Tag: The Relational Spirituality Podcast

A Pathway to Knowing God – Struggling Well |…

August 1, 2023July 24, 2023
by Kep Crabb

Kep has a conversation with his late father’s best friend. James “Trip” Moore tells stories and reflects on the key changing times in his life. And what is most important to him now as he prepares himself for heaven.

Bio:

Trip Moore was born in Oklahoma in 1951. He heard the gospel and was converted in the summer of 1971 while attending summer school at Oklahoma University. He spent the next few years of his Christian life in a campus church in Greeley, Colorado. In the summer of 1973, encouraged by friends to broaden his vision, he went on a summer-long missionary trip with Operation Mobilization. It was during that summer that Trip experienced Quebec City, a city of about 700,000 people at the time with only 3 evangelical churches of about 30 members each. And several year later Quebec City became his home for the next 35 years.

Trip received a Bachelor’s degree in French and Psychology at the University of Northern Colorado, did advanced studies in French at Université Laval and completed a Master’s degree in counseling under Larry Crabb at Grace Theological Seminary in Indiana. In the years that followed his internship under Larry Crabb, Trip worked in collaboration with him in various projects, the most recent being The School of Spiritual Direction.

Trip has been married to his wife Judy since 1977. They are parents of 3 grown daughters and the grandparents of 7 grandchildren.

Trip is the founder and director of La Clairière Publishing house, established in 1993, where he published dozens of Christian books in French with the aim of promoting spiritual growth of individuals and churches in Europe and the province of Québec. Along with books by Larry Crabb, he has published many important authors in French, including John Stott, Eugene Peterson, Alister McGrath, John Piper, Hugh Ross, Dan Allender, Ray Bakke, Darrel Johnson, Glen Scrivener, Peter Kreeft, Donald Fairbairn, Michael Reeves, and a variety of French-speaking authors.

Trip and Judy returned to Quebec in March 2017 after almost 9 years in Belgium as missionaries. In this role, Trip served as a pastor, counselor, and lecturer in the context of many Belgian churches as well as in Germany, the Netherlands, France, and Switzerland.

Links:

SoulTalk

Reading & Relating book club

The SoulCare Experience Study

Transcript

[00:00:28] Kep Crabb: Welcome everybody to Larger Story’s podcast, Relational Spirituality, where you can belong, you can become, and you can be known. I’m your host, Kep Crabb, and I’m joined today by a good friend who I’ve known for a long time, who most would say was my father’s best friend. Trip Moore is joining me today. Trip, thanks for joining me brother.

[00:00:51] James “Trip” Moore: Good to be here.

[00:00:53] Kep Crabb: It’s good to see you. I love to have these conversations because in the last few years since dad’s been gone, you and I have had a few conversations that have been really impacting me. I think a lot of what we’re trying to do with these podcasts is, what does it look like to talk to someone in a way that allows the Spirit in you and the Spirit in me to connect where we really do have some change?

You’re a person who actually has been through the SSD how many times Trip?

[00:01:19] James “Trip” Moore: I’d have to go back and count, but I think the first 50 some odd? There were four years.

[00:01:29] Kep Crabb: You sat in on all that material with dad. I know some of you people who are watching probably don’t know what we’re talking about.

When I say the SSD, it’s actually the School of Spiritual Direction, which was put on by my father Larry Crabb years ago. He did, I think, 77 or 78 schools. That also then transformed into a next step school. This was a week-long, intense time of community. Trip, you were involved with, you said, the first 50 plus.

Tell me about what it was like being a part of that.

[00:02:01] James “Trip” Moore: It was one of the most life-changing things in my life, it had a whole impact on where I’m at today. It was fun because I got to be there when we were starting to plan how to do it and when to do it. Larry wrote this manual, spent a lot of time, went to Florida and worked on that.

I think the neat thing is that we never had to adjust anything from what we came up with for all those years. The pattern, the program we put out there. There were usually a maximum of 20. We cheated some and added a few more at some points, but it was exceptional. It just launched into something so exciting. Many came back over the years and repeated it. Tons of them went to the next step. It was a life changing weekend.

We were very aware from the beginning, this is something God is doing. This isn’t something we’re pulling off. But it was exciting to be there every time because we knew we’d seen it happen, what God would do in different people’s lives.

[00:03:11] Kep Crabb: I remember chatting with Dad probably after the first, I don’t know, 30 or 40 of them, and you guys would be having lunch after the week long event. I would always say to him, how was it? He said it was the best one ever, every single time. Every single time. It was just one of those things. He would often say about the schools of spiritual direction, those were the most ordained things that he was ever a part of or ever had a chance to think through.

It’s so fun to chat with you because I’m wondering, how are you different, bro? How are you different after having sat through 50 plus of those?

[00:03:45] James “Trip” Moore: I’ll tell you. I have to admit that it has totally radicalized my life. It makes it somewhat uncomfortable because I sat there for the first one and the first time he breaks out the seven questions of spiritual and scripture theology. I listened and I followed along; oh yeah, that makes sense. Who is God? It was relational and it became a story as opposed to systematic theology where it’s cutting the truth into little pieces.

Had I gone away after a week, I am pretty sure I would be nowhere close to where I am today, because I got it and I thought, that’s neat, that’s clever, that makes sense. The questions God has chosen to respond to as opposed to the questions we’re asking. As the decades went on, I started realizing that this is a pathway to God’s heart. This is really exciting stuff. At one point we had all the elders from our church go one at a time to those schools in Colorado. Again, just the one week by itself, it’s great, it’s wonderful, but even Dallas Seminary had him do it and put it into a very short thing and then put a booklet out that they sent to every grad from their program over the years.

I think the first question caught my attention the most. Who is God? We’d say we’re Trinitarian, but we don’t live as if we’re Trinitarian. I can’t remember his name, Heimer or something. He said if the Holy Spirit didn’t exist, that would probably change very little of any of our church services on Sunday.

The fun thing is that first book Larry got me into reading was The Communion with God by John Owen back in the 1600s. It’s this thick book in old English, but I was able to pick it up along the way. That consumed me for a number of years. Just this the relational aspect of the Trinity. I have to admit that in the last few years, the second question, the one that’s really gripping me, is, what is God up to, where’s that passion that is in Him moving us toward? What is this goal that He’s pursuing, that I really come to believe that I don’t think many Christians have any idea what it is.

I don’t want to sound pretentious, it’s just that I’ve sat on it for so long and the Lord has opened up scriptures in a way that has just revealed that this is the central passion of His heart. It’s what’s behind the whole thing. We, his kids, don’t understand and see that we’re missing the best part of it because that means meeting him at the level of his heart’s passion. I think he wants us to share that.

[00:06:30] Kep Crabb: Yeah. Trip, I’ve known you for 30 plus years. You and I had a chance to work together with New Way Ministries for different conferences and different things that we were creating and doing. I think that in looking at you now and some of the conversations that we’ve had in the last couple of years, even since Dad’s been gone, you just have a real gentle tenderness to you. I know there’s this real change in respect to what’s going on, how you relate to people seems better.

[00:07:02] James “Trip” Moore: Something’s different. My flesh is still my flesh and when it comes out, it isn’t pretty.

[00:07:07] Kep Crabb: It never is, right?

[00:07:10] James “Trip” Moore: No, it never is. Some people like to define me by that and hold onto that, but I’ve seen it change. The Lord is winning my heart in a way that’s hard to put words to it. It just has a tenderness to it and depth.

[00:07:26] Kep Crabb: I see it, bro. I see it. It’s funny because I think as you get older, you sometimes tend to go a couple of different ways. With you, the tenderness comes out. I think I saw some of that in Dad as well. He was just really more focused. I think the one thing that I’m really starting to take away from Pop’s death was the whole thought of what’s happening after this life.

You and I talked at one point, I remember we were having dinner – I think this was last March – and I said to you, how can we take what you know and give it to someone my age? A mid 50 year old guy from a mid 70 year old guy? And then how can I take that and give it to someone who’s 35 years old or maybe 25 years old? You said, I don’t know if it’s possible because it just requires experience.

[00:08:17] James “Trip” Moore: What I’d say now in response to what you’re saying just popped into my head. I do think it’s possible. God even planned and predestined a context where this would become what moves us and drives us. It’s called the local church. The problem is that in the local church, we don’t have much of an idea of what He’s up to. We’re not seeing what I think the seven questions reveal very clearly.

There was a local church that started in Winona Lake, Indiana about the year that I was leaving to go back to Canada after the masters and the internship. This was a church that was built on these seven questions. At high school graduation, the graduates could get up and talk for an hour about any one of the seven questions. Not only did they have it in their heads, but it was being lived out. I was always so frustrated because I said it looked so good on paper. I love Ephesians. It looks so good on paper. We’ve never seen it lived out. When we were back on the sabbatical from our mission in Belgium, we spent six weeks with them, and it was being lived out. And I said, there it is. There’s Ephesians off the page. It was so exciting. I’m just so glad I have at least one experience, and maybe the Lord would say that you should see all the millions of places I’m doing that, but I know a whole lot of places that aren’t because I traveled with your dad and we visited cities from Alaska to Florida churches.

[00:09:53] Kep Crabb: To Europe, everywhere.

[00:09:54] James “Trip” Moore: I do think it’s the best kept secret and the devil is succeeding at keeping it, because all the other stuff is really nice. But without understanding the relational aspect, and especially the goal we are moving towards, how can we passionately involve ourselves in our project when we don’t really even know what it is? If we simply think it’s getting into heaven and preserving our ticket, which is well preserved, you know what I’m saying?

[00:10:20] Kep Crabb: Unpack that more. You talk about the goal, the desire of relationality. Now what do you think in respect to that?

[00:10:26] James “Trip” Moore: It comes back to the whole idea of wanting to see us become little Christ’s, wanting to see Christ formed in us and to see that lived out. The beauty of the Son is expanded in reality and will be fully expanded in eternity by the way we relate in love and express who He is. But that does not happen by magic. This is the glory part; I’ve always said there are the heights and the depths of this story, and the heights are what God is shooting for and the depths of what we are as we walk into this story by the fall. I do believe that there’s a supernatural power in what God conceives of how Christians are supposed to be transformed in the local church. The methods that most local churches take is not that method. It’s not that path. It’s very different. I think it’s getting caught up with, and also it means you have to face the ugliness of your natural man, the way you’ve learned to survive without God, which is what every man and woman comes into this world with. We’ve found ways to survive by either being really nice or being really mean. To a degree we don’t see that you can’t put to death, like Paul says in Romans eight, the deeds of the flesh. Oftentimes they’ve almost become Christianized. I’m fortunate enough that my snub is so blatant it could never fit into the church and I’m glad, because it forced me to say, what am I going to do with this? There’s something contrary in me that’s powerful.

[00:11:56] Kep Crabb: Just off the top of your head, what would you say Judy would say in terms of how you’re different now? She’s watched the whole process. I know when you and Dad first met, it was under the auspice of him counseling you and Judy in some pretty deep waters and marital struggles.

[00:12:20] James “Trip” Moore: We’d been married for a year and a half, separated for six months and had no hope. I think she sees something that’s competing with my flesh. When you get caught up with what the Lord’s future goal is, and it involves what He’s making us into, when we get caught up in that, there is something that begins to compete with the ugliness of the flesh no matter how strong it is. I think she sees me in that process. When the ugliness comes out, it’s consistent, right up to the end, the flesh is always ugly and self-centered. “Oh wait, God, I got this plan.” I think she’d see something, I see a tenderness in her in my regard that is growing, which I really enjoy and appreciate too.

[00:13:15] Kep Crabb: Tell me what you miss most about Dad being gone.

[00:13:17] James “Trip” Moore: It’s a strange thing. You said you imagined what he’s doing. My images ever since the day he died – I worked in a bank. My family had banks, and so we had these big vaults. At the end of the day, you’d shut them and put the timer on – it almost felt like the big vault door closed. It’s impenetrable and it’s metal and it’s thick. I assume he is having a good time.

We just stimulated each other like he did with so many other of our friends. The Owens book launched us into something, then it spread through Kent and all these other people. We were thinking and throwing thoughts in, and then we got more into the whole idea of, what does the change process look like? I’m finding myself rambling now. I’m losing my train of thought.

[00:14:12] Kep Crabb: That’s okay, man. As you think about Dad, I was talking to someone the other day and I just was thinking, what do you miss? Not most, I don’t think that’s a fair question, but what do you miss?

I love your thought too of, what is he doing now? I’ve got to be honest with you, bro, I think about that all the time. What is Dad doing right now?

[00:14:30] James “Trip” Moore: See, I can’t go anywhere with that.

[00:14:32] Kep Crabb: I can’t go anywhere with it either, but it just excites me to think that he’s doing something. Oh, he’s chatting with Paul, he’s chatting with Jesus. He’s chatting with his dad, his brother, different people.

[00:14:40] James “Trip” Moore: I’d like to be able to go there more, it’s exactly what’s happening. One of his favorite statements was, nothing transforms us more than looking bad in the presence of love, which is what grace is, what the gospel is. I have never tasted that anywhere in the way I tasted it with your dad. We both had, we both have secrets that we’ve never told anyone else, and we both bear each other’s secrets.

This is a funny story, but he had a quick mind and he could see stuff. He was very quick and he could pick stuff up in about five seconds, to the degree that one time when we were having one of the SSDs at the school, there were a bunch of professors from Seminary, The Grace. These were good friends, Smith and I can’t remember the other one. They took him out for lunch and called him out on the fact that he was depending a whole lot on his clever mind to see things and picking up and maybe enjoying it a little too much. It was a powerful tool, but it was also effective because he did see clearly and he had a whole lot of change. I remember once we were having a conversation, I remember I was sitting in my old house and he started off in a direction. I said, Larry, you just put your white coat on. He said, you’re right.

It was deeper than his quick mind. The Lord used his mind, but also his heart and his honesty before God. That guy struggled before God in ways I think very few people do, partly because he was really messed up more than people knew.

See that’s the good part. Us messed up. We all are, but not everybody knows it. A whole lot of Christians. We were raised well. We learned how to live. We had this culture. I didn’t have that. I shouldn’t say that publicly, but I was really glad I wasn’t raised in a Christian home; partly because my home was so crazy that if they’d mixed God into that, I probably would have had to push Him out with all of that.

[00:17:01] Kep Crabb: I get you. Yeah. Knowing some of your backstory,

[00:17:03] James “Trip” Moore: I think that being messed up in ways that you cannot mask or get rid of it is an advantage. Your dad was like that. No one would’ve thought that, but it’s true. He was messed up too. But he got into the relational details. It wasn’t just the big messed upness, so it was a privilege to see the truth that was being taught, lived out in the relationship. We had moments where we would be yelling at each other. Those were rare moments where I’d just break into tears because I thought he was mad at me or something. It was a gift. Your question is what’s it like? It’s just boom, it’s gone. I’m looking forward to reconnecting.

[00:17:49] Kep Crabb: I bet you are, man. Some of the stories you tell me remind me of stories. Some of you watching today know the ones where Dad, even as a young counselor, used to be called Zoro because he would just get in there and just tear people up. He would say, I’d think of 10 things to say to this person and I’d say 11 of them. Yeah. Then in later years, he would say, I would think of 10 things to say and I might say one. I remember hearing that and that really impacted me. What does it mean to really listen well? I think that’s something Trip that you’ve been able to do better through having experienced the SSDs over and over again as you sat with people as a spiritual director who was being paid to listen well. It becomes like what you and I have said before, and this is what I want to get at, is how does it become part of you like that? Because now it’s becoming part of who you are. Like you said, Judy can really see that flesh-spirit battle going on because the Spirit is fighting. The flesh is fighting too, but the Spirit’s going to win this one.

As we think about what Dad did, and going through 50 times, how do you listen better?

[00:19:10] James “Trip” Moore: You discover the inner workings that are going on in the flesh. If you cannot understand, see the flesh, because this whole idea that the pastor is a really good preacher who walks off the stage so full every Sunday and has nothing to do with God is because of his flesh. It’s not always his flesh, but it’s that subtlety there. I saw your dad go into that subtlety, and I’m going into it too. He always used to say, your big ugly battles aren’t your worst problem. In other words, if you struggle with different things, pornography or whatever, that’s not your worst problem. It’s much more relational. It’s much more, what is going on with you and your closest relationship with your wife? To see that fleshed out. I was a privileged man to be able to see his foibles. He probably saw I had a few foibles too.

[00:20:10] Kep Crabb: I saw some of the foibles and he was instrumental in getting some of the foibles out of my life. Having him as a father was pretty special, man. I look back and just, I miss him every day. It’s amazing what his life has done to my life. Now, I think I’ve said this to you before Trip, but I think since he’s passed, I think I know him better. I’m understanding things a little bit better in terms of seeing things for what they are, because he was so not into this world. He really wasn’t. You remember his big catchphrase for the last, probably 10 years of his life, but certainly the last five intensely was, I don’t care. He would say, how was the football game? I don’t care. He just was totally immersed in what’s happening now in his life.

[00:20:58] James “Trip” Moore: And more heavenly minded. It’s so true. He almost couldn’t enjoy it. I can enjoy certain things, like we did a two hour bus line ride in London in one of those red buses. First of all, he didn’t know it was going to be that long. He wasn’t very happy about that. But as he watched people along the streets, he ended up almost in a ball of a burden for the fallen and people.

[00:21:21] Kep Crabb: He had a heart for people and he had a gift. I think what you felt around him was that you felt safe. He had that gift of making you feel safe. I would hear stories of him driving from a speaking engagement in a car with the driver who didn’t even know him. And at the end of the ride, this driver had poured out his entire life to Dad, and Dad was talking to him about what it means to live life like Jesus. It was just amazing. His life was so impactful and I think the hope that I have and that we can all have is, he had the same Holy Spirit that we have in us. He just was a willing vessel to move into those things. He had some gifting too, no question.

[00:22:04] James “Trip” Moore: His gifting, and he had a father and a background that formed him in many ways. One of the advantages of the friendship I had is that had he been my counselor, there are certain things I never would’ve learned about him. There are certain sides of his fallenness that I never would’ve tasted. He wouldn’t have gone off on me in a counseling session probably, but having had him as a friend, that’s a different deal. We had stories both ways. We were walking down a street in Chicago with our wives behind us and we were just yelling at each other. We learned grace through each other too.

[00:22:41] Kep Crabb: You knew that no matter what you said, nothing was going to change how you felt about each other.

[00:22:45] James “Trip” Moore: It took a while because I remember walking down in Chicago, and I remember as we walked in, I said, that’s not going to ruin our relationship. That level is where I realized there was something so solid there. We’ve had many more and other big discussions along the way, but those become very useful too, in a lot of different ways.

I do think that now with your dad and what he puts out there, I really am stuck in the second question. I’m really convinced to the degree that if we can’t answer the second question, you can’t do any of the other stuff. The second question is, what globally ultimately is God shooting for? He created man, and we’re in the church, and He paid the price to bring us back when we flipped Him off. I really think to the degree that we don’t have an understanding of God’s deepest passion of where He is headed. This is one of the challenges. Peter says in first Peter, put all your hope in the glory that will be revealed when Christ comes back. Ask somebody to sit down and write a paper on the glory that will be revealed when Christ comes back. Most of us wouldn’t have much to say.

I’m starting to realize there’s a whole lot to say that the mystery revealed, which is also the hope that we’re supposed to be stirred by, is supposed to be the key motivating and directing thing. And we’re just not. Very few leaders are. I find it very discouraging because we found a Christian model of a church, of how it works without seeing the deeper thing, and it keeps us from entering into the battle in each other’s lives where we become allies.

[00:24:30] Kep Crabb: You’re hitting on so many big points Trip, but one of the biggest I think is the whole notion of the second coming. It seems to me that oftentimes churches are so focused on how to make this life work now. You realize that you have very little control of what really is happening. I guess my question too would be, why is it? Is it through such deep waters and pain and suffering that you really get to know the Lord at a different level? Why does that seem to be the only way in scripture and now in my own personal experience?

[00:25:04] James “Trip” Moore: Maybe because the only way we can move forward is through brokenness and repentance, which requires something to happen that makes us there. It’s not something you can turn on. Your dad was very sensitive to his sins and was easily broken. He was aware of the category and made it real. I think that’s a big part of it. \

[00:25:27] Kep Crabb: How do we keep heaven on the forefront of our mind?

That’s been my biggest focus, man. That’s one of the ways I think about Dad and what he’s up to, what is he doing? Who’s he talking with? It just makes me think that there’s something beyond this that’s way better. It’s so hard to grasp that even as a middle aged man.

[00:25:49] James “Trip” Moore: I think it’s a situation of what we’re supposed to be about now. We don’t have to deal with this now, we can just hope for this. I think they’re very connected and what God is wanting us to be moving towards as believers in local communities. Living in a way so that as we are moving, we’re becoming more heaven minded. We’re becoming more Christlike.. Here’s the deal. It involves awakening our awareness of hope. He says, put all your hope. If you don’t know what it is, you can’t live according to something. You don’t know what it is. We don’t know what it is. So it’s not just His coming back, it’s what is He shooting for? That will be the culmination of. what is this hope that’s supposed to be driving this?

Ephesians and Colossians especially catch my attention these days. It sees the hope of glory. Remember in Ephesians one, at the end, three times it says, to the hope of His glory. To the hope of his glory. To the hope of his glory. Something like that. I don’t know about you, but when you talk about glory, I know that it’s good, but it just didn’t have much content to it. I’ve come to realize, the glory that He’s shooting for is tied to what we are supposedly in the process of becoming.

Glory’s a hard word to understand. Is it flashing lights? Is it intimidation? I think two key aspects of glory are, the glory is the Lord’s pleasure and His beauty. He’s wanting to see His glory increased, so He wants to see His pleasure increased and His beauty increased, and He has chosen to do it through his children as He sees us transferred more and more to the image. He’ll say, I see my son in you Kep Crabb, more than I’ve seen Him before and I love that smell.

I think that we are supposed to live in a way where we start getting the poor taste with each other and know how to pull it out. That’s called church life. That makes crossing the line more exciting, not just, oh good, we’re done with that hard life. I think that’s the part we’re missing. It does require the church functioning in a certain way to happen. It’s not by magic. That’s why Paul says, everything I do is towards that goal to see my people become more and more like Him, where the beauty of Christ in us becomes more and more manifest and challenges the ugliness of the flesh and knocks it aside more and more. It won’t be dead until we cross the line.

[00:28:39] Kep Crabb: That’s when you get to experience your full weight of glory.

[00:28:42] James “Trip” Moore: Yeah. Your full weight of glory. And to get excited about it. One of the things your dad did and talked about was having a vision for each other and imagining what Christ might want to be doing in my brother or sister’s life. If you know their flesh, you’re going to say, we’ll have to see that put to death some. But that’s how we become real allies, not just little Christiany things that we throw around, “trust God” or “it’s a process” and “it’s in the trenches.”

I’m most broken hearted because I have not seen it much anywhere. It goes into counseling sessions, which I’m not against, but the church has something that’s so much more complete than what God intended. I’m not against counseling at all. I was a counselor for 10 years.

I read through the New Testament and I started discovering that the link between the word inheritance, which is supposed to be a tantalizing word, and hope, and they’re the same thing. You see it in first Peter, you see it in Ephesians. Our hope is based on our inheritance. So as soon as you think of inheritance, if you don’t have any idea what it is, you cannot get excited about it. It’s not just the relief of this horrible burden down here, it’s bigger and better than that. It’s actually becoming more and more right now, a person where, still in the process, down in the fallen earth and with our flesh, the Lord can look down and say, wow, I just got a whiff of my son from Kep that I’ve not gotten from anywhere else. The beauty of my son and Him is starting to eek out already. I think he enjoys that. That’s the whole idea, he says that we are like a sweet aroma to him. Even in our mixed state, even in the middle of the process. Imagine if we could actually be that for each other. Yeah, I see your sin, but I know that’s not the worst stuff going on in you and I can call you in, you know what I’m saying? That used to be true and it’s so rare.

[00:30:56] Kep Crabb: But it’s so sweet. He used to say when we had moments like that, I think we brought the Lord some pleasure today. That just makes you think a little differently. You talk about how he had a father that was someone who poured into him, the father I had who poured into me. He also had a chance to pour into you in a way that was different because you were his peer, his friend. You’re a treasure trove of stuff and I just love just getting to chat with you about these things.

I guess the one question I want to ask is, it seems that the race that we’re running that Paul talks about, it gets harder. That’s why I think that the focus becomes how do you finish well. We saw Dad finish. We’re in the process of producing some more books and we’re entitling those “the finishing project” because we had a chance to see that. What scares you the most as you get older?

[00:31:48] James “Trip” Moore: A month before your dad died we spent a week with your mom and dad. I have to admit, your dad was in a state that I’d never seen him in. Almost dead, dying, and it was interesting. One of the most other centered things is he really was scrambling to get things so that it would be easier on your mom once he was gone, and that’s very other centered.

[00:32:23] Kep Crabb: He loved his ladybug. He cared about that one.

[00:32:26] James “Trip” Moore: He was very reduced, which is your dad – he was hardly ever reduced in one sense, even with his illness over the years – so he was having a really hard time; looking for the title of this car he wanted to give to your wife. He was on the edge, so it didn’t bring the best out of him. I took him out for breakfast. We always went out for breakfast. The interesting story is when I was there, we’d go out and he still wanted to walk on his own, so I’d get in front of him in case he fell. I guess the week after that they had him in a walker, either your brother or you, and then the week after that he was in a wheelchair. And then after that there were no more breakfasts.

[00:33:03] Kep Crabb: The week I was there, two weeks before he passed, he was occasionally using a walker but just didn’t want to, and walking very unsteadily on some neuropic feet. I remember picking him up and getting him off the chair and he said, I’m going to fall. I’m like, no, you’re not going to fall. But he refused to use the wheelchair. One thing we really enjoyed was going to the grocery store because he’d grabbed the grocery cart and that worked out really well for him. Just go slow pushing the grocery cart. We’re not in any hurry; up and down the rows getting a few things.

One of the blessings in respect to dad was, I got a chance to see him a few weeks before he passed. The day he died, I was flying out to see him. I got that call that morning. You may remember when I spoke at the memorial service but the thing that I still remember is how this guy finished. I’m so grateful he finished fast. Didn’t hang on. He was so to leave this world. Here’s the one story that I think is really interesting is the hospice nurse who was working with dad. My brother asked the question of this person and said you’ve been around many people that have been dying and for years and how many people would you say that have a complete confidence in where they’re going when they die? And she said, and this is a sad statement, but she said, your father and one other. Two people. Oh my goodness. I don’t want to be that. I want to have a confidence that I know I’m going to be with Jesus. That’s the only thing that would make dad start to cry. He would start to weep when he’d say, I’m going to be with Jesus soon.

[00:34:45] James “Trip” Moore: I know. And that was not just religious weirdness. That was something that developed over the years. I’m starting now to get a glimpse of what he saw, and it excites me. It’s something so relational and so tender and something real. That’s so true of your dad and I’m so glad he was on the fast lane. That he didn’t linger. He chose not to linger. He said, cut me off from all the nonsense.

[00:35:14] Kep Crabb: Oh yeah, shut me down. I’m ready to go. He went quickly. The cancer overtook him pretty quickly.

[00:35:21] James “Trip” Moore: One thing I’d add too is that I do think that, there is a certain sense that says, as long as we’re in these bodies, we groan, burdened. That’s part of the walk of being half glorified and half fallen down here. He even says in 2 Corinthians 4:5 I think he says, we’re longing to get into the glorified state. We can’t wait for that to happen. I think the other side is a legitimate desire, but I think your dad’s was more; he was getting a sweet taste of fellowship with the Lord and he wanted to enter into it fully. That’s a different motivation and they’re both good. That was taking him over and it was fun to see.

[00:36:02] Kep Crabb: It really was. He had one foot in the next life for sure.

[00:36:05] James “Trip” Moore: It made him almost hard to reach at that point. It was probably a mixture of the sickness and all too, but the time we were there was not the time of real good exchanges, but you could just see that the guy was packing his bags and getting close to the door and it was good.

One thing, so it’s funny, he’d never seen The Chosen and so we worked to find a way to put it on the screen and watched a few things and he really enjoyed that just before we got to see the real story.

[00:36:35] Kep Crabb: So there’s a few little things that he really enjoyed towards the end of his life, he liked listening to Alan Jackson sing old hymns.

[00:36:42] James “Trip” Moore: We’d sing that in the car all the time. I have two things in my car too.

[00:36:48] Kep Crabb: Yeah, Kenny was always there. I guess doing a John Piper podcast where he would hear some things and dad enjoyed listening to some of those things occasionally.

It was just fun to see this guy finish. You’re going to get a chance to see him perhaps before me, I’m jealous of you for that for sure.

[00:37:07] James “Trip” Moore: There’s a legacy and it’s very profound. I’m starting to realize to what degree it’s profound because I just don’t see it coming out of very many other people that stand out in the Christian world today. I think he’s tapping into some of the questions, just by making the Trinity – well not that he did it – but he jumped on the bandwagon where the Trinity was coming back, which is the big central beginning point. He did that, but he did go further. He really did. That’s a part that helps us understand how much God wants us to share in the passion of the plan that He created before the creation of the Earth that involves us. He wants us to know what it is and get excited about it, but we’re not.

