Safeguarding the Church: Integrity, Healing, and Hope - Insights from Lisa Compton and Taylor Patterson - Future Christian

Episode Transcript
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>> Paul (00:07):
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Your
source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in
the 21st century. At the Future Christian
Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors
and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical
wisdom to help you and your community of faith
walk boldly into the future. Whether

(00:27):
you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member
of your faith community, this podcast is
designed to challenge, inspire and equip
you with the tools you need for impactful ministry.
And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode.

>> Martha Tatarnic (00:44):
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today,
Loren Richmond Jr. Is in conversation with
Taylor Patterson and Dr. Lisa Compton.
Taylor is an instructor in the Counseling Department at
Regent University. She worked for several years
as a mental health counselor at a nonprofit
agency serving survivors of dementia, domestic violence,

(01:05):
sexual assault and human trafficking
and now sees clients in private practice
specializing in adults with a history of
childhood trauma. She served as co
editor for Safeguarding A
Guide to Preventing Abuse and Fostering Healing in the
Church, a textbook for seminaries, parachurch
ministries and local churches, and is

(01:27):
published in peer reviewed journals. Taylor's research
interests include interpersonal violence,
compassion fatigue prevention and treatment,
and trauma informed counselor education and
supervision. Dr. Compton
is an associate professor and director of the
Ph.D. in counselor education program at

(01:47):
Regent University. With over 29
years of experience in the mental health field. She is
a licensed clinical Social worker, certified
trauma treatment specialist, and compassion
fatigue educator. Dr. Compton has
been a conference keynote speaker, presented
internationally on trauma related topics
and has been featured on CBN News

(02:10):
discussing domestic violence and sexual
trauma. She is the co author of
Preparing for Trauma Work in Clinical Mental
Health and Safeguarding A Guide to
Preventing Abuse and Fostering Healing in the Church.
Her research focuses on secondary trauma
and trauma pedagogy with numerous

(02:30):
published articles. A reminder
before we start today's conversation, please take a
moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review
and share Future Christian with a Friend. Connect
with Loren, Martha and Future Christian on
Instagram. Shoot us an email at uh
laurensonate, uh mediapro.com

(02:51):
with comments, questions or ideas for future
episodes. We appreciate your voice
in how we faithfully discern the future of the
church.

>> Loren (03:10):
Hello and welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. This is Loren
Richmond Jr. Today I am pleased to be welcoming
Dr. Lisa Compton and Taylor Patterson
to the show. Hello. Thanks for being here.

>> Dr. Lisa Compton (03:22):
Thanks for having us Loren.

>> Loren (03:24):
Yeah, so we'll try to. We'll try to do this
well here with two people. I'm so used to one on
one interviews, but let's start with uh, Lisa. Share a Few
about your faith background and journey, what that looks like today.

Sure. So my journey started with
me, my friend Tammy and Jesus. And
um, when I was younger I was not raised in the
faith household, um, but I was
introduced to Jesus by a friend at summer camp.
And so I didn't go to church growing up. It
was really just a personal faith. And then
as I got into college

(04:00):
then it became something where I was going
to Christian fellowship and churches and
so that's where the system of the church then was
introduced. And I've been on staff at a church
and um, work at a Christian university.
So systems came later in.

>> Loren (04:16):
Mhm.

My journey.

>> Loren (04:18):
Taylor, how about you?

>> Taylor Patterson (04:20):
Yeah, I would. The way I kind of describe it is I didn't
have, you know, you know, classically evangelical
childhood. Um, I didn't grow up in Sunday school
or doing Bible drill. My dad was a professional
minor league hockey coach growing up. So we were a little
rough around the edges. We moved around a lot and I
started attending church of as a later adolescent.

(04:41):
Um, was a goody two shoes. Really wanted
to fit in. And so as I came to know Christ I felt like I
had a lot of catching up to do and a lot
of uh, kind of Christian imposter syndrome. And so
I understood saved by grace through faith
alone, but had the now I really, really
have to earn my way into goodness in

(05:01):
the church. And I, I feel like my
faith in my adult life has been kind of this
cyclical process of learning what it looks like to rest in the
finished work of Christ. And a lot of that has come through
proximity to suffering and suffering. Other people
suffering my own and really
wrestling with God and raising my fist to the heavens and

(05:22):
him keeping me and holding me and learning what
it felt like to feel safe with God, which has been really
sweet.

>> Loren (05:29):
Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. I'm thinking of
a couple guests ago, Mae
Young, who wrote a book on Lament. I don't know if you
all have seen that. I thought it was pretty good recommend that.
Um, I also want to give a shout out to my
Canadian co host here. Since you're hockey
travels, did you spend any time in Canada doing the hockey

(05:50):
stuff?

Yeah. So my dad is Canadian, he's from
Edmonton who played hockey at the University of
Alberta.

>> Loren (05:57):
Awesome. Uh, Lisa first and
then Taylor. You're welcome to chime in. Uh, anything
you're willing to share about spiritual practices, spiritual disciplines that
sustain you now.

