for people as they're beginning to step forward while reminding them of this truth that you know we we're not going to see it all in fruition unless Jesus returns while we're still breathing right here in these bodies right now we're not going to see that necessarily in its fullness but progress continues to be made and God continues to show up and relationships are possible and there's so much beauty still to be had we have to be open to it looking different we have to be open to learning to trust

God and what it's going to be like and my goodness I love sharing my own testimony of the family that I have now and the relationships

I have now while still being honest I got some gaps there's some gaps in in my world where I'm like gosh

I wish I had like that that role filled or I wish I had you know like that one kind of filled and it's like just trusting

God of yeah but I've got you and I've got this and I've got this person and like I'm I'm taking care of and I may not have every every want that I have at all times but good heavens

I have what I need and I'm so grateful for it and so remember reminding people like where you're at right now is where you're at right now it's not where you're always going to be if you continue to journey forward and rely on him oh man that's so good that's so good

I think one of the reasons to why your ministry is important is helping people unthink and disentangle maybe it was interesting to enter when you're reading that verse

I was actually thinking it thinking in the mindset of like an ex -cultist and so a lot of people

I've lost count of how many people have told me stories about how different cultists or spiritually abusive environment they'll use that verse the exact verse that Andrew read out of context to say no you need to isolate cut off from your friends and your family in order to join my group to be in the know because usually that is new manipulation of scripture in order to you know do that which is what cults do like a lot of people like how would you if someone was dealing like with that for example because we're gonna kind of jump into your course you probably know examples to like how do you deal with that aspect of like that manipulation of scripture if I was telling you this if I was telling you that story well will the cult this group that I was in like they use this verse and so I have this like if I'm a cultist

I have that twisted view of that verse like how would you help me disentangle kind of giving your ministry say that I find your client at be emboldened yeah

I'd want to reframe it in truth so yeah we we don't you know guys we don't really have to cut people off if we're truly following Christ like we're gonna lose people it's just gonna happen and so we don't we don't need to be like oh

I've got to cut these people often and we have to look at the wholeness of scripture too right we need to look at the fullness of it so if we're cutting off everybody that doesn't agree with us and we're isolating ourselves with people who are only like us how are we sharing

Christ with people like that doesn't even make any sense like we're not even able to do that anymore so it's like we have to bring in these different pieces be like okay what's really going on here within and not just in this passage alone but these other passages are gonna help us to to again be able to interpret that text and so it's not it's not about you know in Matthew we're saying yeah you're gonna you know

Jesus comes to divide and we're gonna lose these people we're gonna lose those people like you may I mean I'm Christian and I have family who are atheists and the connection is not the same yeah because we have huge differences you know in our worldviews and have

I lost them completely no but have I lost that depth of connection that maybe I used to had have absolutely and so this is just sort of a natural consequence of being a

Christ follower this isn't oh here's something I have to check off my Christianity list and I've got to do it in order to then be a

Christ follower like we're flipping it around on its head it's not what it means and so for anyone who has lived that out though where they have cut people off I want to encourage that restoration

I want to encourage people to have those conversations to hopefully restore those relationships if at all possible and also lots of empathy and support for families who have experienced losses of a loved one because they're now struggling with pain they're struggling with trust like is this person like really are they gonna leave again are they gonna and so we got to look at it from all sides to you know it's not just a person who was in the cult but the family has suffered and so how do we support everybody involved so that they can understand one another and be able to move forward again based on what's actually true oh no no thank you for sharing that that's so helpful um tell let's just talk a little bit too about like your ministry so be emboldened this is a huge focus of your ministries but you do have some curriculum courses where there are two types of what are the curriculum courses you have available what are they called yeah so we we have our first one that's coming out in a digital version so rebuilding after religious abuse is the first curriculum that we came out with and I started facilitating that virtually with groups of people over a year ago now and so we've gone through that a number of times both virtually and in person and that's something we offer as well as like we can if you've got 12 people 12 15 people who want to come together and go through this together you know real time with you know face over the course of three to four days

I'll come out and we'll facilitate it together so we've been doing that as well which is just great there's something different there's pros and cons to both environments for people so we've got the rebuilding after religious abuse that one's gonna focus on those initial needs that someone has because of the pain of their experience and and I say those initial needs someone could be out ten years and still benefit from this because we haven't necessarily actually like paid attention to all these areas or really dealt with them so it's still useful depending on what that person's journey has been so the topics we cover in that one we kick off with allowing grief there is a lot of grief going on here and oftentimes people don't even know that they're grieving so it's helping give them the language helping to understand what that's about how long it really takes it's not like you get like three days off because someone dies and you're supposed to be back to work in America like it's nuts you know it's like what does the grieving really look like and what does scripture say about grieving like what does

God say about about grief and about lament and also how he shows up in it and how he has suffered with us how he's going to wipe every tear and so we bring all of that in so we go from grieving well to the science of trauma again helping people to better understand like what is happening in my body when

I go to walk into church like why does all of this happen to me and so we talk about that and make some sense of that we go into triggers and how to help yourself if you're feeling triggered again to back away from that 10 out of 10 so you can critically think and make a decision more clear -minded because you know we want to be of sound mind yeah and then from there we go into boundaries we talk about you know healthy boundaries what does that look like and not just like your resources or your time or things like that I mean we've got people who were you know mandated to still require you know require to tie that 23 and a third every year and different things like that so there's different kind of you know financial boundaries we explore what scripture says about generosity stuff like that too but also boundaries and communication you know and we've got people who have come out of cultures where they have to they have to announce every thought that they've had they have to and they've always you know and I'm like this can be really unhealthy and what's done with that information is usually very manipulative and abusive and it's used to control people so talk about boundaries and what you share what you don't share and you know of course doing that well and in alignment with scripture and then we talk about trusting again we talk about that authentic self one like I talked about and then the identifying healthy community so that's sort of our foundational let's get you started and so the rebuilding after religious abuse this one that's launching we recorded it mountains of Colorado in January and we did it in a unique way