[00:37:49] Kep Crabb: Trip, something you said at the summit during your time that I had a chance to sit in on stuck with me, and it’s something I’ve used now many times.

Dad is no longer living with faith or with hope. All he’s living with is love because love is the end of the day. Love conquers all.

I love you man, and I’m so grateful to have you in my life and I want to continue to have these conversations with you. These are the kind of things that I’d love to get a chance just to share with people because you’ve gotten something that few, if any, have ever had: a chance to sit in and listen to this teaching over and over again to where it just – like you said, the first time you heard it, it was like, oh, that’s clever and that makes sense, and I’ll chew on that for a little bit. Then the second time it was like, oh, but by the 50th time it’s wow, that’s life changing truth and your life is an example of it.

I think my life is an example of it. We just want to continue to use you as much as you’ll be willing to be used, because what we’re doing with Larger Story is really to use Dad’s statement, what does it mean to put Jesus on display by how we relate to everyone we meet? To our wives, to our friends, to our colleagues, to our acquaintances that we pass. What does it mean to do that? That’s something that I think is something that you have more of a handle on in respect to where you are at. I just want to see if we can get as much outta you before you go see Dad and Jesus.

[00:39:15] James “Trip” Moore: I appreciate that and as long as I’m around, I’m certainly willing to contribute. There were others, Mary Beth and I were together for that whole first long period. Then Kent and Carla, and then what’s her name from Texas, Sonya and others now. The people that came back, some of them had to be wealthy people, but they’d come back on the regular and I’m sure that helped them along the way too.

[00:39:42] Kep Crabb: Just to finish with you, here’s something that you might be interested in just to finish as we wrap up. We captured the video series, the cross to the coming where, we did a 2020 series of dad basically unpacking all of the seven questions. The first course that we’re developing now with Larger Story will be the first two questions. We’re in the process of developing that now. But here’s what we’re going to try to do, and this was one of the things that I think that Dad wanted to do when we captured that video of all the teaching in that it was designed at one point to be able to continue to do something like the schools of spiritual direction.

I don’t think we’ll ever be able to do anything like what you and Dad had put together, and I don’t think we want to, but to take what we do now and what we can offer in this teaching and some facilitation to it and take it to actual communities. Instead of you coming to us, we’ll come to you and now we get a chance just to walk with you guys through this. That’s the beginning of the process as we partner with these communities and churches and organizations. That’s really one of our strategic designs of Larger Story in the next few years because you hit on it, how do we get a chance to work with the church?

[00:40:53] James “Trip” Moore: That’s where it’s got to get back into the churches. I think that’s wonderful. I’m so glad to hear that. I’m excited by that.

[00:41:02] Kep Crabb: As we wrap up, bro, you and I are going to talk about this a lot because I want to pick your mind as we start to put this together. What does that look like? It obviously won’t be what the schools of spiritual direction were from a week standpoint, but maybe something a little more condensed. It gives people a chance. What we’ve also wrestled with is perhaps it’s something that we do in stages, maybe a weekend, three or four times and see how that goes. So you get a little chance to absorb some of this stuff as opposed to what you and Dad did was really sitting down and drinking from the fire hydrant. People would leave with this overwhelmed look in their eyes of, what just happened to me this week. But it was powerful because the power of the Holy Spirit is real man, and I’ve seen it in your life and I’m seeing it in my life, and I definitely saw it in my dad’s life. Trip, thanks for joining me today, bro.

Anything you want to say as we get ready to wrap up?

[00:41:52] James “Trip” Moore: Nope. It’s a privilege to talk with you. I’ve enjoyed every time we get to talk and I hope we continue. It’s fun whether we’re online or not.

[00:41:59] Kep Crabb: Whether anybody can join us or not, it doesn’t matter. You and I will continue to talk, my brother.

[00:42:07] James “Trip” Moore:Okay, sounds good.

[00:42:08] Kep Crabb: I love you Trip. Have a great day. Say hi to Judy for us.

[00:42:10] James “Trip” Moore: Bye-bye.

[00:42:12] Kep Crabb: Thanks, bro

Message

Counseling From the Other Side: A Look Into the…

July 25, 2023July 20, 2023
by Larger Story

A SOULTALK conversation with 2 counselors who have been counseling for many years. We chat about what goes on inside a counselor as they work with people. What do you do when you don’t feel the Spirit’s guidance and don’t have any place to go? How has this profession impacted your personal lives?

Bio:

Brian Fast : Dr. Brian L. Fast, PsyD, is a Licensed Psychologist in New York state, graduate of the University of California, San Diego and the Rosemead Graduate School at Biola University. He served as President and Clinical Director of CCAHope from 1986-2022 with specialized training and experience in short-term dynamic psychotherapy and an evangelical model of spiritual direction. He continues to serve part-time at CCAHope as a counselor and spiritual director. Special interests include marital counseling; growing men’s relational understanding and courage to husband and father well; and offering spiritual direction to individuals at all levels including pastors and ministry couples.

Tom Board: Tom Board graduated from the University of Illinois in Civil Engineering and became a Christian through the Navigator ministry there. In 1989 he received a MA in Biblical Counseling from Grace Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana. He served the Navigators for 46 years as a staff trainer and counselor. Tom has been in private practice since 1990 in the Denver area. His personal life and his thinking about change occurring in the lives of people has been most influenced by the 21 years he and Jenny were privileged to be in an intentional spiritual group with Larry and Rachael Crabb.

Links:

SoulTalk

Reading & Relating book club

The SoulCare Experience Study

Transcript

Kep Crabb: Welcome to Relational Spirituality, a Larger Story podcast. I’m your host, Kep Crabb. In this quarter of Relational Spirituality, we’re going to be discussing themes and topics from the book, SoulTalk. So today, without any further ado, we want to dive into part two of our conversation from last week with two seasoned counselors, Tom Board and Brian Fast. So here we are with part two, counseling from the other side, a look into the mind of a counselor.

Kep Crabb: That was one of Dad’s favorite passages and the focus of that is the stirring up. What do we do now as we stir up each other. Tom, I’m interested to know with you and Jenny, obviously you’re not in a small group with Mom and Dad anymore. If you are, I’d like to sit in on that one with you for a while.

What are you guys doing for community now? I know all of us, and I know all of our stories a little bit, we’ve all had challenges with church and some maybe more severe than others but nonetheless challenges.

As you were talking, Brian, about the groups, I’m in a men’s group with two other guys that are 75 years old. I’m the junior by 20 years and getting a chance to journey with these guys has been really interesting for me. Obviously, I have the group with you, and I get a chance to do this with Rosanne all the time and talk with people in a deep way.

Tom, what are you doing? What are you and Jenny doing now for community in respect to some of that kind of stuff?

Tom Board: To put it in a context of just how we think about it, it goes back to your other question: what goes on for us when I’m working at my office, I’m coming home to be with my kids, my family, whatever it was.

Probably one of the things that has struck me over the years is that I have an opportunity all day long to be in relationship with people that the Spirit brings into my path. The difficulty is that all day long and every day I’m in different places internally, and that’s one of the things that I’ve had to get very comfortable with.

I think Jenny and I – this is going to lead into answering your question Kep – is that when we’re around people, sometimes people – that could be my wife, my kids, my friends, clients – they could be needing a million dollars from me internally, and I have maybe 20 bucks in my pocket. That’s all I have. Having learned a bit in this journey, it’s been very painful to learn this thing because I’m like Brian. As I mentioned before, I like to be competent. So to feel the incompetency and inadequacy in myself is always a temptation to try to manage the space.

What I’ve tried to learn to do is learn how to give my $20; how to give whatever it is that I have freely to those that are in front of me and who I’m with. That has been a very freeing thing relationally for us. Jenny and I are in that place that it’s not just about being in a particular community, though. We do have relationships with people. We’re part of a church, but it’s more of a mindset that we have when we’re ever around anybody. To try to ask the question, what is it that I have to offer and what can I give? It’s more blessed to give than it is to receive that very deep thought.

I go for developing community, even in our spiritual formation group. It took about five or six years to get really comfortable that we weren’t measuring ourselves or being overly self conscious about what’s going on inside to really just give what we could give, and if it wasn’t going anywhere to relax with that and to get very comfortable with ourselves in a place where we’re trying to actually listen to what’s going on inside of us. That’s how I’d respond to it because I think it fits together as far as just the whole way we look at relating.

We’ve got about five or six couples and we’re not in a formation group where we just have five or six couples that we’re just close to. These are people that are around the country that we can just talk to at any time. And we do. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to replicate what we had with Larry, that’s just not going to happen. He brought a certain sense to that, but I think each of us that are in the group we know that we have something to offer to the people that we relate with, so we just try to give that.

Church is a little different. We have a few people at church, the pastor and the executive pastor and some other people in the church, are journeyers, and so they are messy people, and we can relate at a messy level, which just opens all sorts of doors to really talking about our lives in really good ways. That’s been a real encouragement for us.

Brian Fast: I just have another thought about the link between work life and home life that you brought up, Rosanne, and how we manage. I just have a distinct impression of the Lord showing me that He wants me to be a better husband than I am a counselor.

I was once pretty nervous ahead of a session. Not that that’s an unusual or isolated event, sometimes I am nervous before sessions quite often, but just in particular, I was anxious that it went well, anxious that I got out of the way. I prayed, Lord, please help me to get out of the way. You’ve got it. If you’re not in charge of the session, nothing good is going to happen. I submit to you. I was on my knees actually, in my closed office, praying that way before I went down the hall to greet the client. When I put my hand on the doorknob to open my office door to go out to greet the client, as I started to open the door, the Lord impressed on my heart. Brian, why don’t you pray like that on your way home?

It was a question, actually, why don’t you pray like that on your way home? Because my false self is I want to show up as a good counselor, but I take it easy at home and assume everything’s going to be fine at home without that kind of energy and dependence on the Spirit.

The Lord really, in a good way, convicted me that He wants me to rely on Him as much or more for how I come through the door to greet Jean than how I go through the door to greet my clients.

Rosanne Moore: That’s good. That’s really good.

Kep Crabb: Dad used to say, my commitment to my wife is not to be a good husband. He said, my commitment is to the Lord, and out of that, you will be the beneficiary of me being a pretty good husband, I’m hoping but that’s not my goal. Reminds me of what you were talking about there.

Sorry, Rosanne, you were going to say something.

Rosanne Moore: I was just thinking in those primary relationships, there, I’m sure the people that you serve as a counselor, both of you. Tom, Kim Berg is a friend of mine and she’s talked about the impact you had on her journey after she lost her son. I know both of you make a tremendous impact with the people that you serve, but the reality is in the primary relationships of your life, nobody else can replace the role that you have. People can get another counselor, they can’t get another dad or husband. It’s important to have that same level of dependency as you were talking about, Brian. Yeah.

Tom Board: Absolutely.

Rosanne Moore: That’s good.

Tom Board: Second year of my counseling practice, I came home one night – this is just another story going along with Brian’s, it’s the same thing. It’s just the Spirit working, but in unusual ways, and this way was through my wife. I walk in the door and she says, very kindly, Tom, you give yourself to your clients all day long, and then when you come home, you don’t have much for us. And then she just walked away. My first reaction, of course, is very defensive, just not all that godly. You’re like, what do you mean? But as I pondered, I realized that there’s really something true about that. It led me to a dilemma. I have to think differently about coming home because I was splitting up my work life and my home life and realizing that I wasn’t being congruent with myself. That I was offering not the best parts of me to my family. Even if it’s that 20% again or whatever it is, would I be willing to give it? That was a big learning lesson for me of just struggling with trying to be there for them.

Rosanne Moore: To a certain degree, I think with everybody else, regardless of what kind of work you do, you can put your best foot forward and you can distance yourself when you don’t have bandwidth to do that. But at home they’re going to see the cracks like nobody else. There’s a very real grace that God offers us by giving us people in close enough proximity that we can’t hide from. Because that is what makes us feel our desperation and our need for Him more than anything else.

Kep Crabb: Which is really my main point, which I’ve always wondered just in talking to you guys a little bit and also with Dad. When your internal world is not in the place where it should be, I can’t imagine, not just talking to someone else about their lives, but everything going on. I’ve had friends go through divorces and I think their productivity at work has to be zero because they just can’t focus. They’re just preoccupied with what’s going on and so focused on that, that it takes them away from being able to lean into something else. That’s where I’ve been with Kimmie.

I think you’re so right. Rosanne, nobody sees us like our spouses or those who have those primary relationships. I live with this woman and she sees the best and she sees the worst. She still accepts me and is with me and I’m just so grateful. I’ve had so many conversations with these guys. Tom, you and I had breakfast a little bit ago and got a chance to share some things with you that were really special.

It’s just fun to have people that I can still chat with that are older brothers of mine that in many ways remind me of Dad. That’s just such a privilege for me to have you guys around in that way and getting to know Brian and Jean and the group that we’ve been a part of now for almost two years. God’s doing something. I feel it. I really do. The Spirit’s movement this weekend was palpable. I’m just grateful to chat with you guys today.

One other thing as we continue to talk, I’m looking at what Dad was talking about in SoulTalk. He says to understand the battle going on within us that hinders that SoulTalk. What gets in the way of that? How can we identify that? Releasing your passion for God and igniting that passion in others. That’s what Dad did so well and continues to do to me even on the other side. Trade in the passing pleasures of this world for lasting joy. Trade that in. I think one of the things that has impressed me in the last little bit is how fleeting this world really is. I was saying to Brian, we had such a good time this weekend, but if that’s as good as it gets, I don’t know if that’s enough, there’s more, we want more. We’re built for more.

That’s why I think Dad often wasn’t very happy. He wanted more. You got to see that a lot, Tom, be part of that group with him and got to experience that. How has that small group impacted the way you husband Jenny?

Tom Board: Jenny and I have always been really close to your mom and dad in the years that we’ve been together. Part of it is that even though we’re different people, we have a very similar relationship in the sense that both Jenny and I and your mom and dad had a lot of freedom to be able to talk about what’s going on inside and to be able to really be our worst with each other.

One of the things that I’ve had the privilege and the terror of early on in our relationship with your dad is I’ve seen him at his worst with your mom. When he was just madder than a hornet and not in a good way, there was nothing drawing to that at all. That didn’t actually freak us out because, the first year that we were in the program one of our first counselors described Jenny and I as two volcanoes living in the same house. We are very expressive people, that is not an issue. So to see that in your mom and dad, it didn’t freak us out, but it made us aware that they were both free with us to be that way in front of us. Then to also watch them work that stuff through, I can actually say I saw your dad radically change over those 20 some years in his relationship with your mom, with Rachael. I think a lot of it was the things we’re talking about, I think he really began to become a lot more internally reflective on what was going on inside of him. I don’t think he was asking your mom to be different. I think he realized, I can see her differently, through a different lens.

That’s a bit of a journey. Jenny and I have been married almost 47 years. It takes a while to get to that place where you really begin to say, what is it that’s going on in me that does not see my spouse through God’s eyes and loving her, seeing all the flawedness. I’m very aware of Jenny’s flawedness as Larry was with Rachael. Somehow, seeing the beauty that was there and staying with that in spite of all the other things we’re seeing, that’s not something easily discovered. I think it’s all kind of a messy journey to get to that place. I got to see that live in him. I think Jenny and I got to trail behind, trying to work on that stuff as they’re out in front of us working on the same stuff.

Kep Crabb: Dad said to me one time – Brian, I’ll let you respond real quickly – he said to me, at my funeral, I don’t want everybody to get up there and say good things about me. I want to hear what you just said, Tom. I had the same story. Dad and I got into a little bit of an argument and he got very frustrated with me and you saw some of that come out. The next morning I addressed him and I said, Dad, can I tell you how that impacts me? Which, of course, is his question that he asked people. I knew he would say, absolutely, please do. I said, it just makes me so hopeful, because I see the most godly man I’ve ever known acting like a five year old spoiled child. He just sat there and went, yeah. Didn’t say a word. It was so hopeful because I know that’s in him, which means, I know it’s in me. That’s in me in abundance, but it’s in him too, even in those stories, and that’s great. Brian, you were going to say something, my man.

Brian Fast: One of the things I was hoping to hear is just what Tom was saying about what the community was like in your small group with Larry. Rosanne, you put it so interestingly, you said it’s a grace to be in close relationships where we can’t hide what we’re really like. Larry and Rachael were in a relationship with Tom and his wife like that.

On the one hand, they can’t hide, on another hand, Tom, you said that Larry was willing to be real there. He didn’t try to hide. He just worked it out in front of you. It brought me back to one of his famous phrases, which is: the core essence of what transforms us in the Christian life, the way we experience grace, is looking bad in the presence of love. You guys could look bad to each other in the presence of Christ’s love and forgiveness and one another’s love and forgiveness. It’s a very precious commodity in our world. It’s rare that people can let their false selves down and be what they’re really like and encounter grace together.

Rosanne Moore: That stirs a question for me, for you guys as counselors, because I see a lot of times in Christian circles where we know the “right answers,” right? We don’t bring our story, we bring the right answer or we bring the right answer to somebody else’s story. Which that’s even worse. That can be such a barrier to genuine relationship, to genuine growth, where people respond to something out of what they know is the “Jesus answer” instead of actually being willing to engage their own story and its brokenness and to bring that. Not just a blanket, I’m just a sinner to save by grace, but actually looking at, I know that I have a habit in this area when someone treats me in this particular way, these are all the messages that start going through my head, then I easily react to that instead of responding to it and being able to talk about that honestly with other people.

I have a group of 3 women that have been wonderful because I made reference to it in the podcast that is going to drop tomorrow which, by the time this airs, will be last week. We’ve been on this journey of trying to buy a house, and this is the 5th time in 14 years that we’ve tried to move. We’re currently in a hundred year old house. We’re in limbo. My kids are allergic to it. There’s just so many reasons we want to get out of this. I can’t tell you the number of times people have said, it’s okay that that perfect house fell through because God has something better for you. I just want to throw things wherever they say that.

Brian Fast: I’m sure you do. It’s not helpful.

Rosanne Moore: It is not helpful. Do I believe that God sees the bigger picture and that he’s doing work in us? Yes, I believe all of that, but I’m also tired of living in boxes and all the limbo and all of the stuff. I’m so grateful for my three friends who have let me rant and cry and be self pitying and all of the things that I’ve done, all the places I’ve been, and have been able to sit with that, and still be able to believe that God’s doing something bigger than the demandingness that I feel in the moment, that there’s more to what He’s creating in me than the part that is resentful or self pitying or doubting, whatever’s up in the moment.

So my question for you is – I know part of this is just the work of the Holy Spirit – but when you’re dealing with people who are bringing the truth of scripture instead of the truth of themselves, what do you do with that? What goes through your mind as you’re having those conversations?

Brian Fast: One thing that – I was hoping that we could talk about this – Another context that I’ve been living in the past year is leading two spiritual formation groups for pastors.

Rosanne Moore: Oh yeah. I bet you run into it there.

Brian Fast: When somebody’s sharing their story, guess what other pastors want to do? Exactly that. Give advice, read a scripture, share an encouragement, but it’s really not encouraging. What we’ve come to do – this comes out of some influence from two other colleagues in my counseling center, Paul Caprera and Perry Sherman, who are part of a Men at the Cross organization that I’ve gotten involved in lately. It’s helped a lot. One thing they say, as you’re trying to build community or safety in a group, no advice giving. When you’re sharing your story, Rosanne, we would call that giving the gift of your story. We honor that. If somebody else starts to give advice, we say, hold on a second. Rosanne just gave the gift of her story. If you’d like to give the gift of your story and say something that’s coming up in your life, that’s great, but if not, save the advice, it’s not helpful here. It requires some relearning, but when the advice doesn’t happen, and somebody goes, I hear you andI’ve felt that way before, just empathize instead of taking over the conversation, it helps the group feel much more safe. It helps the community be more trinitarian, and be more “Real Church.”

Kep Crabb: Dad was never a formula guy. I love what you’re saying, Brian, in respect to some handles that maybe can give you some guide rails as you’re doing that.

Is there anything else that you guys can think of in respect to those guide rails? One of those things is don’t give advice, like you just said, Brian, other things that you guys might think of in respect to a counseling session of things that maybe you wouldn’t want to do or would want to do in respect to some of those guide rails or guideposts?

Brian Fast: Another in the same kind of place in my head is, be aware of what’s going on in you. We give advice because we’re not aware, we’re anxious and we’re just trying to take care of ourselves. But if we could stop and just be aware, this is making me uncomfortable, and be willing to say that rather than manage our feelings by giving advice.

Tom Board: Another one that I would add as I’ve supervised a lot of counselors is, that there are a lot of times – taking what you were saying, Rosanne – when people tell stories that you become really aware internally, I have absolutely no idea where to go with this. I have no idea what to say. I don’t know. What’s important, and the rule of thumb that I share with people, when you’re in a place where you really don’t know where to go, be curious, ask a question, keep going with it and you never know. As a person starts talking more about where they’re at, the Spirit of God can begin to whisper something in your ear as far as what might be a thought to move into that person, because if you can’t see a place to move in, you don’t push your way in.

You’re gently trying to listen more to find – one of the phrases Larry used many years with me is – find the subtlest crack where someone opens a little bit of their soul that you can enter into. Many times when people tell stories, they’re so pissed off, there’s no crack. They’re just pushing you away and there’s no place to get in.So you have to be very comfortable with the fact that there’s not an invitation to come in, but you never know when you ask another question or you’re a little more curious, maybe something softens and you find a little place where you can begin to enter into that kindly to learn more about what’s going on inside of them underneath all the struggles that they’re feeling at that place.

So that would be my thought.

Kep Crabb: That’s so good.

Brian Fast: I love that phrase, sacred curiosity. If they give you the crack, sometimes it’s just a simple matter of saying, can you say more about that? Can you put some more words to that? That’s all that’s needed. Then the crack opens wider.

Kep Crabb: What’s interesting, Tom, you said that when Dad wrote SoulTalk in the early 2000s, that’s when you started to see a little bit of that shift in respect to relating like the Trinity.

Tom Board: That’s correct.

Kep Crabb: That’s really what you’re talking about now, which is why we thought this was so appropriate to have you guys on as we introduce SoulTalk to the Larger Story crowd.

We’re going through a bunch of different books and this was one that I think was the beginning of Dad really moving in – actually the follow up to connecting to some degree – but of what it looks like to have conversations that matter. That was a phrase that he loved.

Brian, we had some of those this weekend. It was really powerful. This has just been really fun to get a chance to chat with you guys. I appreciate both of you so much. I certainly appreciate Rosanne. I get to work with her every day, but to see you guys here and get a chance to pick your brains.

Is there anything else, Rosanne, that you can think of as we get ready to close with these guys?

Rosanne Moore: I am curious. We talked a little bit about the challenge of what’s going on in you while you’re sitting with somebody and then how do you take that and go home. The more you’ve learned to be present and aware in the moment and open handed, has that made it easier to go home and to not bring work home in a difficult way?

Part of what I’m thinking as I ask this is, I have a daughter who’s planning to go into counseling. One place where she gets caught when she has conversations with people is, she rehearses the conversation in her mind afterwards and she’ll get caught in thinking, I should have said this or I should have asked this or I should have done better. One of the conversations she and I have is, you can’t control this. You can be present and you can be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, but there’s not going to be a right way to do this. As you’ve learned to let go of that in your counseling, has that made it easier to come home? Or does it not necessarily translate that way?

Tom Board: One of the things I can say, when I got out of the counseling program with Dan and Larry, they were very clear that leaving the program, you’re not actually very good. You’re going to suck at being a counselor for at least five years. One of them said to me, it’s the only profession I know that the only way to get better is to fail. Meaning that you’re going to be with people, and you’re going to fail. You’re going to be self absorbed and you’re going to be lost in yourself.

It creates the opportunity – that’s why I say good supervision can be very helpful. Not the kind of supervision that’s trying to help you understand what’s going on in your client, but the kind of supervision that asks you a question, what’s going on in you as a counselor, and to begin to understand all the different things that are happening in you so that you can actually be more present.

That never ends. Frankly, I struggle with an incredible amount of entitlement. I’ve worked really hard for nine hours, I want to come home and I don’t want to talk to or think about anybody else, and God has often convicted me about that place. It never goes away. It’s always there. I think getting comfortable with this journey is never actually easy. What it is, you get more familiar with the reality of it, and therefore, you become a little more comfortable with the struggling of it, but it’s not pleasant. It’s work all the time.

Brian Fast: Yeah, it’s very exposing of your weaknesses. I think of a couple of things when you’re thinking of going home afterward, you can have two different things you’re carrying. One is regrets about, I could have said this, I should have said that, or why did I do that? And the other is just the weight of what a person has shared with you, and the struggles that people go through in life. With the struggles people go through – I started by saying that I learned you really shouldn’t pray as you start to counsel, and I don’t believe that. I pray all the time. Particularly, I pray at the end of the session. I like to save maybe five minutes at the end to say, okay let’s take some time and pray.

One person a long time ago shared with me his perspective on counseling as, counseling is informed intercession. Spend 45 minutes hearing what’s going on and five minutes interceding. There’s other models, but that helps me as a counselor to say, here’s what I’ve heard. I just want to bring you before the Lord together before we leave. I think it helps them. Often there’s tears and what I’ve prayed has helped, but it also helps me because I’ve cast my cares on the Lord and I go home lighter session by session because of that.

The other one about what I could have done differently, or regrets of what I said. Pastors will say this: they’ll give a sermon and they’ll think they made a mistake. They forgot a line or misquoted the verse, but when people talk to them about what impacted them from the sermon it has nothing to do with that.

It’s often the same with counseling. Somebody will tell me, I’ll see them years later, or a couple of sessions later and say, what you said really impacted me. I couldn’t wait to hear what they said. It was never what I hoped they would say. It was not the great insight I thought I had, it was something else. It was just something spontaneous and God uses it.

So even with your daughter, she might think she’s messing up here and there, which we all do, but God uses things that we’re not in control of and I think it’s good to know that He’s going to be at work, whether you know it or not, and sometimes in very unexpected ways.

Kep Crabb: The Pressure’s Off as we engage in SoulTalk.

Tom Board: Amen.

Brian Fast: Yeah.

Kep Crabb: I love that Brian, it’s beautiful.

Rosanne Moore: That’s what I’ve told her before. You’re kind and you’re wise. I can’t imagine that the person didn’t walk away better from having talked to you, even if you didn’t say all the right things.

Brian Fast: It’s great to hear your vision of her.

Kep Crabb: I love the notion of the pressure’s off in the sense that there’s really nothing that we can do. I think what you just said there, Brian is. when you expect to have the most impact, that’s probably when you have the least. When you feel like you’ve had the least impact is probably when you’ve had the most.

Brian Fast: Often.

Kep Crabb: Often, yeah. That’s the way the Holy Spirit just says, I’m the one here who’s doing the heavy lifting, you just you just stay on track.

This has been really fun guys, to be with y’all. I just really appreciate your time. What we’re trying to do with Larger Story is, what does it mean to relate like Jesus to people and how to put Jesus on display. Dad gave us an example of that in so many different ways that continue to linger, I know with me and I know with you all as well. Thanks for joining us today, guys.

Tom Board: You’re welcome.

Brian Fast: Thanks for having us.

Kep Crabb: Join us next week for our next one. If you don’t have a copy of SoulTalk, go to largerstory.com and get yourself a copy today. Thank y’all.

Message

Counseling From the Other Side: A Look Into the…

July 18, 2023July 19, 2023
by Larger Story

Bio:

Links:

SoulTalk

Reading & Relating book club

The SoulCare Experience Study

Transcript

Kep Crabb: Welcome, everyone, to Relational Spirituality, a Larger Story podcast where you belong, you become, and you can be known in the story that’s going on right now. I’m your host today, Kep Crabb. In this quarter, Relational Spirituality will be focused on the themes and the thoughts from the book, SoulTalk, a book written in 2003 and a book used by many counselors over the years as a roadmap to having rich, deep conversations that matter. If you don’t have a copy of SoulTalk now, go to largerstory.com and order one today.

As we dive into our discussion today, I’ve got some special people that are joining me.

I’ve got Rosanne Moore, who many of you know. She also hosts the podcast on Relational Spirituality. She’s a colleague of mine and she’s actually recovering from emergency appendectomy surgery from a few weeks ago. I’m grateful that she’s joining us today and has the strength. So thank you, Rosanne, for joining us today.

Our guests today are two guys who are both very special to me. Both are seasoned counselors who are now looking back on years of talking with people about their lives. I spent this past weekend with one of these gentlemen who is part of a small group that my wife and I are part of. We’ve been part of this group for the last year and a half, and this was the first time that we got to gather together. It was super fun. The Spirit was hovering over the weekend, as we say, and we’re just hoping that happens in our conversation today.

The other guest that’s going to be joining us today is also a close friend of my family’s. He’s a counselor and he’s been part of a small group with my folks for, Tom, has it been two decades? How long was that group?

Tom Board: Yeah, we started about 2001. So it was about 20 years, when Larry was still alive.

Kep Crabb: So the better part of two decades for sure. I just want to say to everyone watching today, these two guys don’t know each other. They’ve not met, but they’re really cut out of the same cloth and I’m super excited to have them both joining us today. So welcome Brian Fast and Tom Board to our discussion today. Guys, thanks for joining us.