Sure. Um, I think one of m my
favorite things is to ask God a
question. Ask him for guidance on Something and
then just wait. And so I have notepads all over my
house, pads and pens and just waiting on
God. And the funny thing is that he
often gives me the answer while I'm driving or in the

(06:28):
shower where there are not notepads.
So that is one of my spiritual practices is
timing, hearing from God and then being able to
write it down before I forget.

>> Loren (06:39):
Lisa, I wish we were in person. Like, I just bought on Facebook,
Marketplace, like, whole bin, because my daughter loves
to draw. So I just bought, like, a whole bin of, like, notepads and
journals so I could hook you up with
some notepads.

That would be great. I need a waterproof one for the shower, so if you come
up with that, let me know.

>> Loren (06:57):
Taylor, how about you?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of the normal things, but I think what has been
particularly sweet in this season is, um,
for the first time, a lot of my growing up years, I didn't go
to a particularly liturgical church. And our
church here in Charlottesville does have more liturgical
rhythms and practices. And I have found that to be
really grounding. And in the past few years, we've had

(07:19):
seasons of really great joy and really great
sorrow. And I think to show up
relatively week in and week out and to be saying the same things
about God has been really helpful. And for
other people to give me words when words have been hard has
been really helpful. And that's a practice I wouldn't
have known I needed five years ago.

>> Loren (07:39):
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that again. Certainly
my colleague who's Anglican in Canada would appreciate.
Uh, it's an important thing. I think when, like you said, we
don't have the words, we don't know what to say, those kind of
prayers can help us stay connected,
uh, to God.
Well, let's jump in right away, just because for sake of time.
Taylor and Lisa are the authors of a book where, I

(08:02):
guess you're the editors. Right, the editors.

We have about 20 authors, and we did write some
of the chapters, but we have a whole team of
trauma, um, experts and writers with us.

>> Loren (08:13):
Yeah. The book is Skills for Safeguarding A Guide
to Preventing Abuse and Fostering Healing
in the Church. I think an incredibly important
conversation in light of all that's happened over the last.
Gosh, I mean, the 21st century. I feel like
every few years is just another awful
story of churches and
institutions and church leaders just

(08:36):
abandoning, just doing
completely wrong things.
And I think one of the things that first struck me when
I read the book this was early on in the book y' all write,
or I guess one of your authors writes. But this quote struck me about
how one of the most effective ways to prevent abuse is
by seeking leaders with integrity.

(08:57):
And, uh, I mean,
I think it seems so obvious to me, but again and
again I see this repeated is
we do the opposite. So I
just wonder, like, what. What is that? What gets in the way
of that? Because it seems so basic, but
so far from what actually gets put into practice.

Yeah. I think one of the things that gets in the way
is the fact that religion is a
business and that, uh, leaders
who are charismatic motivational
speakers and can draw a big audience and increase
attendance are the ones that are
beneficial for
increasing bottom line. And so I think that that's

(09:43):
where there's a conflict between
character and charisma. And
what is driving the church in
terms of mission.

I think, too, there can be this kind of.
We can really buy into the mantra that the ends justify the
means, that we can have this,
you know, godly goal of more m. People
coming to church. We want the church to have a good reputation in the community.
We. We want people to think that we are
friendly and charming and, um,

(10:15):
like, more people come to know Jesus. And
we. We think that we can kind
of cut corners in pursuit of that goal, that
efficiency is the highest good.
And Scripture never claims
that that efficiency is. Is the
thing we should pursue at any cost. And I think

(10:35):
that's one of the hard things, is integrity is proven over time
and is slow and steady and faithfulness
over a long period of time. And we often don't want to
prove that out.

>> Loren (10:45):
Yeah. A spiritual director once told
me, and I think it's very much true that when
I want to get the order right, when the.
The ends justify the means, the means become the ends.
And I feel like that there's a lot of correlation here between what y' all are
talking about.

Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. We can't,
um, pursue godly goals by ungodly needs.
Like, that is not pleasing to God and
people are harmed.

>> Loren (11:13):
Yeah. Uh, this reminds me of something I saw on social media.
I hadn't seen it in a few years, and I'm kind of
disheartened to see it again. I
don't know if y' all seen this, like, thing that people,
pastors will be like, we'll stop anywhere. You
know, we'll go all the way right up to sin, like, just short of
sin. And I'm like, no, like, let's back the

(11:34):
train up. Far from sin.

Yeah, yeah. Uh, it's a little bit
scary. But I think that, you
know, the crux of the New Testament is, okay,
we don't want to just don't break the law. We want to go
beyond that. We want to move towards love
and truth and goodness and
compassion and mercy. So
that's the opposite direction saying that we're going to go

(11:59):
up to the line of sin.

>> Loren (12:02):
Yeah, I feel like I heard like a sermon or two on
that in my youth group days. Right. Of don't
doing that.
Taylor, you used the word reputation
and it stood out to me because I think
one of the things that is in the book is y' all
distinguish between a church as an institution and the

(12:23):
church's people of God. And there's tend to be this, especially
amongst bigger churches or institutions,
Christian institutions. It's like we got to protect the brand.
Like, we got to protect the image. We got to protect, as you
use the word reputation. Like,
how does. What's the significance of
distinguishing the church as a people of

(12:43):
God versus the church as an institution?