I was really committed to and not just looking at a camera and talking to it first of all y 'all

I'm really bad at it it's just it's not comfortable it does not come across well I get real stiff it's like I'm like this isn't gonna help anybody so taking my personality into account being a people person and also wanting other people to still have that solidarity of like there's others here and having different voices that they could connect with and be like oh yeah like I felt that too and just that like authentic genuine conversation so every module those seven topics are each a module and h1 we go back and forth between myself and three other real survivors more having genuine conversation

I mean there is some raw stuff that gets said that is just so so beautiful and then some direct you know education that's going on and so that's that's how it's been filmed and edited and again it's set to it looks like it's going to roll out in July and we do have a cultish 15 code for y 'all so again it's not out yet so depending on this episode drops you guys might want to come back to this episode pull the code or like make a note in your phone but culture 15 will give you that 15 % of it awesome yeah we'll have some links when we drop this but um yeah it's so good because you're doing it from a you know a curriculum standpoint but also

I think it's good you're helping them also equip how to handle the process because when you look

I mean I just pulled up I'm familiar this this is just some psychology website but it's talking about you know the five stages of grief people have talked about this you're familiar that there's denial you know shock you would call it shock denial anger but trying to bargain and then depression or despair and then you know being able to acceptance the ability to accept it and to move on what people don't what you're not told if you haven't experienced this is that you may go through the five processes but all of a sudden you're going to bounce back to two and then you're going to be at four and then you're going to be at three and you're going to the whole process of getting to five is fluctuating between a whole bunch of like the emotions and sometimes it can feel overwhelming where it's like okay

I thought I was over this and then you know for example if you have experienced like a rift in your family and but then you know you see a picture of your family when they're like when everyone was together and appeared to be happy and you're saying wait a second what's real is is what

I is my life now is this real or was that even real like back then and it feels like it messes with your mind sometimes and so then you have to walk through that and then you kind of then they'll take you through these different processes so I think a lot of what you have done is very helpful like how what are some examples that like how have you like how have you walked clients through that process in this yeah so I had someone recently who was really struggling and she's like I just don't know what's wrong with me like I like what is wrong with me and I'm like okay well let's let's start here and there's actually seven now so there's seven stuff you know seven stages of grief and you're absolutely right how they'll like bounce around and you can yeah keep repeating and you don't necessarily even have all of them so like not everybody feels anger but um so I kind of rattled those off to her and like are you feeling this are you experiencing this and she said you know yes all except maybe hope and acceptance you know not so much but at that point and like you know this is what grief is and so just starting there is like oh okay

I'm grieving that makes sense okay what am I grieving how do I grieve you know we don't we don't do well again with grief in our culture here at least so it's like how do

I grieve like how do I I don't want to feel this it doesn't feel good and yet grief doesn't just go away it's not something that's just going to like dissipate you know in our body somewhere and we're going to move on like it's going to come out in some way either through irritability lack of sleep sleeping too much like it comes out in some way and so we have to pay attention to it and it's so important in being able to move forward

I've also had people who they know they need to grieve but they're like I feel like I'm going into a black hole and I don't know if I'm ever going to come out of it so it's really scary to allow ourselves sometimes to feel these things so we start there depending again on where the person's at inevitably all seven of these come up they're not necessarily in this order for people but you know so if it's outside of the curriculum and we're just talking like one -on -one with someone or in a different different context you know different support service we we let them kind of lead the way and where they're at but that would be you know for grief specifically is starting to tell people like it's okay to even do this and I promise you it's really not going to last forever man is there what's the so what is like a biblical grief right and what's the opposite where is it like despair like what's the differences is there like a grieving that's not sinful and versus a despair that is sinful how do you navigate between the two yeah so the despair is a good word to use for something we don't we don't want to head into that okay this is permanency there's no hope anymore but we also recognize that again in those different stages like hope and acceptance is going to be towards the end so if someone is despairing for a little while we don't have to get too worried it's like okay this this is normal for a period of time um let's let's you know journey alongside we don't necessarily have to like throw a flag yet and then the other comparison

I like to make or the other thing I like to point out is you know we're told not to send in our anger I don't think we have any indicators that that's exclusive to anger you know exclusive to that emotion so we don't want to send in our grief either so in our grief we don't want to be lashing out at people um we don't want to be despairing forever and being like just forget even though again you're gonna have those days you're gonna have those moments um one exercise that I do here and there is sort of a grief ritual for people if they're really struggling say with the anger stage and they're like I just need to get it out is they can take you know you got to do it safely and everything but can take a like 10 inch porcelain plate something that's going to break really nicely and we'll go through it's like let's write down words that remind you of what you're so angry about what you're grieving it could be names of people it can be you know names of places it can be whatever it is and let's like talk that through first and then yeah you're gonna smash it and it can be a really incredible release for somebody where they're just like they'll smash it and nine times out of ten then they are just weeping because it just it releases the anger and it's like we get to let it out and it's done in a way where we're not cursing people we're not nothing like that it's just we're identifying the injustice that has happened and it is biblical to identify injustice and it's biblical to want justice and I think that is one of the biggest struggles that I see with people as they want to see justice and I hear it it's

I've heard it so beautifully said I hear people say I don't want justice and that I want them to suffer

I want justice and that they recognize that they caused harm and they don't do it again so this is like a biblical goodwill hunting it's not your fault moment yeah yeah yeah that and that's man there's so many like layers to that you know

I just man I think of just a couple of conversations that I've had you know with people who've just been through that environment it just it's a unique calling it's a it's a unique gifting and I'm so thankful for a lot of that um what do you think are because I mean big part of it we talked before the pod when we were talking on the phone about a week ago is that and I think even when we were initially talking is this that a lot of people who are in this environment they tend to go towards either progressive christianity or deconstruction like what's what's the appeal like what's the appeal of being in some sort of you know religiously abusive environment and kind of heading towards some sort of progressivism like a brandon robertson or just just in general a lot of the ex -evangelical movement because I know so many people who you know were church goers alongside of me who now have got definitely gone towards that progressive like deconstruction route like what's what's the appeal to go there versus somewhere more of a solid foundation well