Tom Board: You’re welcome. Glad to be here.

Brian Fast: Me too.

Kep Crabb: This is going to be fun. We have been super excited about having you two join us.

Let’s just start today with a couple of quick questions. The first question is: give us a little bit of your counseling background; how long you’ve been involved in counseling, where you started, where you are now, some of those kind of things, just some background on each of you. The second question to this is: how has Larry Crabb’s influence played into some of the counseling that you guys have been a part of for the last few years?

Tom, why don’t you go first?

Tom Board: Sure, glad to. It’s an interesting story. I started in college as a civil engineer and never practiced. I graduated as a civil engineer, but the Navigators, a Christian organization, asked me to come on staff, and I was on staff with them for 15 years, working with college students.

Through a series of events, my life fell apart. The joke in my family is I spent $10,000 on my marriage and just happened to get a counseling degree. I went to Grace Theological Seminary where I met Dan Allender and Larry Crabb, and I went there just to save my marriage and ended up being a counselor. It’s a strange beginning. Out of 54 students, I was the one of the few that had no intention of being a counselor, but those guys actually saw something in me and asked me to stay on. I moved out here to Colorado when they moved out. I’ve been counseling since about 1989. I would say for the first, 10 or 12 years, most of my counseling experience was based on what I had learned from Larry during the counseling program.

There’s a lot of fundamental things that were the same, but things changed with Larry in around the 2000 era, where he began to really ponder the Trinity and how that affects relationality and how you actually chat with people. It wasn’t like I was distant from understanding Larry’s thinking because it was all formative in there, but somewhere around the early 2000s, when I started meeting with him in a spiritual formation group, I went to an SSD. I began to really contemplate that the way I was sitting with people really needed to change and I was beginning to experience that. I could sit with somebody and out of my sheer competency – which, sadly, I have a lot of – I could depend on my competency and not the Spirit to sit with somebody and they would feel very ministered to.

But I really felt there was something missing as I was sitting with people. I think through Larry’s talks going through SSD, I began to notice that there might be a different way for me to sit with people and I made a commitment. I remember very clearly. I was at Glen Erie where I made a commitment. I’ve been a counselor for 10 or 12 years, I made a commitment. I’m going to try to go a different way with people. It was very difficult. I lost nine clients in the first month because the direction I was going was not the way that they thought counseling should look.

It has been a long journey over the last 20 years to begin to realize that I, from my heart, really want to go a different way. I would say that it’s had a major impact on both my comfortability as far as what I do and other times the confusion that I feel when I sit with people because frankly, if you’re really leaning on the Spirit, there are times you really have no clue what to say and for a competent guy, I hate that. I want to know something to say. I want to be able to go in some direction and to really surrender that and say, no, I can’t go that way, it’s really had a pretty big impact.

Rosanne Moore: That was the first question that came to my mind for an engineer.

I would think you’re pretty precise. You like things a certain way, or you would have approached life that way early on. It sounds like you’ve made a big shift in being willing to open your hands and not have to have things that way. Is that correct?

Tom Board: Yeah. The program blew me up. I was literally a mess for 12 months and I think that’s one of the reasons they liked me is that I was willing to be a mess. There was a reason why precision and non relating – if you had talked to any of the people that I was a staff trainer for the Navigators in the Midwest region, none of them would have come to me if they had deep issues because I just wouldn’t go there. What I didn’t know was that there’s a lot of story to my life that was locked inside that came out in those 12 months. That really exposed me to a depth to me that I had no idea I had. That really changed my whole life. It’s not that any of the past is gone. I could probably still do all that kind of ministry that I had done, but I found a deeper passion in me that left me on a different trajectory. That’s a great observation. It’s really true. My wife would say he was a man that I could hardly recognize after two years.

Brian Fast: In a good way.

Tom Board: In a good way. That’s right.

Rosanne Moore: Oh, I’m sure. She would know more than anybody. Okay. I don’t know where we want to go with this, Kep. I don’t want to take over, but that has me curious, but I don’t want to shut Brian out of the conversation either.

Brian Fast: I’m fine. I’m happy to connect this way, too.

Kep Crabb: No, this is fun. I want to introduce Brian, though.

Brian is part of our small group. He and his wife, Jean, were just with our group. We’ve got several couples and a widow in there, and the widow is blind, and she’s just the sweetest gal on the planet. Brian and Jean stayed with her this weekend. We all had a chance to get together and fellowship and eat a lot and talk a lot and talk a lot about some good things. Brian’s become a real special friend of mine. Brian, tell us a little bit about yourself. Maybe some of the Crabb influence on your counseling, perhaps.

Brian Fast: Yeah, sure. My original interest in psychology came with some observations my mother had of me that in junior high and high school, people would gravitate to me to have conversations. It was usually their problems, them bringing the conversation, initiating the conversation, and I would listen and they would leave feeling helped. I really didn’t notice that, but she noticed that and encouraged me to pursue psychology.

I went to a secular undergraduate school and really didn’t like psychology and decided I would like to get into maybe becoming a pastor. I went to a Bible school for a year and then very much felt called to apply to the Biola graduate school, which was Rosemead Graduate School of Psychology at Biola University. That was a pretty clinical purist sort of program. We learned to be psychotherapists. They would even look with a critical eye on you if you wanted to start a session in prayer, that wouldn’t be welcome, at least at the time.

Kep Crabb: Even at Biola?

Brian Fast: Yeah It’s not clean psychotherapy, it could influence the client in one way or another and introduce too much into the relationship from you, the therapist. I started that way and gradually over years viewed myself as on a journey from being a clinical psychotherapist to being a pastoral counselor. That’s the way I thought of myself.

When I started to read and hear your dad’s books and talks, I went to a pre conference that Larry did called “An Evangelical Approach to Spiritual Direction” at an American Association for Christian Counselors conference. I was really drawn to what he had to say, learned for the first time about SSDs and next steps and signed up right away.

Tom, I didn’t know that my marriage was a mess until I got to SSD and started to have some influence from the Spiritual director that worked with me, and then my life blew up. It was actually a great help to see how selfish and self centered I was and I continue to struggle with that as a man, as a person, and as a husband. It was the first real experience of my need for grace and being grateful for grace. I didn’t think I needed much forgiveness before then. I thought I was a pretty snazzy guy. My wife was lucky to have me. I’m embarrassed to say it, but I’m used to saying it now. It’s just quite a perspective shift.

One thing I’ll mention just about my graduate training, we were mandated to have a year of group psychotherapy and a year of individual psychotherapy. First we had the group, and then we had the individual. I think they got it backwards, in retrospect. Because of how Larry taught about the Trinity and community and SoulTalk and what we’re talking about now, I am convinced that maturity has to do with how we relate to other people, how we put God on display by the way we relate to one another in community.

I think it would have been great to have individual therapy to get to see what some of my issues were, and then, from a more mature place, start to relate and practice and experiment with relating differently in community. That’s what we’re doing in small group. Kep mentioned that we’re in the same small group. Tom, I think it’s really cool that you were in Larry’s small group, and I get to be in Larry’s son’s small group, and we’re practicing community together.

Kep Crabb: It’s so special.

Rosanne Moore: So I’m curious for both of you, how has learning to engage your own story – like Tom was talking about – and seeing God meet you in your story and shape you as you’ve been willing to do that, as you’ve been willing to engage your own heart and your own story, how has that changed?

Perhaps how you’re ministering to other people, how you’re counseling, how you’re relating to, you both talked about your marriages. How has that shaped you?

Tom Board: I’ll start off. I don’t mean to do that each time, but I’ll be glad to. I think, one of the things that Larry talks about in SoulTalk – again, it’s been so long since I read that, but I know that one of the elements that he puts words to is the idea of passion, what’s going on inside of you and the other one is thinking beneath.

I was talking to someone this morning. The reason that I feel so comfortable talking with people is I don’t feel distant from them and they’re messed up-ness. I know my fallen nature is very real and very active in getting in the way all the time of my listening to people and my pondering what the Spirit might be doing and until there’s some level of awareness and repentance on my part as far as what’s going on inside of me, I really can’t hear people very well. I can go through a day and I could have a session where I am super engaged with what’s going on inside of me and engage with them and I could have another session the same day where I’m just lost in my head. I’m thinking about lunch. I’m thinking about what I am going to do when I get home. I’m all over the place and I have to constantly be repenting just to stay focused on somebody. I think that really has had an impact on really understanding, what does it take to be present with somebody, to really be there for somebody else?

It is an internal journey to actually journey well with them. I think that’s one of the ways it’s really impacted me is just being a lot more conscious of what’s going on in me at the same time as listening to them.

Kep Crabb: When you were talking about SoulTalk, think beneath and think vision and think passion and think story, all of the themes from SoulTalk. How they play into how you guys talk with people in an office setting.

I know both of you personally. Why I think both of you are cut from the same cloth and what I said earlier is because I feel safe around both of you. Tom, you and I’ve had some deep discussions. Obviously, Brian and I have had several deep discussions in group together, but there’s something about you guys that gives you a feeling of safety. Dad really brought that to the table as well. I saw that with him all the time.

I think your whole notion, Tom, about being focused – I remember Dad, that big line as he’s talking with someone in the office and he’s thinking to himself, wow, this person really needs professional help. This is Larry Crabb, Mr. PhD, who I always called him the Roger Federer of the counseling world. The understanding and the humility that both of you guys come into this with is something that I think is really attractive and freeing and makes you feel open because you guys break all the rules of counseling.

It would seem. The Goodwill Hunting piece. You’re telling your story and you’re getting involved. Brian, you mentioned, I can’t pray with my client before I meet with them. That’s an interesting piece, but you’re probably at the point now where I want to pray with you.

Brian Fast: Yeah. I’m pretty sure Rosemead is different in their teaching now, but that’s where we started.

That whole idea of safety and how Larry modeled it and what he taught; one of my favorite ways that Larry would start a talk is – I don’t know if you guys remember him doing this, but the first time I heard him speak, getting up after opening in prayer, he said – is anyone else a mess like I am? He was looking for a show of hands, and I just felt safe with him. The way Tom was talking, he’s repenting to the Lord in the middle of a session if he gets distracted or something. I’m going to be safe with a man that’s doing that. I’ve been taught that same way.

I used to counsel out of my false self of wanting to have it together, to know what to say, to have the client leave thinking I’m a smart person or I’m a helpful person. Just managing an impression so I felt good. Now that’s something I have to repent of because that gets in the way of me being present to the Spirit and really caring for the person.

It’s freeing to be able to just admit that about myself and know I need grace for that. Know there is grace for that. Then that can get out of the way, now I’m ready to move with the Spirit toward another person for their good. It’s not a formula, but I’m much more comfortable sharing where I’ve sinned, where I’ve needed forgiveness, what my mistakes and selfishness are in my life with a client when it’s relevant, when the Spirit’s guiding in that direction. I think that’s part of what makes us safe.

Kep Crabb: I see both you guys and I hear your stories. What we wanted to talk about for the second half of our conversation is, how do you deal with things going on in your life as you’re getting ready to go into a counseling session?

I used to think my dad had the toughest job in the world. He had to go talk to people about their problems for eight hours and then come home and deal with me and my brother. I thought, wow, that is so tough. I felt bad for him, but his big thing to us was always even with New Way Ministries and certainly what we’re trying to do with Larger Story is you got to get it in before you get it out.

So when you’re struggling with your wives or you’ve got some relational tensions, how does that impact you guys as counselors?

Brian Fast: Yeah I would say early on I used to just deny it and just pretend everything was fine. I don’t think I did a very good job of self care, proper self care in terms of taking it to the Lord in community. Now, as we’ve already mentioned, I’m in a group with you. I have a great context. Deal with issues in what we call our homies group. The homies. I’m in a Saturday morning men’s group where I have an opportunity to do that as well. Our counseling group is about 10 counselors besides myself and we can be there for each other as well.

I think it’s just crazy to go through life, like it’s just me and Jesus, like my walk with God only involves just Him and me. I think that’s sin. I think it’s taught against in scripture. We’re supposed to assemble together and I don’t think it means just going into church and looking at the back of the head of the person in front of you. It’s turning face to face, having SoulTalk conversations like the book talks about and really having context where I can be real with other people about what’s going on in me and let them be Jesus to me and vice versa. That makes me a much more effective counselor when it comes to listening well to another person or couple. I’m going to counsel them to have that kind of a life themselves where they’re involved in at least one community of people where they can say anything and be known and accepted for who they are. It’s huge and I didn’t know that for many years.

Rosanne Moore: I think you put your finger on something important about church, often – at least here in the U.S. – we think of preaching services as going to church. We don’t think of relating with a community of people. Teaching can be a part of that, but it’s that relating to one another as a body that is really what the church is called to. That’s an important thing that gets missed a lot of times. I think it’s the reason a lot of people feel empty. They can be going to church, but it can feel empty because there’s no relating going on too often.

Brian Fast: Yes.

In Hebrews 10:24-25 we’re used to the first part of it. Don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together. But right after it, it says, and think and consider, which means think really deep about how to provoke or stir one another up to love and good works. How we stir one another up to love and good works is not in a lecture format at traditional Sunday morning church. It’s in the circle of a small group and being real with each other in the presence of the Spirit, where we represent Him to one another.

Kep Crabb: That was one of Dad’s favorite passages and the focus of that is the stirring up .What do we do now as we stir up each other. Tom, I’m interested to know with you and Jenny, obviously you’re not in a small group with Mom and Dad anymore. If you are, I’d like to sit in on that one with you for a while.

Tom, what are you doing? What are you and Jenny doing now for community in respect to some of that kind of stuff?

The Lord really, in a good way, convicted me that He wants me to rely on Him as much or more for how I come through the door to greet Jean than how I go through the door to greet my clients.

Kep Crabb: Well, thanks for joining us today on Relational Spirituality. Please join us next week for part two of our conversation, Counseling from the Other Side: A Look Into the Mind of a Counselor. Remember, we can all play a part in His Larger Story.

Have a great week.

Message

Desire & Hope: How Soul Talk Stirs a Vision…

July 11, 2023July 12, 2023
by Rosanne Moore

When our hearts are torn between the life we were created for and the life we live in a fallen world, what kind of conversations will genuinely comfort and strengthen us? Rosanne Moore invites us to consider whether the words we speak are motivated by avoiding our own discomfort or offering genuine companionship to those around us.

Bio:

If Jesus is Who He says He is, why doesn’t being a Christian seem to work better? More to the point, why didn’t it seem to make people better? Those were some of the questions Rosanne Moore was asking about her own life when she first encountered Dr. Larry Crabb’s book Inside Out as a teen and in its pages discovered an invitation to journey into a radically different understanding of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus, one that was focused on relationship with God rather than rule lists or behavior modification.

Drawing on her background as a writer, editor, reading instruction specialist, language arts tutor, homeschool mom, speaker, and social media marketer, Rosanne Moore now serves as Larger Story’s Communications Director. She has run a successful small business and worked with several missions and church organizations, but her greatest delight is in listening to the unfolding story of God’s work in the lives of others and sharing her own journey of seeking God in every part of life, even (or, perhaps, especially) in our darkest nights.

Nowhere is Rosanne more passionate about seeing God’s redemption cultivated than in the lives of victims/survivors of abuse of all kinds. Her Lifeline course for women escaping domestic abuse was birthed from her personal experience, as well as out of more than two decades of advocacy work serving women and children impacted by intimate terrorism, coercive control, spiritual abuse, and sexual violence.

A single mom since 2011, Rosanne seeks to create opportunities for rich conversations with her 4 teen & college-aged kids who continually amaze, amuse, and humble her with their awesome selves and their crazy menagerie. She enjoys honest friends who are both hilarious and wise, a lapful of snuggly kitties, and a good book on a rainy day. Lily’s chocolates, Jane Austen movies, and crisp autumn days are a few of her favorite things, and music is her heart’s prayer language.

Links:

SoulTalk

Reading & Relating book club

The SoulCare Experience Study

Transcript

Rosanne Moore: Hi, Larger Story friends. I’m Rosanne Moore, your host today with The Relational Spirituality Podcast. This week instead of having a guest, I just want to share a few things that have been on my heart as we begin this quarterly deep dive into Dr. Larry Crabb’s book, SoulTalk. It’s always been one of my favorite books by him, and lately, I’ve had some things going on in the last two months that brought home to me again how important it is that we engage one another when we’re having conversations, that we be present to what the Holy Spirit is doing and conscious of the power of our words, either to stir life or to miss opportunities by being self-focused. I just had a few thoughts.

At the beginning of the book SoulTalk, Larry starts by sharing his initial diagnosis with cancer. Of course, it ended up being a 25 year battle for him, but, when that first medical report came back concerning and he was facing surgery, he didn’t know what the journey ahead was going to look like. He, very honestly, very transparently, describes the wrestling that took place within his own heart – the anger, the grief, the denial, the resentment, the demand, the bargaining – all the things that rose up within him.

I think it was a good reminder to me that grief is a normal response to the fact that we were made for a perfect world. We were made for a world that hadn’t been marred by sin, and we live in a world that has been marred by sin. So when we face loss, all of those things that are a part of grief – the shock and denial – that in a way protect us from what is too overwhelming to bear because we weren’t made for that, the pain and the guilt, the sense of, “I should be able to do something differently to manage this because this isn’t how things are supposed to be,” the anger, the bargaining, the depression – all of those things are all signposts that point us to the fact that we were made for a perfect world. We are not living in that perfect world, and we have an opportunity in the middle of that to turn our faces and find God’s presence with us in the middle of that. Not to alleviate all of that discomfort, but to be with us in it because His presence does not change the fact that we were made for a perfect world, and we are not there yet. His presence makes it bearable and gives purpose as we wait and as we groan in waiting for the redemption that He is creating for us.

Larry went on to talk about, as he was wrestling with all of those things that came up in him with that initial diagnosis, one of the things that helped him that night in his hospital room was a parable given by Augustine. If God came to you and He said, “I will give you everything that you want,” everything that you would desire that would define what a good life looked like – for me right now, it would be really easy to define a good life as having a new home.

Part of the challenges of the last two months for me have been that my children and I are wanting to move and combine households with my parents, who are getting older. My kids and I are currently living in a hundred-year-old house. We’ve been displaced for 14 years, living in limbo. I’ve got two children who are allergic to this house. It’s really been difficult. It’s been challenging. Plus, my parents are getting older. My dad had what looked like it was going to be a medical crisis. It turned out to be nothing big, but it was a reminder that, as my parents are getting older, I want to be more available to help them and be with them. We had been working toward buying a new house that we could all be in together. For the kids, this is the fifth time in 14 years, and it was the closest that we had ever gotten to finally having a place to call ours, a place to a nest, to really feel like we could breathe, and it was ours. It’s the closest we’ve gotten, but the deal fell through shortly before we were supposed to close. In the middle of that, I had an emergency appendectomy. Didn’t see that coming at all, and on top of the disappointment about the house and the frustration of all of that, physically, I’m really struggling. And there are medical bills that I hadn’t anticipated, and now I’m dealing with insurance issues and all of that. It’s been a rough two months.

And so when Larry wrote about Augustine’s thing of “everything that you want,” boy, I had a list that immediately came to my mind, and I don’t know about you, but probably if you and I were sitting together and I asked you, “What would you have on your list if you could have anything that you wanted? Anything that you would define as a good life?” you would probably have not just material things like a good house. You’d probably want things like your kids doing well. Maybe you want to be married; maybe you want your marriage healed. Maybe you want your body healed. Maybe you’re dealing with physical illness or disability that is just a burden, and you would love to see God heal. There can be so many things that we could legitimately long for and put on our list of what would define a good life, a blessed life.

Augustine goes on to say,”If the Lord came to you and said, ‘I’ll give you everything on that list, but you’ll never see My face,’ then the shudder that just went through your soul is the love of God, love for God that actually lives within you that’s deeper than those other desires.”

When I read that, it was such a good reminder to me in the middle of all of the frustration that I’m dealing with the bills and with being in limbo and having boxes packed and that I’m navigating and what do we do and looking for another house. All those things – trying to get better – there is something that I want more. SoulTalk reminds us that there’s an opportunity for us in our conversations with one another, either to stir hunger for what matters most or to feed the self – to numb ourselves to what we actually want most.

That’s a really big difference. I would just invite you to go on this journey with us. We’re going to be having our book club for the next three months, and we’re going to be talking about this theme on our podcast.

What does it look like to have conversations that actually stir life in one another? Instead of just exchanging information but never really getting to the heart of the other person or giving hope, we could do something different. Just because we have the Spirit of God living within us, we can actually stir life in one another and do something, have conversations that really matter.

One of the things that stood out to me, because of this experience over the past couple months and the responses that I got, reminding me of how I’ve responded to other people and their struggles at various points, was that SoulTalk stirs hunger for what matters most, but it doesn’t minimize or deny the pain. I think what was probably most discouraging to me at various times in the past two months was the number of times people would use spiritual language to dismiss the very real struggle that we are actively facing. Things like, “Oh, it’s okay that the house didn’t go through. It just means God has something better for you,” or things like that. That’s not really helpful.

What I appreciated so much was the friends who were willing to listen and wrestle with me and care and ask, “What can we do to help?” It’s wonderful to pray for one another, but one of the things Larry talks about in the book is, we don’t ever want to use prayer or spiritual truth as a bandaid or as an escape hatch so that we can avoid dealing with somebody else’s pain or struggle. Like I said, we’ve all done it. I have certainly been guilty of it plenty of times in my life, of wanting to apply information and truth to somebody else’s situation instead of listening to what the Spirit is doing and coming alongside and actually waiting to point out the beauty of what God is already doing in their heart.

That stirs hope, that allows us both to grieve, to acknowledge what is not yet redeemed and not yet as it should be. That’s painful, but at the same time, to lift our eyes to what matters more, that God is here. He is at work. He is redeeming all things, something new is underway that He’s doing, and this is what I want to leave you with. This is a short episode that I’m doing today. I’m still recovering, but that was what was on my heart today. When you have conversations with those around you, are your conversations bringing life? Not just trying to apply truth, but are you bringing the presence of the Spirit of God?

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. A friend pointed out to me, I think that order is important. When we engage people the way that Jesus did, we should embody truth, not just spout it, but actually embody truth the way that Jesus did. Then we actually can invite them into the life that the Spirit of God has shared with us through Christ, and it can be something where there’s a meeting of souls and encouragement of one another so that we’re not simply using God as an escape from our pain, but instead that there’s an opportunity to actually worship Him in the midst of it. To say that there’s still something greater, something that matters more than this thing that I want, that’s legitimate to want, that I was created to want.

One of the things I think in this journey with the house that I’ve come to realize was, in the midst of the ache, in the midst of the waiting, God has given us the opportunity to enter into His own ache as He waits for the redemption of His children, as He prepares a home for us, and as He waits for that, the longing that He has. I’m suddenly getting a taste of how much it matters to Him by experiencing this ache as we wait. It was actually through a conversation with some friends that this got stirred, that I realized that was a gift that God was giving me.

I really want to invite you to join us. There are different ways that you can do it. During this next quarter, our Reading and Relating book club is going to be doing a deep dive into this book where, once a month we’ll have an online discussion group. We have more than one timeframe in which you can do that if you would like to join us. Also, if you have a local group that you want to meet with, you can get the SoulTalk book, and you can get the SoulCare course set of DVDs and workbooks that you could go through together as an in person community.

You could walk through, “How do we have these better conversations that make us more sensitive to what the Spirit of God is doing in us?” How to be more aware of how we can be a part of encouraging another person to become present to the Spirit of God at work instead of having that desire for Him covered over by the weight of other things. How do we avoid the kind of conversations where we heap burdens on people who are already feeling overwhelmed and walk away feeling like we were so wise because we shared all this truth, whereas they walk away feeling unseen and hopeless and more worn out and exhausted and pressured than ever.

I hope you’ll join us.

I hope this resonated with you. I think we’ve all had conversations both that gave life and had conversations that didn’t, and we’ve been guilty of that as well. I really hope that you’ll join us in this next quarter, and thank you so much.

Share if this Podcast is helping you or the book club, the resources that we have. I hope that you’ll share them. I hope that you’ll pass them along to others and we would love to hear from you too. We would love for you to let us know what would be the best way that we can serve you. Thanks so much for joining us. You can go to largerstory.com if you want to sign up for the Reading and Relating book club and we’ll be back next week. I think Kep and I are going to be meeting with a couple of counselors and talking to them about how SoulTalk has shaped the way that they serve in their profession of talking with people in a counseling setting.

We look forward to having you back next week. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.

Message

The Freedom from Shame | Ep. 24

July 4, 2023June 29, 2023
by Kep Crabb

Show Notes:

Kelly Hawkins joins Kep today to talk about the amazing transformation that she has been experiencing in the last several months of her life. She unpacks some of the stories of her life that led to deep shame and how the Spirit has freed her from that shame. Kelly also talks about her latest book titled “Warrior Women” and how that book has had a lasting impact.

Bio: Kelly Hawkins

Kelly Hawkins has written several books that authentically share her life experiences. She shares how God has always celebrated with her in the joys and has faithfully thrown her a lifeline to rescue her and redeem what was lost or marred. She loves to share with others about God’s love, goodness and faithfulness. Kelly has three grown children and lives with her husband in southeast Michigan.

Links:

LifeCare Christian Center

Warrior Woman by Kelly Hawkins

Feels Like I’m Drowning by Kelly Hawkins

Loved as I Should Have Been by Kelly Hawkins

Safe, Secure, and Free by Kelly Hawkins

Transcript:

[00:00:28] Kep Crabb: Welcome everyone to Relational Spirituality, the podcast brought to you by Larger Story where you belong, you can become, and you will be known. I’m your host this week, Kep Crabb. Today I’m going to be talking with Kelly Hawkins. I’ve known Kelly for about, I think it’s two years now, I’m not sure. Sometime shortly after Dad had passed away, I think, is when you and I got a chance to meet. Kelly loves to create opportunities for others to experience God and His heart for them through her writing, her music, gardens, through conversations that matter, her home, and events where she serves with LifeCare Christian Center. She’s also authored several books, has three grown children, and lives with her husband in southwest Michigan. Kelly, welcome and thanks for joining me today. How are you?

[00:01:20] Kelly Hawkins: I’m good. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:22] Kep Crabb: You’re welcome. You have been helping me for the last several months with the coming Larry Crabb book, which is titled Off Track.

I was actually chatting with your husband maybe a couple weeks ago or so and we were talking about the book and the progress the book is making and when we’re hoping to get that out, which is exciting. We were talking about you, and he was using words like thriving, doing really well.

And I said to him, Dave, I’ve noticed that as well. I’ve caught the vibe from some of our email correspondences, and even your willingness to talk to me today, in this podcast, Relational Spirituality, says that there’s something going on in you. I would want to know what’s going on and what’s happening in you that seems to be making others take notice of something going on.

[00:02:14] Kelly Hawkins: I would say there’s been a lot of transformation in my spirit, since last fall, really. It goes back a lot further than that, but I wrote Warrior Woman – it’s my seventh book and the first one in a series called Warrior Woman Bootcamp. There will be three volumes of this, and the second one will come out this summer. Bootcamp was released in September 2022. I hadn’t really anticipated interviews up to that point. I know God has gifted me to write, so I’ve been focused on that. I didn’t really anticipate Him wanting to use my weaknesses so much as where He’s gifted me with strengths. But in the fall, I believe you were the first one to ask me about doing an interview and I panicked at that point.

[00:03:31] Kep Crabb: That’s what I like to do.

[00:03:32] Kelly Hawkins: I ultimately turned you down on that interview.

[00:03:41] Kep Crabb: I recall, that was fine. No pressure here. The pressure’s off.

[00:03:47] Kelly Hawkins: Thank you and I appreciate that. I felt like I would fail if I did the interview, and I felt like I would fail if I didn’t. I didn’t anticipate the second part, but once I said no, then I felt like I failed. So this time, I figured if I do it and I fail, at least I’ve tried.

[00:04:12] Kep Crabb: Kelly, thank you. Thank you for joining me today. It’s so funny as you start to unpack this. First of all, I didn’t realize you wrote seven books. I’ve got two of them here. We could go so many different directions with our conversation today. You and I have had conversations in the past about diets for different health ailments, and all these kinds of things, and I’ve really appreciated those because I do all these crazy recipes and crazy juicing drinks for my wife, who was diagnosed with cancer three years ago. Those have been hugely helpful. But that’s not what we’re here to talk about today. Maybe that’s another show sometime down the road for us, that would be fun to chat about too.

We’re here to talk about a couple of different things, but two of the books that you’ve written, I read this one which is titled, Feels Like I’m Drowning, and the one you just referenced, Warrior Woman, which is the beginning of a series of books that you’re in the process of producing. My mother got a chance to write the intro to Warrior Woman, which was really cool for me because as I read that again, it gave me just a little glimpse into my mom and what she was going through after Dad had passed. This book really did encourage her to put on that armor and different things that you talk about, and I think it still encourages her today. So those are the two books that I’m familiar with, but can you just briefly give us a little bit of your story?

I know in one of the books you mentioned you had a brother that was battling cancer and some of these kinds of things and just give us a little taste of your story.

[00:05:43] Kelly Hawkins: Okay. My brother, it’s been almost 20 years now since he passed away. Let’s go back to the beginning.