Yeah, um, you know, we're
by no means anti local church. We're very,
very local church. But when
we, when we elevate the, um.
How do I want to phrase this? What comes to mind
is when Jesus said, um, man was not
built for the Sabbath, but Sabbath was built for man. I'm sure there's a

(13:09):
theologian listening to this that say that would give
protest. But we were not
like, built to, to raise up
a brand of the church. The church
was designed for our flourishing and for God's glory.
And so when it's not serving those purposes,
it's not existing as God's designed the church to be.

(13:29):
And so I don't feel a,
um, burden to preserve that
particular institution of that
particular local church or that particular brand.
And God's kingdom, God's
whole universal church, God's care for
the Christian church as a whole is not threatened

(13:50):
by a particular institution,
um, experiencing, uh, a
reckoning of sorts when they have harmed people.

>> Loren (13:59):
Yeah, Lisa, I'm thinking of. I feel like I just saw something on this
on social media or somewhere about like,
I think it was like Hillsong New York or, you know, these, these really
big, dynamic mega churches where they're
like, demanding their volunteer staff just
work insane hours for free
at the sake of like, boosting,

(14:20):
you know, boosting the image and
reach of the church. Certainly what comes to mind is, you
know, the, the Mars Hill podcast and
some of those dynamics. Like,
I mean, I think, I think, um, this is what I really
Want to ask about Lisa? I think it's so easy
for us to look at those mega church examples and think, oh, we

(14:41):
would never let that happen in our context,
a smaller, like normative sized church. What do you think are
some of the ways that even in a smaller church, like the
median church is like 65 people, like that the
median sized church can protect the
institution at the sake of the people of
God.

So I think it comes down to are, uh, we valuing
the individual and the value of
the least of these among our congregations
compared to the branding and
mission of the church itself.
And I think Diane Langenberg said that
Jesus did not go to the cross for the church, he went to the

(15:19):
cross for people. And over and
over we see an Old and New Testament,
the value of people that may
not be able to even give much or serve much,
but how those are valuable to God.
And so I think that even in small
churches and, and large churches,
once we start valuing the institution

(15:41):
itself, then everyone can
close ranks around the leader
and around the image as
opposed to protecting and valuing
the least of these individuals.

>> Loren (15:56):
Yeah, yeah, that's good.
So in the book y' all propose
what you highlight or what you term a
tripod of relational safety.
Taylor, do you want to start by walking us
through what that tripod of relational safety looks like?

Yeah. So this was developed by Dr. Diliacco
at the Catholic Safeguarding Institute. And
um, it comprises of three things. Safe self,
safe community, and safe ministry. And so it
highlights that, um, we can't have
safe ministry if we first don't bear some
individual responsibility to be safe people,

(16:35):
that we have to engage with what we as
counselors call our own reactivity. Where am
I prone to experience a larger emotional
response to like daily things? Where
do I feel defensive? Where do I feel outsized
anger when I feel slighted? Where am I prone to
feel insecure and maybe seek
validation from other people who

(16:58):
aren't um, aren't um, in
roles that need to be giving me validation? Um,
those are really, really important things to dive into because
that's where we're vulnerable. To use our power to harm others and
not to serve others. And once we've taken on that
individual responsibility to be a safe person, to
build a safe self, we can be in safe community with
others. We can build safe relationship with one another

(17:21):
where we can hold one another accountable, that we can
kind um, of hold the mirror up to one another to see these things
and build these kind of reciprocal relationships, these back
and forth relationships out of that Safe community,
then we can engage in safe ministry to the vulnerable
that oftentimes we just dive into
serving the vulnerable out of good intentions. But we've done

(17:42):
no meaningful reflection on what's going on in me
that might um, prompt me to use this role in
a way that actually could harm people.

>> Loren (17:51):
Yeah, yeah, Lisa, talk about what can happen
when like those three parts aren't working together
in harmony.

I think first people have to understand what safety is.
So um, I think we first go to, well,
we're a safe church, meaning physically safe.
And so yes, of course keeping people physically safe
is important, but I think understanding what
emotional safety means as well
and that when we are

(18:18):
talking about trauma, we can re
traumatize people that are trauma survivors
by not understanding the words that we're using.
Um, so I think that you have
to understand what safety is to really
understand this, this diagram that
intersects the self, the
community and the ministry. Because

(18:41):
if you have any of those cards
off, like starting with ourselves, we have to be a
safe person to ourselves and to others. And
then that is going to impact the ministry
and the community. And if there's, if safety is
missing in any fashion in any one of those, it's going
to affect the culture across the board.

>> Loren (19:02):
I'm glad you mentioned the point about emotional safety because I think
that can be a trend in some,
some church spaces where there's this like, like you
know, for good reason, this, this want to have
authenticity and vulnerability. But you
know, at some point like personal boundaries matter, right?

Mhm.
Certainly.

