Are People Who Are "Wounded" by the Church Self-Centered Church Shoppers Who Didn't Get Their Way?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

01:38

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we will seek to answer the age -old question, are people who are wounded by the church, self -centered church shoppers, who didn't get their way?

01:49

Now Tim, I think normally, whenever someone's talking about anyone hurting anyone, when it comes to the church and its members, normally it's the other way around, where people are typically talking about how the church hurt them, so it might be kind of surprising for some people to hear us talking about people actually hurting the church, so maybe let's just start by just addressing the title question head on, and hopefully that'll kind of get people up to speed with what we're even talking about, because I don't think most people even really have a category for church members being anything other than victims by the church's hands, so why don't you go ahead and answer that question for us.

02:38

Are people who are wounded by the church, self -centered church shoppers, who didn't get their way? Yeah, when you think about a question like that, we're obviously living in a victim society right now, so right now, pretty much, it's very popular in the broader evangelical world to talk about deconversion stories, and about church abuse stories, and the church hurt me, and I need to take some time and detox myself from the church, and all this stuff, and take a break in order to heal, and I just am damaged and broken, and all this stuff, and so the standard way that most people think about this kind of topic is fundamentally to think about the church always being the one who's at fault in these kind of interactions, and then you combine that with just the standard, right now, pop psychological approach to victimization, and essentially, you believe the victim, you don't shame the victim, you don't blame the victim, and everything else, and so as you think about something like that, when someone shares their experience, their experience has to be validated, it has to be affirmed, it has to be basically considered to be true, and so you basically have a narrative that is used to handle every single conceivable interaction between church members and church leaders, and church as an organization, or however you want to say, and typically the standard way that we view most of these encounters is to basically view them as the church is fundamentally at fault in every single one of these encounters, and there's little to no tolerance for the opposite being actually considered as a valid option, meaning it might very well be that you're in an environment where due in large part

04:41

I think to just the prevalence of megachurch culture and seeker -sensitive movement and church shopper phenomenon in general, it might be that there's a wide variety of situations where you have self -centered church shopper people who really conceive of the church as being fundamentally all about them and their own desires and their own wants, and then they go into a church situation and basically try to impose all of their self -centered preferences on the church, and then when the church fails to live up to their expectations, then they basically cop a victim persona and basically then adopt all the normal posture that comes with victimization, but I think it all kind of depends on where your location is in large measure, so depending on what kind of church background you're from, but in standard faithful church, it's doing expositional preaching and doing its best to try to have some sort of regenerate church membership and not just filled with all the programs and everything else.

05:45

I think those kind of churches, by and large, they get a lot of people who come in and they're coming from a church shopper background, and very often it is the case that you just have self -centered people coming into the church and causing a lot of problems with their own selfishness, and that's not an uncommon phenomenon at all, but then in different kind of traditions, it could be different stories, so there isn't a one -size -fits -all approach to who's to blame in any one of these encounters, but right now, though, if you even ask the question, maybe it's, is it just the church member?

06:21

It's inappropriate to even ask at this point. Oh, yeah, yeah, big time. You cannot even hint at the church member being involved having any fault in the issue.

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Otherwise, you'll be labeled as an insensitive monster, right? Right, but I could tell you story after story after story of situations

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I know where I just change the details a little bit and not give out any names, but I can just tell you story after story, situation after situation where you have church members who just, they are coming into a church situation or they've been there for a while and they get their hearts out on something and they're just unwilling to consider the possibility that they might just be being entitled brats about something.

07:20

So I'm just reminded of a situation where a girl felt like the

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Lord was telling her to lead a female Bible study at the church. And it was a scenario where she really felt like God was telling her this somehow in her feelings.

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And the problem was, I mean, it's just like, she's just not the kind of girl that anyone at the church would think would even want her to do a

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Bible study, so no one showed up, right? So no one showed up to her Bible study because it's like no one recognized her as having the gift of teaching or being in any way someone that individuals would want to go to for that.

08:05

But then no one showed up and then it's just like, then she feels like she's hurt by the church because church leadership didn't want to promote it.

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But it's just like, you're not someone that the leadership at that church felt like was qualified to be in a teacher role.

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And what do you do in that kind of scenario if you're church leaders? You just let everyone start a Bible study, you promote it, you basically put pressure on everyone to go to it when you don't think you're going to be getting anything good.

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And then no one really wants to show up and then it's, well, it's your fault for not supporting me. And then you fall into the standard victim narrative that you've been hurt by the church and abused by the church.

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And it's just like, maybe it's a little more complicated than that. Maybe God didn't tell you that.

08:53

Maybe you made that up. And maybe a few should become teachers because they'll receive a stricter judgment.

09:00

And maybe there's qualifications for that and maybe you don't fit. And that's leaving aside what kind of church structure you have in general and what kind of expectations you have as it relates to those kind of things.

09:15

But that kind of individual couldn't conceive of the fact that there might be any reason why the church wouldn't support that other than just them failing her and letting her down and not listening to the

09:26

Holy Spirit and all that. But I mean, that's not uncommon. That's just standard fare.

09:33

I don't know, Tim. I don't know. But to me, that just sounds like the church hurting another victim.

09:39

Yeah. Church just threw another one under the bus. I mean, refused to utilize their gifts and didn't support them and just support their sense of calling.

09:55

But I mean, it's just like church is messy, man. It's just like there's situations like that that you just like, what do you do?

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Yeah, you really are caught in between a rock and a hard place because like you said, you either go along with it and then it goes down in flames because that's not their gifting.

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And so it inevitably just gets torched. Or you say no on the front end and save all that heartache on the back end, but then you've got to deal with the, well, you don't want to support me and whatever.

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Or you hate women. You hate women. You don't think they need to teach no matter what. Yeah, I mean, it's all that kind of stuff.

10:42

I mean, there's just scenario after scenario that I could think of in churches I've been to and been a part of.

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The guy with an axe to grind at the church who didn't get the job that he wanted and now is just deeply troubled by the direction of the church and wants to start a prayer group or whatever.

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But then when you let him pray one time in the congregation, he threw everyone under the bus and complained about it.

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Then it's just like he wants to start a prayer group and you don't support it. And it's just like, well, I guess you're anti -prayer.

11:15

I mean, obviously you're anti -prayer. I mean, he's praying over all these issues that he sees in the church and you're trying to shut that down?

11:23

Come on. All those issues which seem to personally have affected him. You can listen to the narrative.

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And the Bible says the first to plead their case seems right until another one comes along to examine it. So you can listen to those kind of narratives and it sells.

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And there's a market for it. There's a market to destroy the church in that kind of way and paint everyone as victims.

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The problem is you often can't tell the other side of the story. You just can't.

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You can't just sit everyone down and explain what the thought process is.

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And so there's a lot of situations like that you just have to take. But then it's just one of those things where a lot of times life is much more complicated than that.

12:18

And then when you have church shopper culture that essentially breeds the type of individual who thinks that the church is fundamentally all about them and supporting them and validating them and everything else.

12:33

You're in a situation where a lot of people they just go from church to church until they muster up the courage to basically finally tell the church their deepest desires.

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And they put them out there like that dish that they labored over for 12 hours hoping that you would enjoy it kind of thing.

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And it's just like man we can't support that. And then it's just like how dare you. You just rejected all of me.

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And at that point it's just like how can they possibly face to be in your presence anymore when you just totally rejected everything.