[00:05:58] Kep Crabb: However you want to go, you go anywhere you want to go.

[00:06:00] Kelly Hawkins: I grew up in a family. There were three of us kids. My mom struggled with some emotional issues through my childhood and I was on my own in a lot of ways; at least I felt like I was on my own. Some of that was okay because I was an introvert. I learned to play guitar when I was nine, so I wrote songs and played and my parents heard me. I didn’t sing publicly at all, but they would hear me in my room, and when I was in high school my dad knew this musician; he had a country band and I grew up in the country, and my background was country. We listened to country, and the songs I played and learned how to play had a country feel and so that was comfortable to me.

[00:07:14] Kep Crabb: I love country music, girl.

[00:07:16] Kelly Hawkins: So my dad knew this guy who had a band and arranged for me to have an opportunity to sing one song at one of his performances.

I knew how to tune my guitar to itself, but I didn’t know how to tune it. I didn’t know that you were supposed to tune it to an accurate tuning method.

[00:07:40] Kep Crabb: Right, 4/40 tuning to the E right there is what you’re talking about. For sure.

[00:07:45] Kelly Hawkins: It was crazy because here I am learning to play songs in the key of G, but it’s not really in the key of G.

I don’t even know what it was in, but I go to this performance, this outdoor concert, and the musician met with me for about two minutes before we went on and he said, what key do you need? I’m like, I have no idea. So he is like, how about A? Okay. I don’t know. I didn’t have my guitar either. I was very familiar with the song that we were doing. Very familiar with it in the way I played it. I got up there on the stage microphone, started the song, and the key was too high for me. But I muddled through that. My parents were really proud of me. This was 40 years ago, so for the last 40 years, they’ve been so proud of me and they’ll bring that up at times.

But for me, what I heard was one guy – he was probably drunk actually – but one guy booing.
It could have had nothing to do with me, but that’s what I heard. I couldn’t even talk about this actually until just recently. I heard this booing and that brought humiliation and shame that I dealt with for all these years.

[00:09:35] Kep Crabb: Do you think that had anything to do with your reluctance to want to do something like this today? You used the word failure and I said to you earlier, you can’t fail at what you’re doing today. Even if we’re in the key of A or the key of B – which is higher than A – you can’t fail. I wonder how that has impacted you in respect to where you’re moving now.

[00:10:00] Kelly Hawkins: I had another situation in high school where I was in the spotlight again. In that situation, I didn’t feel like I really belonged there. It was a pageant. I was encouraged by my parents to do it, I think they wanted to get me out of my isolation. They helped me get involved in this Miss Teen pageant. Again, it’s something that I haven’t talked about in 40 years until just recently. With this pageant, I didn’t know how to do hair and makeup but all these other girls did and that gave me a sense of shame. I wasn’t stylish. I had hand-me-down gowns or resale shop gowns that I was wearing and these other girls were dressed very stylishly. So again, I felt shame. I didn’t see myself as a good communicator and these other girls, they were – more shame. I wasn’t a dancer. There was a dancing part of this. I think there were 300 girls in this and we had this dance routine, but it wasn’t me and it brought shame. All of that shame gave me a lack of confidence, which created more shame. I knew I didn’t fit there, but I also came to this conclusion that I didn’t fit in at that country place either, because that’s where I thought I fit before there was this booing that convinced me that I don’t fit there either.

I determined from all that that my conclusion was, if the spotlight is on me, I’m going to be humiliated, and that humiliation will bring shame. If you told me, I want to interview you, but you’re going to be humiliated in this interview, of course I’m not going to do it. Or I’m just white knuckling it and determine I’m going to do this, but with the belief that I’m going to be humiliated, it’s going to impact the way I portray myself. It’s going to impact my mind. Which is actually what happened in another interview that I told you about last fall. I did white knuckle it and enter into this interview, but I still held that conclusion about shame and humiliation and trying to work through that. My brain would just freeze because there’s just too much emotion there and I can’t deal with it. That’s what I was dealing with when you invited me to do an interview last fall. Since then I’ve been on this journey to invite God into that place and explore what’s going on there. What are the deeper issues? I know the Apostle Paul said be transformed – I think it was Paul – be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I need my mind renewed here because I believe that I’m going to be humiliated if I open my mouth if I’m in the spotlight. There’s just too much shame in that for me to deal with.

Last January I was in Florida doing some ministry down there for a week, and at the end of the week I had a full day that I didn’t have anything to do and I committed that whole day to exploring this stuff with God, and it was a very emotional day. There were a lot of tears. But it was a beautiful day as well because I took all this stuff from that country concert that I did and the pageant that I did and those messages that I got from those, I took those to God and told Him what I was feeling and invited Him in to speak to me about this and give me clarity in my own thoughts. What I determined was, that belief that I’ll be humiliated in the spotlight was really deeper than that. It came down to a belief that the way I’m designed is unacceptable and it’s wrong. I believed I was designed wrong.

It was quite the accusation to God in that realization that I wasn’t designed right. He did something wrong here in the way He designed me because my strengths don’t fit in in the environment in which I live. My strengths don’t fit there, and this is what I had believed. I feel like I was made for a different environment, a different world. I heard Him in my spirit, I heard Him speak to me. You were created for a different world. I said to Him, then why am I here as I am? What I heard from Him was to show the world who I am. That stopped me in my tracks, but the next thing really broke my heart. It does make me a little emotional, but what I heard was, because you don’t trust who I created you to be, you live with a veiled presence. That’s not what I intended for you. I just had to spend quite a while just sitting with that and feeling it, exploring it and then letting God speak into that more about how He created me and what He intended for me. Through the rest of that day, I just got more and more comfortable with accepting who I am as He created me to be, that I don’t have to fit in someplace or be what other people are because we’re all created uniquely. That uniqueness fits His purpose.

One big example that came to mind for me was Nick, if you’re familiar with him, the man with no arms and no legs. When he was in high school, he tried to take his own life. He believed he was created wrong. He didn’t have any arms, he didn’t have any legs and he tried to drown himself.

But God was able to get a hold of his life, and now he speaks to large audiences, large groups of people, and probably has more impact than almost every pastor. He’s just amazing. To look at his example, he could easily say, I was made wrong. I don’t have the body parts, the arms, the legs to serve you, God, as I think I need to serve you. And yet he’s taking what God has given him and using it to bring honor and glory and tell his story and tell God’s story. I’m recognizing that He’s called me to something unique and purposeful; I don’t want to tell Him that He’s made a mistake in how He’s designed me because He knows the purpose.

If it’s in being a slow thinker, sometimes a slow processor, sometimes or just having difficulty communicating, then so be it. But like with Moses, I don’t want to be the one who says no, I’m not going to be willing to be used by you.

[00:20:02] Kep Crabb: I love that, Kelly. I just want to say, I think it’s awesome that you’re joining me today and that you’ve “jumped off your cliff” – to use one of Dad’s metaphors – and how you’re open to doing this for the glory of the Lord. That just is so beautiful. It’s interesting, we were supposed to be talking today about SoulTalk, which is what we’re talking about as you unpack your story. I feel like I know you a little bit better now, but it takes me back to , as I hear your story, the Feels Like I’m Drowning book. I know Warrior Women is another piece too, but this was a very poignant and important book I thought, because you talk about desperate, dark times, dry bones and Ezekiel weariness. But then you shift a little bit as you progress and there’s the anchor, there’s some stuff dealing with softening of the heart, the gift of the journey.

I just want to read something to our listeners really quickly in your book here that’s in the forward written by a close friend. It says, “Living an abundant life is about using the few short years I have here to bring glory to God and display a life of beautiful freedom as He intended for me to have. It’s about living responsibly, wisely and fully. It’s about opening my hands and giving Him everything I hold on to, everything I have accomplished, everything that’s wonderful in my life, as well as everything that’s painful or worrisome and all my struggles. And after that I can let Him fill me up and then pour out everything I have in order to love Him and love others fully.”

I just think that’s really cool. Another thing you had in this book, Kelly, that kind of left a print on me is you have relational, spiritual, emotional, and physical silos that you talk about in that book. It took me back to my dad years ago as he was writing the book, Connecting, which contains my story and where Dad introduces the four circles – personal, rational, volitional, emotional – 4 areas that make up who we are.

As I hear you start to talk about your own story as we jump into Warrior Woman, just for a second here, when you said that you felt like God didn’t create you the way you were supposed to be created. I love how you’re fighting for women in this, but this book really does apply to men too.

There’s a lot of principles in here that I think are important, but just talk a little bit about what’s going on in the world today and how some of that stuff that’s happening in regards to people feeling like, God, you messed up. You didn’t do it right with me. I didn’t have that feeling and I’m just curious to dive into that a little bit with you if you’re willing to let me do that.

All that’s going on in respect to Warrior Women – and I think these really go well in regards to SoulTalk too – you talked about in your story how you felt like, because of shame, because of different things, that you were made wrong, which I think is not correct. You were made in the image of God perfectly and how you are. I think we see a lot of that in today’s culture, in people saying, I feel like I wasn’t made right, God. Maybe not saying that literally because they’re not even believing that, but just saying to themselves, I’m not made right.

How did you move through that in a way – and you talked a little bit about it – that allows you to understand that you were made in the image of God?

[00:23:36] Kelly Hawkins: I talked about where Paul says to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Years ago I became familiar with Inner Healing Prayer. It’s really just talking to God, learning to talk to God and listen to His response. It’s exploring. It’s starting with how you feel and understanding that those feelings impact your behavior. As I’m pursuing transformation in myself I just want to align myself with how God is thinking. I may have this idea that I was created wrong or is designed wrong but He’s the one that knows better. If I can align with His thinking, then my mind will be transformed and I can align with His purposes for me in that.

[00:24:48] Kep Crabb: That seems to be happening in you. What are you doing? How is that happening?

[00:24:53] Kelly Hawkins: It’s exploring what I’m feeling. Actually, I have another example that is a pretty simple example.

About 12 years ago, I was stung by a bee, which doesn’t sound like a big deal. I was stung a lot when I was a kid. Growing up in the country it wasn’t a big deal. It was painful at times, but not a big deal. But about 12 years ago, I was doing a little gardening and working in some landscaping. I reached into the wrong spot, didn’t realize there was a wasp nest, and got stung. I didn’t even see the bee at the time, but I certainly felt it and I thought, oh, I haven’t been stung in years, I forgot what it feels like, this isn’t comfortable, I’ll go in the house. I was home alone at the time and I went in the house. I don’t remember if my kids were there at the time or not, but Dave wasn’t home – my husband – and he got home right after this. God was watching over me and that, I believe. I was doing some things to wash it off, trying to make sure there was no stinger in me, that kind of thing. I started getting itchy, and then I was getting more itchy. My head was itching and my whole body was starting to itch, and I said, I’m not sure what’s going on here, but maybe we should go to the hospital, just to get it checked.

A few minutes later we’re on our way to the hospital; it was about 10 minutes away. About two minutes into our drive, I lost my hearing. Everything was muffled as if someone had my ears covered. Probably another 30 seconds later I lost my vision. Everything turned white. I told Dave, I think you should call 911. We’re on our way to the hospital, but I think you should call 911. He’s like right now? Yes, right now. So he calls 911 and he’s on the phone driving. He said, I think I should drive fast. I could hear, but it was muffled and the only thing I could see was white. We’re driving and he’s on the phone with 911, one hand on the steering wheel, and according to him, I pass out at that point. My seatbelt was on, but I fell forward in my seat and he’s trying to push me back up.

There’s another story I tell in one of my other books about this incident and how, for the next two miles of the drive, I had this vision or experience where I was standing with Jesus and enveloped in His presence. He was speaking into my fears. There’s more to it, you can read it in the book. I came out of that experience feeling very uninhibited, like fears didn’t control me for a short time after that.

I got to the hospital and my body temperature was really low and they couldn’t get a reading on that. Basically, my body was shutting down to where I was dying.

Fast forward, I get out of the hospital a couple days later and within a couple weeks I’m able to get myself to go out to that spot where I was stung, just to see, was it really a bee, was that really what was there? I could see some bees flying in and out of that spot,so now I know to stay away from that.

I don’t remember how long it was, but some time went by and there was this fear of bees. Then the next summer comes and I’m very tentative about even being in the yard or going out. I didn’t want to be controlled by that. So I pursued that with God. I’m like, okay, I have this fear, and I had to explore what the fear was: if I go out, if I get stung again, I’m going to die. I had an EpiPen by then, but still, I had this belief that if I get stung, I’m going to die.

So I walked through that with God, and allowed Him to speak into that. What He spoke to was reminding me of what He did to keep me alive when I didn’t know that I would die if I got stung. He was sovereign over that initial situation and took me through it. He brought my husband home at the right time to take me to the hospital. He just had it all in His control and He wasn’t ready for me to die at that point. He kept me here and He reminded me that He is in control. I’m not going to be unwise, I’ll have my EpiPen around in case I need it, or I’ll do what I need to do in response, but I’m not afraid of bees anymore. Usually other people are more afraid than I am if they know that I’m allergic. I can be in my sunroom, and every once in a while there will be a wasp in there looking for a way out. Even just a couple days ago, I had a friend over and I walked out there and she said, there’s a bee there, be careful! And I’m like, oh yeah. I took a piece of paper and I’m trying to gently move it out. I just don’t have that fear anymore because I allowed God to speak into that, that He is sovereign over my circumstances.

[00:32:53] Kep Crabb: Did you say this was recently? I know just a few months ago when you and I were talking about doing this, you were reluctant and said, no, I don’t think I’m going to. I was fine, of course, but you changed your mind. When did all this start to happen?

[00:33:08] Kelly Hawkins: The bee sting thing was like 12 years ago. That was a long time ago. But the speaking stuff, it’s always been a struggle for me. I can even go back to kindergarten and report cards. I actually got a report card in kindergarten – I don’t know if they still do that.

[00:33:34] Kep Crabb: I don’t know.

[00:33:36] Kelly Hawkins: Kindergarten, first grade, second grade. All my teachers would write on my report cards, Kelly’s very sweet, but she doesn’t talk. They would see me playing outside and I would play normally and yell and talk to my friends outside, but then I got inside and whenever I felt like the spotlight was on me, that’s where I shut down.

[00:34:05] Kep Crabb: It’s interesting because I think my first grade, second grade, third grade teacher said, Kep talks too much and he’s not very sweet. Maybe we have a different way there, but we could balance each other out. I’m just really grateful that you were willing to do this, willing to step into this. I think this is a testament to what the Holy Spirit’s doing in your life.

I think it goes back to what we talked about at the beginning of the conversation where, other people, me being one of those, is seeing how the Holy Spirit is working in your life. Your husband’s seeing the same thing according to the conversation we had a few weeks ago. I love that because I think something’s happening with me too, Kelly, and something’s going on. God is on the move. It seems oftentimes that the world is on fire.

I think it reminds me of Esther. You talk about Esther in Warrior Woman and it reminds me of the time where the Israelites are just a little bit away from being completely destroyed and wiped off. And then God said, no, I’m coming in and I’m going to change everything. I’m in charge here. My story’s not going to be thwarted by anything that happens. I’m just really grateful that you took the time to chat with me today. Tell us really quickly, how can we get Warrior Woman and Feels Like I’m Drowning and the other books that you’ve written?

Maybe we can send a link out to some of the people that watch if they’re interested in getting some of those. Of the two I’ve read, I would strongly recommend them. How do we get those, Kelly?

[00:35:35] Kelly Hawkins: They can be ordered on Amazon. That’s the main place.

[00:35:39] Kep Crabb: Just Amazon standard stuff?

[00:35:40] Kelly Hawkins: Just Amazon. There are other Kelly Hawkins out there – I think one’s a physical therapist and has some books – but mine are: Warrior Woman, It Feels Like I’m Drowning, Loved as I Should Have Been, and Safe, Secure, and Free. Those are the four most recent ones, they’re all on Amazon.

[00:36:09] Kep Crabb: Kelly, thank you so much for this time together. I’m really grateful that you mustered the courage and you allowed yourself to come in here. I want to say right away, this was no failure, that’s for sure. I think you blessed me just in hearing you talk and I feel like I know you a little bit better now and that’s kind of part of what we’re trying to do with these podcasts on relational spirituality.

So folks, thanks for joining us today. Stick around next Tuesday, you’ll get another podcast episode of Relational Spirituality, brought to you by Larger Story. Have a great day.

Message

Colorful, Fallen, Thirsty People: How God Shows Up in…

June 27, 2023June 30, 2023
by Rosanne Moore

Karla Denlinger joins Rosanne Moore today to trace how God revealed Himself to her through a community of faithful people who reached into her life as a small child and how that journey of seeking Him has always interwoven relationally with fellow followers of Jesus willing to trust Him and one another with their brokenness.

Bio: After serving 32 years alongside the people of Valley Springs Fellowship in Warsaw, Indiana, Karla now resides in Cincinnati with her husband Kent. Her introduction to Larry Crabb came as an undergrad psychology major. Her studies continued under Larry, including an internship, and receiving a MA in Biblical Counseling from Grace Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana. Karla has served as a spiritual director for the School of Spiritual Direction and NextStep for the past 15 years. In addition, she has spoken at retreats and offers ongoing spiritual direction to numerous individuals in a variety of settings.

Karla deeply values time spent with her two adult children and their spouses and loves being a grandma to her five grandchildren. She enjoys painting, studying, and a good latte. Those closest to Karla would describe her as having an ear for the inner workings of the Spirit, uniquely gifted at helping a person discover and put words to what is transpiring in their soul, most specifically the often-undetected life of God.

Real Church by Dr. Larry Crabb

SoulTalk by Dr. Larry Crabb

Larger Story Spiritual Direction

The Detour

Transcript

[00:00:28] Rosanne Moore: Good morning Larger Story audience. I’m Rosanne Moore, your host of the Relational Spirituality podcast, and I’m so excited today to have Karla Denlinger with me. If you’ve been to one of our schools of spiritual direction, you may have crossed paths with her. She was a pastor’s wife for 32 years at Valley Springs Fellowship in Warsaw, Indiana.

She now lives in Cincinnati with her husband Kent; they have two grown children and five grandchildren. She studied under Larry at Grace College and Seminary. As I mentioned, she was a spiritual director at Larry’s schools of Spiritual Direction and Next Step programs, and she is currently a spiritual director for Larger Story.

So Karla, thank you so much for taking the time today to be with me.

[00:01:21] Karla Denlinger: You bet, friend. Good to be with you.

[00:01:25] Rosanne Moore: It’s always so good to see your face. We’re talking about Real Church, that’s our book of the quarter right now. It was interesting, when we first talked about you doing this and I mentioned getting your perspective as a pastor’s wife, you said something beautiful; you said you felt like you just got to be Karla in the church that you were a part of for so long. So I would love to hear what has formed your experience with the church community and how has that changed over time?

[00:02:00] Karla Denlinger: What a loaded question for me in the sense of, my busy mind right away went to, what constitutes the church community and what is the structure of the church? You sent me down so many thoughts and wonderings and all, but I just started listing. My first thought went to, we’ve been in the book of Ruth at the local church we go to right now. In chapter two, Kent and I were both so taken by the phrase that when Ruth showed up, it “just so happened” she ended up in Boaz’s field. We sat and listed together the things that “just so happened,” and I’m thinking: I’m a little girl that lived the first two years of her life with her grandma and grandpa, my mom and dad and my older brother. When I was born, my folks were twenty and twenty one and my brother had already been born. My grandma had such a huge impact on me her entire life in that, there was a delight and enjoyment of me that somehow held on to things in the midst of really difficult parts of my journey and story.

My first memories of church is that occasionally my mom and dad would get in the car and go somewhere. I think I was aware of God and I remember crying a lot in my bed at night to Him. A neighbor lady, Mrs. Harris had a station wagon and she threw in a bunch of us pagan neighborhood kids into a station wagon and took us to vacation Bible school. Mrs. Markle was up front and I remember her laying out telling me that God loved me and that He forgives me my sins and anyone who wanted to come forward and receive Jesus in vacation Bible school. So I did.Occasionally then we would go to church. My mom didn’t drive, so we were dependent on people to pick us up and take us.

I remember Mrs. Youngkin was my first Sunday school teacher, and then I had Mrs. Usher. Mrs. Usher invited us to her house for lunch, and I don’t think I’d ever gone into somebody else’s home outside my family that was a believer. She just wanted to do us good. Mrs. Zimmerman lived across from Arthur Street Elementary where I went and had a bible club. I remember Psalm 23 in a big puzzle. I memorized it as a third grader, and I just ran into her last week when I was up in Ashland visiting my mom at assisted living and she’s got to be in her nineties.

So it’s just all this, it “just so happened,” it “just so happened,” it “just so happened” then that Kevin Huggins and Tina Huggins became my youth pastor. This church that I grew up in, Knute and Jeanine Larson, and John and Jane Teevan, and Brian and Crystal Roseborough, it’s names that flooded my mind that were part of the structured church and part of the host of believers that were just intersecting my path. It felt like in the moment these people were enjoying what they were doing. It was from some place of delight in them to share it with me.

That was my introduction and formative years. I have to say my mom and dad and their willingness to be broken, to admit their faults, to receive grace, to ongoingly be changing before my eyes. We were all becoming believers at the same time. The ongoing messiness of our fallenness that we couldn’t get rid of. Somehow we all found grace together and I’m indebted to them. With my mom and dad, it was never about cleaning up the outside of the cup. A lot of forgiveness and grace came our way.

Then I got disillusioned with Christianity because somehow it wasn’t addressing the deeper realities of the motivations of my heart. At that time I did not know, I didn’t have an internal language. I just felt angry. I felt really depressed about who I was. Those are my years coming to college.

[00:06:41] Rosanne Moore: That was what I was going to ask. What stage of the journey was that college? Is that what took you to Bible college?

[00:06:47] Karla Denlinger: Yeah. Grace was part of our denomination, Grace College and Seminary. I knew in junior high school, I felt in my heart, I made a commitment to God. I wanted to serve Him with my whole being, somehow, my whole life. At that time it would be described as vocationally, so I went to Grace with the thought of maybe being a counselor or, I really didn’t care about the job path, just that He used me. Kent and I got married in college. We came back to my home church, did an internship before seminary. He was heading into the MDiv, I was heading into the counseling program. I knew nothing about the counseling program, or Larry, or Dan. I wouldn’t have had the courage to do it if I would’ve known anything about it.

I didn’t have to go through an interview. “Just so happened.” Thank God, at 23, He plopped me down in core class in a lab with people; Trip was in my lab, and Mary Beth Niager was my intern, Paul and I were students together, and just this group of people becoming a community. A church.

[00:08:07] Rosanne Moore: Wow.

So were you already married at that point? Where did you meet Kent?

[00:08:11] Karla Denlinger: Yeah, we met in college our freshman year. Physical science, physics. After we had been married, between college and seminary, I looked at him and told him he was the best thing that ever happened to me, but someday I’d be gone.

It was Christianity I was leaving. Whether it was my ears or my development, I didn’t hear people talking about the struggle. I was trying to do everything that I thought I was supposed to do: read the Bible, pray, share my faith – which was the most uncomfortable thing on God’s earth for me.

I felt like getting married exposed a deeper sin in me that I couldn’t dislodge, and a deeper thirst in me that I thought I was crazy. I felt angry and crazy. I didn’t want to go live for pleasure and I was too scared to kill myself. I didn’t quite know how to go crazy. I didn’t know what I was going to do, and it just so happened that I got accepted into the counseling program like that, having no words for that in the present. Besides, I didn’t know what to do or where to go or where to turn.

[00:09:35] Rosanne Moore: I wonder how many people enter that kind of existential sense of being trapped. I know at various times I’ve been very aware of that, like being trapped and being alive and human and what a phrase I resonate with. I can remember thinking once after reading Jeremiah, I get it. The whole thing of, it’s not even that I want to die, it’s why was I ever born?

I didn’t choose to be here and now I’m stuck. I think when you actually grapple with that it will either drive you crazy or it will open you up to God in ways that nothing else can because you’re so desperately in need of someone larger than yourself to save you and nothing else will satisfy. Nothing else will work.

[00:10:32] Karla Denlinger: Trapped in aliveness. What a phrase.

[00:10:36] Rosanne Moore: So what happened? You’re there to get training as a counselor.

[00:10:43] Karla Denlinger: Exactly. The joke was on me.

[00:10:47] Rosanne Moore: In the middle of it, God is surrounding you with all these wonderful people – I know enough of some of their stories to know that they were also grappling with what it meant to be alive and human – and you had community together.

[00:11:01] Karla Denlinger: Yes. I think the church functions in such beautiful ways. You come alongside together for a bit of time, and then you go off and then He allows another person to come in and strengthen you, and you strengthen them and there’s this organic, beautiful flow that way. I would build my kingdom here if I could.

There’s something far more alive, and the needs in me for different parts of the body and how different people view things and their journeys and what they’ve come to know of Him that I’m limited in coming to know. I think that was some of my first exposure to having my world expanded with these colorful fallen thirsty people. That I didn’t feel alone in the groan.

It was at this time, I can’t remember exactly, Valley Springs was starting. We had been part of a Sunday school class in a church, and there were quite a lot of things happening in it. We went away for a summer to do a ministry team and when we came back, many of our friends had started a church. And so about six weeks in, we went to it and it just felt like we had come home. We had been part of a small group that Tom and Vickey Varney had organized in their basement, and a lot of those friends had gone on to this church, this new start, and we went and it just felt like we were at home.

Over time, I don’t know how old the church was, but then Rachael and Larry started coming and Dan and Becky Allender and all. And it was very decentralized and disorganized, and they needed someone to help organize things who’s going to be there to set up chairs at the school and take the toys out, put the toys away. Larry looked at Kent and said: “Why don’t you do that?” So Kent was hired as a ministry coordinator of our group, and over time grew into the pastorate there.

That’s how we ended up in that role, but the church was very much elder-ruled. I found this friend from Valley Springs.

A dear brother sent this today with the passing of Tim Keller. He had been listening to him and brought back a lot of memories for him of our time and our journey together, and he quoted Tim Keller. An article by David Brooks right now, which is on the Atlantic. Tim Keller said, “Cheer up. You’re a worse sinner than you ever dared imagine, and you’re more loved than you ever dared hope.”

I can’t think of a better summary of what we came to know together. Cheer up. It echoed Larry’s heart and ministry towards us all through the decades, looking bad in the presence of love. There was a group of people who I repeatedly failed in my energy who believed and held onto something deeper in me. The new covenant became so precious to us. The deepest reality of the redeemed image bearer’s heart is that we’re lovers of God and lovers of others, and that our sin is just blocking the release of that. Having the courage to own that energy, far deeper than a behavior and an energy that you cannot fix travels with you. But somehow, the sense of people still looking at me with eyes of redemptive delight, in the middle of my failure, helped me believe that I think this is true.

I think that’s His heart towards me. As a pastor’s wife, I was Kent’s wife, but as newer people would come in, they would look at me more in that traditional framework. The elders were always so reminding me of, we all must move freely with how we’ve been uniquely made for the kingdom; there’s not some slot here to fit in. We want you fully alive to how God made you in this world. I had to fight off a lot of my own flesh and demons, but it wasn’t because of what I felt from the structure.

[00:15:50] Rosanne Moore: That is a gift. I know that is not the case for many wives of those in ministry, but especially their families I’ve heard from often. When I was married to someone in ministry, certainly there was the pressure to present a certain – I’m not sure if facade is the right word, but certainly a level of performance. So that is a gift, that you were able to just be Karla and to offer that.

I want to go back to something you said. You talked about the energy in us that’s so often wrong and that we cannot ever fix.

It’s funny, as we’re recording today, my interview with my best friend last month is made live. One of the things we talked about there is how too often the message that we receive instead is we’re saved by grace but now we keep that sanctification process going by effort.

You are pointing to the fact that that’s not even reality. We’re underestimating our need for a Savior when we think that’s even within the realm of possibility. Would you say more about that? What does that mean? Where’s the hope in that? Because that can be very depressing, I would think, on the face of it, and yet, I think for me too, I look and I see the ways that the Lord has set me free to rest in His goodness. I come into a deeper and deeper awareness of that.

[00:17:40] Karla Denlinger: I love that the word that was coming in my mind came to your mind: freeing. It’s actually very freeing that there is something terribly wrong and it’s so big and so beyond me and out of my control and that. That’s where the immensity I just continue to scratch the surface of what it means that He knew that’s what I was up against. I didn’t know that’s what I was up against. His compassion came here knowing, “she can’t save herself from that.” The path of freedom is owning it versus trying to fix it. I love the quote by Julian of Norwich when she, in her revelation, kept seeing her sin and she felt like Jesus said to her, “keep coming to me with that and give me the joy of being your savior again and again. I feel so much joy in getting to save you.”

It’s still so hard on my pride, this daily reality of my snapping at Kent, – and I would be like this if I lived alone.

[00:18:57] Rosanne Moore: You’d just be less aware of it.

[00:19:01] Karla Denlinger: The poor mailman or whoever at the distance I could have a relationship with.

It’s this ongoing freedom of, I don’t have to live in the burden of trying to hide it, fix it, stay ahead of it – that’s bondage – but to live as freely as possible.

I was scared to come on this because I know me and I easily could take something and twist it, take someone down or whatever.