Yeah, personal boundaries matter. And um,
even things, churches are a big hugging community,
Right. I'm a big hugger, but I am not a hugger.

>> Loren (19:32):
So if we met like I'm a handshake, I grew up
Baptist.

Right. So if I run across the room to you with my
arms wide open, you are probably going to feel less
safe. So yeah, just
recognizing like you said, people's boundaries
and I think it's the humility
that will drive us to want
to adjust our own words and behaviors

(19:56):
for the sake of others. And maybe some
people are going to have pushback after
um, politically correctness and then led to cancel
culture. And I'm not saying that we, we
need to treat everybody like they're a
snowflake, but I think that there's a respect
that we can give people, there's a respect that

(20:17):
we can give women in the way
they're, they're talked about. There's a respect
with children, there's a respect with people with
disabilities. Like I think that it's the vulnerable
people that are at the most risk.

>> Loren (20:31):
Mhm.

Yeah. Loren, I'm glad you mentioned the
um, kind of prizing
authenticity and sharing, which is a good value.
It's a meaningful thing. But there also can be a
demand of hearing all of yourself immediately
when you enter into a community without the
um, natural relationship trust building.

(20:53):
That should be the foundation of that kind of
emotionally intimate sharing. And that's one of the things that we
try to engage with in the book of what are these
foundational skills that would be helpful for people in the
church to know as they're trying to build safe
relationships, safe trusting relationships with people
so that they over time feel safe to share of
themselves, not because trauma survivors or

(21:16):
people in general owe us all aspects
of their really, really terrible stories.

>> Loren (21:22):
Yeah, I feel like you're. I think that's a great point about
mutual respect. Like, I feel like that's such a
basic biblical, like, uh,
I'm googling Romans 12:10. Like, seems
like the obvious scripture
comes to mind to that point. But like you said, that
can be. Well, let's not go too deep into

(21:43):
that. But uh, I'm glad you're making that emphasis
and understanding the point about boundaries or emphasizing the
point about boundaries.
I want to talk similar to about boundaries
and often the
annihilation of boundaries depending on how powerful the person
is. Power, uh, dynamics.

(22:04):
Why is awareness of power so essential?
And why is it so hard
to navigate oftentimes in churches? And let
me maybe preface it by this way. So I've
worked in evangelical and mainline church context
and mainline churches often do like a really good job of
having solid professional boundaries. But

(22:26):
oftentimes there's this big disconnect, it seems
like relationally from the clergy person and
the congregation. Whereas what I've seen in
evangelical churches, in my experience and others is
there can be almost this really
melding of relationship which can go really sideways.
Uh, talk about those power dynamics and

(22:47):
what that can look like. Lisa, do you want to start?

Yeah. So first, everyone has power.
There's just varying degrees and it's
impacted by the positions and roles we play with each other.
And so I've heard people argue when
we're talking, for example, about
um, treating trauma survivors
and um, the various situations,

(23:12):
people might argue the fact and say, oh well, they were two
consenting adults without understanding
positionally how this impacts the
relationship. So if somebody
has influence over another,
it could be because they are a supervisor, because
they have hiring and firing potential,
um, because they are older, because they are

(23:35):
wiser and more mature as opposed to a younger person
whose brain isn't fully developed yet.
Um, whatever the reason is, anybody that has
more significant influence over the other person creates
a power differential. And when there's a, ah, power
differential, it's always the responsibility of the person
with more power to ensure safety for both

(23:56):
of them. And so that's why even with two
consult consenting adults, that you can
still have abuse of power, you can still
have spiritual abuse, you can have sexual abuse
because of these power dynamics at play.
And so whether it's a pastor to a
congregation, which is even illegal in

(24:16):
some states, which, whether it's an adult
to a child, um, and
even if that child in my opinion has
turned 18 and the adult is 38, that's a power
differential.

>> Loren (24:28):
Yeah, right.

And so um, we've, we've labeled things as
affairs that are actually abuse due to
power differentials. So I think that's a really important
concept to first understand and that although
everyone does have power, a degree of power, and should
participate in safeguarding, there
really is a big difference when people have more

(24:50):
influence over others.

>> Loren (24:51):
Yeah, I'm glad you, you have mentioned that. Lisa Taylor
talk about how churches can
navigate in a healthy
way, you know, the mutual
relationships, but also respecting those power
differences.

Yeah, yeah. So,
um, you know, this question brings to mind the,
the passage in Philippians 2 about Jesus,
though he was in the form of God, did not consider equality with
God, envied himself and took on the form
of a servant. There's uh, that kind of. We
are trying to follow the model of Christ here,
that, that though we have power, we are using our power

(25:29):
to serve. And our
autopilot tendency is not going to be
to use our power to serve. Our autopilot
tendency is going to be to use our power to meet our own
needs. And that can cause a lot of harm.
And so we um,
within the church there, there has to
be a really, really intentional effort to

(25:51):
recognize the positions that we're in. Um, and
this is something that we have to navigate as counselors all the time.
Like as counselors we are in positions of
significant power and significant implements with our clients.
And so it is um,
really openly discussed that
um, we're trying to build

(26:12):
collaborative relationships, that there is
um, a differential here and
m. How can we help you,
um, be empowered to make more choices? And so I think that that's part
of what would be valuable within church spaces, that it
be part of the open conversation that
um, church pastors, elders, deacons are

(26:33):
having conversations within their church about how
they're exerc. Exercising influence and that they are,
um, acknowledging that they're wanting to use
that power to empower others.

