May 16, 2025 • 24 mins
Do you know someone who is “dechurched?" You might be asking the question, “what does dechurched mean?” Pastor and author Nicholas McDonald is someone who at one time considered himself, "dechurched." He stopped by and shared on how we can begin a conversation with a "dechurched" friend.
https://thebardowl.substack.com/p/how-to-begin-a-conversation-with
Nick McDonald has a new book set for release this coming, Tuesday, May 20!
https://www.amazon.com/Light-Our-Eyes-Rediscovering-Disillusionment/dp/0593601521
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:00):
Kurt and Kate mornings. Not just on the radio.
S2 (00:03):
It's a podcast too.
S1 (00:06):
Do you know someone who is De-churched? Now you might
be asking the question, what is De-churched really mean? We
do need to. I mean, it's a good question. We
need to define what that really means. And there's a
lot of nuance here.
S2 (00:22):
Yeah, there is. And we need to take a good
look at this, because all of us need to be
able to help our brothers and sisters come back.
S1 (00:32):
Absolutely. And you may not even know where square one is,
you know. Okay, well, let's start with square one. The
old saying is, but, well, what is square one? That's
why we invited pastor Nick McDonald to be with us.
He's a pastor at Redeemer Indianapolis. His new book is
The Light in Our Eyes Rediscovering the Love and Beauty
(00:54):
and Freedom of Jesus in an Age of Disillusionment, and
the article that came across our path. Uh, was actually
he wrote this before the book came out. How to
begin a Conversation with Your De-churched friend. If you find
yourself in this situation or, I don't know, maybe you might.
You never know what the future may bring. I think
(01:16):
this podcast will will be good for you. It's good
for all of us. Um, let's, uh, define what De-churched means.
It's not, you know, De-churched is not one size fits all,
is it?
S3 (01:30):
No, it's really not. And the reason this is particularly
close to my heart is because I was a de-churched person.
So having grown up in the church, there was a
period of time in college in particular, where I felt
like the church didn't have the answers I was looking for.
(01:50):
And so I looked elsewhere. And, uh, there are lots
of different people who feel lots of different things about
the church. But one of my core convictions is that
when I was a de-churched person, I was very reachable.
I just needed the right person to have the right
conversation with me. And so, um, one of the words
(02:12):
we use to talk about de-churched a lot these days
is the word deconstructing or deconstruction. And I here's my thesis.
I think we overuse that word. I think even people
who have maybe stepped away from the church are not
really deconstructing. I think where I was is I felt disillusioned.
(02:35):
I felt a bit disillusioned. Um, but I wasn't ready
to say I don't believe in Jesus. I wasn't ready
to say I've abandoned my faith. I was just a
little bit lost. And so the way you have a
conversation with someone like me versus the way you have
a conversation with somebody who maybe says, I don't believe
the gospel anymore. I don't believe in Jesus anymore. Those
(02:55):
are two very different conversations, and I think it's helpful
for us to distinguish between those.
S1 (03:00):
Yeah, I totally agree. And one of the other ways
to look at it too. There are many believers who
say something along these lines. I love Jesus, but I'm
having a hard time with loving the local church because
I've been hurt. Because I'm disillusioned. There again, you know,
it's been very difficult for me and therefore I am
(03:23):
detaching from the local congregation. But maybe I'm watching a
online stream. I'm kind of backing off from from the
local church itself. And this is a you know, we're
talking to a lot of people who are in that
boat here this morning, and especially after the pandemic, you know,
it almost gave folks an excuse to say, hey, I'm
(03:44):
just going to go ahead and stream church. And so
they do they do online church. And then they're not
showing up at their local church anymore. Or again, maybe
they've bounced around from church to church and they just
feel like they're in no man's land. What do we
say to them? I mean, the answer is, well, give
it another try. And not every church is, uh, going to, uh,
(04:06):
you know, scratch that itch for you, obviously, but maybe
we don't. We have to be careful. We don't want
to be hurt, and we don't want to go to
a church where they're not teaching the Bible accurately, where
it's not Christ centered, biblically based. Obviously, the doctrine is important.