God, grace is huge and there’s something that burns more deeply in me of your goodness that’s found me and that I want to speak of more than my fear of being exposed as fallen. Exposed as self-centered. Exposure is not the enemy, but it can really be a kiss of a friend and repentance can be laughter. Your friend’s mocking you –

[00:20:01] Rosanne Moore: with great tenderness and perfection.

[00:20:05] Karla Denlinger: The second coming just takes on more and more power of, we are going to be free of this when grace is finally revealed fully. Somehow this is serving us now, this ongoing competing passions within us. We’ve grown inwardly as we wait eagerly. Meanwhile, we have been free to tell who we have found that loves us in the middle of this and grab hands with each other and this story ends so well. Go love some more people into His kingdom, and it’s a privilege.

[00:20:47] Rosanne Moore: I was thinking about what you said about the people who reached out to you as a child that you sensed in them a delight in you and a delight in what they were doing to share the goodness of God with you. There’s such a different power, such a different energy to wanting to give account of the one who has set you free as opposed to trying to impose a way of thinking so that you can score points with God. Too often I think we’re drawn to the one that allows our flesh to still feel pumped up.

I know that was true for me for a long time in my thoughts of what it meant to share Christ. It was more about me than it was about celebrating who He was and letting and inviting other people into the joy of that. That’s something that has shifted, ironically, the more aware I am.

I can remember a real turning point came when the Lord really clearly said to me, “Rosanne, I’m never disillusioned with you, because I never had any illusions about who I was getting to begin with. You get disillusioned with you, but I never had that unreality in my view.” It was a momentary sting and then, oh, that’s wonderful news.

If I can never surprise Him with my failure then there’s just room for growth. That’s all there is. All we can do is go up from here as He brings life that I can’t achieve on my own. It’s such a good thing.

It’s such a beautiful thing.

[00:22:43] Karla Denlinger: I think it’ll often feel like we’re going down. I think the suffering that we’re open to, there’s more grief, there’s more of tasting the ruin within and the ruin without and the lament and the groaning. There’s this line within me that it’s all a ball still of, what’s discernment? What’s being judgmental? What’s just my personal preference in how to worship?

Where are all the groaning Christians? The ones that are putting one foot in front of the other saying, so be it, with all the energy they can muster with the battles they’re facing internally and what they’re seeing externally. Can we help lift our eyes up to the larger story? Because my knees get knocked out from under me daily; it feels like I can’t go on. So that’s this profound mix of aliveness and passion and battle and failure and glimpses of delight. It’s all of this, to be alive in this world.

[00:24:13] Rosanne Moore: Yeah, you talked about that how God brought those people into community with you for seasons and then they would leave. I know my time at SSD, every time I came in, I came away feeling both mournful and more thirsty because it made me so aware and it enlarged my capacity for joy, and then I had to walk away from it.

I think that’s part of that call for what’s coming, for what God’s made heaven to be for us and the new world that He’s creating. But it’s not here yet. And so we groan. Both the joy and the groan go deeper as we go.

What does it look like for you to find the strength in the middle of that when it’s easy to skate along the surface and you can feel like you’re the only one? As you said, where are the lamenting Christians? Where are the companions in that sorrow?

[00:25:29] Karla Denlinger: Which one of the prophets? Elijah felt like he was all alone, and the Lord pulled back the curtain and said, “This many have not bent their knee to Baal.” I cannot trust my opinion on this, or trust my feelings on this, but I think just looking at your questions ahead of time, I realized how richly He’s provided for me with the church. That I get to connect with them with phone calls.

I’m part of two small groups still in Winona. It’s not the day to day of helping each other hook arms and go, okay, we are going to go take this meal even though we’re both dead tired, what part are you grabbing? We know it’s right, it’s consistent, somewhere inside of us, we’re going, where 90% of us goes, surely somebody else can do this. I don’t have that day-to-day fortification of borrowing each other’s strength. But as soon as I say that, I feel like, no. As I listen to people on the phone, I do borrow their strength as they’re living and fighting the battle all across the world, and the beauty of that.

I remember when we came down here, I’m like, who am I apart from these people at Valley Springs? Who the heck am I? Because I felt, they’re in me, I’m in them. We’re in Christ, like this inner meshing. They walk through deep disillusionment with each other, deep disappointments with each other, failures, and the ongoing graces.

I am grateful. I have a daughter and son-in-law who journey so beautifully into God’s heart, but I don’t have the day-to-day what I would’ve called a local church. But I have God, and His Word. I think Larry taught me, I sit down in the morning and often just put to words, like, my life counts for nothing. Wherever I’m at, what’s been my failure that’s caused this. Some of my close friends tease that we’re in exile, which isn’t true. To have a conversation with God about wherever I’m at, like if I’m not feeling well I don’t think I can move today. The days I don’t have the strength to do anything about it, I desire to rest in who he says He is, His character. He’s holding onto my part of faith too, it’s not about me holding onto Him. But on other days it’s like having my part of the conversation and then turning to His Word; would you like to say anything to address that? Or is there something else on your mind that seems far more important than my take on how I am doing right now? It does bore me sometimes, which is good news.

[00:29:09] Rosanne Moore: For the past month we have been working toward buying a house, and we have one under contract, and we’re coming down to the end with all the re-inspection reports. Now we’re at a point where we’re waiting to see, is this something God is going to give or is this going to be another one taken away? In 14 years, this is the fourth time we’ve tried, and this is the furthest we’ve gotten. We’ve had hopes of having this happen since we were displaced 14 years ago. Over the weekend I was struggling with wanting to handle it well and then realizing that wasn’t an option. I had to say all the things that were there and say, I don’t like that I’m wrestling again with questions of whether or not you really take care of me. I can recount the things in the past, but that doesn’t feel present now. And the Lord has been so kind in the middle of it as I’ve gone through this process of feeling very justified with all the reasons why it feels like He’s not trustworthy because we’ve been here so many times before. He brought to mind the Israelites coming out of Egypt. All they had known was slavery, and He says, I’m going to deliver you. And they’re like, yay. And everything gets worse.

It was just a reminder that this is not new. This is what it means to be human in a fallen world where God is at work and He’s moving us forward, but often we want that to be a straight path. We want it to look a certain way, we want it to make sense and it doesn’t. We can get fixated on that. And all the while He’s wanting to do more than just give us what we want and what we legitimately need. He provided the food and water, but He wanted them to see Him, He wanted them to see His face. They missed that for the most part; Joshua and Caleb and Moses were the only ones who would really make seeing His face more important than seeing Him meet the needs in the way and the time that it seems like He should. I share that because I think that’s part of the reason why I need other believers. I need people who remind me, who have been through that part of their journey and who can say but I have seen His goodness in the middle of this and so we keep going. We call each other to keep going when it’s hard.

[00:32:13] Karla Denlinger: When you were sharing the part where you’ve seen so much of His faithfulness and the grief of why can’t I trust you here? Immediately something in my heart could sit down and want to – I’m not sure of the words, but you’re my sister. That’s what goes on inside of me. I think that’s where I can feel such sadness of, oh Lord, what more do you need to say to me? For me, the wrestle continues and I long for it to be behind me. He’s been so good and so faithful in the reminders that He’s drawing me more deeply into deeper parts of His heart that I can’t get to any other way than this wrestle. I long not to be a wrestler. I won’t be someday. Maybe restless is not the right word, but I was just listening to Johnny Erickson last week with the paralysis – many know she’s had severe pain since I think the late nineties that she said made the paralysis feel like a walk in the park, and then breast cancer, but the severe pain and where it’s taken her with God and what she can share of the wrestle and the rest. I wonder who put me onto those phrases – I’m thinking of Beth Wayland – the glory of the whole story. I still want to parse out, this part’s good, this part’s bad, but it’s all about Him somehow.

I want to bring Him pleasure. Like that last phrase of Bernard Clairvaux, “I love myself for God’s sake.” I doubt this is what Bernard Clairvaux meant by it, but for me it’s that I love all of my story. The wrestles, the parts, I just don’t and won’t be able to get, the failures of others.

Will I allow him to use all of my life for His good pleasure versus thinking it’s about utterly doing it perfectly, or slowly it bends in on me versus I’m enthralled with who He is and what He’s doing, not so much how I’m doing or not doing. That’s been greater freedom too.

You remind me of that one Psalm. I forget what it is, it starts with I was a brute beast before Him.

[00:35:05] Rosanne Moore: Yes. Psalm 73. I read that one a lot, especially during this house process.

[00:35:16] Karla Denlinger: I love that. He’s so provoking. Then the next verse, nevertheless, He takes me by the right hand and guides me and leads me to glory.

[00:35:25] Rosanne Moore: Whom have I in heaven but you, there’s none else on earth that I desire beside you

[00:35:29] Karla Denlinger: I do hope you get this house.

[00:35:37] Rosanne Moore: I do too, but my bigger prayer the last few days has been, let us see your face. Let us not miss your face. Don’t let us get this house and miss your face, or not get it and miss your face. Regardless of whether it comes or not. Don’t let us be wandering in our desert eyes down, unaware of the one who keeps our shoes from wearing out and providing water and food each day, lift our eyes to see the glory of the one who lives in our presence. That has been my prayer in the middle of this.

[00:36:19] Karla Denlinger: That’s beautiful. That’s holy. May He honor your deepest desire.

[00:36:24] Rosanne Moore: For myself and my kids. That was one of the things I realized, part of the passion for this house was wanting a nest for them because we’ve been through so much and I realized if that’s all that I can give them, it’s not enough. I would much rather they see His face and find Him as one worthy to be desired above all else.

[00:36:48] Karla Denlinger: To land in that place; obviously it’s the Spirit’s work to land you in that place to find your deeper heart. But the ingredients in that, what would you say are those ingredients?

[00:37:13] Rosanne Moore: Realizing that the life that I long for is too small, the life I want to give them too often is too small; it would make them small. And that’s come through pain. That awareness has often come through loss, and it has also come through receiving the thing that I thought that I wanted, and finding it’s not enough. There’s a level of emptiness there. Then I turn around and find His face in the middle of the thing that I feared most in finding that He is enough.

[00:37:53] Karla Denlinger: What’s His face look like to you?

[00:38:01] Rosanne Moore: I’ve never experienced His presence more deeply than the week between realizing that something was wrong with our third child and actually losing the baby. I can remember it was the most bizarre thing because as I was on my face crying out, for the life of that child, and the Lord repeatedly said, “Give Shannon to me.”

I was both aware of the deep longing for that little one and the unspeakable awareness that there was no greater good than relinquishing that child to God’s hands. That was the safest place for Shannon. It was weird, Karla. It was just weird because – I hope I never have to experience anything like that again – yet in the middle of it, I was almost sorry. I can remember saying to a friend, “As much as I want Shannon to live, my biggest fear is not that we’ll lose Shannon. My biggest fear is that this awareness of who God is and how glorious He is will fade.” I think when I remember the taste of that and and the awareness that it’s only a taste of what’s coming, that’s what I don’t want to ever lose sight of. That’s what I always want to be moving toward. That’s what this last weekend I was aware was missing.

It can’t be for the sense of his presence, because that comes and goes. He stooped very near during that time. A lot of other times it hasn’t been that way. He seemed silent and distant and, for reasons I can’t manipulate or figure out, I don’t have a formula of why He came so close then and, in other times of great struggle, He has seemed silent. I just know on the other side of the silence, the silence has spoken more profoundly than if He had spoken into it.

[00:40:29] Karla Denlinger: Would you say He somehow sealed something in your heart with you at that point? In that, whether you sense Him or not, or His silence, His quietness, He is very present, whether you sense His goodness or not, but down underneath it all that incredible Him meeting you there has altered you.

[00:40:54] Rosanne Moore: I think losing Shannon anchored my heart in heaven like nothing else could’ve; anchored my heart in eternity the way nothing else could’ve. While I’d never want to have to go through anything like that again, I can’t regret it because of what He did in the middle of it. People are eternal. If Shannon had lived, I wouldn’t have my son Daniel, and I will have Shannon one day. So I got more in the middle of it. I lost nothing. I lost nothing in the end. And I’m grateful for that.

[00:41:35] Karla Denlinger: You’re very rich.

[00:41:39] Rosanne Moore: I did not expect to go here at all.

[00:41:44] Karla Denlinger: I should have brought my Kleenex box.

[00:41:46] Rosanne Moore: I was thinking the same thing.

Thank you. This is one of the gifts that you have that you offer; this is a picture of what we want to offer each other as the body of Christ, to listen intentionally in a way that the Holy Spirit can bring to the surface what He’s done and what He’s still doing.

So thank you.

[00:42:16] Karla Denlinger: Thank you. I forget there’s other people listening.That’s a gift.

[00:42:22] Rosanne Moore: I know!

[00:42:25] Karla Denlinger: I think of Hebrews, coming together with the body of Christ to come to help us to love and spur one another onto love and good deeds; we each get these glimpses that alter us, and then we’re asked to walk by faith and by thirst, which is so much a bulk of the journey, I think within these little sips and tastes of keep going and you can borrow my faith right now, can I borrow yours because I’m really struggling. It’s that ebb and flow of give and take from each other and that inner penetration and inner animation that happens as part of His body together, of how He wants to reach us and whisper to us and remind us of who He really is.

[00:43:20] Rosanne Moore: I appreciate the fact that you didn’t try to make anything happen. I think that’s a mistake we often make. I want to make it better. I want to help somebody see the Lord in the midst of the thing or whatever, instead of trusting that He’s there and He’s making Himself known; looking for that and listening for that, which is what you did today.

So thank you. Karla, we’re getting to the end of our time. Is there anything else you want to share that’s on your heart? Because, like you said, we do have other people listening. I just remembered that.

[00:44:12] Karla Denlinger: I read in Psalms a lot and in Psalms 138 this passage starts off: “I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise; I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.” It’s lifting my eyes from my smaller story into this larger story of steadfast love and faithfulness. That chapter ends with, “ The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me” (for us); “your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.” The Lord will fulfill his purposes for us. No matter what that looks like, He’s got me. I can flail in His hands, but I’m in His hands. I can go on not speaking terms with Him and I’m in His hands, and He’s going to get me. Meanwhile, there’s something deeper than just existing in the middle of being in His hands.

I really long for when I can find it and my brothers and sisters help me unearth it again; I really would like to cause the Father pleasure today. I really would love to go about that in the fullest way possible. I think my failures are also tied with that being happening, it’s not mutually exclusive. But the wrestle is honoring that process somehow, so I don’t want to pretend.

[00:46:05] Rosanne Moore: I’ve been listening to an album called “Faithful.” It’s a group of women artists of various kinds who got together around the beginning of Covid and wrote songs together from scripture. One of the songs I’ve been listening to on repeat, and it keeps coming to mind as you’re talking is “The Detour.” What feels to us like the detour is actually the road to His heart. It’s the road to everything we long for in Him. That’s what I hear you saying as you trace the path through that little girl going to church and going to seminary and thinking that you were going to be out of here and here you are. How many years have you and Kent been married now?

[00:47:00] Karla Denlinger: Four and a half, but who’s counting?

It’s His good hand in planting us here. We don’t have time to speak of the 50 houses we looked at and all the bids we lost and we moved in with the kids and put an offer on this house, and they called us within two hours. They were having an open house the next day, and we met them, Doug and Mary.

Mary, we walked in the door and she said, we had many offers, even that first day before our open house that were higher than yours, but Doug and I are people of prayer and we asked God, who are we to sell this to? And we knew it was you.

I’m like, you went before us. There are Christians in Cincinnati who are living from a different economy longing to please you? We’ll do it, and so here I sit with this provision of, this is where you’re to live with the body of Christ, the church.

[00:48:05] Rosanne Moore: The detour is the road and it lands in His heart. That’s so good.

Karla, thank you so much for doing this with me today. I know it was a sacrifice. I know physically that it’s not easy for you at times and that you’ll probably be tired the rest of the day or maybe several days to pay for this. So thank you for being willing to come and just share your heart with us today..

[00:48:38] Karla Denlinger: Thank you for asking. It’s fun to talk about God and His deep goodness.

[00:48:49] Rosanne Moore: Larger Story friends, I hope you will be back with us next week and if you haven’t already checked out Larry’s book Real Church, this is the kind of community he talks about. How do we do more than just talk about God? How do we actually celebrate Him in our midst? How do we help each other to become more open and aware and more hungry to become “little Christs,” knowing that it’s not about our performance, but it’s about His mercy in our midst. So we hope you’ll join us next time. Thank you, Karla, so much for being with us.

[00:49:34] Karla Denlinger: You bet. Bye.

Message

Sharing Life Together: The joys and challenges of home…

June 13, 2023June 12, 2023
by Rosanne Moore

There’s nothing like close relationships for revealing who we really are, both the glory God is creating and the messiness of what is still unrenewed. Karlene Cannon shares today about the decade that her family hosted a large church community group in their home and how God used those relationships to reveal Himself and grow His people.

Bio: In 2012, Karlene Cannon sat across a dinner table from Rachael and Larry Crabb and was captivated as Larry talked about his Teleios project- his dream for how his lifework and legacy of relational spiritual formation would be passed on to a new generation on a broader scale than had been possible in his lifetime. That evening eventually led to Karlene joining the staff of Larger Story as the Director of Content and Product Development, where she uses her experience in education, content development, and software business consulting to direct Larger Story’s strategy and create new products that bring to fruition the Teleios vision Larry articulated over a decade ago.

Karlene has written curriculum, developed retreats, and hosted a large Christian community group in her home in the ensuing years, but nothing has prepared her for the current task of reaching a new generation more than raising 4 children (ages 25, 21, 18, 14) in a family culture where relational formation is the norm, relational holiness is the goal, and the Holy Spirit gets all the credit. As she now launches them into a world rife with divisions on all sides, where the truth is often regarded as optional, Karlene’s vision is to reach this connected-but-lonely generation with the transforming certainty of a relational God and His Larger Story. Her passion has found an outlet in digital course development, content creation, and the kind of spiritual direction that occurs over a cup of coffee, via text, and through long conversations in the car.

Karlene loves sports (actually, just Duke basketball and whatever her sons are playing), all things vintage and historic, great books, fragrant coffee and crackling fires. She feels God’s pleasure when her home is full of courageous people sharing their hearts and lives for the glory of God and their own growth and healing.

Real Church by Dr. Larry Crabb

Experiencing the Trinity by Dr. Darrell Johnson

SoulTalk by Dr. Larry Crabb

Transcript

[00:00:28] Rosanne Moore: Hi Larger Story community. We are so glad to have you back on the Relational Spirituality Podcast. I’m your host, Rosanne Moore, and I have Karlene Cannon with me again. Karlene, last time we talked about the overview arc of your church experience, this time I want to talk more about, what was it like having a community group, having 50 to 80 people meet in your home, week after week, over – how many years was it?

[00:00:57] Karlene Cannon: It spanned about 10 years, but the middle 8 were when we grew. There was a bell curve. We grew, and then Covid hit, and we ended. But, yeah, it was a good eight years of really solid regular weekly meetings with a good-sized group of people.

[00:01:15] Rosanne Moore: Wow. So tell me, how did that start? You said it started as a community group, but obviously something was happening that people liked. How many people did you start out with?

[00:01:26] Karlene Cannon: It actually started because the church we were going to at the time had a very strong emphasis on discipleship. “Life-on-life discipleship” was the term that they coined and used. The way that looked was, small groups of men met together weekly, and small groups of women met together weekly, and they had student discipleship and discipleship for children on Sunday mornings.

We were all in. Rich had his discipleship group, I had my group of women. The kids were involved, and it was good. It was formative; those were really good experiences. But one thing was that our kids were getting older. We would have this experience because it was a large church, and it was a large campus. We would hit the doors 20 minutes before church started because it took that long to get from the parking lot to the doors to get all the kids spread out across the church building. We just kept having this experience of, we’d have to take Ivy to her middle school thing on Wednesday night, and I had my Tuesday morning thing, and Rich had his Monday night thing. It started to feel like our family was being pulled apart by the church. That wasn’t the intention and it certainly wasn’t the design, but that’s what we were experiencing.

We wanted to bring us all back together in a space in a way that we were actually experiencing discipleship as a family. Over the course of, probably three or four years, and in a couple of iterations, we started bringing the men’s discipleship group and the women’s discipleship group together on Sunday nights, just for conversations about marriage.

But then, we had all these kids we had to do something with, so we rotated and took turns as an adult down in the basement with the kids. Anyway, that just organically grew. At the time, Rich was doing youth discipleship. He was a leader of a group of boys, so then we just started getting all these teenagers.

Our kids were little at the time, but we started getting all these teenagers who would come to our house and would bring their families and gradually over time it grew into this group of about 20 families. We would meet together for so long that we needed to have a meal, so we would have dinner or lunch, depending on the time we were meeting. Some of the adults would be with the teenagers and some would go be with the kids and do their discipleship time while the rest were cleaning up. Actually, it’s a real family affair.

We let the kids have their own community down in the basement; this was the risky part. We would leave them because they were older teenagers, like 17, 18 years old, and the adults would have their time together. At our peak we had nine different groups of adults meeting in all the different rooms of my house. They’re in my kids’ bedrooms, there’s a group of adults in the nursery, and it was a really powerful way to engage in spiritual formation because you couldn’t hide; if there was a problem happening between you and your spouse, there was somebody talking to him and someone talking to me. If there was a problem happening with your teenage children, someone was hearing from the teenager and someone was hearing from the parents. We were just able to be in each other’s lives in ways that our prior experience, of hitting the church doors and scattering, didn’t allow.

We walked through some really hard things with people. Everything from young women with severe eating disorders to real tragedies. We had another family who lost their father. He had a sudden heart attack, and we walked through that with them. We had our whole set of challenges with family and in church and jobs lost, just the whole gamut of human experience and it was messy. We had lots of really profound, teary breakthroughs. We had lots of conflict that we had to resolve. It was, in some ways, the best season of our life. I think in some ways we’re all trying to get back to that because it was real and fully orbed; you could show up as your whole self and there was some real terror in that, but there was also real goodness in it. It was just a really special season.

[00:06:45] Rosanne Moore: What I’m curious about structurally is: it was a community group associated with a church. You did have people who were designated leaders, and you also had an opportunity for people to plug in at the beginning and then it was resonating so you drew more. I’m curious, if there were someone who is looking for that kind of community and says, I would love to open my home in that way, what advice would you offer?

[00:07:20] Karlene Cannon: We did some things structurally; first of all, we were very blessed to have some financial means to support this endeavor. We’re in a metropolitan area where there’s all sorts of traffic issues that come up, and we started doing the traditional potluck; everybody brings something to contribute to the meal. Because of the logistics of getting all the food here at a certain time, at some point I just decided to handle that. We would have people contribute salad and dessert, but I would provide the rest of the meal because I could ensure that it would be ready at 12:30 or whatever. We just had the means to do some things like that, because logistically those kinds of things can derail something.

The whole way we approach the children is very controversial. What you do with the kids in a church is a big undertaking. There were times we had 30 kids down in our basement and we were just blessed by my daughter at the time when we had that many small children. She’s a teacher now, she was built to manage and shepherd children. Even at 16, she had those kids all engaged in playing games and doing stuff. We were just blessed to have certain things that solved some of our problems. When she went off to college, we then had to, put together a rotation of adults down in the basement, and honestly, they struggled to do what she did naturally.

Every year we had to adapt the logistics to what was in front of us. It honestly gave me a greater appreciation for what churches manage when we all show up on Sunday morning, because we were managing essentially the same thing at our house.

That was the whole period where we got integrated again with the Crabb family. We went to SSD during that time, and a lot of the people in our community were also able to go. We were also involved with another ministry that was a companion or offshoot ministry of Larry’s work.

All of that emphasis on conversation and the training of how to have good conversations and how to really get into people’s souls were things that we were able to engage in together. Sometimes we did that really well and sometimes we did it absolutely awful and had to clean up messes that we made and had to apologize and repent. I think if I remember back, I was constantly confronted with my own pride and entitlement and I really went into it wanting to offer sacrificially and selflessly, that is really the desire of my heart. Then I’d just hit something or somebody and be like, “Nope, that’s enough. That’s too far. You’re asking too much.” I was challenged to put into practice these glib things we would say, of giving sacrificially. It’s hard, it’s really hard to do that. It’s hard when people are in your house.

[00:11:08] Rosanne Moore: I remember hearing an interview that was done by an American reporter with Mother Teresa and she said, “Americans like to give, they’re very generous, but they don’t know how to sacrifice.” It was something to the effect of, they give from generosity, not from love, something like that. It doesn’t cost them anything. And the reporter said, does it have to cost something? And she said, love always costs something. I think that’s real. You put your finger on something. We like the idea of being loving until it costs something. That’s not very much fun.

[00:11:50] Karlene Cannon: It costs us things; it costs privacy, I had to give up on any notion of having it all together and looking good.

There was one period when I was pregnant with our fourth child. It was a really difficult pregnancy, and I honestly spent most of the nine months in a chair because I was sick and exhausted and in pain, but I had three kids, so things like the laundry had gotten totally out of control.

I distinctly remember this enormous pile of laundry in my laundry room. I was sick when it was community group night, so I stayed up in my room, and that night, Rich finally was at the end of his rope and was probably complaining about all the things that he was having to pick up.

Ivy was 11, Ivy was having to pick up and said something about the laundry, so my friends went into my laundry room and got all this laundry. I’m telling you, I felt like the pile was over my head. It probably wasn’t that bad, but that’s just how it felt to me. They took it; they took my dirty laundry and I was mortified. I was so angry. Talk about airing your dirty laundry. They literally took my dirty laundry and I was so angry at Rich that he let them do that. I was so humiliated and embarrassed and yet, they were so glad to do something for me. They were so kind and sweet. They just spread it out so each person had a load to do. I had probably 15 loads to do, they spread it out.

Anyway, it was this pretty radical experience for me. It seems silly as I’m telling it, but it was a radical experience of love. Both my husband – he knew I was going to be mad. He risked my anger and humiliation because he needed help and he knew they wanted to help – and they ministered to me in a way that was really uncomfortable. Yet, God taught me the cost of my pride and the beauty of radical love.

It seems silly to talk about dirty laundry, but He really used that in me because it was really easy for me to feel like I was doing so much for other people, because I spent a good part of my weekend helping. There was even one season where I was writing curriculum for the youth and the kids, cooking all the food, getting the house clean, and raising my four kids. Rich traveled all the time, so it was easy for me to feel like I was doing so much that I think God had to use those experiences – that’s just one – to grab me by the chin and get my attention and say, “you’re really not doing that much. This is about forming you. It’s not about all the things you’re doing.” I think that’s what community is about. It’s about not only how we love each other and how we serve each other, but it is about those times where we hold a mirror up and say, here’s something you need to see. I don’t think that’s what these women were doing when they took my laundry, they just wanted to love me, but that’s what happened as a result. I saw myself in my complete weakness, still trying to be independent and still wanting to get it right and manage my life and still feeling so entitled. It was ugly. There’s something about love; Larry’s phrase of looking bad in the face of love, that might have been my first real significant experience of that, because it looked bad. I had all this dirty laundry. I wasn’t even keeping up with my regular life and I was angry and cranky about them taking it and ungrateful and all of these ugly things. God just said, look at you, here’s a mirror. Who are you and is that who you want to be?

[00:16:37] Rosanne Moore: Yeah. It’s interesting that you brought up that statement by Larry, because that was what was going through my mind as you were sharing. We want to be loved, but we fight it so hard. We fight being loved for who we actually are instead of who we want to present that we are.

That’s so good, Karlene, that’s amazing. It’s interesting to me because the really unhealthy church that we were in had some serious issues. We actually also experienced some really warm community as well, in the middle of that; It’s really complicated to sort through all of that. I had very traumatic births, and yet I had people bringing six weeks of food meals afterwards. As human beings, we need Jesus. This is why we need Jesus. We’re complicated.

[00:17:47] Karlene Cannon: That’s exactly right. There’s Jesus in all of those people. One thing that I just ran across in some of my preparation I was sharing about this course, was a book that Larry recommended called Experiencing the Trinity. In that book, he talks about – Larry has talked a lot about seeing other people as image bearers of God, and that’s a really profound concept. – But he took it a step further and said seeing them in the community of the Trinity and the whole relationship you have with them as part of the Trinity as part of this community. I don’t think that was a notion that was really conscious to me at the time we were doing community that way, but as I look back and think about how formative it was, even for us as a family, like I was saying, we had all of these teenagers in our home and we had really close relationships with them when our kids were still in elementary school and middle school, so we had all of this wonderful experience with teenagers before we actually had to parent teenagers, which was priceless. We were able to be confidants and support for them and their parents as they were walking through really difficult things. We’re just able to experience a little bit, I think, of what Larry talks about that perichoresis or engaging with the Trinity in someone else’s formation.

Of course, as I just shared, that always comes back to somehow forming me. There’s just something really beautiful when a family opens up and lets you be family with them. We were in a season of life where, in a lot of ways, we were losing our organic family. During that season we had some significant breaks with Rich’s family and haven’t repaired them yet; not for lack of trying, but God provided us this bigger church family. In some ways, because there wasn’t all of the baggage that comes with family, the history, we are just able to engage with these other families in intense, wholehearted ways that we haven’t found a way to do with our family. It was such a gift.