I'm going to answer that in a little bit of a different way at first because I would say most often what

I'm finding is that people are using deconstruction incorrectly and that's why they say they're deconstructing at least you know the people that are coming to be emboldened uh they're saying deconstruction but they're really disentangling you know to keep that word going because again

I'm a huge fan of it I love it so shout out to ginger dog girl like that that's why I love so much about her book because I was like I was trying to find like there's got to be what what's the alternative to what everyone else is doing then the way she described it was like yes that makes so much sense but anyways go ahead yeah so so they're saying deconstruction but it's not really what they're doing because the whole agenda of deconstruction is not to to get to truth like that's not really the point of deconstructing and what people coming to be emboldened are doing is they're trying to get to truth and so I'm like the whole agenda is different but there's here's my concern though and and I warn people of this so I talk to them about it is well if you're using the word deconstruction you're gonna find you're gonna come upon all of these other things by accident so like I want you to be aware of that because they do have an agenda so be aware that they have an agenda and I'm going to tell you you can't go go read that person you know like I can't tell you you can't or can't

I can tell you I don't recommend it um I can tell you it would be better to do later when you can better like compare and contrast and you've got your feet under you more but you guys

I absolutely have in sessions where people like everything seems to be going along well and then all of a sudden they hold up this book and it's like Pete Enns or it's

Bart Ehrman and it's like they're like oh look what I found or look and I'm like or Richard Rohr and I'm like oh boy okay so let's just talk about that you guys like I want to talk about how that they how they would you know kind of where they fall on their overall theology and sort of uh what that would mean and sort of this agenda that some people have and like what they're wanting people to do

I want you to go in that informed because you weren't informed when you landed where you landed before this

I want you to be informed now you still get to choose if you're going to go in that direction or not here's the concerns I have and I want you to be informed about it yeah so it's a lot of like letting people know because I hear them say like I'm in my deconstruction phase and really what they're doing is they are disentangling that's what is actually happening but again without them knowing that it also it really means this they can go in that direction by accident yeah

I think what ends up happening and if you if they end up going in that process is that you end up abandoning any standard whatsoever which then you lose bearing of like how to really give an accounting for what even like happened to you um you know like uh

Jeff Durbin our pastor you know back when we were just a small little church where like the majority of our congregation were people coming out of drug and alcohol addiction when

Jeff was a chaplain there you know he dealt with a lady who was you know a sex trafficking victim and the things that he she described to him which is horrific but in that moment you know he would

Jeff was just was trying to explain from them from a very pastoral standpoint and it probably done something similar which says well if if all you are is just biological protoplasm and mindless pettiless indifference of all we are is stardust then what happened to you just happened it's just what is but like you know that's not the case like you know that you have intrinsic value dignity and worth and what breaks my heart a lot of times is that you have people who go out of something like Scientology like an extreme example or even like a very strong fundamentalist group and say they pendulum swing and then they just become very promiscuous they can do whatever

I want it's like you you abandon any standard and the only your only hope is some sort of trying to think of the right word so we're just hedonism like pursuing any sort of pleasure whatsoever but without any guiding light behind that and there's there's not true peace in that and so that's why

I think a ministry like yours is so important well and what you just touched on it's a it's a huge question is like can

I do whatever I want now I mean I had these different restrictions again whether it was a cult or not you know wherever it lands like okay these were the do's and don'ts and so now what you know what is freedom in Christ like kind of what are the boundaries of that what does that look like and in our second curriculum we just ran it through in the spring for I guess it was like kind of winter we wrapped up in March but we ran it through for the first time as kind of our first pilot group we're going to do it a few more times before we move again to a digital version so we'd be recording it hopefully in November but if we call it our can

I series and it's those big questions and about God because if we've gotten kind of people's feet under them with they've come out they they've grieved they've okay like they're able to sort of start to understand what's going on start to heal start to function day to day okay now now we can like talk more now questions start coming up more about like well who again who was

God like we talked about trusting again well can I trust God like is he actually good and so for that one we talk about can

I trust God and that's a two -part we talk about God's attributes and the problem of evil and then can

I trust that Jesus is God so we're talking about evidence for the resurrection can I trust the Bible evidence for you know

Old and New Testaments and then what are the other ones can I do whatever I want now which is we're talking about grace and sanctification yeah and then we also talk about I can't remember the can

I for all of them but we talk about oh can I go this whole thing Christian thing alone so we talk about the the beautiful mess of community and why it's needed and why it's biblical and how do we get into that and how do we do it in a safe way and knowing that it is going to still be a mess so how do we do that and then we also what was the other one

I think I'm missing one I think I just gave you guys six oh calling yeah so that's a that's a big one for people because they're like well

I was in this group and I had to you know I had to be in ministry or I had to you know direct ministry like it's my vocation and so we talk about what's the reality of calling in that flexibility because people are like well what do

I do with my life now especially if they did come out of a doomsday cult they didn't think they're going to have a life you know

I I talked to people who are like they're like I thought I was going to be raptured six weeks ago so like I mean what on earth am

I supposed to do now no idea of a career no idea of or I've got you know young women younger than me anyway they're like 30 who are like I wasn't able to go past the eighth grade and I was never able to have a job

I was supposed to get married and have babies and I was supposed to be raptured by now and now I'm 30 and I'm single and I have no no career experience

I have no education and now I got to somehow support myself yeah so we got like very real you know questions theologically too about like what do

I do with my life what would God have me do with it so we talk about that too yeah that's so huge I mean there's like extreme examples like uh the story in Warren Jeffs the uh

I forget they're known as like the lost boys who that Warren Jeffs kicked out of the encampment because they are becoming competition for him to marry more wives and so you have these boys who are just showing up uh in Utah in Salt Lake City Utah who had no totally isolated from the outside world like a