>> Loren (26:45):
Yeah, let's stay on that for a moment, if I may, because
certainly, I mean, there is
some measure of authority,
I think another word for power. Right. From
a clergy person or a church leader. And they want
to use their influence, their
authority to influence someone

(27:06):
for the sake of the gospel, to become
a follower of Jesus, to become a more
closely disciple of Jesus.
There is like, correct me if I'm wrong here. If you
just read like, there can be some good use of that power.
Yes.

Yeah, certainly.

>> Loren (27:24):
What does Lisa like? How do we.
How does, what would you tell, like a church leader or a
pastor when that leadership
or that influence or that authority is going sideways?

I would say that influence, when
it involves control, coercion and
manipulation is always sideways.
And Jesus.

>> Loren (27:45):
Now hold on. Write that, uh, out.

Control, coercion, coercion
and manipulation. It's always
sideways at that point. Because
Jesus did not impose on us to
obey. He called us, he
invited us. He spoke truth and he modeled it.
He did not follow force. He did not micromanage.

>> Loren (28:06):
Yeah.

And so I think that it's stepping over the line
when spiritual leaders are trying to
tell people what they have to do
and they weaponize shame
to get people to do what they want,
even if it's for good, even if
the goal. I mean, we've seen this in the purity culture

(28:27):
movement, uh, where yes, sexual
purity is a good thing, but again,
the means don't justify the
end here. Because if
we are manipulating and forcing and
weaponizing shame to get people to obey
the gospel, we're not operating in
righteousness and following the model of Jesus

(28:49):
in terms of how we use our own power.

>> Loren (28:53):
You mentioned shame, and I want to jump to that because
I think it's such an important part of this conversation.
I'm going to read a book or excuse me, I'm going to read a quote here directly
from the book. It says
there's a definitive distinction between shame and
guilt. Guilt is the emotional response to regrettable
actions or behaviors that were perceived as wrong

(29:13):
or inconsistent with values and
can lead to, uh, a necessary repair of the offense.
Shame is a self devaluing emotional
response integrated into one's identity
and self worth due to perceptions of the self
as bad, sinful, unlovable, dirty, or
other deplorable traits. Shame is

(29:33):
intrinsically painful and emotionally
dysregulating.
Talk more, Taylor, about how, I
mean, uh, Talk more about how that
dynamic gets played out in unhealthy ways. That distinction.

Yeah, so
this distinction is really important because, you know, there's that,
um, verse in 2 Corinthians about godly
grief leading to repentance that leads to salvation and
worldly grief leading to death. And I think that's the distinction we're
talking about is guilt
is an important emotion and one

(30:10):
we should grow to tolerate because it
leads us to recognize the ways that we are making
choices that harm ourselves and harm others. And we can
move toward God and others in repair and
in repentance. And, and so guilt, when
we, when we learn how to respond to it, rightly moves
us toward connection. Shame
tells us that we are broken, that we are

(30:33):
wholly unlovable, that we are wholly bad.
And it prompts us to move away from God and others
in disconnection. And so the, the
outcome is like polar opposites.
Do we notice something that we've done that's bad and
move toward others in connection with, or do we notice something that
we've done that's bad and move toward hiding?

>> Loren (30:54):
Lisa, I'm curious about this too. You mentioned
purity culture as an example of
an unhealthy practice of shame versus guilt.
I'm wondering, I'm thinking about this too. When we
think about man
2020 and so much of the
Black Lives Matter and this need for, uh, conciliation

(31:16):
among, especially towards people of
color in our nation. But there's very much
a backlash in
many instances. And I'm wondering, do you think that
shame and guilt sometimes don't get
distinguished well enough? Uh,
again, like I said in the book, I think that's

(31:37):
an important point of saying. I think
Martin Luther King did this thing nation. We are guilty
of not living up to our values, but
that doesn't mean like we're terrible people.

Mhm. I think that the definitions
definitely get, are misunderstood and
misused. And I think, you know,
as counselors, I think that most of us have a different
understanding or a more clear understanding of this
because it comes up so much in the work that we do.
And in fact, we find most people that are

(32:08):
stuck in mental health issues related to
their trauma, it's not so much the traumatic event that
happened, it's the shame that was associated
with it. And it's the shame that often came from the
people that they thought would be their support
system. We could see this in the church
that as, as we go to the

(32:29):
church with our struggles, if
we are met with you're
bad and Shunned and our community
is pulled away from us and things like that
instead of focusing on behaviors because
all have sinned. And, and so I think that that's the
key to really understand that, that
guilt is an internal, ah, conviction.