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It took them all this courage to share. There's just so many situations that I know about personally and have heard about in tangential ways.

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It's just more complicated than that. There's no simple answer to that.

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An accusation doesn't constitute proof. And you have to hear both sides of the story.

13:38

Often it's just like there's reasons why you can't share everything too. I'm reminded a lot of it does seem like it is really popular to try and take down the church and try and air out the church's dirty laundry all the time.

13:59

I think what comes to mind immediately is probably John MacArthur and his church and it seems like especially these days it seems like there's some sort of claim against them once every three months it feels like now.

14:17

It's funny because it seems like it kind of comes from the same people over and over again. Julie Roys is doing one a week.

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Desperately hoping that something will stick to the wall. It's crazy.

14:32

What's silly about it is you have a church like that where I think he's been the pastor there for over 40 years going on 50 years now and it's like you can't tell me that in the course of 50 years of being a pastor and doing ministry that it's not conceivably possible that maybe perhaps there was one situation that came up along the line where they could have handled it a little better if they had more information that they weren't privy to in the moment.

15:05

It's like there's scenarios where you don't have enough information to know how to proceed.

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A lot of the accusations go along those lines and there are situations where even with the information you have you may didn't pick the wisest outcome and it's open to criticism later on but my goodness in thousands and thousands of pastoral interactions over the years if you're scraping the bottom of the barrel and trying to find some sort of dirt on someone that happened 20 years ago and that's the best that you can do it's just like you have a problem.

15:44

With individuals like Julie Roy her agenda is she hates biblical gender roles and John MacArthur is an example of that and she's actively trying to destroy him for those reasons because she feels like she's a woman who's called to preach and he told

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Beth Moore to go home and so now she doesn't like him and she's trying to figure out any way she can possibly can to destroy his reputation but I mean those are dime a dozen and you know a lot of these stories you have to understand there's other agendas that are behind these things that you don't hear about you know and so you can't just take the accusation at face value what's motivating it right?

16:21

and so and there's false accusations that come in plenty of situations but what is it what is it about you know and often you know just in life it's not always about the thing that they're talking about you know it's often about something else like there's something else motivating it but yeah

16:38

I think I've had plenty of personal interactions as well where I've met you know we're in a college town so we meet we meet you know new young students every year and I can't tell you how many times

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I've heard them tell me that at some point in their life the church hurt them along the way and that's probably one of the top you know two or three reasons why if they aren't in church right now that's one of the top reasons why they aren't in church right now they might some of them say well hey

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I just haven't found a place but it's like you know they're a junior in college and it's like what do you mean what do you mean you haven't found a place it's been three years but a lot of them they do say hey look the church hurt me in some way and I'm basically they're still not over it and a lot of it's a weird situation to be in because as a person who's being told this you don't really have a lot of info to go off of and so they're kind of sometimes they're ready to just like put it all out there for you and they kind of expect you to just form your entire opinion on the whole situation based around that and there's been a few there's been a few interactions where I've had to say like oh wow you know if that's true that's bad but you know

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I don't want to I don't want to like comment because I don't know everything I wasn't there I wasn't there for the conversations and that's kind of like they'll kind of take that as like an assault you know on themselves me just saying like hey

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I'm going to kind of try and stay neutral here and say you know like if that is exactly what happened then yeah that's really bad that's you re -victimizing them in the moment you know right right and so it seems like it's really popular to have an experience like that and and there's really not any fear to even just like air it all out for everyone you know and it's kind of like you want everyone you want as many people as possible to hear it to know about it yeah

18:56

I mean the thing what's motivating it in a lot of cases is you have individuals who are not like connected to a church right now and they need some sort of rationale to explain their functional apostasy essentially so the bible says they went out from us because they were not of us but they left that it might be demonstrated that they are not of us now like the only way to get out of that you know and like when you're the person who's neglecting to meet together as is the habit of them you know like when you're that person who is treading dangerous ground then what you need is you need some story that puts you in like the position of the victim in order to make it all make sense because right now

19:37

I mean you're living in a society that basically if you claim the victim status like there's no um like there's no accountability for you whatsoever right you get immediate affirmation you get like instantaneous like catholic church sainthood you know like once you claim that victim label that's what you get you know but then the problem though is like in case after case after case like you know when you really think about what they're actually saying and like you know often it's just like you know like I was on the media team or something and you know and I um kept on not showing up and then like you know the person basically asked me to commit to showing up when

20:21

I'm on the schedule or like quit like just step down from the role you know and it's just like how dare you you know uh not you know understand that you know

20:32

I'm a like a college student who you know is unreliable at this point in my life and I'm going through so many things emotionally and don't know how to process you know things so I mean it's often like things like that or it's often like you know like stories of like um you know some sort of church discipline process that was started you know whether or not it was just someone confronting them of some sort of sin in their life you know often it's not doesn't even go near the third step it's often just the first step kind of things that are just basic individuals trying to encourage like accountability in their life to some degree like hey you know you might not wanna you know dress with a see -through shirt on you know or something like that right you know just basic kind of stuff like uh like that you know that it's just how dare you or you know what you're dating someone and they're not a believer you know and they're a drug addict and you know like they never go to church they like they're like they use recreational marijuana every week you know they're obviously high every time

21:37

I'm talking to them you know and it's just like like they don't have a spiritual thought in their brain you know the bible says don't be unequally yoked with unbelievers you know it's that kind of thing or it's like you know you're spending the night at your boyfriend's house every week you know we need to have a conversation about it it's like how dare you you know that so I mean but then like the thing is it's like the scandal is that like that victim label became the excuse that validated their sin right and you take it away and it's like all that's left is just oh like I'm I'm the one to blame here you know and it's like people can't like they don't process that I mean that's just the way that relationships work you always are looking for someone to blame for your problems you know right and like once you get that then you get this all purpose excuse to basically not deal with life anymore you know yeah so when it comes to you know say you're in that situation where you meet the person who is saying hey you know

22:45

I'm a victim look at how the church hurt me um should we if we want to if we want to honor

22:52

God should we uh immediately believe them as a victim well the issue is like not whether or not we believe victims the issue is who's the victim right so like so like I want to believe the victim the question is who is it you know is it you like are you the victim are you the villain in this scenario and you know often like life is a little more complicated than that often like we're all of us victims in certain ways and villains in certain ways and life doesn't seem to divide up so neatly like that as if like the like you know every person you're dealing with is like Anne Frank and then the person that they're accusing is

23:35

Hitler you know like often it's yeah it's not all Jedi and Sith I mean it's it's not you know it's like it's often like like even in situations where like the individual has a legitimate like beef you know with with the the other like there's it's more complicated than that and they probably fail to handle like how to deal with like they probably didn't suffer very well and weren't very you know long suffering and weren't very patient and humble and you know everything else so it's just complicated you know so like the issue is not whether or not we believe victims it's who is it but then the

24:14

Bible tells us the first to plead their case seems right until another comes to examine it and like when you're listening to one side of the story like there has never ever been a situation where I've listened to one side of a story and then not and then got the other side and the other side wasn't incredibly illuminating right like I've never been in that scenario and you know being involved in counseling you know

24:39

I you can you can listen to the woman like and it's like man she's just like like messed up and like this guy is a horrible monster and you know just you know