Mowgli jungle book sort of situation except they grew up in the FLDS and it's like well how do you help these people so you have extreme examples like that but then you even have you know and again this is something about people who are disentangled and having understanding of where they are so even when you think about you know purity culture and the whole issue of like you know the extreme examples of modesty and like rules and regulations especially like over women you think like Jennifer Brewer's background and in that case like these areas of what you can and can't wear what you shouldn't shouldn't dress it's being utilized as a set of rules and it's being used as a club in a sense where if you have your hair at one specific length or you have to have your skirt at one specific length then

God is going to judge you and crush you and like you're going to be completely abandoned where in reality when a lot of people who end up leaving and you give me your thoughts on this who end up leaving that they don't they tend to be they totally swing towards the other end you know whether it's like now

I'm outside of this group and I can dress however I want I can do whatever I want and but in reality even in the whole like question of like the whole

Mazda situation it's like the the correct way to think about that you have to help them through that process is that it needs to be out of like love for God and like love for myself you know where initially like the abusive environment it's like no this is this giant you know catalyst of fear like over you that's oppressive does that make sense what

I'm saying yeah yeah I think it does um and I think I've heard you guys speak about that a little bit I think it was with a

I think you were talking to Elisa like a year so I I remember like I've heard you kind of speak to before and here's my philosophy of that I think and not just from me going through it but through it but again like what

I've seen you know from from others and their stories and it's something that actually is in that first course the rebuilding after religious abuse when

I speak to this and like we want to be cautious if we've come from an environment where we had this loudest voice you know it's like okay this is the loudest voice that we have to listen to we've got to be obedient to it we want to be cautious that we don't just follow the new loudest voice which is going to be our culture when we come out yeah and so sometimes it's not so much about this desire to go do all this stuff it's a total loss of sense of self it's a total like no identity they don't have an identity in Christ yet and they don't have any idea who they actually are yet again is their unique design and so they're coming out and they're like well now this is the loudest voice so like I didn't fit in now

I'm gonna fit in so like this is what I do and they don't even necessarily have fun doing it or feel good about it so it causes further damage yeah like they're further harmed by it and it makes a bigger mess and so it's something

I caution people about is make sure that you're really seeking what what's true in all of this and you're not just following what now is the loudest which is going to be social media hey what's up everyone we love that you are enjoying our content on a weekly basis but this program cannot continue and wouldn't be possible without your support so if you want to go to thecultistshow .com