Theology is important, for that matter. But maybe we're we're
(04:28):
becoming overly critical to the point where we've got ourselves
painted into a corner where we're never going to be
content at at any church. That's a dangerous place to be,
isn't it?
S3 (04:40):
Yeah, absolutely. So I can tell you a bit more
of my own journey because I relate to that feeling. Um,
you know, when I was in high school, I went
to a very, very large youth group, and I would
say the, the youth group taught things from the Bible.
(05:01):
I wouldn't say that they taught the Bible exactly. I
would say the main message I got from youth group was,
you have a dream that's in your heart, and God
wants you to fulfill that dream in your life. Uh,
which I would not now say that is the gospel,
but that's the way I was taught it. Um, and
so part of my own disillusionment was my senior year
(05:23):
of high school. That very youth group, actually, we took
a trip to South Africa, to a small village that
was very impoverished. And we were walking around and talking
to people who lived in tin sheds. You know, they're
eating bone broth for dinner. And I just thought about
those people who were very warm and hospitable, and I
(05:44):
thought about my own life. And I thought, man, uh,
if if the gospel is that God wants to fulfill
everybody's dreams, it feels to me like he must really
not like these people or something. And that just didn't
it didn't add up for me. It wasn't it wasn't
clicking in my head. And so a couple of weeks later,
(06:05):
this was two weeks before I left for college. I
had probably, yeah, I would say the worst experience I've
had in my life so far, which is the drowning
of my youngest brother in our backyard pool. And at
that time I was thinking, boy, if if the gospel
is that God wants me to fulfill all my dreams
(06:25):
while I'm living in a nightmare right now. So maybe,
maybe God doesn't want to fulfill my dreams. Maybe God
doesn't love me. Maybe God doesn't like me. And so
when I stepped outside the church, um, that's how I
was feeling. I was feeling like, um, that whatever that
message was that I was taught, it wasn't for me.
(06:46):
Maybe it wasn't true. And I had all these questions.
And so I think you're right. A lot of what
hurt me was, uh, a church community that maybe didn't
believe or teach the gospel. And what I wish I
would have gone back to my I 18 year old
self and said is here's the tricky thing about being
a human. We are most hurt by people and we
(07:11):
can only find healing through people. That's just the way
it works. And the truth is, we can be very,
very hurt by churches. Um, but we can only find healing.
I believe in the church that Jesus gave us. So
it's not a matter of, am I going to be
part of the church or not? It's can I find
(07:31):
the right church? Can I find a safe church? Can
I find a church that is going to proclaim Jesus
and practice the Christian faith in a way that is
holistic and good and healthy?
S1 (07:41):
Well, we're just talking about real stuff here, as we
always do every morning. I mean, this is this is
the reality for us as believers. It's not always everything
works out the way we think it should. I mean,
this is a imperfect world. And obviously even in the
local church, it's, uh, we're imperfect, right? We're sinners in
(08:02):
need of a Savior. But I tell you, it's a
lot easier to find one of these types of churches
that you described. Uh, Nick, it's, uh, it's a lot
easier to talk about that than actually find one.
S3 (08:15):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But, you know, um, one of the
things I've had the privilege of seeing over the last
several years, even here at our church, Redeemer, Indianapolis. Lots
of people, I would say most of our congregation are
folks who have walked away from the church for a
period of time because they had a sense of disillusionment,
(08:37):
but have come into a beautiful, safe community where we
show forth Jesus and we talk about, hey, we are
all sinful and perfect people. Um, one particular story that
I think is really encouraging and maybe encouraging for those
of you who know people who've de-churched is, um, in
my book The Light in Our Eyes, which is coming
(08:57):
out on Tuesday.
S1 (08:58):
Yeah, this is great. It's a new release, I love it.
All right. Coming out on Tuesday. Excellent.
S4 (09:04):
That's right. Yes.
S3 (09:05):
So one of the stories I tell, and I tell
lots of stories of people who've experienced disillusionment, but also
a sense of restoration is the story of my friend Joseph.