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Satan incarnate and then you listen to the guy and it's just like oh wow like I get it yeah that's a little more complicated than what you're making it out and then you listen to the guy and it's like she's like literal you know just a vicious life sucking sucking abyss from which there's no escape you know and then you listen to her and it's just like yeah you know what like he comes home every day and you know plays on his phone for you know eight hours and then like then he wants to you know have sex with me at three in the morning you know after he ignored me all day long it's like dude what's your problem you know right you know but it's just like that's the way it works you know even in these church situations where you know like even when there's like some sort of like you know kernel of truth there it's just it's a lot more complicated so yeah

25:36

I mean I think what you have to do is you have to suspend some sort of you know judgment you know and often you can ferret it out pretty easily like in those kind of things by saying hey you know

25:51

Michael do you mind if I go talk to your church about it and get their side of the story yeah I think if you want to see like a really bad example of what could happen if you just immediately believe the first side that you hear is just look at this you know

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Amber Heard Johnny Depp court case going on right now I mean for a while there everyone was ragging on Johnny Depp because you know

26:16

Amber Heard came along and was essentially insinuating that that Depp was you know beating her and abusing her verbally and physically and then here we are now and it's like everyone's kind of everyone's kind of acting like they were never on Amber's side to begin with you know because it's you're finally getting a lot of you know over the last year or so however long it's been you've been getting a lot of of Johnny Depp's side and all of a sudden it's like oh whoa this is not what

26:52

Amber Heard made it out to sound like you know so it seems like if you want if you want any sort of extra biblical sort of example of you know not believing the first person that claims victim status then just look at this court case going

27:09

I mean look at all the police shootings too I mean the police shootings are also examples of that kind of thing to where like the problem is that like once the narrative is set then like you know literally it's just like you know hands up don't shoot you know

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Michael Brown that kind of stuff and it's like you know the forensic evidence shows that he had gunpowder on his hand you know how does he get the gunpowder on his hand you know and there's evidence that he charged the police officers bashing his head and it's just like you know like there's two sides to every story and one of the things that we have to do almost especially in an age that has like video evidence is like there's been situations where you just like you see a clip you see a brief moment and you jump to a conclusion it's just like you gotta hold off a little bit but then you know that's especially true with just dealing with testimony you know like there these narratives are already set so like the narrative is set that the church is just this monstrous you know abuser of its authority and people are ready to believe that and hear that and part of what's happening is that like you're living in a culture and society right now that basically hates all authority and a lot of like the abuse like claims are coming from like a culture that is hostile to the very idea of authority across the board and so that's a lot of what's happened in the church too movement me too movement all that is you have like like a narrative that all authority is bad and then like it's by definition bad and so then the church is has authority structures within it and so you have like people who are just jumping to conclusions but then like the

28:51

Johnny Depp Amber Heard thing you know it's just one of those things where like it's just a great example like what you're talking about the first to plead their case seems right until another one comes along to examine it and you know like there's obviously like two sides to every story and you know you can selectively portray certain bits and pieces of a story and not have the full picture and it just shows you that like you know if you give an answer before you're here it's following shame like that you have to like be patient and listen to both sides and you know if a lot more pastors like what happens a lot of times is pastors they don't want to do the work of like actually getting the other side of that story and then what happens is the disgruntled church member goes to their church and they're the next like victimizer you know like and it's just like but really what's happening is you have like in a lot of cases like individuals who were just like doing they're doing the same thing they do in their own marriages and their own relationships you know it's just it's all about them and it's about what they want you know and they go into a relationship and it's just like you know what like she doesn't you know respond to my every desire exactly the way

30:02

I want you know she doesn't live up to all my fantasies and you know and everything else and so like I can't trust her and she you know wounded me and all that and then on the other end it's just like he's not loving me well and you know anticipating flawlessly all my desires and needs and knowing you know at any given moment exactly what

30:21

I want and validating all my feelings and you know you take that into a church and like you've learned to do that in relationships and it's the same thing that's happening at the church level it's just now it's like you know the church who is not validating their desires and giving them everything they want and doing everything you know idea they have and you just have a mess right and I think when it comes to you know we've been talking about it's really popular to claim victimhood status and people are kind of they're jumping at the chance really to claim it for themselves get that coveted label but doesn't it seem like it's kind of a sissy thing to do

31:12

I mean don't you think of like if a guy came along and I know some people like this who guys who are constantly like every everybody's out to get me and I always kind of think like man that's a little sissy isn't it

31:33

I need what is that guy's name Jesse Jesse Lee Peters or Jesse what is the guy's name who the black dude that I don't know you've mentioned him the one who's always saying beta beta beta no

31:54

I mean it is it's very emasculating to be that kind of person who's just like you know everyone hurt me and everyone everybody's out to get me everyone's out to get me and everyone's so mean to me and it's just like it's emasculating yes it's like like even in I mean

32:11

I just I don't know man I've been in churches that I thought like they got some problems man you know but it's like that's not my impulse you know

32:22

I've been in situations where you know I've been under leaders that I thought hey they're not qualified to be a pastor they need to step down you know everything else and they're not handling things well you know they're like I don't know what they're doing you know but there was never in my mind this thought like this is like I'm wounded and I'm hurt and I'm not validated

32:44

I've been in situations where like I've been like qualified to teach and not being utilized by with my gifts and but I have no expectation that I'll be used like I consider it like a privilege you know like you know

33:01

I've been in those situations and there's no expectation that you're going to give me some position and give me some like who am

33:08

I I'm nobody you know if God wants me to have like a a way to be useful then he'll make me useful just like you know if there's situations where I can be helpful

33:18

I'll be helpful I'll just look to serve like in the ways that you'll let me like you know picking up chairs and moving them and doing you know what

33:25

I mean like that that's kind of my attitude about it you know I mean and I you know there's like and I can tell you about a church

33:33

I was at where they had like a lady yeah like there's this church right

33:39

I was at and like one day I discovered that after I rejoined it that there was an older lady who was leading like an adult

33:48

Sunday school class full of all the deacons in the church and so I went and I talked to the pastor about it and I said like what's going on you know and his answer to that was you know we're just going to let this one die off you know and I just thought oh what a wimp man what a wimp you know like alright hey what do you want me to do though call me a woman hater if I shut it down but you know but like the way

34:22

I responded to that was just I thought alright I'm not going to cause a big stink about this I'm not going to like try to destroy this place it's just like I'm going to find a new church right man no hard feelings you let it die off I just can't follow that you know but I mean

34:35

I didn't think to myself oh man I was wounded and I was damaged and you know everyone's going to like I have to justify myself and like I have a golden opportunity you should have jumped at it

34:45

I didn't go there with it you know it's just like there's no like why would you go I just don't get it like there's churches that are unfaithful you know and you try to help them be faithful but if they don't want to listen you shake the dust off your feet and you know you find somewhere that's going to be solid you don't have to turn it into this big

35:05

I'm wounded I'm damaged I put myself out there I don't get that I don't get that kind of mentality it's not like masculine like in you know the guys that are doing that they're doing that because they don't have

35:19

I don't even know what it means to be a man and a big surprise like the ladies in their life don't want to be intimate with them it's because they're pansy even that terminology is like really kind of weak and sissy like I'm weak

35:36

I'm damaged I'm broken I can't even say them all when people use those words

35:50

I'm pulling back the curtain a little bit when people start using those words and they're not being facetious or sarcastic or something