I think we have plenty of stories of messiness where there was divisiveness and people left and we don’t really stay in contact with them. We have just as many stories of families that we see. I was just at a birthday party for one of the young women who was a teenager and came up through our community group. She babysat my kids and now she has her own kids. We were just part of their family at this birthday party. For all of the messiness, of the pain, I’d still do it all over again. It’s hard for me because of the painful experiences. It’s hard for me to think of starting up again. There’s a lot of work and effort in building those relationships, but it was absolutely worth it.

[00:21:30] Rosanne Moore: Yeah. That’s good. Thank you so much Karlene, for sharing all of that with us. Larger Story community, I hope you were encouraged. I know that sometimes reading Larry’s books, he creates and stirs a thirst for deeper relationships that we can sometimes ask the question, okay, where do I find that? And I think, Karlene, your conversation reminds us, we begin with, where can I offer that? How do I begin offering that and then see who God brings into my life.

[00:22:09] Karlene Cannon: One thing that I had to learn, and my husband is much better at this, he would go to the elders of the church and say, give me the people that you don’t know what else to do with. I thought, we don’t have to ask for those people, we don’t know what to do with them either, but I learned from him this sort of openness to, I am going to love the people God brings and I’m going to take on my own biases and prejudices and you just like some people and you don’t like others and it’s often the people you don’t like that God has the most for you from them. Especially with your kids; teaching your kids when they’re 14 to love the unlovable is an important thing, but they have to see you be willing to do that first. I think one thing I learned is that it’s the very people that I was the most skeptical of, or least drawn to, that God then used the most in me and for me. I do think going into it, have this real openness for who God’s going to bring to you.

Another thing I learned from my husband and my kids is being willing to invite anyone. To be expectant for what God’s going to do, because He wants us to live in community, so He will bring people that’s dear to His heart.

[00:23:59] Rosanne Moore: Thank you all for joining us today. Thank you Karlene for sharing and we hope you will be back with us next time. We’re wrapping up our quarter focus on Real Church and our next quarter book will be SoulTalk, which if you want to be a part of Real Church, SoulTalk is a good way to get started.

[00:24:18] Karlene Cannon: That’s right.

[00:24:21] Rosanne Moore: We hope you’ll join us for our book club in July, August and September, focused on SoulTalk. There’s still time if you want to get a taste of what real church conversations are like in our book club, you can still do that as well. So thanks for joining us today.

[00:24:36] Karlene Cannon: Thank you, Rosanne. Bye everyone.

[00:24:40] Rosanne Moore: Bye.

Message

The God Who Meets Us Where We Are |…

May 23, 2023May 22, 2023
by Rosanne Moore

How do we sift through our journey with God when it takes turns we don’t expect and ushers us into places we never wanted to go? And how do we companion one another as we walk through seasons of overwhelming heartache and deep questions? Rosanne Moore and Sheri Glorioso, her best friend from college, trace the ways God has revealed Himself in their lives, often upending expectations and stirring a re-evaluation of assumptions.

The Question that Never Goes Away by Philip Yancey

The Unselfishness of God by Hannah Whitall Smith

Special Offer: Real Church by Larry Crabb Buy One Get One 50 % OFF

Transcript

[00:00:28] Rosanne Moore: Hello Larger Story audience. I am so grateful for a chance to be with you again today. I’m Rosanne Moore, I’m your host today, and I have a very special guest, my dear friend, Sheri Glorioso. Sheri has been my best friend since Bible college. We met at the dorm on the first day that I arrived, and I knew this lady just brings joy and is so welcoming.

I knew we were going to be friends. I had no idea at that point that she was not just going to be a friend, but she was going to be one of the best companions I’ve ever had in my life. Somebody who’s walked through all of the crazy seasons of my life and just been a rock. I’m so excited that she’s here today.

She is married to Emil, and they are parents of two sons and a daughter, ages 16, 13, and 10, so she’s right in the thick of the early high school, middle school years. So God bless you my dear.

[00:01:32] Sheri Glorioso: And one elementary.

[00:01:35] Rosanne Moore: Yes. I wanted to have Sheri here to talk about Real Church with me, in part because she and I have both wrestled with, together, what does it look like to be walking with Jesus in community? Even though we don’t live close to each other in very many ways, we’ve provided spiritual community for one another in times where we were struggling to find other places. We’ve had lots of conversations over the years, but what does this look like? What does this whole following Jesus look like when it doesn’t ever look like what we think it’s going to? I have yet to meet somebody who has it figured out and has that work for very long.

[00:02:23] Sheri Glorioso: Right.

[00:02:24] Rosanne Moore: Sheri, welcome. Thank you for being here today.

[00:02:29] Sheri Glorioso: Thank you so much for having me, my best friend from college and my heart.

[00:02:33] Rosanne Moore: She specifically told me, “I can’t tell you how long to go back.”

I’ll just say, that laugh right there got us in a lot of trouble in the dorms a certain number of years ago.

So Sheri, let’s start by you sharing a little bit. You had a before and after experience of coming to faith; you didn’t grow up with a childhood belief in Jesus as much, it was a more coming to Christ. Would you share about that a little bit?

[00:03:21] Sheri Glorioso: Sure. So I always knew God existed. I prayed, but I didn’t know how personal He was. Then the fertilizer hit the ventilator and my work, my family, my debt was all out of control, and I had no idea how to survive.

[00:03:40] Rosanne Moore: You were a young adult, right?

[00:03:43] Sheri Glorioso: Yeah. A coworker shared with me – she used the word scripture, which made me go woah because it sounded so serious – about how God needs all of our needs; not some, not one, not a few, but all of our needs. As long as I didn’t have to stand up in front of a church and proclaim that, I was good.

That night on my way home, I was like, “Lord, I really need you. I really need you in my life.” I just felt this lightness and freedom start to come, and then my relationship started to heal, and my financial situation started to get better. Then I was like, “I really want to learn more about you, God.”

As I was alone in a filing room, I heard, “Christian College locally.” And so I was like, “wow,” and then I sobbed and then I went to this Christian college, and then that one closed so I had to go to another Christian college, which is where we met. I was only a Christian nine months before going to Bible college.

There were times when people would talk about the Lord and how great He is and use all these wonderful adjectives, and I thought, “Wow, He’s really an egomaniac.”

[00:05:01] Rosanne Moore: The things people think, but don’t say out loud.

[00:05:06] Sheri Glorioso: Yeah. I didn’t until now.

[00:05:07] Rosanne Moore: Right. No, it’s awesome to own that. Yes, go ahead.

[00:05:14] Sheri Glorioso: I was confused about that. I didn’t see how it all connected. Then when I went to South Carolina for college. It was very structured and conservative, and I just embraced everything that I was taught because I had no clue as to what was going on, what’s real and what’s not.

You could have told me the sky was purple and if that made me closer to God, I would look at the sky and see it purple. But it was also a good experience and it was a safe experience of meeting and learning to study the Bible and having amazing professors and all of that.

There were some glitches along the way that they didn’t understand, but I just tucked them away.

[00:06:01] Rosanne Moore: Give an example. When you say glitches, what are the kinds of things that raise question marks?

[00:06:07] Sheri Glorioso: Okay. The dress code was supposed to be modest for men and women, I think, but especially more for women as we were taught that we can cause somebody else to stumble if we’re not properly dressed. I have a lot of thoughts on that.

[00:06:22] Rosanne Moore: The burden of somebody else’s sanctification was suddenly your responsibility.

[00:06:29] Sheri Glorioso: Yeah. Thank you, I couldn’t find the words for it, but that’s exactly it.

I was walking to my dorm and I saw a guy in a tank top who was very well built, and I went, whoa. And then I felt, wait a minute, this isn’t right. I’m not supposed to feel this way, but you shouldn’t be in a tank top, so that was confusing. I was going through some old papers and stuff and I even found where I wrote on a paper that, I have to be careful with what I wear because I can cause somebody else to stumble. And I was like, whoa, this is crap. Oh, sorry.

[00:07:02] Rosanne Moore: That’s so okay. This is why I have you on here. Yeah. The whole thing of holiness being external instead of relational and one-sided.

[00:07:20] Sheri Glorioso: There was another situation – I don’t know if you were there when this happened – but we had a dean of women that was there who was lovely and she couldn’t stay because she got divorced. I don’t know why she got divorced. However, one of the professors openly shared during a chapel that he had an STD that he got from seeking outside his marriage, brought it home to his marriage, and he still has a job. That totally freaked me out.

[00:08:01] Rosanne Moore: I wasn’t there for that, but yeah, with that kind of discrepancy, I can imagine. It was probably presented like there was damage control around the situations and you accepted the explanation, right?

[00:08:24] Sheri Glorioso: I did with the dean of women because I had no knowledge myself what was going on. I never saw a divorce as bad, because if my mother didn’t get divorced, I would be a very different person; my father was not a nice person. I don’t know how it was exposed that this professor went astray, but he gave a big preaching moment about how he was throwing things away and blah, blah, blah. And I was just like, what is he talking about? I didn’t have him, which was nice. I remember sitting in the back going, this is really weird. I didn’t connect that until way later – I won’t say how later, but until way later – when I started to see the structure of what I was being taught.

[00:09:14] Rosanne Moore: Yeah. I ended up having to leave school because of my health breaking down, but you and I stayed in touch, and you were one of the few people who did. I was so isolated during that time when I was so sick battling an autoimmune disease, but you stayed.

[00:09:34] Sheri Glorioso: I wasn’t letting go.

[00:09:35] Rosanne Moore: Thank God for that. You came and visited at times, even though you lived many states away. This has always been an issue for us with God, why she has to live so many states away.

[00:09:54] Sheri Glorioso: I know. Move them closer together now.

[00:09:57] Rosanne Moore: One of us, or both of us; that’s one plan we’ve had. Let’s meet in the middle someplace, like in Virginia or something. Oh dear. But, within a few years after I left school you also left and you faced a really difficult situation with your mom’s health. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

[00:10:30] Sheri Glorioso: It’s hard to talk about because unless you saw what was going on, it was really weird. My mother was not eating for long periods of time. She felt that she had to fast, like Jesus did for 40 days and 40 nights, but she would go for 80 days and 80 nights; she wouldn’t even swallow her own saliva.

[00:10:53] Rosanne Moore: And she was also battling cancer at the time.

[00:10:56] Sheri Glorioso: We didn’t know that at that point. She was thinking that the reason why she couldn’t eat was because she was going against God, so if she did eat or drink something, she would have tremendous pain. It turns out that the pain was coming from the cancer because she had a tumor the size of a football.

[00:11:18] Rosanne Moore: Oh, wow. What I remember of that time was you were trying to take care of her. Because she was responding to this, what she felt was like a spiritual battle in ways that weren’t, it was hard to know how to support her and help her, and you were dealing with the logistics of caring for a very sick person and trying to hold everything together.

And then the emotional burden of trying to figure out, what kind of help does she need?

You went from, “I’m going to turn my life over to Jesus because He’s going to take care of all my needs”, to going to Bible college, where this is the list of what good Christians look like and do, and now you’re in the middle of this situation with your mom that is crazy and there’s a lot of spiritual language. How do you make sense of that? Talk to me about in the middle of that, what were you wrestling with in terms of what it meant? Where was God in that? Where was spiritual community helpful in the nitty gritty of the mess of real life? Where was it not?

[00:12:45] Sheri Glorioso: When she was doing the fasting, unless you said what she wanted to hear, she wouldn’t listen to anything you had to say. She was admitted to the hospital and the psychologist was talking to her forever about needing to eat and blah, blah, blah. Her priest came. Friends came. But she was on her quest and she felt like she was on the right path. I didn’t know anything and I just was like, I’ll do whatever you want, just love me. I would bring her to the hospital when she would agree to go.

She was in and out, I think three times, in an eating disorder unit and everything. So it was pretty crazy. The church community really came – my mother became very active in her church – and a lot of people came to help take care of her when she was in the cancer stage. It was almost like cancer was a relief from this.

[00:13:43] Rosanne Moore: It made sense to them.

[00:13:44] Sheri Glorioso: Yeah. I don’t know if she ate three meals a day, but at least she was eating, because I would have meals with her and stuff. That was a bit of a relief. And then instead of going to hospice, people from church who were very close friends of hers came around and did home care for her around the clock; stayed with her throughout the night, stayed during the day when I went to work. They were very generous with their time and their love towards my mom. I was really grateful for that because I couldn’t handle it. I remember my aunt was calling me to come home because it was my shift and I’m like, but I don’t want to.

[00:14:22] Rosanne Moore: You were in your twenties before she died, you were young. Oh, sorry. Am I supposed to not say that?

[00:14:31] Sheri Glorioso: I’m still young. I have found the fountain of Youth.

[00:14:35] Rosanne Moore: Yes, but your youth then was like, that was a lot for a daughter.

[00:14:43] Sheri Glorioso: For any person.

[00:14:45] Rosanne Moore: Yeah, it would’ve been difficult for anybody, but it was a lot for you to be caring at that life stage, let’s put it that way.

I know one of the things we were both trying to make sense of was, how do we find God in the middle of this? What’s He doing? We were looking for answers, looking for ways to make sense of it. I know for myself, a lot of what had shaped my view of walking with God was, you figure out what God’s will is, you try to be obedient to it, and He blesses you. He might not bless you with money and worldly things, but certainly He’s going to bless you with meaning and things will have purpose and He’ll provide and you won’t be ground to dust. And we were both in situations that were just overwhelmingly grueling.

Just really difficult. And so what did it mean to trust? How did we make sense of that? What did faith look like? I think I went through a lot of stages. You were talking about the whole “He seems full of Himself.” I remember reading Hannah Whitall Smith, The Unselfishness of God, and thinking, “maybe He’s not as big a jerk as it seems” – because I had those questions too, it’s like, “You demand so much.” – I remember reading that book where she talks about everything that God does, even His call for us to glorify Him. If He is utterly unselfish in His nature, then everything He calls for us to do, even when it involves sacrifice, is ultimately good because He is good, He is unselfish.

At that time, that was very comforting. There would be later seasons where I’m like, are you sure about that? I think whenever I go through dark night seasons, wrestling with the goodness of God is probably something that I may do for the rest of my life.

That’s probably the issue of the struggle of doubt, of questioning, that I have the most in the seasons that have been darkest. That’s the question I wrestle with most. Not, is God powerful, but is He good? I have to come back to the cross again and again as evidence of his goodness.

[00:17:45] Sheri Glorioso: I’ve struggled with the cross for a long time. I’m a Christian walking with the Lord, but felt everybody’s “saved” but me. I just happened to be in the room at the right time. If I had come to Jesus sooner, I wouldn’t have so much pain in my life.

I saw healings going around and I was in the thick of depression and had all this stuff going on. I didn’t know what it was, but I’m like, how come everybody else gets something but me? What am I missing? I went very inward for a long time.

[00:18:16] Rosanne Moore: One of the things I think Larry talks about in Real Church is the danger of coming together in a place where the focus is on right living and behavior modification and not being able to struggle with the kind of things that you’re talking about.

Everybody has a story, everybody has underlying questions. You’ve been through school spiritual direction; Larry talked there about how we have ways as children before we have a knowledge of God that we wrongly define as life or death. This thing that feels so good, feels like that is the source of life for me, or this painful thing that feels like it has to be avoided at all costs, that is death. Whereas scripture defines life as drawing near to God and knowing God, being close to Him, and death as separating ourselves from Him, stepping back from Him. I wonder what it would’ve been like for either of us during those years of struggle that was so intense to be able to go beneath how you felt about depression and to be able to really name and find the gospel meeting you. The Lord’s done that over time; He’s gone to the core of that.

[00:19:59] Sheri Glorioso: But a little sooner, just saying,

[00:20:01] Rosanne Moore: I wonder what it would look like as believers if we were more focused on that inner story and finding God in that personal story of where we’re looking for life in the wrong places, like fearing death that’s not really death. It’s painful, it’s traumatic. It can be evil, but it doesn’t have to separate us from God. I wonder what it would’ve been like to have been able to look at that in spiritual community instead of to be wrestling with anxiety or depression and be told, oh, just don’t fear.

[00:20:42] Sheri Glorioso: Yeah. Just give your fear to God and pray it’ll go away. I didn’t get a lot of over-spiritualizing depression, but I struggled with it so much because it affected me so much and it’s very self-focused.

As I’m battling this, I’m not available for my family. I’m just like, leave me alone. I’m having a bad day. And that’s not fair, there is a genetic component to this. There is a spiritual component to this. There’s so many things that were going into it, but now I finally feel like I could be depressed, but still be a mom. You know what I mean? To fight the depression. It’s becoming more common now for people to talk about – I hate the phrase – mental health issues; celebrities and whatever. That’s good, but I don’t know if everybody really has a full understanding of what it means and how it affects people. Because there’s that taboo, “Ooh, ooh, you’re taking whatever, you must not be trusting God,” or, “If you were really a Christian…” that kind of mindset. I didn’t experience that, but maybe I didn’t talk about it.

With the depression, it was very self-focused, so I don’t think I would’ve been able to be part of a church community to work through the way that Larry talks about: what’s church? I don’t think I would’ve been emotionally available to get there.

I had a lot of work when I first met Larry, I remember. What did he say, I had to take off…?

[00:22:20] Rosanne Moore: Take off the grave clothes.

[00:22:24] Sheri Glorioso: The grave clothes, yes. And start living. That was something like bumped me in the right direction – that phrase, at that conference. God’s appeared over the years in different places in my life where I’m like, I know this is God. I never stopped believing.

I just got to the point where there was no fellowship outside of Sunday, and if there was, it was like always a nice and polite conversation, and I’m not really good at nice polite conversation. “So how’s your dog? Are your toenails still bothering you?” That’s not where my brain goes. Tell me your heart and I’ll give you mine.

[00:23:12] Rosanne Moore: You get deeper.

[00:23:13] Sheri Glorioso: Then covid hit and there was no church, and then I started to get more clarity of who Jesus is, but I didn’t have anything to hold onto yet.You know what I mean? I was like, oh, so He’s funny, He has a sense of humor. He’s not this “holier than thou, you will obey me because I saved you.” So that’s what I feel has been missing, the heart of Jesus, because you can go to any church and you can get theology and you can get doctrine, but I need the heart of Jesus.

I really need the heart of Jesus because life is not easy. Stuff has happened to women over whatever, we’ve gotten the short end of the stick because we were told to be a certain way, and that’s not what God is saying for us to do and all of that. I hate that word, but that misogynistic stuff.

[00:24:11] Rosanne Moore: No, I think in the last few years things have come out in the SBC and other denominations; and not just denominations, of course it’s in Hollywood. But then to have it come out again and again, that abuse has been covered up in churches.

I think that has, for me, I’ve really wrestled with the question of, “Okay. I believe in Jesus. I know He hates this evil, but how do I do community with people who don’t seem to hate this evil?” I know you’ve wrestled with that too, how do we respond to this?

How do we respond to things that have been exposed? It’s not just, they didn’t know how to handle a situation well, but like you said, there’s deep-seated misogyny and I think idolatry of celebrities has also played a role. And it’s not just out there. You knew me during the season I spent 10 years in an organization that had a lot of abuse of people, and so I know some of the ways that I colluded with the organization. I accepted explanations and glossing over and was a part of that to maintain my position in that organization, that community. We conform; scripture gets misused to make us think we’re protecting the church, we’re protecting what God is doing because “He is not big enough to take care of His own church.”

[00:26:08] Sheri Glorioso: How warped is that? He only created the world in seven days.

[00:26:10] Rosanne Moore: It’s so twisted. It’s so warped. The whole idea that He actually gave His son to deal with sin, it was drastic. Sin is evil enough, drastic enough that it required the cross for our redemption. Yet we think we somehow need to cover this thing up to make things look good. If He was willing to take it that seriously, then we should too.

[00:26:42] Sheri Glorioso: “We might prevent people from coming to Jesus if they know that we sin. We’re not perfect, so we have to present perfect so we can draw in the lost. Because we’re not lost once we’re saved.”

[00:26:56] Rosanne Moore: Yeah, because “Jesus saves perfect people” right? “He doesn’t save sinners.” It’s so messed up. It’s such a distortion. That’s a good point though, because I think a lot of times what gets presented is that we’re saved by grace, but we’re sanctified by effort. One of the things that I loved most about Larry was the whole invitation to be willing to own where I am, not where I wish I was, not where I want to be, but to own where I am and to bring that to God again and say, yeah I still need a savior. Here I am. I still need a savior. To realize it’s almost counterintuitive. Instead of trying harder to be better, to be able to enter that darkness to bring it to Him. Not just enter it and wallow in it, but bring it into His presence, trusting that I’m going to be met with love and delight.

Not over what I may rest in sin over, but He still delights in me and He’s not shaken by my ability to fail. That does not shake Him at all. He’s able to handle it. Looking bad in the presence of love, as Larry talked about, the liberating power of looking bad in the presence of love has released in me the desire to live differently. Not the pressure to live differently, but the actual desire to live differently. It’s been quite a journey.

[00:28:52] Sheri Glorioso: You’re talking about the red dot that Larry talked about? That’s hard. That looking inward is not easy, but it relieves the pressure valve on something that’s ready to explode. When you’re being that honest and laying it down, even though we might have to do it again and again, you can breathe better. God knows I’m going through this. He knows why I feel this way. He knows how I feel. He’s not going to be shocked.

One of the other trick phrases is, “God allowed it.” Crap happens in life. Sorry, stuff happens in life. Bad things happen to good people, bad people, whatever. I had bad stuff happen. I was abused and I was told that God allowed it.

But then at the same time, I was told He was weeping next to me. So which is it? Was He sad or was He just saying, here, have her? I need to believe that He was weeping. Just because something happens doesn’t mean it’s God’s will in my opinion. I think people get in the way of God’s will and cause an effect that goes onward from the consequences and everything. Does that make sense?

[00:30:11] Rosanne Moore: Yeah. I think if it were His will for people to do evil, then He wouldn’t judge it. He wouldn’t wind up punishing it.

[00:30:24] Sheri Glorioso: Unfortunately you don’t always see the punishment here on earth, right?

[00:30:28] Rosanne Moore: No, but it’s promised that it will come; all things will be brought into the open and judged.

[00:30:34] Sheri Glorioso: We have choices, like the guy who drinks too much and hits another car and there’s people in there and they die. That wasn’t God’s will for that car to be there at that right time. Can He redeem it? Without a doubt. Will He? Absolutely. That doesn’t mean it was His will. That’s a big thing that I struggled with. I needed to get that out there.

[00:30:53] Rosanne Moore: I agree. I feel this way a lot too. It’s not enough for me to know there’s reasons, all that stuff does not help me. No, I need to know that His heart is even more broken over evil than mine is. That bridges things so that I can trust Him in the midst of things.

Last winter we did a webinar with Philip Yancy and I mentioned to him that his book, The Question That Never Goes Away, had been really faith saving for me at a really difficult season because he said in there Christianity is the only religion that gives us the language of protest, that other religions try to minimize evil, make it so that we should be able to just be okay and go on. And he said when Christians do that, they’re not being biblical. The Psalms are the language of protest. It’s God crying. It’s not just the Psalmist crying out against evil, but God Himself crying out against evil and what it does in the world, and promising that judgment and redemption will come.

That’s a good point, Sheri, I’m glad you brought that up, because I think for a lot of victims of abuse, it’s meant well. I’ve done this, I’ve been guilty of this. Sometimes it’s meant well of trying to reassure God’s going to redeem and all of that, but it ends up being minimizing and I think it’s an avoidance of pain rather than being willing to enter the pain.

[00:32:55] Sheri Glorioso: I think people use that language because they can’t do it themselves. Like you said, we all have a story, and we all have an ache in our hearts, and it might not be the same type of situation.

They have to stay in the mindset, I need to believe that this was God’s will in order for me to survive the pain of looking at it and going this really – can I say a bad word? – This really stinks.

It’s just not easy. I mentioned that recently at a Bible study because they were talking about God’s will. This was part of my confusion: somebody would use a scripture verse and say this is God’s will. Then somebody else would take another scripture and say that it’s not. So what’s real? My struggle for a long time has been, who are you? Where’s your heart and who are you? I haven’t given up on my faith, I just can’t take a theology class in church.

You know what I mean? Where’s your heart? I need to know your heart because if I know your heart and I know that you were there, and all those times that I went through my pain with my mother and with the abuse and a whole bunch of other stuff, then I could breathe. But if it’s because it was your will, that kind of makes it like you don’t really like me that much.

Does that make sense?

[00:34:23] Rosanne Moore: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s the will of God that we be holy as He is holy. That pretty much takes out all the crap that we do to one another off the table. What he does redemptively is His will, but that’s Him stepping into our evil. That’s not Him initiating the evil.

[00:34:47] Sheri Glorioso: When I mentioned that to the lady who was leading it, she goes, I think that we, as Christians, should not use that phrase, “He allowed it.” There’s so many horrors in this world, and I don’t think God’s going, “You should suffer this, and you should suffer that,” for any reason. It’s just that there’s evil in the world that interferes with who God wants us to be.

[00:35:12] Rosanne Moore: A fallen world is a serious thing. We talk about how we live in a fallen world. That’s just a thing to say, but you’re talking about the intricate, complicated impact of life in a fallen world is that granular brokenness. That’s not just a theological construct; that is a daily agonizing reality in so many ways.

We are getting close to the end of our time. I want to bring this back to how God met you recently in this whole thing of coming full circle, because we’re going to see what God does going forward.

You were just telling me that He really met you last weekend. I want to give you a chance to talk about that.

[00:36:02] Sheri Glorioso: It was so exciting because I didn’t expect it, but He is the God of the unexpected. For years I was like, love God, love people. That was my theology. I was searching for the heart of Jesus and trying to find a place where I’ll belong that will share that, because there’s a, them versus us with Christianity; you can’t hang out with the sinners – although we’re supposed to because they need to be saved. – There’s, “this person has a certain sin in their life so you can’t be their friend” or, “they’re not worthy of love” and stuff like that.

I was really struggling with that a lot. I was really struggling with what’s true. “Who are you, what is true about you? Are you this stern, blah, blah, blah. Do you have a heart?” Back and forth. And then, for whatever reason, I listened to an Easter service online – which, I hadn’t been to church online or in person since pre-covid.

I just listened, and for the first time, my wall came down and I connected and it felt so good. It just felt so good as she was sharing about the resurrection and who Jesus is and what we have with Him. I was like, wow. So the next week I went to church live and in person, and God used her to cover every issue that was in my heart.

[00:37:35] Rosanne Moore: That’s so cool.

[00:37:37] Sheri Glorioso: She just gave this incredible sermon. It was so Spirit-filled and it was just so amazing. In my head I’m thinking, what about A, B, C?

And then she said, “Oh yeah, and A, B, C, blah, blah, blah. We all have those moments when the service was meant for you, but every single thing this woman spoke was like, “Sheri, this is for you.”

[00:38:07] Rosanne Moore: She was being led by the Spirit of God in that moment and it’s so evident that He’s speaking through her and to you. That’s awesome.

[00:38:16] Sheri Glorioso: I like the part that I’m saying “her.” Just saying, I didn’t think that would happen. But she’s awesome. She’s amazing. She’s the real deal. She doesn’t worry about forgetting what she’s saying, or losing a thought. She just puts it all out there, and that’s what I need. Not, “this is what we SHOULD do, and this is what the Bible says.” I mean, we need to listen to the Bible, but don’t give me, uh…

[00:38:45] Rosanne Moore: She’s incarnating it. She’s not just teaching it from her head. She’s incarnating it.

[00:38:50] Sheri Glorioso: That’s a good word for it, yes, that’s very much what it was. At the end she said, “If you’ve been away from God or you’ve been doing this, or you’ve been doing that” – everything I’ve been doing – “if you want to come up to the altar.” I had a friend who was behind me who had always asked, “why haven’t I seen you in church?” We ended up sitting in front of her. She didn’t really give me a choice, just put her hand on my back and led me up to the altar.

[00:39:16] Rosanne Moore: We all need friends like that sometimes,

[00:39:20] Sheri Glorioso: It was just what I needed. She prayed exactly what I needed. After the service, I just got to tell her how she was used by God to help me. It was a really cool thing. It was a really cool thing because I never had that kind of direct instruction come from somebody and I really didn’t know her well.

You know what I mean? But I like that we have the same background and she’s just the real deal, so I feel like I could trust “here.” Not that she’ll be perfect or anything, but God is working in this church.

[00:39:55] Rosanne Moore: That’s the thing, right? Larry talked about this in Real Church, you could meet together in an organization and it can be no different from a country club. You can do good things, you can feed the poor, you can do various good things, but what is it that happens in our midst that only the Spirit of God can do? That pastor was allowing the Spirit of God to move through her. You were opening your heart to hear His voice and your friend behind you was obviously being led by the Spirit too.

What does it look like to be tuned in to the Spirit of God and allow our coming together as the people of God to encourage one another. That’s a beautiful example of what only God can do.

Thank you for sharing that. We’re going to need to wrap up for today. This has been so fun, Sheri. I’m going to do it again at some point. Thank you for being with me.

[00:40:58] Sheri Glorioso: Thank you for having me.

[00:40:59] Rosanne Moore: We got through this without anybody spitting their drink into the computer from laughing.

[00:41:05] Sheri Glorioso: I’m thirsty, but I’m going to wait.

