Daniel Rose: The Pastor Next Door

Hey, welcome to The Pastor Next Door.

This is a podcast for honest conversations about faith, especially when faith feels complicated, uncertain, or worn down.

I’m not here to give you easy answers or to fix anything.

I’m here to sit with you for a bit, ask some good questions, and make room for grace and honesty along the way.

Wherever you’re coming from today, I’m really glad you’re here.

Now, this season we have been talking about deconstruction and reconstruction, and for many people, deconstruction is not just theological; it’s relational.

It involves the church.

It involves people and community.

And sometimes it involves deep wounds.

It’s one thing to reconstruct faith privately.

It’s another thing to do it in community.

As we enter into this week’s conversation about community after deconstruction, I want to name a couple of things.

I want to name the reality of church wounds.

You see, church is a community of people, and as such, there is likely going to be wounds that we experience because of that.

Church wounds are very real.

They are not something that we can simply brush under the rug or we can just say, Oh, well, that’s just the way it is.

Now, you see, when you spend time with Jesus, and the way we do that is by spending time in the Gospels, you come to find out, particularly in the Gospel of John, that our greatest value as the church is supposed to be that we love one another.

And yet, in many congregations, we don’t experience that.

What we experience is hurt, pain, and deep wounds that leave us in a place where we’re just not sure that we can trust the church anymore.

And oftentimes, it is the result of this pain and these deep wounds that lead us into a season of deconstruction.

Church wounds can be things like spiritual manipulation, you know, where people ask you for a sin list and your discipler will hold on to that for you, making it pretty clear that if you challenge them, they’re going to use those things against you.

Or perhaps it’s spiritual manipulation can look like emotional manipulation from the front of the church, using things like fear and shame to get you to act in a certain way.

Those things are real wounds.

Could be legalism, right?

We don’t dance, we don’t chew, we don’t drink or go with girls that do, kind of a tongue-in-cheek kind of thing there, right?

But it’s when we sometimes in our congregations, we experience deep legalism, where all of a sudden following Jesus is a whole bunch of rules.

A whole bunch of laws that you have to follow.

And when you don’t, then you’re punished.

Then you are made to feel as though you are less than, that you are not a true Christian.

Or perhaps there’s political coercion going on.

You know, this idea that if you’re a member of our church, you have to be a part of a particular political party, and you have to vote for certain people, and you have to be about certain political issues.

That is not the Jesus way either.

That creates deep wounds.

Or perhaps you’ve been in a church where there’s been significant leadership failure, whether that’s moral, or whether that’s the result of a leader being a narcissist, or perhaps just very controlling.

Whatever it might be, when we experience leadership failures in the congregation, when we experience pastors and elders failing us, failing the church, it creates deep wounds.

Or perhaps you’ve been in a church where you have been silenced, where you have been told that you need to sign a non-disclosure agreement, or perhaps just the fact that you are of a particular gender means that you have no standing, you have no way to speak into the community.

You are on the sidelines.

You have been silenced.

That creates deep wounds.

Or perhaps you’ve been shamed for having doubts, for asking questions.

Shame.

Creates deep wounds.

Now, some wounds are misunderstandings that can be dealt with by having an honest conversation.

Sometimes that is what happens because no church is perfect, no people are perfect.

There are going to be misunderstandings.

So occasionally, some church wounds can be handled through one good, honest, open conversation.

But some, some create real harm.

Some leave us in a place that is not what Jesus would have.

Some, some church wounds leave us devastated.

Those, those are the kinds of wounds that we have to wrestle with.

I don’t want to minimize wounds.

I don’t want to sensationalize church wounds.

But I want to reassure you the reality that pain does not make you dramatic because you have experienced some sort of church wound.

That doesn’t make you a drama queen or a drama king.

Hurt does not make you rebellious.

Asking questions does not make you a rebel where you are to be shoved into a corner.

But as a result of this, oftentimes we can experience a temptation to pursue isolation because isolation feels safe after deconstruction.

You know, just be on my own.

I don’t want the possibility of, you know, of being challenged by anybody.

I don’t want to enter into any kind of confrontation, and so isolation feels safe.

In an isolation, we think that we are in control.

We control exposure.

We control what we see, what we hear, and that feels safe.

Nobody questions us when we isolate.

When we are all alone, we can have a false sense of security in that we are the captains of our destiny.