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and check out all the awesome merch back to the show andrew could you think about and think about an example i'm gonna have you think off the top of your head an example that you and wade have had to navigate through say somebody who's been in this situation how long has apology utah been around now uh since october of 2021 okay october 2021 i remember helped you moved out a couple months prior to that and it feels like a long it feels like just yesterday but also feels like forever ago think of just think of one case study off the top of your head maybe describe generically like what the situation was and specifically in regards to like nameless ministry and then kind of like maybe we could describe that maybe we can talk about maybe her perspective of like how would she how would she deal with that you know because they we're all kind of in this having this conversation together how do we help ex -cultists uh d program biblically in a sense what give us your thoughts on that andrew absolutely one big one that people have that i've noticed is how do i even pray to god now you know like how do i how do i do that is he even listening uh also the problem of evil is a huge one that's one of the first things that typically comes up and if you're not talking about it first it's gonna come up uh eventually so i think that's very wise that's one of the first things you guys talk about but um i think a big one is yeah how do i pray to god how do i know if he's listening especially people who are coming out of uh the lds organization is like that was what was huge for them that's what brought them into it right they prayed about the book of mormon and that's how they were determined for it to be true but then they find it's false so who was responding to them to give them that feeling was it themselves was it a different spirit how do they know if they pray again that it's not going to happen uh to them so i'm wondering how do you navigate that conversation i'm gonna answer your example with an example if that's all right so i just uh i was uh in a different state facilitating an in -person version of this curriculum and there were several people in the room who were really they had this stuck point as that's what i would call them like they have this stuck point of but god told me to go into this group now we could have a conversation about you know theologically like does god tell us that you know but it wasn't really the point of of where they were at and so i was like i know i knew that wasn't the direction to go it wasn't really the question um they were really confused and couldn't really even fully separate themselves from the harmful group they were still seeking connection with it reconciliation with it they were not like wanting reconciliations bad but we got to have both takes takes two to reconcile it takes one to repent so as they're going through this they're like but god told me to so i was supposed to be there so there must be goodness in those leaders and in that group that's where intellectually it was logically falling for them so instead of them saying this is a problematic group i should warn people to stay away from it they're saying well no it must not be as bad as i thought it was i must still be the problem because god led me into this and someone shared a dream that they had had while they were in and they were trying to get out i also had a woman tell me in flds down in short creek area who said that she was a polygamous wife and not a good situation of course as we would imagine and she was going to get out and she had a dream that god was telling her that no she was reading the bible wrong she's reading the bible and she's like this is actually wrong i need to get out of this situation and she ended up staying for two more years because she had this dream this guy it said there's a lot people have a lot of dreams there's definitely a theme here you guys with dreams and this gentleman shares well i had this dream and as he's telling the dream in front of all of us i'm just hearing it very differently and i'm not saying like oh i can interpret the stream for you but it's just like kind of shows like you can you you'll make sense of it in your own way oftentimes and so we shared this dream and i said well you know i just want to reflect back to you that this is this is what i heard when you shared the dream and so i just want to share that as like a comparison of maybe this could mean other things and this person looks at me and they go i have they had had that dream years before and they're like i've told this dream so many times and for the first time as i was just telling it to you i thought the same thing and so i shared with them i said you know i had a series of dreams and let's think about this like do we believe that god can give us dreams do we have biblical evidence for that yes we do okay do we just have our own wackadoodle dreams yeah we do you know that happens and then on top of it is there anyone else who could maybe give us dreams is that possible and so where do you think that is coming from you know the only possibility is not god so we have to practice discernment and so this person came up to me then on a break and they said well that's world changing isn't it because that one small click that last puzzle piece to click into place would change their whole view of everything that happened and completely change their trajectory for being able to move forward but we have these stuck points so sometimes it's like okay what is that point for somebody and it just like it all then makes sense it's like the whole like talk about like the blinders coming off the lights coming on it's like oh my goodness the whole world makes sense now but now what i have to do is i have to accept that i stayed in an abusive group because of a dream that was not from the lord so now again we got fallout to deal with but we can deal with that because we got truth no i totally resonate that and like one of the things is that it would resonate with what you said so my dad uh worked a lot of different vocations you know growing up being especially being a family of seven but uh one of the one of his jobs he had is he used to sell water softeners because here in arizona like good there's tap water is like a really bad issue like you need to have a water filtration system because otherwise the tap water here doesn't taste good but one of the demonstrations that he would do he would have a vial of water and the water would look normal but he had put some sort of droplet in that all of a sudden would expose all the different gunk and mineral deposits and all those things they're saying like this is what you're actually drinking with this and i think one of the things too is that you think about the water would be an analogy of just experience because all of us have all these different experiences well how do you know whether this is a good or authentic experience and i think one of the abilities like with good having a worldview is like it sheds light on that experience whether it's a good or invalid experience and because you know someone could have a dream you know i've i've been i've done mission trips over in uh over in the middle east where i've seen somebody who was muslim might come to christ because they had a vision of jesus in a dream but i also know there's people who have had visions of things that made them to believe something that is totally opposite of the gospel so usually when you have the word of god as your encompassing light that is something that is is really what's needed and and so that's why i think you know what you're doing what you're saying i resonate with that so much because andrew i've lost how many times have we been on the even street together we've been in utah together we see someone very emotionally like telling this experience like there's a video someone just shared to me of this man who was like an evangelical pastor for like 50 years and all of a sudden he prayed about the book of mormon now he's like being super emotional it's like now i know that you know russell m nelson is a prophet of god these men are apart god's apostles and telling this very emotional story well how do i determine that how do i why is he right or am i wrong how do we encompass that do i need to figure out a testimony that's more emotional than his do i need to out emotion him and i think that's that's what we have to i think to skype people through like you have to have you have to judge have a standard to judge all of these experiences on because if you don't then you're knocked back and forth by every window doctrine 100 and so we we will use the phrase lived experience but it's not elevated over biblical truth and i think that's what's important so we do all have a if you i mean whatever you want to call it lived experience just seems to make sense to me of like yes you lived that experience and that's what you're talking about but a lived experience can we're going to get comments about this yes a lived experience can be wrong yeah it can be wrong so just i'm going to use something like let's make it like really really simple to give an idea what i'm talking about say my husband and i are having a conversation and he says something to me and the way i hear it reminds me of something else and i then think that he just attacked me now my experience in that moment is i was just verbally attacked and that was disrespectful that was rude and that was hurtful so then i respond back and he's like whoa whoa whoa i was just making a statement of fact about this like i didn't even mean that my experience of that now i still felt those things and i gotta take i gotta deal with that but that lived experience was not accurate based on what was really going on and so we can say okay i've had this lived experience now that matters that's valuable but we need to hold it up against something like you're talking about and so we're not elevating the lived experience above anything else and something that we i require at being emboldened of someone who's on our team who's going to be mentoring others specifically is yes i want them to have some sort of personal experience with religious abuse whether it's via a family member a loved one or themselves personally that would be sure that lived experience piece it just enables them to connect in a different way but they also have to have professional experience and they also have to have educational experience and those those things are going to include biblical literacy so it's like we need all of it and the lived isn't going to win out so if someone's walking around they're like well my experience based on what i lived is that you know all churches are horrible and i don't want anything to do with any of them ever again and it's like well let's take a look at that do we have evidence for that you know you've got plenty of evidence that there are bad churches let's talk about these churches who are doing really good things like is that also possible is it possible you've been in bad ones but there are good ones so like we have to kind of again follow it through to that logical conclusion of where we're going to be at and yeah it'd be logical saying well i got food poisoning therefore i'm never going to eat again no i mean if somebody had that