35:59

I have one of two responses the first one is to just like totally roll my eyes and think this is the dumbest thing ever you're being a sissy the second one is to just cringe as hard as I can basically

36:17

I think because the words themselves are just so like weak confessing that you have a therapeutic peacock or something in order to it's like whoa we're really there you know we're there therapeutic peacock that's where we are you know but I mean part of what's happening is you're living in a matriarchal society and men haven't been taught these basic kind of temperance and control their emotions and fortitude and like they really they haven't been trained to have control over their emotions you know they've been taught that like in order to be a man you have to express your emotions just like a woman might and so then whatever that is it's not being strong it's not being courageous it's not acting like men it's not strength it's not courage it's not any of that it's like it's like a surrender of all the masculine virtues when you start speaking that way and it's like don't

37:21

I mean and there's a reason why like you shouldn't expect any sympathy from that you should expect people to say hey man up you know like get control of yourself because if you can't even handle like mild pushback on your ideas like you can't handle those kind of situations how are you going to do anything that like the bible actually calls a man to do you know like the zombie apocalypse comes and you're reduced to tears because the zombies are hurting your feelings like what in the world like you know like we need you to like you know get out your club here and go to work you know like that's what we need and so I mean

37:57

I find it repulsive and repelling you know you ought to obviously like have compassion on people who are caught up in that kind of thing but like we don't need to normalize that as like a normal manly response to dealing with conflict like if you can't like you know part of like these church issues like it's about dealing with conflict you know it's about like learning how to like interact in difficult situations with difficult people who you know and I just you know

38:29

I don't know I mean for me I just I've never had those kind of expectations like I've always been humbled and thought like man if I've gone into every church

38:40

I've been at since I became a Christian and I basically say hey I'm you know if there's any way

38:45

I can be useful then I'd like to be useful you know and if they didn't give me anything to do

38:53

I'd find things to do you know like no one's going to complain if you help take up chairs and do things like that and like you can find a way to be useful if you want to but I've just never approached church in a way that I've just like thought to myself like man like you know you need to validate me and like you don't you know right that's not training up masculinity when you're thinking that way and this is kind of going off topic but you know you see everyone kind of makes fun of the you know the masculine guys who are kind of always saying like they never you know open up about anything and maybe there's a little bit of validity to that but then we've pushed things so far the other way that we're essentially training men to be as effeminate as humanly possible which is really bad for us because you know now everyone's coming after the church with all the

39:58

LGBTQ stuff the abortion stuff you know a lot of the like what's it why am

40:08

I blanking on the word the environmental stuff that's going on COVID all of these different things and the church really has to take a stand and be able to say things like hey no the government can't just shut down our churches we have a right to gather you know no you can't take our kids and teach them how to have gay sex right but if you're training people to use this kind of language and think this kind of way think that victim status is something to be desired you're never going to have men that actually stand against those things that's going to be mean and hurtful and harmful no one wants a pastor who is like doing that himself doing what?

41:05

I mean no one wants a pastor who's just like fussing and complaining like no one loves me and no one treats me well and they don't you know care about me and they you know always fight everything that I'm trying to do and woe is me and eeyore and no one expects like when you see that I've seen pastors go that route and it's just like man it's like this is really odd you know like because that's just like like hey man like man up and have courage and show us an example of what it looks like to suffer well right?

41:39

and that's what people expect out of a pastor and in fact you get up every week and the pastor's just fussing about no one loves me and no one cares about me and you know everyone's mistreating me and misrepresenting me and you know

41:50

I'm just wounded and I'm damaged and I need to go take a sabbatical because I'm so stressed out and it's just like there's nothing that like results in like a vote of no confidence like that but then like the thing is like the pastor is an example to the flock and so if that's weird for a pastor that should be weird for men too you know that should be weird and it's just like no one like the thing is like you think about how society actually works and society actually functions like when the men are strong and they handle difficulty well everyone else can handle difficulty well and be strong you know so like you can go through some very hard times if the men have courage and have strength and you know have fortitude and don't you know take everything like so personally and turn into an emotional mess of tears you know like when they don't get everything they want like you can you can go through very tough times and you can because you're looking to like your leaders to be an example of strength right but when they go then everyone goes you know and so we're in a situation now where all the men have basically like turned into wimps and then like there's no example of like well what does it look like to handle criticism you know right have thick skin yeah

43:10

I mean there's like right now like in church society like the standard church member at the standard church you know basically if they have one person like criticize them like they're literally don't ever want to see that person again and feel perfectly justified in avoiding them and never thinking about them and never talking to them again like we're that thin skinned you know as a society and so then it's just very hard to look at you know all these stories of abuse and wounding and actually hear them out and it's like most of them are pretty petty you know like and pretty like I mean they're not what you think they are you know so right and so but isn't it you know maybe some people are hearing what we're saying and and they might be thinking well okay like sure maybe maybe a lot of people err on the side of the church member every single time but it kind of seems like you guys are just wanting to err on the side of the church every single time isn't it possible that the church can't actually do the same thing you know harm its members yeah that's two two kind of two responses to that so like the idea of first erring which side do you err on right right so right now we we're told like I said as a demand you err on the side of the member right right well the problem is the

44:38

Bible says you don't receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses so the

44:44

Bible doesn't go that route right so there is a like you like there is a biblical principle to say you know godly man and godly church give them the benefit of the doubt and you need you know testimony of more than just one person you know one accusation doesn't a guilty verdict render in that way so that would be a scriptural like position there right now like meaning like if there's a you know preference if there's a you know way to lean typically you lean towards the church okay is where you lean biblically speaking right you know you don't receive an accusation except on the evidence of two or three witnesses that tells you where to lean like your sympathies but then like you know basically this the substance of the question though is aren't there real situations where churches are you know you use a loaded term abusive right mhm all right well yes

45:46

I mean it's just a horrible term maybe I'll give you three responses so one like the abusive stuff is just a horrible term

45:54

I mean like right now like you know like the word like when you talk about you know someone abusing someone they can mean anywhere from like the guy you know beats his wife with a chainsaw every night to like to like something as trivial as you know the wife is like literally screaming in her husband's face and spit is dribbling you know dripping out of her mouth as she is berating him and a spit droplet falls into his eye as she's berating him for the tenth time that night and he you know shoves her away from him right it's just like those are two very different scenarios all right right you know like those are

46:35

I mean we even like think about like verbal abuse right verbal abuse as a category that now like if if someone verbally abuses you meaning like even as much as like fails to agree with you or slightly raises your voice then that calls for divorce in the minds of many people you know so like anytime that word is used it's just so charged you don't even know what it means right no idea what that word means but once it's put out there it's like you have to believe the person and sympathize with them and it's just like what are we talking about you know are we talking about the chainsaw incident are we talking about the like are we talking about like you know after you know yelling and screaming at someone someone slightly raised their voice and says you need to calm down you know like what are we saying you know so like put that into like the discussion like that's just a word that's unhelpful that we should put a moratorium on and probably never use like just use different words that are more helpful you know what are we talking about you know so but you know leaving that all aside

47:38

I think as you read the Bible one thing you'll find is like oh like there's different you know there's areas that can go both ways so meaning like you know as you think through like I was listening to Numbers this week and it's really amazing like how many times the

47:55

Israelites challenged Moses leadership unjustly mm -hmm like it's just over and over and over again it's funny of the story you know in Exodus you know when you get to Numbers it's like you have the rebellion of Korah you have