So my friend Joseph, he's kind of an intimidating guy.
He's he's very muscular and, um, he's very smart. So
when I say things, he will sometimes say, well, why
(09:26):
did you say that? And I'm thinking, I don't I
don't know, I'm just I'm just talking. Joseph. Just don't
even pay attention to what I'm saying, you know, and
but he's he's sort of an intimidating guy. Yeah. So
we met when he was feeling some sense of disillusionment. Uh,
he had been part of a college ministry where a
lot of his friends were also part of that ministry,
and every single one of them, through the pandemic, had
(09:49):
de-churched and left and I would say truly deconstructed and
departed from faith entirely. And he was really the last
guy standing. Uh, but we started to have some conversations
and he had some really hard questions. He had some
really big questions, but one of the things that Joseph
did that I thought was really interesting, and he would
only say and he would say in retrospect, this was
(10:10):
the best thing I did. I didn't know, I didn't
know it at the time is that even in the
midst of all of his questions, he would come to
Redeemer every single Sunday. And for him, one of the
things that he looks back on is he says, you know,
I had all these, these big questions and these hard
questions and we had all these hard conversations. But he
would say, the thing for me that helped me feel
(10:31):
restored in the love of Jesus is being part of
the local church every Sunday. Uh, something we do here
at Redeemer is we get down on our knees every
Sunday and we confess our sins, and we have different
ways that we write our confession every week that are
very specific and personal and kind of tick me off
sometimes because they're so personal. Uh, but he would say,
getting on my knees, confessing my sins, and hearing a
(10:54):
pastor say, hey, Jesus loves you. He gave himself for you, uh,
through the bread and the wine of communion. Um, the
way Joseph put it, I thought he put it very
beautifully as he said, you know, after two years of that,
it's not that my questions became unimportant. It's just that
they became quieter because I realized what I was looking
for was the real question behind all of it was,
(11:16):
Does Jesus love me? Does he care about me? And
so he said, I could only find that through that
Sunday morning experience. And so that's what I would encourage
those who've, who've de-churched to, to pursue. Is that not
just the answers? The answers are important, but also that
community that can say, hey, we're all sinners. Jesus loves you.
S5 (11:38):
Thank you for taking some time to listen to this
episode of the Curtin Kate Mornings podcast. We always welcome
a review with your thoughts and comments, and please feel
free to subscribe and follow us as well.
S1 (11:50):
One of the things that seems to occur to me
we were talking about doubt, people with their doubts and stuff.
Nick I think when we struggle, if we're the person
who's doubting and we're struggling with our faith, I think
the worst kind of doubt is when you have, you know,
(12:14):
the Bible well, you you're pretty good with your theology.
You're Orthodox, so to speak, and you know all the
right answers to the questions you have, and yet the
right answers are not satisfying. What do you do if
you're in that place?
S4 (12:36):
Yeah, that is so well said.
S3 (12:38):
I. The reason I wrote this book is because I
unsuccessfully tried to have lots of conversations with De-churched people
for a long time. And so I have a background
in campus ministry. I was working with college students at
the University of Missouri. And I think of one particular
(12:58):
student named Michael. And Michael would always he's just the
student you're describing, Kurt. You know, he had all the
Bible answers, and he would often bring very difficult questions
to me. And I thought I gave him pretty good answers.
I mean, I had thought about these questions and I
thought I gave him pretty compelling answers, but it was
(13:19):
like anytime I gave him the answer, I could see
it in his eyes. It was almost like he was disappointed.
And after a year or two, I thought, you know,
I think the questions that you're asking, there are all
these big questions, but but I don't think I don't
think they're the questions that your heart is really asking him,
(13:41):
because I think what Michael was looking for, and this
is something that I've, I've discovered about this particular generation is,
is I don't think he was just looking for answers.