reasoning like no no like i get the fact that you felt bad for 24 hours you had a 24 -hour flu but that's not going to be good for your health long term if you take that approach yeah yeah it's like your your lived experience you did really live that i really did live feeling attacked in that hypothetical moment but it wasn't actually based on accurate information i didn't need to feel attacked it was an unnecessary emotional response so again we got we got to like kind of get into that and again i'm giving a real simple basic example to hopefully make it help make it more helpful for people to be able to see where i'm coming from in that but i also think that lived experience can get a bad rep sometimes from like there is value to it i think there's like you know we share our testimonies and that's something we live so i think there's there's definitely beauty and importance there too no definitely yes and what are your thoughts man it's trying to conform our lived experience to the truth and the word of god to separate uh what is not the way we shouldn't be thinking from the way we should be thinking and it's and it seems to me like it's hard for people coming out of these false assemblies uh to actually think straight in a lived experience so first you're trying to get the under underlining problem or worldview situation uh corrected before they can actually uh interpret in many ways a lived experience a correct way because a lot of times people aren't living in reality when they're coming out of a cult like if you're living in scientology uh you believe the whole lord xenu story you're not living in necessarily reality you know so i could find that being extremely helpful what what naomi um is the benefit for like a christian form of counseling versus a secular form of counseling like why why go to be emboldened versus go to some type of jordan peterson thing or something yeah or even like steve hassen so i think even if you go to his freedom of mind he actually has he gives exit counseling to cultists like i don't know maybe i'll just add on to what andrew is saying like what are maybe some areas which you would like agree with steve hassen things that he gets right but where does being bold differentiate from that from like how he would view something yeah so we're not trying to throw out your christianity and i think that's important now therapists will say that they're not either but i don't know how many times i have had people come to us and say i said that i'm still christian or i still want to be christian and they either rolled their eyes even though they didn't mean to or they just kind of stared at me or they're like they just they're not able to do that because they don't actually know what god's word says so they're they're they're completely unequipped like they can't um not only can they not help someone who is desiring to still explore the possibility of christianity and that's how i would put it because it's just like is someone open to maybe it is and if they are they're gonna need someone who can help them look at scripture properly so that they can make that decision and if they don't have it that's just gonna be unhelpful they're then gonna at least need somebody else to also come alongside them and then too you know how i said in the beginning like or in our last episode that you know i've got clients who are atheist or agnostic or you know identify differently and it's still really helpful to be able to show them that what they what they were taught wasn't in the bible because sometimes people are like well it's all the bible's fault and they're mad and because of that they're still holding on to relationships that were incredibly damaging and they're like well you're still talking to that person and that person is the one who manipulated the the scripture to do this and so it can cause a lot it keeps the door open for a lot more harm down the road and so somebody who's able to again help with that process is going to serve them better even if they do not make a decision for christianity at that time so something else i want to mention is well first we're also going to understand their context better so just i mean it's not even just that it's not even only that we're christian it's that we get religious abuse and a lot of people don't and i know that firsthand i could not find anybody who understood my context and there's just different nuances to it that people just don't get otherwise and so to be able to offer that is of course really significant the other comment i want to make is even within counselors there are some people and i think this ties into what i just said about getting the nuances of religious abuse specifically i've also heard many many times that someone will go in to meet with a biblical counselor and i'm not trying to give them a bad rep there's great biblical counselors out there but it seems like when this does come up it is a biblical counselor so i think there's something going on with like the training they're going through that i would i would disagree with i think it's problematic is very very first session they're being told like you need to forgive i'm like here's the deal though like if someone has come out of an abusive situation they don't even know what to forgive yet because they don't even know what the heck happened like they don't even know what that was to know even who to forgive and who to forgive for what and it's like we don't even know what's going on they don't even know what's going on yet so it's just really putting the cart before the horse like we need to start with making sense of this and we need to grieve and we need to begin to heal and and so they'll come to us then being like oh y 'all aren't just telling me to forgive and it's like well that's not that that's not we're not we're just not even there like we're not there yet i'm not saying we never come to a place where there's forgiveness i'm not implying that by any means but we have to first know if if they were if they even need forgiveness because were they right i mean like we got to start at square one here yeah well not even that when you talk about sometimes an abuser will weaponize forgiveness in the sense to when i've seen it happen both uh in uh like a spiritually abusive environment but even jumping off so there's the the show breaking bad uh with walter white there's and one of the seasons there's a moment where walter white uh says to his wife skylar he's like it's okay i forgive you and the show ends on that and everyone knows it's like he's not there's not true forgiveness going on there there's manipulation and a lot of times people manipulators they'll use and they'll say well i forgive you but they don't even tell you what your grievances are so that all of a sudden it puts this like weight of guilt on you like oh i did something wrong it makes you like guessing so it's almost like this gaslighting that happens so it just goes to show that something you know words have meanings and it's important to define terms but a lot of times you know that even something like forgiveness was supposed to be beautiful and the gospel is centric in that that can be weaponized in such a way that can wreck people so it's good to kind of really understand where someone is really at i definitely would resonate with that yeah absolutely i want you to go ahead oh i want you to speak to something real quick too naomi you said something i think that's very powerful you said does forgiveness need to happen right because i think a lot of times people at least in some counseling sessions that i've had is they they think something sinful happened against them from somebody even within the church but actually wasn't at all it was something that they were interpreting to themselves can you speak a little bit to that so i think that's pretty powerful because typically when we think of people coming out of abusive situations we're going to think that it's always uh that that something is always happening wrong to them in terms of victimization which they have been victimized but um there's also the tendency as well to have situations happen to you and read into them when it's not actually the case does that make sense like coming out of uh with other relationships not with what they came out of but with forming new relationships in a sense got it so they're basically like interpreting a relationship they have or like in an interaction that they had through that lens of like what they experienced before so they're kind of like projecting it on to or or even or even if like if you get a you ever gotten a text and you read it and avoid like say your husband sends you a text and somehow you read the text like he's angry and it's like you don't know what happened you see the text message you know what i mean it could be something like that too yeah absolutely so yeah there's definitely times again right that lived experience that like it's not actually based on reality of what's going on and so yeah we've got to like break that down for but with that compassion that understanding of hey like you're people are going to be more apt to have that kind of response when they're really still deeply healing you know so we also want to show that grace for people and i'm not saying that isn't like a get out of jail free card like we do not and that is a big thing for me with triggers is you you don't get to be triggered and just go around being a jackass i don't know if i can say the word jackass you can i need to pick a different one that's fine it's a podcast like you don't get to just do that you can't just go around be a jerk with everyone there we go that's a different j word that one's yeah so i'm like you can't do that like you don't just have permission to behave poorly so again we don't want to send in our anger we don't want to send in our whatever it is we're going to try not to send in our triggers we're going to try and again there's there's grace and we also apologize so yeah if in that situation andrew i mean i would want to talk about okay again i talk a lot about possibilities like what what other could what else could possibly be going on here um because we make up stories a lot in our heads like we we we create these we fill in the blanks of why someone looked at us that way or why someone didn't respond to a text message or why they whatever i mean and we fill those in it's like what do we know though for sure and like let's start there and recognize where maybe we're filling some stuff in and we're probably going to fill it in based on what we've experienced before and like what if this is actually different and if it is we don't want to miss that because that different could be really good and we don't want to miss out on a relationship or miss out on this growth moment and then we also talk about you know there's people who they'll hit a certain certain point in their journey and they will look back and they'll say things like you know i i know that i i was where i was at and i had been indoctrinated and there had been this you know undue influence and all these things going on but gosh i i shared that message with with this person or with that person or you know i i gossiped so badly about that person and they got excommunicated or i you know i was just ugly to this this individual i treated them terribly and they're