And then there is the reality that when we isolate, no one disappoints us.

When you’re all alone, the only person left to disappoint you is yourself.

And that right there leads us into the reality of the costs of isolationism.

When we isolate, our faith shrinks.

See, we need community.

We need other people in our lives, not just friends to go sit at a bar and watch a ball game with, or to sit and watch a movie with, or to watch the latest reality TV show.

No, we need community with people who will go deep with us, whose lives we can share one with another.

That’s how our faith becomes resilient.

That’s how we actually grow as human beings, is deeply connected into community.

Because, you see, we need embodied reminders.

We need to see other people interacting.

We need to see how other people embody love and care for one another.

We don’t get that in isolation.

And not only is Christianity ultimately a communal faith at its core, but we as human beings are communal at our core.

This is how we have been wired.

This is how we have been designed to be in community with others.

Sure, in some sense, isolation might protect us from pain, but it also protects us from growth.

It keeps us from becoming the fullness of who we are.

And so that leads us into our next question, which is, what does healthy community look like?

Well, we don’t want to idealize it.

We don’t want to come up with some picture that’s not real or true.

And so at the outset, we need to understand that no church is perfect.

All churches will have their flaws.

All churches will have their failings.

Every community that you come in contact with is going to have its flaws and failures.

There is no perfect community of any kind, whether it’s a religious or non-religious community.

And the reason is, is because communities are made up of people, and we will always inevitably put our foot in our mouth.

We’ll say things we don’t mean.

We don’t say things we don’t intend.

We will inevitably fail one another.

And though no community is perfect, some are safer than others.

And so what does a safe community look like?

Well, a safe, healthy community is one that allows questions.

A faith community that does not allow questions is one that is fragile.

It is one that is childish, not childlike.

To be a part of a fragile faith community is to set yourself up for a place where you are potentially going to experience shame and where you’re going to potentially be deeply, deeply wounded.

Fragile communities are not safe communities.

We need to be in a community that allows questions.

We need to be in a community, a healthy, resilient community is one that allows and makes room for disagreement, for people to have different perspectives on things, to realize that outside of the essential core parts of our faith, there is charity and there is room for disagreement and dispute.

We need to look for healthy church communities that center Christ, not control.

The reality is, is that Jesus is not a tool to be used to control people, to get people to do what we want them to do.

No, Jesus being at the center is going to have a community press out into a reality of loving one another and then loving those on the outside of the community.

It is going to be a community that displays love for the world to see.

It is going to be a community also that values humility, one that understands that it doesn’t have everything.

It’s not perfect.

It’s not ideal.

That it has itself room to grow.

That each person that are a part of the community are not perfect and that they are on a journey.

And because everybody is on a journey, they are journeying together and they help one another along on the journey of faith.

It values humility and it practices repentance.

When somebody intentionally or unintentionally hurts another, they come and they seek forgiveness.

They repent.

They acknowledge their shortfalls, their failures, their brokenness.

And they invite others in to that to help them grow, to help them become more loving, more caring, more honest and real.

This is what a healthy community looks like.

This is what a healthy faith community looks like.

This is what a safe community looks like.

So how do we discern that?

Well, I think there are four questions that we can ask of a community.

First, are questions welcomed?

Are questions themselves welcomed?

Can you ask the pastor or the leaders questions?

Is power accountable?

Are those who are in power held accountable?

Is a pastor or an elder or a deacon or any other leader, are they people who can’t be touched, or are they people who will indeed be held accountable when they stumble and fall?

Is love visible?

When you show up to that particular community, can you actually see with your own eyes how they love one another, how they love the outsiders?

And then, is Jesus central?

Is it a grace-oriented community, or is it a community based on rules and legalism?

So you’ve begun to discern possibly connecting into a new community.

How do you re-enter?

Well, practically, first, you don’t have to jump all the way in.

You can just, like, check it out.

You can taste it.

You can just kind of, you know, go and see it and just kind of hang around.

You don’t have to get involved in all of the things.

You can sit in the back.

You can listen, and you can watch.

You can visit without committing.

Heck, even in my community, it’s not a traditional church.

We’re a house church, and we’ve had lots of people who come in for a season and go.

You want to find a church that has a big back door that is okay when people leave, because to visit without committing is important.

I would encourage you to meet one safe person.