48:08

Miriam and Aaron who were essentially you know saying you know is it only to you to whom

48:15

God has spoken Moses right he didn't he also speak to us and God basically takes Moses aside in the case of Miriam and Aaron giving

48:23

Miriam leprosy in order to shame her you know and caused her to go outside the camp and the rebellion of Korah you know

48:30

God causes the ground to open up and swallow and bringing those accusations against Moses but you know as you think about it like Paul you know

48:38

Moses all the faithful guys like they were all falsely accused you know

48:43

Jesus says like of his followers if they spoke evil of me they're gonna speak evil of you a servant's not greater than his master like you know if they malign me they're gonna malign you like you know in Paul throughout his whole ministry had threats from the outside threats from the inside two apostles false prophets everything else like church members like you know it's just like that's just that's just the nature of the beast and so it's that way but then like you also have plenty of examples in the

49:07

Old Testament of like you know when the pre when the Kings go bad you know when Eli's sons go bad and start you know robbing people and sleeping with women and you know and then you have examples in first John of like situations where essentially if you know you have these leaders are in the epistles of John where you have leaders who were kicking people out of the church unjustly and everything else so I mean it can go either way

49:33

I think depending on your faith tradition these things can you know

49:39

I'm using that squishy expression but you know you know what I mean like depending on the kind of church you're in the errors go in different ways too so I can your standard like charismatic prosperity church you know

49:50

I'm much more you know sympathetic to those kind of things in general right mm -hmm like in those kind of scenarios like I understand what we're talking about you know like in terms of just you know the man with the anointing that no one can challenge and I that is motivated by greed and everything else but there's other things that are feeding into that kind of basic distrust of the scenario to you know like the fact that he's receiving direct divine revelation and he's teaching a false gospel you know so it's not shocking that there are some other crazy stuff going on too but you know

50:29

I think like in your standard like megachurch culture part of the thing is like you're just standard megachurch culture is really you know training people to be self -centered penny church shoppers and and I think probably most of your standard big church scenarios probably what's happening is that guys aren't just you know like they probably don't deserve all the flack they're getting but it's just like when you train people that church is all about them and you have like thousands of people who think that this thing's all about them at some point you're in an impossible situation because the church can't be about you know a thousand different individuals like something's gotta give you know like and that's kind of the way it works and so but then what's happened is

51:11

I think you have a lot of like you know faithful churches who are basically picking up you know the church shopper stuff and then getting a lot of bad examples getting a lot of the same kind of self -centered you know me first kind of stuff and so I think that's by and large what's happening in the church domain but then there are like you know there are real situations where you know people are using their power and authority irresponsibly and those things happen for sure.

51:41

So shouldn't shouldn't we just expect the church to just like come out and be like hey sorry you know like if Moses had just said sorry you know to Miriam wouldn't wouldn't that have don't you think

51:53

I mean maybe she wouldn't have had to get leprosy you know or if he had just said sorry to the sons of Korah like maybe the ground wouldn't have swallowed him up.

52:04

I'm sorry that we hurt you you know. I mean that's that's the expectation. Or even you know

52:10

MacArthur like coming out and just saying hey look you know what sorry. Just say you're sorry man.

52:15

Just say you're sorry. Their feelings are hurt you know. That one's on me. That one's on me guys. Pat your chest a little bit.

52:22

Part of the thing is we just don't believe people are responsible for their feelings is part of the problem.

52:28

And so then but the issue is like the Bible says that we're responsible for even how we think and even how we feel.

52:36

You know so when Cain was mad at God for not accepting his sacrifice God looked at him and he said you know why are you angry and why is your face fallen right.

52:47

So Cain like God didn't accept his sacrifice and so Cain starts to pout right. And God didn't just say hey sorry you know

52:54

I'm sorry I hurt your feelings Cain you know like I understand how you could think that that was kind of mean but you have to understand you know

53:02

I have rules that you have to follow you know. Like that isn't what he did you know and like why are you angry why your face is falling you know and like if you do well will not your sacrifice be accepted.

53:14

The same thing with Jonah I mean it's just like God looks at him and he says is it good for you to be angry you know the implied answer is no it's not.

53:21

You know so like our feelings are not neutral and when we like we can get our feelings hurt because we have listened to a bunch of gossip we can get our feelings hurt because we you know in a metaphorical sense because you know they're immaterial and all that but you know you understand what

53:36

I'm saying. Like you can get yourself all upset and frustrated because you're jumping to conclusions you're making poor assumptions you're listening to poor information you have unreasonable expectations all those things are live and on the board and so you can't just in some simplistic way come along and say hey yeah

53:53

I'm sorry you're hurt. It's like no I mean like is it good for you to be hurt that's what

53:58

God frequently says to individuals who are playing the hurt card. Is it good for you to be angry?

54:03

Is it good for you to be hurt? Is it good for you to be you know often that hurt word is just code word for bitter and you know you had your idol thwarted and everything else and so like the issue is what is true about this scenario?

54:16

What is true about it? Like do you actually have reasonable cause for distress in this moment or is it unreasonable?

54:24

And even if it's reasonable is it in proportion to the nature of the offense right? And so there's not just like this simple hey

54:31

I'm sorry you're hurt kind of thing that doesn't do anything. All it does is tell people that they're entirely justified in feeling everything they're feeling and acting the way that they're acting.

54:41

Okay so don't say I'm sorry you're hurt. What if I say all right sorry you decided to let yourself be hurt?

54:51

Is that better? Is that more accurate? Yeah. I say with a smirk on my face.

54:59

Yeah I mean sorry you decided to be a victim. Yeah I mean I think you take

55:04

God's approach you know like is it good for you to be angry about this? You know I'm not angry I'm hurt. What's the difference you know?

55:11

Right. It's funny you bring that up because I actually had an interaction with a student of mine.

55:21

Really it's kind of been like a prolonged one where it's been an issue you know they constantly you know get themselves in trouble because of what someone else is doing that you know is close by to them and that student's actions will get on this student's actions nerves and then it ends up making the student angry and they respond in some way that inevitably is going to get them in trouble and I've had to have several conversations where I say you know hey look when you let yourself become angry at other people's actions who's in control of you at that point?

56:10

And what I'm trying to get them to understand is that they're not in control anymore.

56:18

If someone else can do something consistently and make you angry make you feel like you're a victim make you feel like you've been wronged in some way and it needs to be there needs to be justice and there ultimately like I don't really think you're the one in control of your own actions

56:35

I think you're letting someone else being in control right? And so I think that I think there's some

56:45

I think there's something to be said about the person like we've been saying I think there's something to be said about the person who can go into a situation and say hey look all right even if there is a legitimate wrong done by former fashion you know

57:03

I'm willing to say like I'm not going to let that define me. Yeah I mean the fruit of the spirit is like love, joy, peace, long -suffering, gentleness, meekness, kindness, faithfulness, self -control.

57:17

And once you get that victim label you put that on the situation like people like there's no category for fruit of the spirit at that point anymore.

57:24

It's just like but hey wait a minute like did you see Jesus walking around basically just complaining about all the ways in which his disciples hurt his feelings.

57:34

Right. But it's like no I mean like you still have a responsibility to have love, joy, peace even in difficult situations you know.

57:42

And like the nature of the offense shouldn't be like so personal it's not about you it's about God like it's about his glory.