I think he was looking for hope. I think the
heart question behind all of his questions is, um, could
you give me a sense of hope for my life,
for our world? Does Jesus give me a sense of
(14:02):
hope for the future. Um, and this this is a
shift a little bit. But, you know, years ago, when
I was doing high school ministry, this was maybe 15
years ago, I would do this a little bit where
I was trying to, um, teach our students not to
place too much, I'll say existential weight on their future
(14:25):
spouse or marriage partner, and not to make that sort
of their salvation story in their head. Oh, once I
get married, everything will be fine. So my my perfect
target for that was the movie tangled, the Disney movie tangled. Yeah.
Which is, uh, you know, you've got Rapunzel. She's up
in a tower. And then this dude, Flynn Rider, he's
not a good guy. He's a thief. He comes and
(14:46):
he rescues her from her tower, and they get married.
And that's the end of the movie. And I would
always say to my students, do you know what? I
would like them to write a sequel to tangled, when
Flynn Rider is still a thief and a kleptomaniac and
he's stealing things from the his, his king and queen,
father in law and mother in law, and he's eating
Doritos on the couch because that's that's where that story's
(15:06):
going to end up. And maybe 15 years ago, my
high school students, they were just mad at me about that. No,
that's not that's not the way it's going to work.
It's all going to be beautiful. We're going to get
married and live happily ever after. So, uh, five years ago,
I tried to tell that story to my students at
the University of Missouri, and they just looked at me like, duh!
Of course, nothing ever works out. And there's this real
(15:29):
sense of cynicism and despair. And, uh, we had a
conversation about it one night on campus. I said, are
you guys pretty cynical? Um, and just head nodding, nodding
all around? Yes, yes we are. Why are you cynical?
We don't know. We just are. Uh, and what I
realized is that what a lot of those students were
(15:49):
seeing is that they would return to their local churches,
and they would just see more cynicism and more fear.
And the one thing they were looking for hope. It
seemed like the one place they wouldn't find it was
in the church. And so what I began to do
with my conversations with Michael is I started to unpack. Hey,
here's the dreams of Jesus. Here's what Jesus wants for you.
(16:12):
Here's what Jesus wants for the world. And it was
like you could just see it in his eyes. The
conversation changed. We had tears. We had okay, this is
what I've been looking for. No one's ever told me
that Jesus gives me real hope for this life in
the next.
S1 (16:28):
Well, this is good. Yeah. The context is is is
excellent in your in your article that we ran across.
You talk about a comedian who tells the story of
the worst comedy show he's ever performed. This is great.
It was at a large business conference right here in Tampa.
And he told all of his greatest jokes. No laughs, nothing.
(16:49):
Zippo at the end of the night. He he concludes
and says, man, sorry. I used to be able to
do comedy. I guess I just lost it. And the
CEO of, you know, he was he was a part
of this conference. Uh, he said, no, it's not your fault.
I realized halfway through your set that most of my
(17:09):
employees don't even speak English. So, uh, that'll do it,
won't it? I mean, we trying to trying to speak
to your d church friend without understanding why they're De-churched
is a little like that. That's why your book and
your article, I think, is really important for us. It's helpful.
S3 (17:29):
Yeah, absolutely. And I've been that guy. All right. So
don't get me wrong. Uh, but yeah. So some of
the categories I lay out in that particular article are
things I found very helpful over the years, even to
sit down with somebody who's de-churched, or maybe they just
have one foot out the door and often they'll use
the word I think I'm deconstructing and I'll say, okay, well,
(17:51):
let's let's think about that word. Are you deconstructing? Because
I would the way I would describe someone who's deconstructing
would be, um, you are somebody who would say, um,
that you are the authority over the Christian faith. You
get to decide what it is and what it isn't.
And I've met lots of people in that space. So
(18:13):
I remember a particular conversation with a young person several
years ago who said something like, um, you know, I
think of Christianity as this room that it's been decorated
for me, and I feel like it's my job to
take down all the decorations that I don't like and
put up new decorations. Um, and I thought, you know,
(18:34):
I just I can't imagine somebody 200 years ago saying
anything like that. It's such a it's such a very
particular kind of Western modern way to think about Christianity.