Find one safe person that you can share life with, that you can invite into your life to ask hard questions, that you’re okay with them holding you accountable, that you’re okay with them asking you hard questions just as much as they’re okay with you asking them hard questions.

And I would also counsel you to be very cautious about joining a small group.

If you go to a church that has those kinds of groups, just be cautious as you are re-entering, because sometimes those small groups can be as toxic as any large group.

And so just be wary and cautious, realizing that so many of those same principles we talked about in discerning what a healthy community looks like needs to be applied to a small group as well.

Because here’s the thing, re-entry is allowed to be gradual.

You don’t have to jump in with both feet.

Boundaries are not bitterness.

After you have been hurt and wounded by a community, whether it’s a faith community or a non-religious community, you’re going to need to create healthy boundaries.

And boundaries are not bitterness.

It is okay to say no.

That is indeed a complete sentence.

And so, as you create healthy boundaries for yourself, that’s an okay thing to do.

Caution is not cynicism.

To move cautiously into a new community, that’s not being cynical.

That’s being wise.

That’s counting the cost.

That is being somebody who is discerning.

And those are not signs and symbols of cynicism.

Because in all of this, healing takes time.

When you have been spiritually wounded in a faith community, it is going to take time to heal.

When you have been wounded by any kind of community, it takes time to heal.

Now, one of the things that as we try to live out our faith together in community, we need to acknowledge a couple of realities.

First of all is that people who are young, younger people or younger Christians in their faith, they’re naturally going to be questioning.

Older Christians, by and large, are confused by questioning.

Everything is settled for them, and so when a younger person comes in and starts asking questions, they can feel unsettled.

Both.

Both need to remain humble.

If you’re a young Christian and you are asking questions, and you’re bumping into older Christians and they are confused or angry or frustrated or something, or that’s the vibe you’re getting, realize you’re unsettling them, and be gentle with them.

And likewise, if you’re an older Christian and you’re interacting with a younger Christian who’s asking questions and has doubts, realize that they don’t have decades of faith and history with God that they are building on.

You don’t have to be unsettled by their questions.

You get to enter in, and maybe that will rejuvenate even your faith.

Because here’s the thing: we need each other.

We need the courage of questions and the steadiness of a long obedience.

Both things bring life.

Think about this loving thing and what happens as we move back into community.

And I think about John chapter 21 and Peter being restored, right?

He denies Jesus three times on the night of the crucifixion, and after the resurrection, Jesus shows himself to Peter on the shore.

And we got to remember, Peter, he failed publicly.

All the disciples knew.

He likely felt ashamed, heartbroken.

And yet Jesus shows up personally to him, relationally towards him, and he doesn’t say to Peter, Explain yourself.

Nah.

He says— Do you love me?

And he invites Peter back into relationship.

Restoration happens in relationship, and community, a faith community, can indeed actually be the site of healing.

So as we move towards this, we need to remember that as we stay, we stay without pretending, which means you don’t have to agree with everything to belong.

I think about, again, our particular missional community here in Ypsilanti.

You don’t have to agree with everything to belong to us and to belong with us.

You can question and wrestle, and we love that.

You don’t have to suppress doubt to stay.

In a healthy faith community, you do not have to suppress doubt to stay.

You can embrace it.

You can enter into it.

And you don’t have to do performance certainty in a healthy community.

You can be wrestling.

And so as you do this, stay honest.

Stay honest.

Don’t lie.

Don’t pretend.

Be honest.

And yet also stay humble, realizing that there are people who have gone through dark nights of the soul.

There are people who have walked through seasons of deconstruction and reconstruction, and they can walk alongside of you.

They can help direct your path.

You don’t have to walk it alone.

But to do that, you need to stay humble.

And then ultimately, you need to stay anchored in Christ.

You stay anchored in the one who displayed perfectly for us.

What self-sacrificial love looks like.

He communicated to us what true unconditional grace looks like, so we stay anchored in Him.

If church feels complicated right now, you are not alone.

If you need distance for a season, take it thoughtfully.

If you’re ready to re-enter, move slowly.

Now, as we look towards our final episode of season two, we’ll talk about what mature faith looks like, a faith that can carry you forward without fear.

But for now, I would encourage you to don’t isolate completely.

Even one safe person can matter.

So, to close it out, after deconstruction, healthy community is still possible, slowly, honestly, and without pretending.

So until next time, thanks for stopping by here at The Pastor Next Door, and love well, my friends.