57:49

Right. For most people like that's where like the whole the church hurt me kind of thing it's just like you wonder like even if in the situations where there's a legitimate concern it's like why is this so important to you like if you never learned to accept wrongdoing in your life.

58:04

Right. Yeah I mean Proverbs tells us you know it's a man's glory to overlook an offense.

58:09

Yeah if you've never learned to overlook an offense you've never learned to be mistreated like even Paul says like why not brothers why not let yourself be defrauded rather than going to court to sue someone.

58:20

Right. Like and so there's this whole in the Bible like consistent teaching of just let yourself be defrauded like blessed are you when you are persecuted despite fully used for great is your reward in heaven.

58:33

I mean like think about that and think about this church victim culture thing that we're talking about and it's just like in that moment you should be like if you really are being despitefully used you should be rejoicing and exceedingly glad because great is your reward in heaven and what we think is like the appropriate response is just to wallow in a ball and just refuse to go to church for months and months at a time because you're so damaged and you're so hurt.

58:57

It's like know that the appropriate response was to rejoice and to be exceedingly glad. Okay. That was the appropriate response but you can't even say that because it sounds so crazy to people because they have no category of suffering for righteousness sake and like the problem though is like their marriages go that way too.

59:16

Their relationships go that way too. They've never learned to suffer for righteousness sake. They've never learned like to do good to those who persecute you and despitefully use you like if your enemy hungers feed them if they thirst give them drink for and so doing you'll reap quotes of fire on their head.

59:30

Like they really are like all about them you know. And so like I'm not trying to say there's no place for grief and sadness and everything else but it shouldn't be the self -focused self -pitying kind of sadness.

59:42

Right. All -consuming. Yeah. Like where you know I can't believe people were mean to me and didn't you know they were so mean to me and it's just so hurtful and it's just like oh come on like like you know how do you how do you live life in a fallen world you know and the problem is they don't you know.

59:58

The problem is that once you start going down that road it's just like you just broken relationship after broken relationship after broken relationship because everything is just so personal and you have to be validated and you have to be affirmed and you have to be told you know you're wonderful and it's just like that isn't like the path to peace and love and joy and long suffering.

01:00:20

Right. Like long suffering right. That's not long suffering that's like copying a victim personality you know that's not self control, control of your emotions and you know like ultimately you know like what people should be doing in these scenarios is grieving that God's purposes are not fulfilled you know it's about his kingdom come, his will being done.

01:00:43

It's not about us man like it like we need to get our eyes off of ourselves and you know like you know for Paul like when you see

01:00:49

Paul like he's crying over the state of the church because he loves these people more than he loves himself and he loves the church and he doesn't want him to go to hell you know.

01:00:57

Like it's not about him it's not about oh you guys didn't you know you guys are treating me bad you know and like.

01:01:03

Paul literally wishes that he could go to hell so that his so that his Jewish brothers would avoid hell.

01:01:11

I mean. That's how much he loves people. We're so far from that man like in this kind of discussion that it's not even funny you know so I mean

01:01:17

I think that there are legitimate situations where church leaders can let people down and fail but like you should like man you should be praying for that person who did that and like so grieved for them you know and it should be about like grief for them because you love them and you care about them you're so concerned for them more than it's just like how dare you you know treat me this way and you're never in the right when you're that way man.

01:01:44

Right. Imagine if Jesus had the same response to us. Right.

01:01:49

You know like like we we sin against God we totally reject all of his authority imagine if instead of saying hey in spite of all this

01:01:59

I'm going to send my son to be crushed in your place he's like well you know what they wronged me you know like I'm gonna let them get exactly what they deserve and he would have been totally justified in doing that and he didn't do it.

01:02:12

Right. Right. I mean but that's not like you read through the New Testament you don't see you don't see this like pitying self -focused like you know you guys are so mean to me and you never follow me very well and all you want me to do is magic tricks for you and you know like even the times where he's like you know couldn't you you know pray with me for an hour the reason why he's saying that is because they literally just boasted of their loyalty and faithfulness to him.

01:02:39

Right. And he's saying he's trying to let them know that they're like they're gonna all be scattered you know this night.

01:02:44

Right. And you know none of them are gonna stick with him and he's doing that for their benefit not for his it's not like oh you know you guys let me down and I was depending on you and you betrayed me and how dare you.

01:02:55

You know. Whenever God's mourning it's he's not mourning himself he's mourning us.

01:03:01

Right. Right. When Jesus says I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her brood you know like talking about Israel.

01:03:09

I mean he's he's literally. Mourning the hardness of their heart is not. Yeah. But it's not like it's not self -focus it's not self -pitying it's none of that.

01:03:18

Right. But that has to go into this kind of conversation to where like you can even have like legitimate situations where leaders fail and fail big time.

01:03:29

But it's not like you know that there isn't this just category of just you know everyone is so mean and they treated me so bad and I'm just so damaged and so wounded and so broken and so you know it's just like it's not a thing man it's not a thing you know so you know that's not to say that everyone you know has the spiritual maturity to be there instantaneously and you need to just like go in and be absolutely callous to that but like you have to have some mechanism to say hey we've like lost sight of like what we're doing here you know.

01:04:04

Yeah. So I think when whenever you have a discussion about people being hurt by the church

01:04:11

I think people probably have in their mind a pretty good idea of what it is that the church might have done and normally it typically involves some sort of you know quote unquote abuse of power right.

01:04:26

If you were to if you were to use the phrase like we are people hurting the church

01:04:33

I don't know that everyone would immediately have something pop into their mind as an example of that.

01:04:41

So could you give us some examples of what like specific examples of what a church member hurting the church might look like.

01:04:52

I mean you know when you like take your own self -centered preferences and read them into the church and like so I mean there's plenty of scenarios where you know a church member doesn't like something that the pastor is teaching and basically goes on some crusade to discredit the pastor and you know turn everyone against them and turns to gossip and complaining and to slander and to all that you know based on some sort of misunderstanding you know.

01:05:23

So I mean there's been plenty of situations that I could think of where individuals didn't like something that I was saying and it's just like they didn't read it just there you know they just don't understand it and so I mean those are scenarios like to where like a church member can do a lot of harm can do a lot of damage like you know church member has certain expectations about like how the church should be run you know or church like how it should operate you know so if you know a lot of big churches train people to think that they need to have ministries for every age and every stage and all these programs and all these events and you know that kind of stuff and a church member can go into a church that isn't doing all that you know it's just faithfully teaching the

01:06:09

Bible you know feeding the saints you know mobilizing for mission that kind of stuff you can go in there with all these expectations about what you think should be happening and all the you know a lot of like the church shopper focus is like event focus and so people want more events you know more activities more things you know more things to do you know give us a children's church give us a which is an oxymoron you know give us all this stuff you know like you know we want you know entire singles ministries we want all these women's ministries we want all this stuff like we want like and what that means is just like extra like teaching that's specifically geared towards certain demographics and they can go into churches that aren't doing that kind of thing and just cause a lot of problems and basically level a bunch of accusations and it's just like hey this is like like are these biblical expectations or are these just things that your big church did that were maybe wise maybe unwise you know and so a lot of people can get like real event focused and then yeah you know a lot of it's like related to kids and stuff like that too you know so you have a lot of parents who are basically in the process of losing their kids to the public education system and then they look at the church and I mean they basically turn their kids over to pagans you know for eight hours a day you know their whole life and then they end up pagans and then they're like hey church you know