(32:51):
It's a, the behavior was wrong, I
should change the behavior. And shame
is I am bad or you are bad.
And then the consequences of that again
are, are withdrawing from
community only, almost like a leprosy.
And that does not restore someone that
dest.

Yeah, yeah. And I think to your
point, Loren, the, this kind of
guilt versus shame dynamic doesn't just happen in trauma
survivors. It happens in all of us.
And when, you know, there's an instance of injustice
in our church where
maybe we write about complicity in the book, where,
um, you know, abuse is not just an offender,

(33:35):
there's a whole system around the offender that
enables abuse. And when we
recognize our role in enabling
abuse, we might feel prone to feel
shame. And out of that shame,
we could be further complicit.

>> Loren (33:51):
Yeah.

Say, let's just move toward grace. Let's move toward
forgiveness because I don't want to address my real
feeling of guilt and move toward
reconciliation because I can't
tolerate how uncomfortable this feeling is. And so we just need to
make it go away. And so I think it's important for all of
us not to just say guilt and shame is a trauma survivor feeling,
but for all of us to learn how to respond

(34:14):
to the feeling of guilt so that we, uh, don't
find ourselves shame spiraling because we can't
attune to that feeling and move toward repentance and repair.

>> Loren (34:24):
That's interesting that you mentioned that about
feelings of shame, people feeling the anxiety
and wanting that kind of fix or immediate
relief of, well, let's push for grace and
forgiveness.
Certainly there's too many examples. Right.

(34:45):
Of churches
immediately asking someone who's been offended
like, to offer grace and to extend
forgiveness.
I'm not sure the question asked, but what more do you want to add
to that? It's such a heavy conversation there.

Uh, I think that one thing that I would add, just like
it says in Romans 6, is that grace is not a license
to sin and it's certainly not a license
to harm other people. And so
if we're going to have a culture of
both compassion and clear
boundaries, we need to understand

(35:29):
the purpose of grace. True grace
invites transformation. It
invites change towards righteousness.
It is not avoidance of responsibility.
And, um, without acknowledgment
of responsibility, there's no true repentance
and so all of this is connected.

(35:50):
Forgiveness is not something that anyone should ever be
forced to do that. It actually doesn't make it
forgiveness. It just makes it an acceptance of
an apology. Um, but
again, grace is not something
that we can use as a tool
to avoid responsibility, to
avoid those feelings of shame,

(36:13):
to avoid, uh, any of our uncomfortableness,
and to allow sin to flourish.

>> Loren (36:19):
I can't remember if it was in this book or somewhere
else or. Yes, yes, here on 2
26. Forgiveness does not mean reconciliation.
No victim should ever be forced to reconcile
with the perpetrator. I think this is a really
helpful distinction
because I wrote about this in a
subject myself. Like, you know,

(36:42):
I have someone to harm me in life in a ministry setting. Like,
I've forgiven them, or at least I am
very much trying to practice the 70 times 7. Right. Of
when that bitterness comes up, still trying to forgive them. Right.
Uh, but I don't necessarily want to go make friends with them again. Right.

Yeah.

Well.

And I think that's that kind of trust building that we talked about earlier,
that if there is, uh. I mean, in cases
of abuse, it's. There's a lot of.
There's so many layers of deception and wickedness that goes
into a person, uh, harming another person
in such a profound way. And so
there should always be safeguards and always

(37:21):
be layers of accountability around another person who has
harmed someone in such a profound way. But even in what you're
describing, there's like this kind of, um.
I mean, I don't know the details of it, but, like, if
there have not been any movement toward trust building,
there's wisdom in. In being cautious about what the
relationship looks like because you're also protecting them

(37:41):
from sinning against you. Again, like, you're. There's a.
It could be loving toward them to be wise about how
much access they have.

>> Loren (37:50):
Yeah. Let's stay on that for a moment here real quick,
because, gosh, I want to try to find the quote, but
y' all say something or something is in the book
about grace being good boundaries. And
I thought that was quite interesting.
Lisa, do you want to comment to that?

Yeah. Well, first I wanted to say, uh, that
forgiveness does not mean restoration of relationship.
Those are two very different things. And
somebody can fully forgive someone and
never be in contact with them again. And
so I think we do need to separate out,
um, forgiveness as a
letting go and turning it over to God,

(38:29):
as opposed to, um, being the one
to. To harbor all the
negative feelings and thoughts over and over.
But Being in relationship with somebody
is completely separate. And that's where it's
important for people that have suffered abuse to know
that you can forgive and you do not have to

(38:50):
ever talk to that person again. If that is not
a person that is going to be safe, ongoing.
So that is an important differentiation.
Uh, I forgot what you asked. So maybe dealer
came up with a question.

Yeah, I think, Loren, you were talking.

>> Loren (39:05):
About, um, grace and boundaries. Yeah.
Ah.

Particularly with offenders. And
I think that's where the quote was coming from.

>> Loren (39:13):
Right, right.