And I said to to that person, have you really
thought a whole lot about not only, um, maybe your
critical thoughts about the American church, but have you, have
(18:55):
you thought about the way you think about things? Because
that just sounds like the way that we Westerners think
about things. Um, so but I would say that's someone
who's really deconstructing. It's like I'm the authority, but I think,
you know, there's 40 million people who've left the church
over the last decade. 40 million. Wow. Um, that's that's
more than those who came to faith during the First
(19:16):
Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening and the Billy Graham crusades combined. Wow.
So this is a huge, huge number of people. I
would say the number of people who are truly deconstructing
is very, very slim part of that population. I would
say a lot of people are people who were like
me in college, where they're just feeling disillusioned, and what
(19:37):
they're looking for is they're looking for a sense of hope.
Can the gospel give me hope? And that's what my
friend Michael needed. That's kind of where he was. He
just needed to hear that Jesus has good news for
your life. Um, now there's another category of of person
who's maybe just the doubting person. Maybe they do have
some serious doubts, like we were talking about earlier, and
(19:58):
they're looking for answers. And so when you give them answers,
that's that's what they want to hear. Um, but I
think that disillusion Dissolution category is the category maybe we miss.
And if we don't understand. Hey, this person is looking
for hope and we only give them answers. I think
we're going to lose a lot of those 40 million people.
So we need to we need to learn to retell
the story of the gospel the way that Jesus tells it.
(20:19):
It's a story of hope. It's about his dreams coming true,
his kingdom coming to this world and making everything new again.
S1 (20:25):
And you know what? Maybe someone who walks away from
the church, they never really understood the gospel to begin with.
S2 (20:32):
Yeah, prosperity gospel that'll that'll kill your your faith.
S3 (20:38):
Yes, absolutely. And you know, that's one side of the coin.
I also one of the stories I tell in the
book is my friend Luke, who lives here in Indianapolis.
But he was actually one of my my students at
the University of Missouri. And Luke, he had left the
church from a very different background. I had left a very, uh,
kind of conservative fundamentalist church, but he was part of
(21:01):
a very progressive leaning church, uh, growing up, and as
he was in youth group and asking his pastor questions,
he began to think, you know what? It sounds like
a lot of the things that we're saying are just
things that people who are politically progressive say. So if
I just if I just take the church part out
(21:21):
of the equation, I just, I feel like I can
get all that somewhere else. Right. And so he left
the church. Um, but one of the interesting things with
Luke is that we met on campus. We started doing
some Bible studies together, and after a couple of years
of being connected to a gospel preaching church, Luke became
a Christian in a really cool way. So I'm so
(21:43):
thankful for his story. But I remember sitting down with
him one time and I asked him, So Luke, why?
Why did you become a Christian after these two years?
I don't really understand your story. I'm not sure why
you joined our Bible studies. I'm not sure why you
were coming to large group. Um, and he thought about
it for a moment. And here's what he said. He said, well,
(22:06):
there was one night when you told all of the
freshmen that although it was really cool that we were
getting together for Bible study every week, it would also
be really cool if we did things like hang out together. Okay,
so I had maybe a little bit of an awkward
group of freshmen. And so I sat down with them
(22:26):
and I said, so, so let's, let's do that. And
they said, okay, well, what should we do? And I said, well,
how about we make pizzas at my house one night?
And this is the way that Luke described it. He
said that when he walked into our house, um, and
he was part of this, I'm going to say pretty
awkward little party we were putting together. I mean, this
was here's what I was thinking during this party. This
(22:48):
is not a good event. I wish I wish Luke
wasn't here. This is going terribly. People are talking about
their math homework. Yes. One kid will only talk to
my dog in the corner. It's a very weird event,
and I'm thinking, this is terrible. Um, but when I
asked Luke that question, why did you become a Christian?
He pointed back to that night and he said, this
(23:08):
just felt like only something God could put together. Look
at that.
S1 (23:13):
See? So we can't take credit for it. This is
just the way God works. He loves to use us
when we think, well, you know, we're going down the tubes.
And he says, no, no, I just want to make
sure that, you know, it's me.
S3 (23:25):
Yes, absolutely. And so it's not about having the perfect answers.