[00:41:09] Rosanne Moore: We have many of those memories.

[00:41:12] Sheri Glorioso: When we were talking, pictures popped up in my head of those moments.

[00:41:18] Rosanne Moore: Yes. You know what? It was funny, on the way to school today, we took one of my son’s friends who’s here in the neighborhood, and he accidentally said photogenic memory instead of photographic memory. And I’m like, that’s the memories where you look good in all of the things you remember, right? Those are our memories, Sheri. Oh dear. It’s so good.

[00:41:38] All right, we are going to wrap up for today. Everybody, thank you for joining us. I hope you are encouraged and if you want a copy of Real Church – either to read on your own or to be a part of our reading and relating book club discussions – go to the Larger Story website and you can get one there. Actually, you can get one “buy one get one 50% off,” there’s a sale right now. We hope you’ll join us in our reading community and see you back next week. Thanks so much.

[00:42:15] Sheri Glorioso: Thank you. All righty.

[00:42:16] Rosanne Moore: Bye.

Message

Inspiring a Community of Belonging | Ep. 17

May 16, 2023May 23, 2023
by Kris Gamble

Show Notes:

How is meaningful community formed? How can we join with the Spirit in making space for people to belong and be known? Listen in to a light-hearted discussion between Kris Gamble and his former roommate and friend from high school youth group, Joe Spiccia, as they discuss the origins of meaningful communities, they have both belonged to and helped to form.

Order your copy of Rea Church: https://store.largerstory.com/products/real-church-does-it-exist-can-i-find-it

Joe Spiccia’s Bio: Joe is the Content Director at Fresh Harvest in Atlanta, Ga. He and his wife, Jordan, live with their dog Oscar and four chickens. Joe enjoys fishing, exploring new ideas, and getting absorbed in meaningful conversations with those around him.

Transcript:

Kris Gamble: Welcome everyone to the Relational Spirituality Podcast. My name is Kris Gamble. I’m your host for this week’s episode, and today I am joined by one of my good friends, Joe Spiccia, or Spix-ee-eye-ay as Siri likes to pronounce his last name. This week we are chatting around the theme of community. The Book of the Quarter at Larger Story is Real Church and it talks about what really is church and community therein.

Joe has been somebody in my life that has been an instigator of meaningful community, almost just out of what seems like the overflow of his being. Hopefully we can mine a little bit of his mind and dig into some of those stories and just see what God might have for us through this time.

I wanted to start off and give a little context. I met Joe about 20 years ago. I don’t remember our specific meeting, but we met at a church that we were attending and did the youth group of through all of our high school years.

We also, for the latter part of my high school years, went to the same high school and occasionally, and speaking of community, I’m a year older than Joe so a grade ahead of him, but some of my guy friends from church, as a part of what we just somehow fell into doing, we played poker many nights on the weekends throughout high school. Joe, I think you made it to some of those occasionally. Is that correct?

Joe Spiccia: Yeah, I’ve never won a dollar ever.

Kris Gamble: Well, yeah, we don’t condone gambling here anyway, so that is maybe a sign of your purity, Joe.

Joe Spiccia: Yeah, that’s what it is.

Kris Gamble: Joe and I were actually roommates for a few years after college into our late twenties and early thirties.

I would say that we refined each other into the godly men we are today, which helped us to meet our lovely wives. So, community is important because if you’re single, it’ll help refine you to meet your spouse.

Joe, as I mentioned, has helped form some communities, and I’m just going to briefly touch on them here and hopefully we’ll jump in a little bit deeper.

Somewhere after college, around 2014, 2017 ish, Joe invited myself and a bunch of other mostly single folks to a thing we called “Cabin Weekends,” where we would rent a cabin and just have meaningful community centered around the thing that united us, our faith and they were like at a lake or by a river and we’d go fishing and hang out, and it was really just a place that I felt like I belonged in my latter twenties. We have made such great memories and have such wonderful stories out of that.

Another place where really meaningful community happened was, around the same time, Joe and I were looking to move into the downtown Atlanta area, so he, myself, and a few other guys ended up getting a house. And that was a place where, for a number of years, we really got to spur one another on and be accountable and just talk about what different seasons we were in, in our spiritual journeys. It kind of became a place of a community gathering, where we’d have, you know, house parties, not like wild, crazy ones, but bonfires in the backyard.

In and around that time we were part of a men’s group that Joe also initiated, and that just took the whole community and spiritual formation and intentionality thing to a deeper level. So, that’s kind of why we’re here, Joe, is to learn from the master. Really, I’m just glad you’re here. We’ve thought through some questions to talk about and I’m looking forward to digging in with you.

Anything you want to say or share after that long intro?

Joe Spiccia: Yeah, I think so. So first off, I’m grateful to be on this podcast with you, Kris, and I actually call Kris, Cris-ph. I don’t know why, but he calls me Joe Spix-ee-eye-ay, I call him Cris-ph. There is like a lot of little consonants that get added in there at the end, so if you want to start calling him that, you’re totally welcome to. Kris has – he’s talking me up and all that stuff, but my first caveat is that I feel like a complete newbie when it comes to these things. I think part of that is actually because I’ve never done them just alone. When I think about all those stories you’re telling Kris, especially like moving into the house, Kris came to me and we met at Little Azio on Howell Mill Road in Atlanta, and he was like, I’m looking for some guys to live with, but I’m not just looking for just a roommate situation, I want a community.

I think there’s an element of Kris bringing this intentionality too, not just trying to live within a house, a place where you sleep and eat and all that stuff, but he wanted an actual community of people that were intentional about pursuing their faith, pursuing friendship, pursuing community.

I think there’s something that we will hopefully get into today, about, this isn’t all on one person’s shoulders to foster community. There is an initial initiative that’s taken by one or two people, but what I think really leads to these things is people realizing, I want this, and let me find some other people who also want something. We don’t even have to have a name for it. We just know there’s something that we want, and we hope it looks something like this. And then that drive’s there, that’s attractive, and other people want to be a part of that. And I was like, yeah, that sounds great. I want to figure this out, and I just knew a bunch of people who were kind of in a similar stage of life.

There’s multiple roles to be played in a healthy community. I’ve really learned that in this process of being friends with you, Kris, and all the other guys that we’ve met and lived life with along the way. So yes, I guess all that to say, I’m grateful and I love talking about community. I love dreaming about it and also living it, and I think that’s probably the most important part of it. So yeah, I’m looking forward to the questions and what we’re going to get into.

Kris Gamble: Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, it isn’t on one person’s shoulders, and I’m glad you made that distinction. So, jumping in, what is community, and maybe more specifically, what would you say is meaningful, effective christian community?

Joe Spiccia: I’ve been reading a book right now with a group that I’ve been a part of with my church here in Marietta, Georgia. I’ve read it a couple times actually, and I really have enjoyed the depth that it’s been pulling out of me. It’s called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. The author is Peter Scazzero, and he has a couple quotes that I’ll reference here, but this one came to mind. He said, “Community is not just a group of people who agree with each other. It’s a diverse group of individuals who are committed to loving and serving one another.”

I think it’s so easy to think about community as just, what’s fun and who are the people that are like me that we’re going to get along and have a good time together.

That’s a beautiful thing too, that’s just a very base level. I’ve realized that that’s not bad either, because it does lead to this other thing, which is committing a commitment to loving and serving other people. But I guess the diversity of a group as far as, we just don’t all agree on everything, we have conflict, that’s normal community, and I think it’s easy to shy away from that. I guess there’s a lot of different definitions of what community is and what it can look like, but that’s one that really stood out to me.

I think another really big one for me is that community is a gift from God. It is truly a gift of Him inviting us into sanctification. We’re all born into a family, which is like a type of community. Some of us aren’t in that family for long and other ones have an amazing family that we’re with for the rest of our lives. God gifts us either that type of family, or leads us into a family that allows us to see who we are meant to be.

I think that, for me, is what community is, is an opportunity and a gift to explore who God made me to be. In that process of identifying that better and better, as I get older and experience more community, I am able to do the same for other people. It’s this real back and forth, and it’s this cycle of this really beautiful gift that, the more we open ourselves up to other people, the more they will open to us, and the more we grow closer to God.

I think, obviously, there’s all kinds of community; you could have a really negative community too. That’s where I think the biblical version is something to strive for. A community that pursues the heart of God and allows God’s heart to pursue them. It’s a process that I think of, of God making us more like Him. He uses other people around us to do that, whether they’re totally different than us or they’re similar in their backgrounds and their personalities.

There’s a lot of thoughts there, but that’s my idea of community.

Kris Gamble: When you said community is a gift from God, I thought about how community is also a reflection of God, God being in community with Himself. And so when we are fellowshiping – fellowshiping is a christian-ese word for hanging out and having fun. But when we’re enjoying one another, we’re actually reflecting the joy that God has in Himself and it’s on display through us.

Those are some Larry Crabb derived ideas that I ascribe to. I also think community could be a label or a term that defines a group of people that are somehow interconnected; I’m in the community of Savannah, or the community of Wilshire Estates – which sounds much more fancy than it is – yet I might not really know anybody all that well in my neighborhood community. There is something about a biblical community that is worth digging into.

Joe Spiccia: I’m going to throw out a couple quotes here.

I had one more quote on this that is in line with what you’re talking about, but it was another Peter Scazzero quote from the book. He says, “We can’t grow in isolation. We need others to become who God has called us to be.” And that was sort of what I was searching for, that community is a catalyst for spiritual, emotional, mental growth. It is God’s gift to us in that way. From the biblical perspective I personally see this as God’s heart – like you’re saying – He’s always lived in community. God never had isolation with the Trinity. I think His heart is just that His creations that are made like Him would also be in community as well. So, defining that through scripture, I’m curious what you think about that.

Kris Gamble: Well, Hebrews 10:25 essentially says don’t forsake gathering together.

Also, Acts 2:42-47 is probably worth reading. “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

I think this is one of the best pictures of the New Testament church that we have in description.

A couple things that we can draw out of it: a biblical community is gathering and they are studying God’s word. They’re enjoying one another, and I think mixing in some food and prayer is an important part of a christian community. The don’t forsake gathering I think is just a call to not be isolated.

Joe Spiccia: I’m just thinking, how does that look for where we are in this culture right now? It can sometimes be difficult for me to distill down the Church of Acts to my life.

Some of those takeaways, like get together and eat food together, very basic things, right? But that’s the building block; we all need certain things, so let’s go do those things together. And then at the same time, there’s a deeper element of prayer in singing worship and of being intentional about worshiping the Lord and about pursuing God together.

Whether we’re going to read scripture, or we’re going to talk about scripture that we don’t understand and that we have problems with. I think there’s a really honest version of this for me. I don’t know that I am always there and ready to say, let’s go do a service project for the Lord today, or whatever it is; maybe it doesn’t feel like I’m hearing from the Spirit, or God doesn’t seem like He’s talking to me. But just being with other people and other believers, being with somebody like Kris – for me, in these settings there was a conviction level, there’s an intensity and a passion here, and there’s a newness to the perspectives of different members of the community that have always driven me closer to God, wanting to know God more, wanting to explore Him more.

That’s what Acts 2:42-47 really looks like in my life; being around others and letting the Lord use them, or letting Him use me in moments where my faith is strong. Kris, I think you used an example of this in our guys group at one point, an analogy of a fire and how some of us are really close to this fire and we are warmed by it, and we walk into a crowd where it’s colder and that warmth really reaches those people – other christians maybe, or maybe it’s not christians, but there’s something attractive about that. We want to be around the warmth. I think, trying to distill it down in my own experience, it’s often looked realistically like that.

Kris Gamble: One thing I love about you, Joe, is your humility and honesty; even now readily able to say, “When I picture community, sometimes it’s not as perfect as we see in the scripture here, and that is my reality and my real life.” And it’s everyone’s, it’s mine too. Nobody’s able to live out every time you get together studying the word and prayer and singing songs. I don’t even know if it’s necessarily that that has to be every time you gather, but a picture of some amount of their gatherings.

I wanted to just dig in on the same kind of theme about markers of biblical community, and popping over to another scripture, James 5:16 says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

I love this verse. It’s a hard verse because there can be fear and shame associated with sins, and there’s so much cultural baggage around confession and why do I need to do that? A culture that often touts accomplishments and independence. But I think good, biblical communities are, marked by the humility of confessing our sins.

This scripture is telling us such that we may be healed. It could mean a physical manifestation, but I imagine on some level it’s the release that comes from letting light shine on the dark places. In particular when you do that, doing that as – in Larry Crabb-ism – looking ugly in the face of love, realizing that you still are loved, even though you’re showing something ugly, is a healing thing.

Joe Spiccia: Yeah this is the verse that really takes community to, not even the next level, it’s the next level beyond that. I think there is a bit of a cultural stigma to the word confess. Why do I need to confess?

Let’s talk about it from a human perspective of being honest about where you are. Maybe you are doubting God or maybe you are struggling with some sort of sin that’s more overt; maybe you’re looking at pornography or whatever it is. There’s a tendency we all have to hide that stuff, to push it down and keep moving. I think that’s part of our Western culture, let’s just be productive, let’s just move through it, let’s not talk about it. But God invites us into that and He does that through community.

A lot of times, my idea of God has been shaped by seeing others confess and Him letting me see people humbly stopping and saying, this is something I’m trying to hide from myself and from others and from God, and I need to let it out there, I need to bring it into the light.

It’s so refreshing. I think, for me at least, to be a part of that where you can be totally honest – scary honest – you are taking a big risk by sharing something with other folks. And it is so rewarding to feel that moment of, we love you. I love you, even though you have all these things and you have these doubts.

That is God’s heart. If that happens in community, and I tell Kris something really hard that I’m going through and he accepts me and he loves me and he tells me he’s going to pray for me and he wants to be there by my side, that’s powerful. That shapes my vision of who God is and how He stands for me.

From a person to person perspective, it takes time to cultivate this, but it is so life-giving and so rewarding to be a part of a community that fosters honesty and confession to one another, and it just makes you want to confess to God because you know that He is the only one that’s capable of forgiving you, but also the one who loves you more than any anybody else.

Today I had a small group meeting with the guys group that I’m in, and we were talking about this weekend. I just had a tough struggle with my wife.We were having a hard time and we’ve had a hard time at various points in our relationship.

One of them reached out to me and said, “Hey, how can I pray for you?” She was about to walk through the door, so I’m like, “Oh gosh. Well, I need to be humble. I need to be calm. I need to not be defensive, which is my tendency, and I need to be straightforward and honest and I need to listen.”

And literally, they prayed for that and that happened, and there was just a real restoration for us – me and my wife – and there’s something about that. That in itself is a confession, I think. The way I’m thinking about confession is that if you would rather not tell other people about it, and then you decide to tell them, that’s a confession, whether you’re trying to hide something wrong that you did or just something that you’re struggling with.

Being able to submit that to other people and to dive into it, I think is an opportunity for God to answer the prayer in whatever way He wants to answer it. That’s us, depending on God, and it takes humility and that’s His gift to us.

Obviously, I’m passionate about this; being open and honest about where you are with other people and knowing that that is something that can really bring us closer together, but also bring us closer to our creator.

Kris Gamble: Right. Yeah. When we were back at the question of what is community, sort of three words we’ve added to our tagline for the Relational Spirituality podcast come to mind: belonging, being known and becoming. I think one of the things about being honest – confessing is how we are known in our good light, but also in our fallen humanity side. And how known are we if only the good side that we present of ourselves to others is held up, and that is all people see?

I chatted a little bit on my previous podcast about brotherhood, we chatted a bit about confession there, so if you want to get even more, check that one out. One of the other markers of community, and we kind of touched on it even in Acts 2, but 1 Corinthians 14:26. What then brothers, when you come together, each one of you has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation. Let all things be done for the building up or the edification of the body.

I think edification is a goal of community. I think one thing I extrapolate out of this verse is that there can be different gifts that members of the body have and that we bring into the community and that they are to be brought for the building up of all of us. Some of that is singing hymns – we’ve had poetry reading nights – or just just reading nights together, lessons, sharing teachings of what God has put in our hearts.

Any thoughts there?

Joe Spiccia: Yeah, I think about our guys group that we had and we rotated who facilitated the group, and each time we gathered somebody new, they took us through something that they were learning or scripture of some sort. I think more than just, “everyone’s got to facilitate, that’s the rules.” I think what it did was it helped us understand ourselves a little bit more as individuals too. Think, what is my gifting? I think a lot of people don’t know that, and it is a great place to learn that in a safe community of other people to say, “You know what? I don’t really know what my gift is, so I’m going to try and facilitate or lead a conversation or I’m going to do something creative.” It’s a place to be encouraged in those things. Like, “Man, you really brought that, that was really helpful. I really took a lot away from that.”

That’s where you learn what your giftings are from the Lord, in that community. It’s okay to not come into it knowing like, what, what am I, what am I gifted with? because that’s part of the process of just being with other christians is like learning that about yourself, which is another gift really.

[00:27:58] Kris Gamble: Right. In Acts 2 they sold their possessions such that they gave to everyone that had need. It makes me think about the marker of taking care of each other and serving one another. To your point, as you are serving, you realize, “Hey, I’ve got a gift for this hospitality thing, or a real passion for reaching our neighbors.”

Great point to say that community is also just a place to learn what God’s deposited in us, and the way that we can serve and love each other as we seek to follow His commandment to serve and love each other.

As you said earlier, there’s a ton of scripture on community. 1 Thessalonians 5:11, “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing.” And Hebrews 10:24 just before the one that says, “don’t forsake the gathering,” says “spur one another to love in good deeds.”

Any other markers you want to share on?

Joe Spiccia: There’s just so much. I feel like these are all tied together. There is just so much commonality in each of these verses. But in encouraging one another like it says in Thessalonians and building each other up, that really ties in with confession if we’re going to be vulnerable and real. A way to encourage someone in that, is by listening to them, by hearing them out. It’s not trying to give them advice, it’s being there for them and encouraging them, “Hey, you’re not alone in this. You’re not the only one to struggle with this. You’re not the only one to have these questions,” or whatever else it is. That’s encouraging. It’s not always, “You’re a great singer.” There’s just so many elements of each of these verses that all just tie in together. I feel like a big part of it is just understanding God’s heart and being in a place with other people and letting that come out of you.

I guess that’s one of those things that you live and you see it happen. The mystery of community is there’s not a vision of community that is going to be accurate. There was one other quote from, I think it was Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together. He said, “The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.” Sometimes we can overcomplicate things. We can say, this is how it should be and I need to make sure I line all these points up. And that’s suffocating. People don’t need that to thrive. They need someone to love them to thrive and to know that they’re safe and loved and heard and listened to. So, if in doubt, simplify, and just try and love the people that are around you.

That’s a very broad point, obviously, but I think it can be easy to get lost in the shuffle. So, anyway, that’s my 2 cents on that.

Kris Gamble: Well, it makes me think of another verse, which is admonishing one another or exhorting one another. At the end of James it says, roughly, if you see your brother in error and correct them, you win your brother and save his soul, so to speak.

Not meaning you literally are saving him, but delivering him from that sin. There’s a place for correcting in love. It is loving to say, “Hey Joe, the way you responded to your wife just then wasn’t what I believe is how you actually feel about her.”

I am guilty of the same thing so many times, but I’d encourage you. There’s such a delicate finesse to correcting each other; there’s no formula for how any of these line up or are lived out. I loved your point about simplifying it by just trying to love.

Joe Spiccia: Even admonishing somebody comes with trust. To be able to do that for somebody, to say, “Hey, you’re in the wrong here,” that is earned, and you earn that through loving somebody well, listening to them, caring for them, and they trust you. All of that stuff really just comes back to the simple point of loving someone well, and that a good way to love someone is to correct them if they’re wrong.

Kris Gamble: It’s worth noting why community is important other than in a christian sense. It’s biblical and God inspired and all the points that we just mentioned to be known and be loved. But it’s also a place to exchange ideas if you’re in a diverse community, exchange culture, learn, and grow. I think one of the main points that I wanted to make here is something you said early in our conversation about how it helps us to become who God made us to be.

And it’s kind of intuitive to say that, but how does that actually happen? Just because you show up at community? I think, what’s underneath that? How do you become who you were created to be in community? That community is reflecting back to you how they’re experiencing you. So, you know, Joe, I experience you as somebody who has a gift for hospitality, A gift for allowing people to feel trusting of you and safe with you.

I think that reflection that the community offers back to us highlights and draws out things that maybe we weren’t even able to see ourselves. That self-awareness affords us the opportunity to cultivate those things or to change in the admonishing sense away from who is not our most truest self, which is the sin side of us, to our most truest self, which is the God-honoring side of us.

Joe Spiccia: I’ve learned so much about who I am in community, for sure, and who God has made me to be. It’s a gift that I don’t think you can get anywhere else. I’m not saying that people are God, but God speaks through people and you can hear God’s heart for you through people who are in your community. There’s discernment involved with that, of course, but it really does change how you see yourself, to be a part of a true community, a good community, a rich community where love is the baseline.

Also, in a very real way, there is opportunity with people you trust to say, “Hey, how do you perceive me?” That’s a really hard question to ask, and I’ve been blown away by people who have actually asked that of me. I have such mad respect for people who are willing to do that because it’s super vulnerable, but it also says, “I trust you. You’re a trustworthy person Joe,” and that means almost as much in itself as whatever I would share with them. So yeah, that’s a super cool element of community.

Kris Gamble: Getting a little more practical, how did these communities actually form, and particularly as somebody that’s been an instigator of community, what kind of thoughts do you have on that?

Joe Spiccia: If I think back on the house thing, I think it was you who said, “I want to do this and I want to do this in this way.” That really did inspire me and led me to, I think, take on more of that approach with my own desires of community in the future.

With the guys group, I remember feeling this deep desire to be growing in my faith and this conviction that my faith was stagnating at that time. I wanted something more than what I had.

Just listen to that voice which I believe is God saying, “This is who I’ve made you to be, go out and pursue this.” And then reaching out to other people and being vulnerable. It was scary, I sent an email out to 10 or 15 guys and just said, “Hey, here’s the thing. I’m feeling isolated. I’m feeling like I’m not pursuing the Lord. I love you guys and I want to get to know you better. I want you to know me. Is there anybody else who’s feeling that way?” It’s a vulnerable thing, to open that door, but, at least in my situation, it really paid off and it really spoke to other people who are feeling the exact same way.

I think a constant desire that people have is community, they just need someone to start it. That listening and then taking a step forward felt like the way that I’ve been able to pursue community, and then it ends up being this colossal, super meaningful thing in my life that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

So it’s totally worth the risk, I guess, is what I mean by that.

Kris Gamble: Was that email to 10 or 15 people, were those randos, or were those people that you had a decent depth of relationship with already?

Joe Spiccia: They were all people that I knew; some of them I knew really well, and some that I didn’t know very well, but mostly we knew each other. I would say that most of us have this fun element of, we love being around each other. It doesn’t have to be this challenging, hard thing necessarily, that I’ve got to put myself through this hard situation in order for community to happen.

I think in some ways it should start with, I want to enjoy other people. And in this case it was people who I already enjoyed, but even in that it still can be scary. It was a little bit, because you don’t want to put yourself out there, and then everyone’s like, “Nah, I don’t really feel that, I’m good or I’m too busy,” or whatever.

That’s part of my personality too, I can be a people pleaser and I really want people to like me, to agree with me. It makes me feel comfortable. So anytime I do that, it is a risk for me. But thankfully these are all guys that I knew and they were on board as well.

Kris Gamble: I’ve said this – maybe on another podcast, I can’t remember – that a currency of relationship is trust, and that maybe there was a trust coin out there that you had with some of those guys that you invited to cash in and say, “Hey, would you want to try this thing that may or may not fail?” It doesn’t necessarily have to happen with that currency coin of trust, but I think in church groups where communities form, there is a trust currency with the organization forming it that provides this stability for people who don’t know each other that well to be able to have some level of safety or the right ingredients to step out and try something new like this that can be risky.

I wanted to say that the email you sent casted a vision. Something that I think helps create biblical communities is a shared vision for what this thing is that we’re hoping to be a part of, belong to, and ultimately journey spiritually together towards.

I remember in those early days it ended up almost everybody you emailed showing up to the first meeting. In those first couple meetings we did do some vision casting where we were like, what do we want this to be? How do we want to structure it? Do we want to go through a book? Do we want to go through some sermon series? We somehow ended up on what you mentioned earlier, having a different person bring the Word, so to speak, each week. It was fun and beautiful and different. We did that for at least a couple years, meeting every Wednesday night.

Joe Spiccia: Yeah. With this group that I’m in now at my church, the point is to train us in how to have our own group that we will lead and facilitate, of other men. One of the things that our leader said was, we encourage and it’s a good thing to co-lead or find somebody else that you’d want to do this with. I think that is an approachable way that’s awesome. In something that somebody might think, I need to do this on my own and I need to be the leader, or there needs to be one leader. It doesn’t have to look any certain way.

There’s a beauty to, like you said, having a shared vision where me and Kris just get together and we say, “I don’t know if I’m going to do this on my own, but are you interested in this? I trust you and I know you, let’s both talk about it and figure it out. Let’s message some other guys that we know or whatever that looks like.”

There’s all kinds of ways and none of them are the right way.

Kris Gamble: I really like that point because Jesus sent the disciples out in groups of two – again, I don’t know that that has to be mandated to do it that way – But there’s a sense of accountability to staying true and one person not dominating when two people are leading out in that. In fact, two is a community of two that you are wanting to invite more into, in a sense. So, kind of multifaceted.

Joe Spiccia: Yeah. To some of the other points about how it’s formed, that shared vision obviously stands out.

The commitment is another piece that is tricky. I think that’s probably harder because you can’t make people commit to something, right? You can set up a structure and say, here’s what we’re going to do, are we all good with that? But we found in every group I’ve ever had or been a part of, there’s always people that will come sometimes and won’t come other times. Maybe there’s people who have bailed on groups in the past completely. And that’s just hard. It’s hard to deal with and it feels like your group’s falling apart or your community doesn’t have any structure to it. But it’s such a balance to be found; people have lives and they have their own things going on and their own agendas and priorities, but also we need structure if we’re going to make this thing happen. That’s where I do feel like either it’s co-leading or finding another group of maybe two or three other people who are on the same page as you, rather than saying, okay, I’m going to try and hold this thing together, because that is the burnout recipe for sure.

I think if anything, it’s more important to either be a facilitator for a church, so there’s that structure there that’s provided by your church, or you’re going into it with other people so it’s not just you trying to hold everything together.

Kris Gamble: To that point, I think the maybe more biblical or scriptural example, and I’m open to your thoughts on this, is that community exists within the context of a church such that the community is subject to the leadership and oversight and mentorship and vision of something bigger than itself. Again, it doesn’t always have to be that way. We had a wonderful community, some guys that all belonged to different churches coming together.

Joe Spiccia: My last point on how it’s formed goes back to honesty and a shared struggle. A really good community doesn’t necessarily have to be founded on, here’s the guy that’s got it all down, and then here’s the people who want to get it all down that are going to follow them. Oftentimes it seems like it’s almost the opposite. It’s, I am struggling here and I need help and I need community and I need more of the Lord.

That in itself will bring people together. And then from there, maybe there’s a common struggle or maybe there’s a group that forms to help someone else and that just leads to deeper community. Maybe it’s not a formal thing, maybe it’s an unstructured community, but that’s a good place to start too, I think.

Kris Gamble: Yeah. To that honesty and shared struggle, where have you seen community in your life done effectively and maybe conversely done ineffectively?

Joe Spiccia: I guess there’s been a lot of different versions of community.

Kris Gamble: Give us the juice, you know what I mean? Those raggedy institutions.

Joe Spiccia: The juice, yeah. I think a lot of times where I felt like this doesn’t feel like a good community to me is when it feels like there’s a really strong pressure to be there, and if you’re not, then you shouldn’t be a part of this group anymore. Or, the rules win, so if you don’t follow all the rules, then you’re out. Or, what we talk about has to be confined to these certain things. Again, it’s the structure versus the openness. I feel like what has most often gone wrong in my situations of community is structure gets way more of a priority and there’s just not any grace, and people don’t want to be a part of that, it’s just not fun and it’s not a picture of who God is and how He sees us. So I would say those are the main ineffective examples. I don’t want to name a particular group, but I think we’ve all been a part of a group like that.

I just, I do feel like there’s been so many versions of effective, but to me it comes down to, are we talking about what’s real here? Are we still enjoying each other? There’s a couple elements to it where we’re actually getting closer to each other in this process.

The guys group that we had was a version of, this is cool from a time perspective, – it’s been a couple years and we’re still meeting. How awesome is that? – but also from a depth perspective that we were able to get closer to each other and get closer to the Lord in the process and encourage each other and all those things we already talked about.

And then at the end to be able to celebrate and not be like, oh, it’s dead we’re not meeting anymore. God must be mad about this, or there’s something wrong with us. But to celebrate what God gave us in that period of time, I think is a sign that that was healthy; there was something effective about that.

Also, for a church facilitated group or a church sponsored group, the structure there that feels effective is that I’ve walked away with a feeling of, I’m cared for, I feel more known, I feel trusted that people want me to to be a part of this church on the whole, that they want me to lead in some sort of capacity.

I think there’s all kinds of different ways you can feel like it was effective, but the ineffective sort of comes back to the overly structured .