01:07:37

I never have bible studies with them I never pray with them but it's your job to fix them so basically you know go play baseball with them and maybe slip in 10 minutes of Jesus talk with them and you know that'll do it and it's like you know it's like if a church doesn't want to go that route to entertain their pagan kids in that way then it's just like well the church hates kids and the church is like failing them and it's just like you know our job isn't to entertain pagans you know like it's not you know so like there's

01:08:06

I mean there's just like I think a lot of like church shopper kind of expectations that you can have there or like when you just like feel like you have some sort of gift that you have like whether it be teaching or whatever like you have these ideas about like how to revolutionize everything and fix everything and then you come into a church and want them to do all your plans and most of which are just nowhere to be found in the bible you know so I mean there's just examples like that just gossip and slander and discontent and complaining and you know your normal stuff and so like that isn't helpful and you know you are going to war against Christ's pride and you know

01:08:48

I've been at churches where like you know someone gets on a you know kick that you know this is the only translation that's divinely inspired or something like that and they go to a church that's teaching out of a different translation and then they go to war against it and it's just like what are you doing you know like just go to a church that does that you know why are you trying to change that you know you know on the front end what they're doing you know they're not doing that so you know and that's been like there's just things like that that are but I mean like you can multiply examples

01:09:23

I mean I could give you know tons of personal examples but I'm trying not to to protect the guilty you know too.

01:09:31

Okay so those are a bunch of examples of ways that people can hurt the church itself

01:09:38

I guess in closing why don't we talk about. Well the truth though is that you know

01:09:44

Christ will build his church in the gates of hell and will not prevail against it and you can you're not going to destroy like the true church and God's going to get the churches back you know you might.

01:09:52

Right. You know you might like ultimately God's sovereign and he's in control and you know everything happens for a reason but you know his sheep will hear his voice and they'll follow him and you know he's got a building project he's going to finish it so we can rest confidence of him but there are people who seek to do it harm and are you know actively doing everything they can to destroy it.

01:10:17

Hinder the church. Yeah I mean it's funny that you know Julie Roy's you know went on a crusade against MacArthur and now she recently got canceled and he's still going you know so.

01:10:28

Did she get canceled I didn't know that. Yeah I mean she basically told a story in her you know book 2017 book about her basically falling in love with a girl and basically falling in love with a girl that like a college girl that she was ministering to and then you know basically violating all the principles of the me too culture and the way that she blamed the girl for it and everything else and then so now all the you know survivor folks are on her case about it but it's funny

01:11:07

God has his servant's back. Live by the sword die by the sword

01:11:12

I guess. Yeah. Okay so in closing why don't why don't you just walk us through Tim some serious on the other end some well

01:11:24

I was going to say you know like basically yeah like a proper way so you're a church member at a church right you feel like the church has done something you know that's it's hurt your feelings or it's made you upset you feel like you're not valued you feel like you're not heard you know whatever it is you have a you got a problem with something the church did you know you listed a bunch of examples of like what people actually do and and how it can you know hinder the church in certain ways not ultimately obviously but so why don't you just kind of walk us through what should the general you know response be from someone who feels like they are you know hurt by the church in some way.

01:12:24

Sure I mean I guess you have to maybe talk about scenarios that could happen you know

01:12:30

I you know I've been you know I you know I could just talk about myself for a minute but I mean I've been in churches that haven't been precisely biblical you know as far as it goes so most churches are somewhat of a mess man and so like there's like categories of doctrinal error that you have to think through like is this something

01:12:51

I can put up with you know is this something that so like you think in terms of like churches have every church has doctrinal error to some degree and if they knew what it was they'd probably change it for the most part you know but some people are hardened in it and that's the way it goes so you think there's doctrinal error and you know part of what you want to do is you want to go into a church and like learn what they believe about things and prioritize their doctrinal stances on things and you know so like an informed church member is a good church member you go into a church you might want to know on the front end what do they teach and the churches that have better statements of faith that are longer and more comprehensive may help you avoid a lot of that kind of thing

01:13:33

I mean if I were to go to a PCA church or a Presbyterian church of some sort I think that I could go to some but I wouldn't go on some crusade against believer's baptism or infant baptism as an individual who does believer's baptism it just be one of those things where it's just like alright we're on a different planet here can

01:13:50

I overlook this for the sake of broader faithfulness and you know there's probably plenty of Presbyterian churches I'd go closer to than plenty of Baptist churches right so I think part of like how you deal with doctrinal just just things like that is to learn on the front end what are their stances and try to figure out like in your own mind in your own way what are non -negotiables that I see in the

01:14:13

Bible you know and that may be a little bit subjective but you need to know that beforehand what are the non -negotiables for me and have those kind of conversations with leaders like beforehand like so you're not surprised you know about kind of what you're going to find and ask very specific questions and whatever membership process that you have so part of it's that that related to like usefulness a lot of people get like really frustrated with churches because they don't feel like they're being used appropriately okay they can't start their you know puppet ministry can't start their puppet ministry man like what you know puppets are creepy but leave that aside for a minute what is it puppet phobia whatever that is

01:14:55

I have it but no I mean I you know I went to seminary and I you know think

01:15:02

I have a gift of teaching that many older wiser people have affirmed in me and I don't think

01:15:08

I made it up in my own brain you know but if there was a scenario where I was like at a church and I have no way to utilize that gift you know

01:15:18

I can imagine getting restless and thinking to myself man

01:15:23

I think I want to if God will open a door to pursue a place that would allow me to be more useful with that spiritual gift like there's nothing wrong with that but at the same time it's like you can't just like you know you can't like I mean like someone like me like let's say you know

01:15:42

I were to you know our church were to shut down or whatever you know like something like that like terrorists were to bomb the place and everyone dies but me you know

01:15:52

I kind of thing right so you would go on it you you would go on like a John wick kind of imagine that kind of scenario right but imagine that kind of scenario like what would you do

01:16:04

I mean you have to go and just find a faithful church somewhere and they don't know you you know so not the

01:16:10

John wick they don't know you man like they don't know you from anywhere like they don't know you they don't know anything about you you know and like what you say is like hey you know

01:16:23

I've been a pastor at certain places you know I've taught Bible study in certain places like you don't know me

01:16:28

I'm happy to you know be useful if you need anyone at any point you can you know

01:16:33

I'm open to that but I mean like my goodness like you don't just get all frustrated and bent out of the shape and you know angry at them it's just like it like it takes time to build trust and when you put people in positions of authority and leadership and you don't know them very well they can do a lot of harm they can undermine you every week in their lessons like it's just like a mess you don't lay your hands on people hastily the

01:16:58

Bible says so you need to have some sort of realistic expectations about what that looks like and if you're at a place it might be oh sorry keep going

01:17:06

I was gonna say it might be you know a normal response to say like hey wait a minute what do you mean your entire church died and you were leading it you're the only one the lone survivor hang on we've got some questions for you how did you survive and everyone else didn't you know yeah well you see

01:17:26

I had COVID how did the terrorists find you yeah

01:17:32

I tipped them out to it you know but no I mean like you know in that kind of scenario

01:17:38

I'm just trying to say like you know there's times where you just like you feel restless and you feel like you'd like to be more used but you need to pray for that ask