like you know i didn't know better at the time i was operating out of that but now that i do know like i want to apologize and i'm like any time that we have the ability like i said you know when we get if we had someone who abused us come and apologize the healing in that oh my goodness what a gift and so if we recognize totally unintentionally we caused harm while we were within that situation ourselves if we have the ability to send a letter or whatever it might be where it's you know maybe respectful of of that boundary or if we're even able to contact them but you know it's a beautiful gift to also give if that's something that applies to somebody and again it's no no conversation that's coming up anytime soon it's sort of a natural progression that people run into hey everyone if you are watching us right now on apology studios youtube channel you need to know that cultish would not be possible if it wasn't for this studio so if you want to support apology of studios which also makes cultish a possibility for you to enjoy every single week here on youtube go to apology of studios 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you can become an all -access member and you will also get a lot of great additional content which will also help support the studio which will allow cultist to be a possibility as well on a weekly basis so we thank you all for watching us and now back to the episode and then speaking of boundaries maybe talk to us about this for a second i mean that i feel like even the word boundaries kind of gets thrown around as a pejorative right and i don't know like you'd look at the mommy blogger world and like it gets thrown every which way or whatever but um like when you think of like the extreme example like within a destructive cult there are boundaries in the sense where it's like i you know cut yourself off from your friends and your family in isolation from the outside world like those are boundaries like the most extreme example you know going out at jonestown like they were cut off from the outside world in this dense jungle there's some boundaries there that's an extreme extreme example um or just in any sort of religiously abusive environment where it's like hey you can't listen to any other you know material except for you know my commentaries in the bible for example you can only listen to my sermons or and all that but then people when people get out of a cult like i think you mentioned earlier there's this sometimes this uh i just want to be vulnerable and transparent to everyone or like how do you what is like healthy boundary how do you teach people that who are coming out of these uh you know different clientele stuff like that with your ministry like how how would you navigate them through like how to do like boundaries or what's even a good definition to begin with yeah so a general definition for boundaries would be like what is me versus what is not me i think boundaries can have something to do with accountability and a sense of ownership and so this reckon is this recognition of like okay this is what i have some sense of control over and this is what i don't and when groups leadership whatever it may be is trying to kind of basically take that over and be like no like i get full control over everything it's like well okay wait this we have a conflict here and so we start talking about boundaries in that distinction of like okay this is sort of my yard versus that's your yard and how are we intersecting with one another's yards and so we can think about it sort of with that imagery but there's also this this sort of uh this meant these mental boundaries that have to happen too and that takes some real exploring in some real time so we're not we don't want to just you know absorb receive digest everything that everybody has to say right we want to think well that matters we want to be comparing the scripture we want to be checking things out we we hope to you know have wise counsel in our lives you know as we continue to grow and we're able to identify that so for example i had a client who just gosh she was so torn up and understandably so she's in a mainstream church and um she had crossed a boundary with a significant other and she had been in on the church you know student team or something like that and so she came forward and was like hey you know we crossed this physical boundary we both want to repent for it um we are totally willing to step out of our positions right now you know for a period of time whatever is needed you know so they were very forthcoming and she was put through this grueling month long before she finally stepped out of it it probably would have continued repentance process where she had to sit down for hours a day and journal about what she had done and it was just like it was so ridiculous and she had come forward and repented right now that like genuinely meant it and they just kept telling her we don't believe you that you're actually genuine we don't believe you we don't believe it like she had to like prove that she was genuinely repentant and she was she was so torn up over this and she's like and it really made her doubt like am i really repentant like lord would it seek you know like search me oh lord like david like what am i missing here and it really impacted her faith and she wasn't able to be a part of another church for a couple of years i mean this was very very significant for her this young young girl and so coming out of that talking about you know boundaries of if we know this to be true and we've got scriptural backing and again if we've got scriptural backing based on a one person uh well let's reinvest you know let's take a look at that because that also says a lot about our theology of god if you know if only this one leader has the truth you know what does that say about our lord and how many people he wants to be saved so you know we could go in so many different directions with this but you know what is sort of the general consensus throughout church history and kind of where where do we have some good evidence for uh our belief here and if someone is saying something like i need to go through this process the bible doesn't give me any evidence for that so i'm going to say no and i'm going to be secure in my identity with christ so i know he knows my heart and so we've got sort of those sorts of boundaries going on and then when we're talking about communication boundaries i actually have this one through five scale that i teach people that helps them talk about okay this would be sort of my my one would be like my weather more like superficial like grocery short grocery store like chit chat versus like my five would be my like super vulnerable and i'm like talk about how there's there's some you know obviously it's a more in -depth teaching that goes along with that but basically we're going to arrive at a five like that's going to take time we get there we arrive there we don't just show up and we're required to and so i teach them the system that helps them start to think about where people land and and how they can develop from one step to the next right and i think also like an interview you can jump in here too is that we're kind of getting towards the end of our conversation here but there's like good and healthy boundaries it's a two -way street both in you know somebody who is attending church but also in spiritual leadership so like one boundary that you know we have as a is that none of the pastors will ever counsel a woman alone there are just too many dangerous pitfalls that that encompass with that so i mean it's good to have like a two -way street because you can have the best of intentions and this is just one of those weird complicated you know just just unique aspects of just the entirety of church history is that you know you have people who are sin even people who are saved who are redeemed who are born again you know we're still sinful we're flawed and fallible and we have this perfect revelation that we are trying to navigate through and you have all these people together like in covenant community and i think that's also an important area too that you have to let people know who are coming out of a religiously abusive environment that even no church is perfect and you're going to have people that are going to sit against you and are still going to hurt you but it's the same thing too in the same way we like marriage you have times where you know your spouse is going to hurt you you're going to hurt your spouse and you have to practice forgiveness but you're in this covenant and yeah you have to be you have to be faithful and you have to realize too that you know that there are there are good checks and balances and there's a way this yeah forget where i was going with this but um yeah yeah like i just i think it's just um in no matter what environment you're you're in that like all these principles you're talking about you're going to have you're going to have to apply for sure yeah and for a while there may be someone someone wants to be more isolated you know that's that's a conversation too there's some physiological things that actually happen when we lean into isolation that aren't actually great which is fascinating how god designed us you know to even physiologically good things happen when we have some trusted people around us but not everyone has trusted people that they know if they come out of say an extremist cult or something but yeah as people are kind of going through all that um basically for me i had a point where i'm like i i want a richness to my life that i don't have right now and that richness is going to come through relationships with others and there's also significance in how we interact with others that even helps us to know our identity in christ and our unique design and who we are as as as people like you don't know if you're generous if you never have the opportunity to be generous so it's like you just you don't know these things about yourself you don't know if you're hospitable if you never have anyone over so you know people again they kind of come to these points and i think something that i want to share for anyone who's supporting someone right now anyone who's like i've got this loved one and they have come out of this situation you know mainstream or otherwise and it's like gosh are they are they ever going to fill in the blank it is very possible that they will again that's just people just to kind of naturally through this process they are going to hit these different points and it's just it's going to take time and like don't give up on them and don't be fearful continue to pray continue to come alongside them uh give them give them room because they they do have to feel what's inside now again we want to be careful with how we put that on the outside but it's gotta be felt it's gotta be shared and people have to have the space to just have it be ugly sometimes because sometimes it is going to be ugly yeah no definitely no i appreciate that so much uh but so there's a couple opportunities if people want to connect with you first of all is that uh we've been talking about uh the upcoming event at the end of july uh with jennifer brewer and natalie uh andrew what's the website again where people gonna sign up for that it's berean holiness that's b -e -r -e -a -n holiness .com