Um, you know, one of the things I think where this
kind of grace and accountability, like, rushing to that
place can come from is, you know, someone,
uh, finds out that someone they really loved and
trusted has caused such significant harm,
and that's really, really dysregulating. That's so
disorienting. It's confusing. And you just want

(39:35):
everything to go back to how it was. You want everything to be okay again.
You want everything, like, everyone to be okay.
And it. You want life and relationships
to make sense again. And so there's this sense of, like,
let's rush to make it make sense again.
But that is not loving book to the. To the
victim, and that makes sense to all of us. Why? That's not loving to the victim, but

(39:55):
it's also not loving to the offender because
it harms us when we sin.
It harms us when we cause harm to other people.
It is loving to an offender to,
uh, protect them and. And give. Help
them see the natural consequences of their sin with the
hope that it would lead them to repentance. And so for us

(40:16):
to, like, protect offenders from the
consequences of their sin doesn't do them any favors.
It's not loving, and it just glosses things over.
And we, and we shroud it with Christian
language and call it loving, but it's. It really harms
everyone involved.

>> Loren (40:33):
Yeah, this is great stuff here. I'm.
I'm hearing a lot of family systems theory in your. Your
thinking here. I'm not sure if that's intentional,
but certainly, yeah, it resonates.
One more question here before we take a break.
If y' all could give, like, one first step a church
could. Could take or, or think about if they really want

(40:55):
to be more intentional on creating
safer and healthier churches, where could they
begin? Uh, Lisa, why don't we start with you?

Yeah. I think starting with trainings
on trauma and power differentials is, Is
one step forward in terms of
creating awareness. So I'm, I'm a big
proponent of education and
Um, I think that that's a really good place to start
because if you don't understand the impact

(41:25):
of abuse, the impact of trauma,
how it creates
a ripple effect across so many
systems and how there can be
complicity not just with a perpetrator,
but, but also the systems around, as we
had mentioned, I, um, think that that's a really important
place to start before we go to

(41:48):
building out procedural type of things.
Of course churches should have policies and that type of
thing, but I think starting with the understanding of
trauma and power is a really good place to start.

>> Loren (42:00):
Yeah. Taylor, how about you?

Yeah, I would just add to that. Um, you know, I think a lot of
churches are realizing that they need some kind of safeguarding policy
in place of how many nursery workers take a child
to the bathroom, which again, super important, really, really
valuable. But they end up starting and
stopping with training the lowest level volunteer.
And the leaders don't end up getting very

(42:24):
much on that trauma training. And they're the ones who are getting,
doing a lot of the finding out about
allegations of abuse and responding to allegations of abuse. And
so this really starts with leadership.
And again, those volunteer trainings are important and they could
happen, but we need to start with leadership.
And we intentionally designed our book with

(42:45):
discussion questions. And so for a leadership team to
do, like to read the book together, to
ask and answer discussion questions together and look within
themselves of uh, where is this
sticking? What's hard about this? What am m I noticing in
myself? Where am I prone to use power in a way that
um, harms in. In ways that could seem

(43:05):
small? Like how can we be, um, develop
a culture of self reflection amongst our leadership team.

>> Loren (43:12):
This really reminds me just to, to back to the beginning of
our conversation like that this all takes time
and energy and purpose that might
be seen as like a distraction from like doing,
you know, reaching people or what have you. But like,
we've got to understand and I think this
is the message y' all are trying to say, like, this is essential for

(43:33):
the health and vitality of the church, like long
term. So, uh, again, the book is
Skills for Safeguarding A Guide to Preventing
Abuse and Fostering Healing in the Church. Really recommend it.
Let's take a quick break and we'll come back with some closing
questions.

All.

>> Loren (43:51):
Uh, right, we're back with Dr. Lisa Compton and Taylor
Patterson. Really appreciate this conversation.
Uh, grateful for Yalls perspectives.
Uh, okay, so the closing questions. You're welcome to
take these as seriously or not as you'd like to. Um,
you can respond Both or skip whatever you want to do. But, uh,
if you're Pope for a day, what would that day look like?

(44:12):
What might you want to do? Anything you want to accomplish.
Thinking about having significant influence
somewhere.

Well, I'll keep it relevant to what we were
talking about before.

>> Loren (44:24):
Yeah.

I would love every single church and every single
ministry to have a safeguarding team that
did not have leadership on their team.
So separate. The safeguarding team should be
trained, and they should be separate from the leadership.
So if I were Pope, that would be one of the first things
that I did.

>> Loren (44:43):
That's good, Taylor.

Yeah. Lisa's a visionary. Um, my first thought
was, yikes. Uh, I don't know that I want to be Pope for the day.
So what goes on in me is, wow. I just hope I don't break
anything and, like, want to model,
uh, faithful, ordinary service to the least of these, because
I think most of what I want is not accomplished in
a day. But maybe that helps move

(45:06):
the needle in normal, ordinary
servant leadership.

>> Loren (45:11):
Those are great. Those are both great answers.
Uh, a theologian or historical Christian figure you'd want to
meet or bring back to life. Let's go reverse here,
Taylor, then Lisa.