01:17:47

God to open opportunity if God wants you to have opportunities he'll give them to you and ultimately you know that there might be a scenario where you say hey there's a greater opportunity to serve in this other like minded church and there's nothing wrong with taking that but you should be able to do that without all the hard feelings without all the emotional baggage without like you should you should be able to do that in a way that your church leadership thinks like hey we're happy to send you out you're right we don't have a place for you here and like there's a better place you know there's an opportunity here and without it just being just like I'm so mad at you and you know everything else and so like you know that so I talked about like just doctrinal differences like on the front end figure out what you're talking about what you're getting yourself into if there's like if you find out after you're there you know you might do the approach

01:18:34

I did where you talk to the pastor about it you realize it's not going to be something that's changed you know you wait them out for a little bit if it's not very significant if it's just something you don't like you think it's so significant you know that was inappropriate you don't have to cause a bunch of division and be divisive and you know do all that you can just find somewhere else man you know so you know and I'm not trying to say that there's not like a place for public rebuke and all that but you do have to think about where you're at you know with those things too and like so you know so I think there are like if you start noticing someone like shift into doctrinal error you know your pastor's going woke

01:19:18

I think you need to have conversations with him you need to confront them you need to like go Matthew 18 with it you know bring an accusation against it you need like there are steps and ultimately like they refuse to listen to you you know like it's not a priority for the church it might be that you just find somewhere else to go so you know

01:19:37

I think there's a variety of situations like that you know if it's just about like you know ministries that you think should exist and preferences that you have you really do need to go to the

01:19:48

Bible and ask yourself like is this like concern is it a sin issue is it a wisdom issue or is it a preference issue right and I'm not responsible to lead the church if I'm not in that position like is this wisdom is it sin or is it a preference and a lot of people are just making their preferences like these like non -negotiable you better validate it or else and you know a lot of them are even wisdom issues where it's just like hey you know like there's like a lot of different principles in the

01:20:18

Bible that are coming to the head one kind of issue and you might want to hear them out a little bit and not just get you know you know think to yourself that like your opinion about the wisest course of action in any given situation is directly from the mouth of God you know so I mean

01:20:33

I think that there's a there's a lot of different situations you can have but I mean let's say that the church really is in the wrong you know and they're handling things poorly and like this is a you know a real scenario where they're just running a rough shot over everyone and cramming down their throne on biblical ideas you know there you can pray for them you know you know often like with those kind of guys like they go through churches every three years you know because they're church climbers and they're looking to the next one and like you can wait them out too you know so like you don't have to leave right away you can wait them out and you know wait for the next one and see if like the next one's any better you know but you can pray you know there's patience man and praying and praying and praying and you know if you haven't been praying for your church intentionally and specifically about an issue for a long period of time you're probably not going to handle it right.

01:21:28

Right. Right. Well I think that's probably a good place for us to end on I really wanted to get to some good like all right what do we do instead so before we end the episode

01:21:41

Tim is there anything that you've got that maybe we didn't cover or you want to clarify or just expand on a little more?

01:21:48

Sure yeah I you know I think the idea of just to summarize some of the things we talked about there are clearly situations where you know church leaders abuse their authority and abuse their power and sometimes in significant ways and when they do like it's obviously

01:22:06

I think it's obvious that particularly immature believers should be very unsettled by that and you know

01:22:14

I trusted you and I you know thought you're giving me the truth and you know it went wrong and not quite sure what to do with that and so I'm not trying to say that anyone who's remotely unsettled by that or put off by that it's just automatically inherently in the wrong but at the same time we overuse the victim language and we need to like move on to maturity and we need to be other centered and not just be focused and all that and so even in situations where church leaders let you down in a very significant way that you have to understand that God will

01:22:50

God's gonna hold them to account and like a few should become teachers because there's a stricter judgment and that should chill your blood you know and it should free you up from like this like up like this expectation that it's up to you to fix everything it's like sometimes it's not you know then

01:23:08

God's gonna like you know we we we're living in a society right now that demands instantaneous judgment and justice and perfect justice in this life and there's sometimes where you just don't have the information you need and there's sometimes where it's just like you just have to wait

01:23:24

God's gonna like one day every secret of every man's thoughts gonna be revealed and ultimate justice will be done and it may not happen in this life but it will you know happen eventually and you know this is about God's church and God will you know like you know if there are those things they'll come out you know there's a reason why you know

01:23:43

Mars Church Mars Hill imploded the way that it did you know and what was funny is that the reasons that actually imploded at times were not the reasons that you would think a biblical faithful church would be and I mean that's just a funny scenario where it's just like man that church went under for that you know like there's so many other problems and it went under for that and like my goodness you know but like you know nothing that is hidden will not be revealed one day and God God will ultimately justice true justice will be done but the best thing we can do is just you know love the church and you know like there's never a good reason to separate yourself from the church like there's never a good reason there's never a morally justified reason you know the gods composed the body in such a way that each part supplies what's lacking and we're all members of the body and like if you're a lung laying on the ground you're not getting any oxygen you know

01:24:39

I tell people this when they are considering church membership they're like hey you know

01:24:44

I'm just trying to be careful and it's like yeah you know you be careful all day long but like the thing is like if you're a lung laying on the ground and you have a choice between the smoker body and no body right you know what you better take the smoker body because like yeah you'll get cancer with that but you know what you're gonna like decay if you're laying on the ground without any you know blood and arteries and veins and everything else so you're in a worse state like when you're just sitting there apart isolated from the body like that's much worse than being in the smoker body that you're so afraid of you know and like it's not the worst thing in the world to be defrauded and despitefully used and persecuted like it really isn't you know right and if you can't learn to do that in a church setting you're not going to do that in your relationships either you know so like we need to put some kind of perspective on some of this to right it's helpful yeah

01:25:37

I think one thing just kind of thinking back on this conversation one thing that it seems like it's safe to say is it would it would do everyone involved a lot of good if everyone just kind of approached these issues with as much humility as possible and as much thought about the other people involved thought and prayer and towards the other people involved in the situation as possible and I think that's probably for a lot of us in a lot of different ways whether you know at you know past points in our life or maybe even for some listening right now that's that's a good reminder to say hey

01:26:24

I need to go and I need to repent of that no I'm not thinking about the other people I'm only thinking about myself and the wrong that I think

01:26:34

I've experienced so I'm really appreciative of that hopefully that's been helpful for you guys and this is stuff that you can apply not just apply for yourselves but even take what we're talking about and then use that knowledge to minister to the people in your life and it should really it really should lead us to like know well what is a biblical church and go to the

01:26:57

Bible and figure that out like what what what is what am I supposed to be looking for here and what am I you know what are the signs of a biblical church and that should push you into the

01:27:06

Bible there to figure that out not just the expectations you have from you know church shopper culture yeah certainly have you know in order for us to really navigate this well we have to actually know you know what

01:27:20

God expects of a church and what he doesn't expect of a church so that we can align our expectations with his instead of the other way around so hopefully that's been helpful for you guys again we want to thank all of you for taking the time out of your day to listen to us hopefully it's helpful and it equips you guys for the works of ministry we thank you for the support and we look forward to having you guys on the next one this has been another episode of Bible bashed we hope you have been encouraged and blessed through our discussion we thank you for all your support and ask you to continue to like and subscribe to Bible bashed and share our podcast with your friends and on social media please reach out to us with your questions pushback and potential topics for us to discuss in future episodes at Bible bashed podcast at gmail .com

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