forward slash conference and use the code cultish in all caps to get a discount yes so andrew and i were going to be speaking there i think this conversation is very helpful for us because i've been trying to navigate you know whoever's going to be there like there there's going to be people with all sorts of similar stories and what can i say to them to help them you know disentangle to help get out of the cults into the church or help them be able to have a biblical mindset to navigate through these things embracing the authentic disentangling from the unauthentic i think that's going to be really looking forward to that but you're going to be on the you're going to be there in person so people can meet up with you you're going to be on is a panel that you're going to be on yeah there's going to be i have a thing we're talking about like what is spiritual abuse and and stuff like that and so yeah there's going to be a panel i didn't know if you guys were on it or not i don't know who else is on it but it's going to be on friday at like three i was told okay awesome i'm really looking forward to that it's going to be helpful and then you have your own sort of event we'll give people links to your is being bolden .com

they can find out more about you but you have something going on down the road in a couple of months it's sort of like a in -person intensive retreat or what's that all about yeah oh i'm so excited for this you guys so it's called the getaway um and it's in the mountains of colorado it's on this property it's 1800 acres with two mountain peaks on it we got atvs horses like gourmet like chef made meals like it's just going to be incredible um it's actually capped at only 12 people like it's a smaller thing myself um dr roger sharp mary jo sharp's husband um which i believe she's also going to be hanging out with us just a little side note i think she got a flight but um yeah she's on my board or my advisory board and then tc cannon um who's on our board of directors she's going to be there too so roger myself and tc are all going to be but again this is all done with people who have similarly suffered in mind so it's not like this forced togetherness it's not like if you need to miss a session because you're struggling like we're going to leave notes out for you like if you're like i need a minute i can't you know sit join everyone for dinner you can reheat it later like you know there's just there's freedom uh to kind of do what you need to do um we're all sitting together in a lounge setting um so it's just gonna be more personal more connectedness when we're hanging out with you guys like the three of us like we're around we're hanging out we're riding horses too i love atvs i love speed so you know so we're getting to do all that stuff um people can have one -on -one sessions with us while they're there if they want to we're going to you know have a fire and yeah it's just it's going to be a great time so we still have some spots available for that uh we've got payment plans available uh because of course you know travel like that's more expensive is there like a specific website if you want to find out like more about that retreat or is that just on being bold and calm it's on being bold and calm but it's backslash getaway if you want to go right com backslash getaway yeah plus i like the term getaway it kind of has the aesthetic of like some sort of heist that's going on like oceans 11 thing except the only heist that's going on is you're heisting away the authentic from the unauthentic so that's awesome and our theme is our theme is unstuck for this one so we're going to identify these stuck points and then kind of get into it we're going to do a grief ritual for anyone who wants to and that's not ritualistic like you know maybe i should give more framing to that but don't go there we're not talking about like sra or like anything crazy it's just hey something happened like let's recognize that let's mark it in a way that you know we see people do like in the old testament where they're marking and they're remembering so yeah no that's awesome well thank you again uh so much and uh we're really we're really i know we're gonna have to have you on at some point again because this i think is gonna be helpful for just so many people i think even when we had just the comments in the comments when uh jennifer brewer and natalie on just recently you know there's so many people from all different backgrounds to identify even though you know your background is unique from jennifer's and natalie's is different from you and vice versa you know all of these things have similar underlying you know elements of things that need to be addressed which i'm so uh incredibly grateful for so uh yeah thank you again for coming on yeah yeah it's a privilege thanks fun to hang out with you guys absolutely all right well thank you all for listening in and did you have any last thoughts as we wrap up here oh that was good man i just think when the sun sets you are free indeed to disentangle from things that are trying to keep you back from enjoying the inheritance that you have been given with the gift of the holy spirit who is the promise of that inheritance to come so praise god for that awesome awesome all right well thank you all for listening in if you want again if you want to check out more about naomi and all she's about go to beinbolden .com

or to go to uh beinbolden .com for slash getaway if you're looking at uh checking out colorado atvs and all these all this stuff you can check out that also andrew tell them the domain if they want to hook up with on the conference that we'll be speaking at i would tell give them the link one more time as well too yeah bereanholiness .com