Kris Gamble: I’ve led some groups and I can have this tendency to try to over control the outcome or want to make sure that everyone’s sharing their story at some point, or that everyone shares, otherwise they’re not being authentic.

I think that pressure is such a good word. That pressure that people have to be a certain way, look a certain way, and the leader’s temptation to control it can quench the work of the Spirit

Joe Spiccia: Yeah, definitely. I think that’s a really good example. Another one is, do I feel listened to, or are people just vying to talk to get their point across? That’s a hard balance because some people are talkers and some aren’t. I think it oftentimes does come down to the facilitator or the leader and whether they’re able to navigate the different personalities in a group. That’s a really tough thing to do and I’ve seen it done well and I’ve seen it done poorly and I’ve probably been on both sides of that.

One last thing on that; I’ve been a part of a group that was what I would call transparent. And transparent is great. It sounds like you’re taking some risks, but really you’re just saying what is a fact or what is easy versus vulnerability, which is really taking a risk by saying it. That, to me, is what brings things deeper. Transparency is just surface level and pretending that you’re really going deep.

That’s a tough thing to distinguish and I think you can really only truly do that within yourself. That’s another one that I feel is ineffective as a participant in a group, at least you can say I’m really not sharing. I’m really not letting people know me even though I’m sounding like I am.

Kris Gamble: Another thought that comes to mind is asking questions and being curious. I think these are things that will draw out creating a space to feel heard. For people to be curious, but not necessarily leading so much as to where you think you want the conversation to go.

For example, if you shared something and instead of being curious and saying, can you share more about that? Saying, well, don’t you think that made your wife feel …?

Joe Spiccia: Yeah.

Kris Gamble: You’re asking question but you’re really just trying to make a point and that’s not curious.

Joe Spiccia: Yeah. And it’s not safe either. People will sense that. I shouldn’t share anymore because this is how it’s getting dealt with. So, yeah, that’s a big one.

Kris Gamble: Well, I think you’re somebody that makes people feel safe. I’ve seen people from all kinds of backgrounds and political beliefs and ideologies feel safe around you. I wanted to try to uncover, what do you think it is? Obviously the Spirit in you, and love, but what do you think it is that offers that safe place to people?

Joe Spiccia: Part of my background is that I have often felt unsafe. I felt like I needed to prove myself, so community for me was this sort of a safety net where – probably to some unhealthy extent – I found my worth in community. I think as that’s advanced, I’ve continued to really subject myself to other people and hear them take big risks with me.

That’s probably the biggest part from a human to human perspective is somebody saying, I’m going to share something with you because I trust you. Maybe I didn’t even earn their trust, but they were willing to go there. That helped me see what a catalyst for depth and richness and community with other people could be.

I think I’ve really tried to foster that in myself too as a result. Being a safe person I think comes from feeling safe, and that’s because other people have been that for me. It’s something that’s a byproduct of being a part of community with people who are healthy and know that you can be trusted and they can be trusted.

Kris Gamble: I think judgment is something that is not safe; judgment derived by thinking you’re better than somebody else because they struggle with X, and the reality is we’ve all fallen short and we all sin and we’re all capable. I don’t know if there’s particular scripture behind it, but I think we’re all capable of any sin given the right circumstances, whether it’s intoxication or just desperation. You know, who knows what we would do? We’re not above any particular sin, and if we go into group community or we go into relating and we have this pride or we have this judgment, that kills safety quickly.

I think humility and lack of judgment invites that safety.

Joe Spiccia: I’ve felt a fear of rejection for a lot of my life, and I think knowing that I’m not rejected by a person or a group of people, and that it’s not a one time thing for me. It’s been like a process.

Knowing that somebody’s not going to reject me because I tell them this about myself, that is what has allowed the door for me to be open to becoming safe in that way because it’s been given to me. Once you have that and once you see that it’s possible, you want to be that person for other people too.

I’m so grateful for those people in my life that have been non-judgmental of me. And you’re one of those people, Kris, for sure.

Kris Gamble: Well, thank you. The truth is, I’m often judgmental but I am not judgemental all the time and people see those times. Or I am being judgemental and it might be hurtful. Particularly with my wife, I judge her and she sees it and it stinks, but my goal is to not be judgmental. My goal is to be equal and equally as in need of a friend and of a savior.

Joe Spiccia: You brought up the point of marriage and I was thinking about that a lot because that’s something that I can forget is a version of community as well. Maybe not the exact version that we’re talking about in the broader context here, but people talk about the sanctification of marriage, it’s in the same way there’s a sanctification of community and friendship and all these things. What’s hard about marriage is you can’t escape from those deeper things in yourself, they just come out like they wouldn’t in other relationships. It has been such a good, healthy, difficult community for me in marriage, but I want more of that. You know? I want more of that with my wife and I want more of that with my friends because it’s sanctifying me. It’s chiseling out all of these things that I didn’t even know were in me. I think at the end of the day, if the result of community is that for me, then I want more of it.

Kris Gamble: Maybe one of my final thoughts here is, the goal of community is not to not hurt each other. It’s not to be perfect or look perfect. In fact, it’s almost the opposite. It’s to be able to be at the place where you can be who you actually are, which is broken, and therefore going to hurt somebody, and yet still being loved and received and forgiven and repentant and keeping that commitment to continue on.

Joe Spiccia: Yeah. Amen.

[Kris Gamble: Well, anything else you think we didn’t touch on? I mean, we probably hit everything that could have been said about community by now.

Joe Spiccia: Yeah, definitely. We didn’t even scratch the surface, but it’s a good start and I think it’s worth the time to think through, but also just to live; go out and talk to people and love people and know that community is surprising in the joys that it can bring and the growth that it can bring.

It’s the way that God intended it, for us to live in community. It’s a beautiful thing.

Kris Gamble: Well, thank you Joe for your time today; such a pleasure and I look forward to our next phone call when we do our micro community and catch up on our lives.

Joe Spiccia: Let’s do it soon, man. This is fun.Thanks Kris.

Kris Gamble:Thanks Joe.

Message

Different Church Communities, Same Faithful God | Ep. 16

May 9, 2023May 8, 2023
by Rosanne Moore

During different seasons of her life, Karlene Cannon has seen God show up among His people in a variety of ways. This week, she shares with Rosanne Moore about how each spiritual community that she has been part of has been a place where God revealed Himself.

Special Offer: Real Church by Larry Crabb Buy One Get One 50 % OFF

Transcript

Rosanne Moore: Hello Larger Story audience. We are so happy to have you back with us today. I’m Rosanne Moore, your host today on the Relational Spirituality Podcast. And I have Karlene Cannon, a co-host. She’s getting interviewed today because when we first introduced this podcast we had such a fun conversation that we both walked away going, we need to do this more.

So, it’s my turn to ask Karlene some more questions today. Karlene, thanks for being here.

Karlene Cannon: Thank you Rosanne. I’m really looking forward to our conversation. I love talking to you.

Rosanne Moore: I love talking with you too. So part of the whole Real Church conversation that we’re having comes from our deep dive into Larry’s book, Real Church. What is it? Does it exist? Where can I find it? Those are some of the questions he asks. What would make me want to go to church? Those are some of the questions he wrestles with in the book, and I think they’re highly relevant. Maybe they always have been, but they’re certainly highly relevant in our culture today.

Let’s start with, what has been your experience with church? If you gave an overview timeline, what has that looked like for you? 

Karlene Cannon: I was thinking about that yesterday before this conversation and was surprised by my own internal reaction to the question as I started to really consider my journey with church.

I’m going to hopefully not get too emotional. I was actually driving in the car as I was thinking through this and had a few teary moments. I think when I think about my first experience with church, I grew up in a Christian home. I was very fortunate and we went to a little country church. I grew up in Dallas, Texas, and we lived probably 20 minutes from this downtown area, but another 20 minutes out was just country. Now it’s all big suburbs. We went to this small little church and it was like a family reunion every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. That was my sense of family.

I was an only child and was adopted. My parents had waited for a child for a long time. So that was where I had a sense of siblings and aunts and uncles. In fact, in that time period, I called all of the adults of the church, aunt this and uncle that. That was just how we talked to each other.

That was a very safe, secure home family experience. Then, when I was 10 years old, my parents got divorced and it was like the church divorced us. In 1980, you just didn’t do that in church settings. There was nothing in that little church that was there for us, and because I guess it was smaller, maybe there was some sense of divided loyalty. I don’t know. I was young, so I’m not really sure, but we left that church and left my family behind. That was my first experience of what is now thought of as church hurt; the whole side of dealing with human humans, that is hurtful. It happens in church too. We moved from there to a larger church that had a singles group and a more robust children’s and youth program, and that became a home church and was a really good place for me to land. Me and my mom, we met other families that were made up more like ours, single mothers and divorced parents.

That’s where I spent my junior high and high school years and really where I grew up in my faith. I was really fortunate to have adults that cared about young people and noticed me and invested in me.

I became my own steward of my faith in that church. That was really important. I learned a lot of spiritual disciplines and because of my personality and the way I had chosen to do life, that fit very well for me. The whole, check the boxes and do all the right things, you have your quiet time every day, so you have a good day. It really worked for me. I did get to know Jesus through that. I was doing it in a lot of ways for the wrong reasons. I very much bought into that. If I do these right things and pray this way, and take these sermon notes, then I will succeed in life and have a blessed life. But it worked. 

Then I went to college and went to a very secular university. My faith was challenged everywhere, in every class and every interaction. I turned to my church for support in trying to navigate that. I had a conversation with my pastor at home and asked him questions of things that I was running into in college. I don’t remember much of the conversation except him just saying, “This is a unique situation. Most kids don’t run into this stuff in college. I don’t really know what to tell you.” I was shocked by that. That was my second experience of, I really need something here, and not only do you not have anything to offer me, but you don’t really care. It was kind of a cavalier, I’m sorry, I just can’t help you. At least, that’s how I remember it; I could be remembering it unfairly, but that’s how it landed with me. 

Fortunately, God is the one who is orchestrating my path. I went back to school and found some people there and a church there that had more answers to my questions and that had more affinity with the journey that I was on. It was a very formative time in my life. In some ways I’m really grateful to that pastor because he left me in a desert where I had to decide: do I know God? Have I really experienced something that is more real and more true than anything I’m hearing in all of these classes and all of these conversations? What is really meaningful? What is really solid?  I was pushed to a place where I had to decide. 

I don’t remember the exact moment, but I remember very clearly this point of decision where I was brought to tears because I knew, not rationally, but with everything in me, I knew that I knew God, that God was real and that He had sought me out and that I was His. Even though I had made a profession of faith as a kid, and would’ve said I was “ saved” and baptized as a child, there was that moment where, in the midst of not having what I thought I needed from church, I was very certain that I had what I needed from God. I’m actually really grateful for that.

Rosanne Moore: Say that again! In that moment that I knew… I’m not going to say it the way you did. Say it again.

In that moment you weren’t getting what you needed from church, you knew that you were getting what you needed from God.

Karlene Cannon: Exactly. In the stripping away of not getting what I asked for from church, not getting my questions answered, not getting the encouragement or even just being taken seriously – some of what I experienced, it just felt like, you don’t even care – God was there. God was taking me seriously. God was answering my questions and He answered them in ways that, perhaps, I would’ve wanted a different answer; I might’ve wanted a rational, point by point, logical argument, but He came in and gave me something I never had before. This certainty, this relational experience of with-ness, that went beyond the rational argument.

And for that, I am so grateful. I could look back at the pastor and wish that he had been more supportive, but in some ways – I think this is a lesson for all of us when we talk to people – in some ways it was his failure to meet me where I was at that kept my heart hungry for God and kept me open to this other opportunity where God wanted to meet me in a way He hadn’t before, or that I hadn’t been available for. Even in my earlier experience, I learned that, whether it was conscious or not, in the human failings that I had experienced at church, that God stepped in and filled in the gaps, and if I was open and expectant that I found Him in new ways that I don’t know if I would have thought of that consciously. I think I was collecting these experiences where I was being disappointed, but God was showing up in unexpected ways.

Rosanne Moore: I think that’s such an important distinction, because there’s nobody who’s not in the process of being sanctified. The best people are still in the process of being sanctified. Which means they fail. We all fail. I think what you’re describing is the difference between church hurt and church trauma.

What you’re describing is things where people didn’t have ill intent toward you, but they just didn’t meet your needs – where they were in their own journey, there was growth that they needed and so they couldn’t meet you in truth the way you needed.

Karlene Cannon:That’s an important distinction. I agree with that. 

Rosanne Moore: I think that’s really different from a person who is deliberately using spiritual power to do harm for their own gratification. For those who have experienced that category, I think the process of finding God in the middle of that can look very different.

But, because our culture tends to put things in big baskets, the distinction you’re making for people who have been failed in some ways, not harmed. There’s pain. There’s harm. There’s hurt. That’s a good word. There’s hurt. There are consequences to somebody not meeting you the way that you need it, but that is different from trauma. What you’re saying is so important because it empowers a person to go on with God and not wait for somebody else to get it right.

Karlene Cannon:  That’s really important because I don’t get it right. I fail people in my best intentions, and part of being in relationship is extending grace and and hoping that grace is extended to you. I think it underscores both the importance of really seeing people before you maybe act or respond, really trying to get inside what they’re asking for or what they’re needing.

But also trusting that, just like with me and my story, that God is on their journey with them. Just like He’s on the journey with you and he has all of those possibilities held in His hand. I think that’s part of what makes Christian community frightening, at least for me, is the fear that I’m going to fail somebody in a way that would damage their faith.

My own experience of that, when I’m really thinking clearly, gives me confidence that God has them just like He held me. He could use my failure, which, honestly, my pride hates this thought, but He could use my failure in their life just like He used other people’s failure in my life.

It’s not just that I was failed. Lots of people stepped in and showed up in ways that were really profoundly good. It’s just in some ways the failures catch your attention because you’re not necessarily expecting them. 

Like CS Lewis says, “God shouts in your pain.” Those are sometimes the ways He most effectively gets your attention, because when you’re not experiencing pain, I think, or at least I can be deluded into thinking, I’m actually walking with God when I’m maybe walking away from Him or at walking farther from Him.

Rosanne Moore: I think too, just from a sanctification standpoint, I know in my own life God has made me sensitive to things He needed to change in me by letting me experience that kind of poor behavior from somebody. It’s like when somebody treats you badly in a particular way, all of a sudden you realize what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that and it can make you very aware that that’s not how you want to be. It’s the whole difference between trying to behave well and really having a heart to want to do the right thing instead of feeling pressured to do the right thing. 

Sometimes that really does come out of experiencing somebody else’s sin and realizing that is not the person I was created to be. That’s not the person I want to be. And the Lord can use that. 

Karlene Cannon: You’re right, He uses everything. 

It’s interesting, this whole exercise of mentally preparing for this conversation. I don’t know that I’d ever reviewed my trajectory, my story of church, but it is very interesting that the story unfolds how that pattern of real growth and substance and newness would happen at each church I went to. Then there was some sort of pain or failure or disappointment that moved me to the next place.

So when I look back at my whole story of church and the people in the church as I moved from church to church, I just did the normal sort of development of life, moving different places.

I was thinking about that yesterday. In each situation I got something profoundly transformative for my spiritual walk. A new, almost breathtaking way of seeing life and knowing God. And I also got a hefty dose of pain and disappointment. 

I moved from my home church to college and found a church in college that was really different than the church I had grown up in – very experimental with their worship. I remember clearly, worship services where they just did all music from Africa or all Jewish music or just these really different worship formats that were not the hymns that were in my little red hymn book that I had sung my entire life.

It really expanded my way of worshiping. The pastor was a really good communicator and preached this whole series while I was there on grace. That completely blew my mind open to what grace actually is and what the gospel really accomplished. 

It was so ironic because I remember sitting in those worship services just being this sponge that soaked up this different take on theology. Then, two years later, we discovered that he had been having a 26 year long affair with his secretary. What I had received from him that felt so true and real then comes into question because, obviously he was making choices that didn’t align with what he was saying from the pulpit, and so I had to wrestle with that and just trust again that God was speaking through this man to my heart in ways that nobody else had up until that point. I could trust what was true because I was hearing that from the Spirit of God, not from this man who had failed morally in his personal choices, and could be grateful for that. It could be sad for the church, we had moved on by then, we had graduated and moved to a different city, but I could still be grateful for what God had given me even though it felt icky, honestly.

Rosanne Moore: I would imagine you’d have to reevaluate, what part of it was true and what part of it was his distortion to justify exactly his behavior.

Karlene Cannon:  Exactly. I think, there’s always something good in the reexamination of, because – a lot of things were happening in my life in college – and I was just open to hear truth, what else was I open to?

Being able to reexamine and refine and and go back to God with these theological principles and wrestle them out, it was an opportunity to do that. That probably wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t heard that news and called into question what we had listened to under his teaching.

So I do think as I look back – and my story gets a little more, I wouldn’t say necessarily traumatic in personal trauma, but there was some trauma – as I look back at those early experiences, I’m very grateful for the way God kindly shepherded me into evaluating what I was experiencing at church.

I don’t think I thought of this until yesterday. Almost training me for what was coming and giving me a good foundation of being open to the goodness that He was offering me through these different experiences and being resilient and careful to steward where I put my trust in the painful times, so that when some of these other things happened, I didn’t have the same foundational shaking of my faith because I had these experiences where God had kindly carried me through smaller pains, if you will, such that when the larger things happened I had something to fall back on. I had an experience with God that I could count on even when my current experience was very unsettling and painful.

Rosanne Moore: The term deconstruction gets used a lot, and while that can be a literary term, it’s not often used that way when we’re talking about church. I think unbundling maybe is the word that I like better. Skye Jethani on the Holy Post Podcast used that. 

It sounds like the Lord had already guided you through a practice of unbundling as you went sifting through, all right, what part of this is God, what part of it is not right. You already had a process or a practice, almost like a spiritual discipline in place, to be able to continually unbundle and reexamine what is of God, what is true, what is not.

I saw that in a church environment that I was in, it was very abusive and very damaging. The people who were harmed the most were the ones who came to Christ in the middle of that because they had no other frame of reference. Those of us who already had a strong foundation with the Lord could pass through that. It was definitely harmful, but it did not shake our core belief in God the same way.

I think that’s why, because we already had a sense of who He was that had not been shaped by that environment.

Karlene Cannon:  I think that’s really important. I think that’s why, as I was thinking yesterday, that experience in college became so much more important in my mind, because it was where I really became personally convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was real. That He loved me, that He chose me, that I was His.

And all of the other things could shake that; I wasn’t impervious, but He was. He would hold me through whatever, and that just was personally mine. You could do a lot of things to me to hurt me, but you couldn’t take that from me unless I chose to give it away.

That was my experience, my choice, my conviction, and it wasn’t shaped by my circumstances. In fact, I work for Larger Story, and I’ve been working on a course of Larry’s material. I’ve been reading so much Larry, but I read a statement that I hadn’t actually seen before, or it hadn’t stuck with me, that was so profound. I’m paraphrasing, but he said something to the effect of, “God promises to form me, but He doesn’t promise to form my circumstances.” It crystallized what I had experienced. The story keeps going. In all of these circumstances, God was faithful to form me, whether it was the pain of leaving my little church family or my pastor, or not answering my questions or on and on. He was always forming me. And my frustration with the situation was that He wasn’t forming my circumstances the way I wanted Him to. But that’s when I could step back from that pain and disappointment and see the good work He was doing in me.

That’s what He promised in Romans eight. He’s forming me and if I can be really glad for that, really grateful, and hold on to that, it gives me the strength to weather the circumstances that He’s not forming the way I want Him to. 

While I don’t think I could have articulated that, certainly not that clearly as it was happening, I do think that’s what was happening in me. Some recognition that the forming that was happening in me was more important than what was happening around me, at least for my personal walk with God.

Rosanne Moore:  I think ultimately, even with church trauma, you’re still not at the mercy of circumstances. The process looks different. It is a lot harder for somebody who has no other sense of God than what they’ve had from an evil person misusing His name. But He still knows you and wants you, and there is still a path forward. Nobody else can take away your ability to find God.

I think that’s, part of what I’m hearing that’s really key to understand is, we still can come to God with all the broken pieces, with all of the confusion; whether it’s setting aside and recognizing that there’s just hurt that we forgive and we move on and we still choose Him, or whether there’s a really hefty process of taking apart and then finding Him in the middle of the brokenness. He’s still there and He still wants to be known and He still loves us and He doesn’t break a bruised reed. He says that. There’s a tenderness in His dealing with us, in drawing us on to know Him, and He can still be known. Even when we’ve experienced great harm. 

Karlene Cannon: That’s so good. In fact, maybe go a step further and say, sometimes He can be more readily known or more deeply known because, at least for me, I’m so much more aware of my need in those places of being deeply bruised.

If I can open up my heart to what grace He’s offering, it’s very profound in those moments or seasons of deep hurt. I want the blessed, easy life as much as anyone, maybe more. But when I look back on my journey, the greatest difficulty were the times that I was the most connected to the Trinity and the most desperate for their love and pursuit. And I think, in reality, I’m just as desperate on a good day as a bad day. But my awareness of that desperation is much more accessible to me, and I act on it in a much more passionate way when I’m aware of that desperation. 

I think it’s harder to do in the middle of those situations, but as I look back, I can be really grateful for those times, because those were the times where I really grew up in my faith and in my understanding of who God is and how He loves me.

I hear what you’re saying. My story is not as fraught with trauma as many stories are, and I’m grateful for that. But I am grateful for the desperate times. At least right now. Check in and remind me to be grateful.

We moved into adulthood and I got married in college. My oldest is just out of college and I have two boys in college. This is a difficult season for your life in church. I think churches don’t know what to do with young adults very well, and they’re moving a lot, their life is very transitory. We experienced that too. Mostly, as I think about that, we were just looking for friends. You leave college where you have this great friend group and then cast out on this sea of adulthood and it’s somewhat traumatic, going from that college bubble to real life.

We floundered trying to find a church for almost eight years; we just bounced around. We did find a really good group of Christian friends, a small community. We still connect with those guys every year, even though we’re all in different cities now. That was just such a blessing to have friends who are in a similar season and we could just enjoy entering into this season of life together.

Church was a means to an end, if I’m honest, of just finding people in that season. And I’m grateful for that, but I wouldn’t say that it was a significant part of my spiritual life in those years. Then we had kids and, something about having little ones, you have greater needs again.

We had moved to Atlanta by that time and we found a great church here. We were in this church for 12 years. It was a large church, and it just became the hub of our life. Our kids went to school there. Rich was an elder; that’s my husband. We were very involved in their small group or discipleship programs. We went on mission trips with this church. It was a fundamental, significant part of our life. 

What started as just a small group that met in our home became, I think what today we would call a home church. We had, regularly for about 10 years, 50 to 80 people who came to our house after church on Sunday. It was that little church I had grown up in, way back in the day. It was basically just an extended family that we did life together for probably about eight years. Obviously that whole experience was very formative for us.

Personally, God reached into my life and shifted some of my theology in ways that had a profound impact on how I lived my life. Mostly, I think God was preparing me for what would eventually be my experience with Larry Crabb and another ministry that’s led by a man named Larry Bolden.

So both Larry’s came into my life in that season, but a lot of that transition for me was moving away from the wrongly held belief that if I was good enough, God would love me enough. If I checked all the right boxes and did all the right things, my life would work out. That kind of worked for me as a teenager, and even into my twenties, but in my thirties, life just got out of control. There were not enough boxes and I couldn’t check enough of them. The relational pain had accumulated enough that I couldn’t escape it. I also developed theologically and gained a real, restful understanding of God’s sovereignty and how He held me, no matter the circumstances of my life. It was walking me toward this way of living in pursuit of relational holiness because of my relational sin, and away from, if I can just get my behavioral sin managed well enough, I’ll be okay. So that was significant. It was a decade of kindly moving me toward that. But, at the same time, like I said, we were tightly integrated in that church and even family members were part of the church. We had some family situations that, I won’t go into detail, but they became very divisive and even though the church was large, it became untenable for both families to stay in the church. It became clear to us that God was moving us somewhere else. 

It was very painful. 12 years so tightly integrated and I loved my church. I loved the people. I loved what it stood for. I loved the way it impacted the community. It felt very aligned to my own theological beliefs at that point. It was painful to leave. At that point we did have, like I said, this community group or home church meeting in our house, and they weren’t leaving the church. Pretty much all of them stayed, which I wanted them to stay, but it created this difference of church loss. So, for a couple of years we actually maintained our home church with members from the church we had been at and the church we went to, which was interesting because, we would come from these different services and come to our house and there was a little bit of a culture clash, because the two churches were very different. That was actually a significant learning experience for us, just to see that in microcosm every Sunday afternoon. 

We went to this smaller church, which was actually fun to go from the big church. Even though we were well known, I felt like we had the best of both worlds because we had all of the opportunity of a large church and yet we had this tightly knit, smaller group within the church.

But going to a smaller church, especially for our oldest child, was really important. It was a place where she felt much more at home. She was entering high school at the time and it was just a good place for her to land. We’ve made a lot of decisions about church based on what’s been good for our kids, and that was a good decision for us. But in that small church, we experienced a misunderstanding or a misuse of spiritual authority. We also responded to that in ways that weren’t honoring, if we could do some things differently, I probably would do them differently. But we were also dealt with in a way that, I wouldn’t say it was abusive because we weren’t particularly vulnerable, but it was a misuse of authority. I think, had we been vulnerable, it would’ve been considered abusive. One thing about us as a family is when we’re in, we’re all in. We had come in and we had embraced this little church and the people in it and had tightly integrated our life with them, so when we knew we needed to leave, it was difficult. It was definitely a break, and now our kids are involved. They were also at ages where they weren’t very communicative, teenagers are definitely old enough to know what’s going on and not really comfortable talking deeply about what’s going on in them and maybe not even able to really articulate it. It created a lot of confusion in our family about what was happening and why we were making certain decisions. It was just painful, and we had to weather that storm as a family, and even as an extended family because it impacted the people who were part of our community group.

And so once again, we were now trying to process what’s happening and trying to help our kids process it. God, I think, used those circumstances certainly for me, in ways that He had been doing all along. But for our kids, they now had to make some of the same decisions I had to make when I was a teenager, and they had to decide, am I going to trust God even when I can’t trust the people of God? Or am I going to put the sins of the people at the feet of God and blame Him for them? We did have to walk through that together and though I would never choose it, it was a good working out of our faith. I’m grateful for the things that God did, both in me and in my kids.

And that story’s still going on. I had Ivy on this podcast, my daughter, a couple of weeks ago, and she was mentioning a little bit of her experience and I just thought, it’s time to have another conversation. She’s further along and she’s processed more and I’d love to know what God has done in the meantime in her.

Rosanne Moore: Thank you Karlene for sharing all of that. For our audience, I hope that you won’t just listen to this. I hope that you’ll be thinking about your own experience in some of the categories that Karlene talked about and that’ll become a source of conversation with God, maybe to look back and revisit even the narratives that you’ve told yourself and start a conversation with God about, how did He show up? Where did He show up in ways that perhaps you missed at the time? At various points in my life I can look back and see more clearly in retrospect than sometimes I did in the moment. How God was at work.

Karlene Cannon: One more thing I wanted to share; as I was reflecting yesterday, I would say my current situation is less than what I wish it was. The church we go to is solid, it’s a great church. It’s been really good for our kids and for me it’s just not the place I would choose to land, but it’s clearly where God has landed me.

It’s a larger church. The worship service is typical of what you would experience in a larger church these days. Very topnotch, excellent musicians. People that we know really love the Lord, but maybe just not the way I would choose to worship and yet, every time I walk in, almost every time, and I’m just in the worship service and maybe even a little grumpy or wouldn’t have chosen that song or don’t even like it, I then just experience God and the tears just run down my face and I feel embraced by the Holy Spirit. I’m not a hands in the air person, I’m a stand there and sway person. It’s not that kind of emotional experience, it’s just this deep knowing that God is with me. Once again, even when things aren’t ideal in my mind, I can’t escape the fact that God wants me there and meets me there.

I know that it’s trendy, if you will, to question church, to maybe even give up on church. I think there’s lots of things that need to be reformed or done differently, yet it’s still the place where God’s people are and where God is. He says when we gather He’s there, and I experienced that in a way – as I’ve gotten older – that is inescapable.

So keep going to church. Maybe not the one you’re at.

Rosanne Moore: Find some fellowship; somebody in your life that is helping you form into the image of Christ.

Karlene Cannon: That’s right. And don’t give up. God has used the church for 2000 years and he still intends to do that, I think.

Rosanne Moore: Thank you Karlene. We are going to have Karlene next month as well. We’re going to do a little deeper dive into what that home church experience was like.

For our listeners, thank you so much for joining us and we are having a book club right now on Larry’s book, Real Church. If you want an opportunity to discuss and explore with other believers – maybe you haven’t been in church for a while and you’re trying to figure out how to come back, how to sort through all of what your experience has been and figure out what God’s leading you to next, or how to find Him again in the middle of what your experience was – that might be a good way to dip your toe in. To have conversations with some other believers and to be able to revisit what has happened to you, but also to look back and see where God was with you and where He is still with you. So thanks for joining us everybody. We’ll see you next  time.

Karlene Cannon: Bye.

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