Yes. So this might be a little cliche, but CS Lewis
has been a companion through so many phases of my Christian life.
That has been really sweet. So to continue
companioning with him would be sweet. Um, the other that comes to
mind is Nathan. Uh, we wrote about him in the
safeguarding book, uh, in his Confrontation of King David.
And it was just so courageous. And

(45:43):
I would be curious, um, what he
would say about our current time and the current place we find
ourselves.

>> Loren (45:49):
Yeah, Lisa.

I actually struggled with this question, maybe because I am
not great at history, and that was triggering. I don't know.
But, um, the one person that came to mind was
Kenneth Hagen, because early on, back in the day,
obviously, that's who I, um,
listened to and read his books, and he even
came to one of the, um, the churches that I was at at the

(46:11):
time, and he didn't even have to open a Bible. And
this is before we had screens in the back, but would just
cite, like, an entire chapter of a Bible by
memory. Um, so he was really one of the
great, um, inspirations for me in terms of
teaching and knowledge of the Bible. So
that would be my pick.

>> Loren (46:30):
Yeah. What do you think history
will remember, Lisa, uh, from this current
time place? And I guess I'm giving you another hard answer here.
Hard question.

It is hard because, you know, it's almost like with COVID
when we were in Covid, it was really hard to see, like, when
we look back in history, what is this going to? What are we
going to think about it? And I feel like it's
kind of the same. I can talk about where
we've been. When I started counseling almost 30 years
ago, we didn't talk about trauma. Like,

(47:01):
trauma was thought of as rare. And so,
you know, we've seen so much change over the past decades.
Right now I feel like we're in the season of.
It's getting stirred up and so
people are getting held accountable. Things are
being called out on social media. For me, that
doesn't love conflict. It's, it's uncomfortable, but

(47:21):
I know that it's good and it's moving towards
change. So I feel like the current state
is. It's all coming to light
and being stirred up, and
hopefully we're going to see the shaking
settle towards real significant change.

>> Loren (47:39):
Yeah. Yeah. Good. Taylor?

Yeah, I would echo that from the optimistic part
of me says the pro is that this would be seen as like
a time of reckoning that leads to fruit. Like,
you know, watch things are coming out, and hopefully that is good for
the church. Um, the part of me that's like, you
know, the con side, I guess, is that this is a time of
such intense polarization, and we are, you

(48:02):
know, there's security tests on either side and
that are loud and hard and
intense. And, um. Yeah, but then I
feel that there's nothing new under the sun, and faithful
Christians have navigated seasons of instability and
polarization for a long, long time. So
maybe none of those things. Maybe it'll be something different.

>> Loren (48:22):
But, well, let's, let's end on this more
hopeful.
What do you hope for the future of Christianity, Taylor?

Yeah, I hope, uh, that
as the dust settles on a reckoning, that
we grow to be known for ordinary,
faithful service, that we love God and love our
neighbor, and that comes to be what the church is known
for rather than, uh, what it
feels like the church is known for. Now, that is

(48:50):
scandal and harm and abuse, injustice.

Yeah, Lisa, Um,
this one was really hard because there's so
many things I would want to add, but I think, number
one, I'd like to see power more shared as
opposed to an all focus on one,
um, leader in the church. I'd like to see more
shared power, and I'd like to see

(49:15):
more focus on formation early on
in training programs, whether it's seminaries or
whatever it is, where there's. We're not just
doing work on theology. But we're also
engaging with our past stories, increasing
our own self awareness, understanding
how as our roles and

(49:36):
powers increase there's going to be more pressure and more
anxiety and what is our own dysregulation
look like and how we deal with it. So
that's, that's where I think safeguarding has
to start. And that's, that's one of the reasons why we
made this into something that is, could be
a textbook because we really want it to be a

(49:57):
tool, information. Um, and so I think
it does start there that it's, we need to take some of the
pressure off the leaders. Like you know, we love
pastors and priests and leaders and
so we're not against them. I think that there's too much pressure
on them to be all things to all people and
I think the power needs to be spread out and we all need

(50:17):
to be able to engage, engage with our own stories.

>> Loren (50:21):
Wow, that's, this has been good stuff. I'm really thankful for the
conversation, uh, grateful that we could make
this work and, and again grateful for the book and I hope it's a
help for others.
Uh, do you want to share anything about like where folks can connect
with you, all that stuff?

I think the easiest for me is my website,
drlisacompton.com.

I'M not terribly public but we have a
website for the book too. SkillsForSafeGuarding. Uh.com has
information about the book and you can put a little message in there that
connects with us too.

>> Loren (50:54):
Okay. Websites, Dr. Lisa Compton and
uh, the skills website. Okay. Well again
thank you so much for the conversation. Appreciate your
uh, making this work with me and uh, we always leave
folks with a word of peace. So may God's peace be with you.

>> Loren Richmond (51:15):
Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast. The
Future Christian Podcast is produced by Resonate Media.
We love to hear from our listeners with questions, comments
and ideas for future episodes. Visit
our website@uh, future-christian.com
and find the Connect with us form at the bottom of the
page to get in touch with Martha or Loren.

(51:36):
But before you go, do us a favor, subscribe to
the podcast to leave a review. It really helps us get
this out to more people. Thanks and go in
peace.

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