We had some hard conversations. I tried to give him
some good answers, but at the end of the day,
he just saw that God was putting something together that
he just didn't see anywhere else. And it gave him
the sense of, hey, Jesus is doing things in the world,
and I want to be part of that. And and
I think that's what he latched on to. And so, um, yeah,
(23:47):
I think it was that sense of hope.
S2 (23:50):
Thanks for listening to Kurt and Kate Mornings podcast. Please
take a minute to follow, subscribe and review us. And
no matter where in the world you are, you can
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Kurt and Kate mornings. Not just on the radio.
S2 (00:03):
It's a podcast too.
S1 (00:06):
Do you know someone who is De-churched? Now you might
be asking the question, what is De-churched really mean? We
do need to. I mean, it's a good question. We
need to define what that really means. And there's a
lot of nuance here.
S2 (00:22):
Yeah, there is. And we need to take a good
look at this, because all of us need to be
able to help our brothers and sisters come back.
S1 (00:32):
Absolutely. And you may not even know where square one is,
you know. Okay, well, let's start with square one. The
old saying is, but, well, what is square one? That's
why we invited pastor Nick McDonald to be with us.
He's a pastor at Redeemer Indianapolis. His new book is
The Light in Our Eyes Rediscovering the Love and Beauty
(00:54):
and Freedom of Jesus in an Age of Disillusionment, and
the article that came across our path. Uh, was actually
he wrote this before the book came out. How to
begin a Conversation with Your De-churched friend. If you find
yourself in this situation or, I don't know, maybe you might.
You never know what the future may bring. I think
(01:16):
this podcast will will be good for you. It's good
for all of us. Um, let's, uh, define what De-churched means.
It's not, you know, De-churched is not one size fits all,
is it?
S3 (01:30):
No, it's really not. And the reason this is particularly
close to my heart is because I was a de-churched person.
So having grown up in the church, there was a
period of time in college in particular, where I felt
like the church didn't have the answers I was looking for.
(01:50):
And so I looked elsewhere. And, uh, there are lots
of different people who feel lots of different things about
the church. But one of my core convictions is that
when I was a de-churched person, I was very reachable.
I just needed the right person to have the right
conversation with me. And so, um, one of the words
(02:12):
we use to talk about de-churched a lot these days
is the word deconstructing or deconstruction. And I here's my thesis.
I think we overuse that word. I think even people
who have maybe stepped away from the church are not
really deconstructing. I think where I was is I felt disillusioned.
(02:35):
I felt a bit disillusioned. Um, but I wasn't ready
to say I don't believe in Jesus. I wasn't ready
to say I've abandoned my faith. I was just a
little bit lost. And so the way you have a
conversation with someone like me versus the way you have
a conversation with somebody who maybe says, I don't believe
the gospel anymore. I don't believe in Jesus anymore. Those
(02:55):
are two very different conversations, and I think it's helpful
for us to distinguish between those.
S1 (03:00):
Yeah, I totally agree. And one of the other ways
to look at it too. There are many believers who
say something along these lines. I love Jesus, but I'm
having a hard time with loving the local church because
I've been hurt. Because I'm disillusioned. There again, you know,
it's been very difficult for me and therefore I am
(03:23):
detaching from the local congregation. But maybe I'm watching a
online stream. I'm kind of backing off from from the
local church itself. And this is a you know, we're
talking to a lot of people who are in that
boat here this morning, and especially after the pandemic, you know,
it almost gave folks an excuse to say, hey, I'm
(03:44):
just going to go ahead and stream church. And so
they do they do online church. And then they're not
showing up at their local church anymore. Or again, maybe
they've bounced around from church to church and they just
feel like they're in no man's land. What do we
say to them? I mean, the answer is, well, give
it another try. And not every church is, uh, going to, uh,
(04:06):
you know, scratch that itch for you, obviously, but maybe
we don't. We have to be careful. We don't want
to be hurt, and we don't want to go to
a church where they're not teaching the Bible accurately, where
it's not Christ centered, biblically based. Obviously, the doctrine is important.
Theology is important, for that matter. But maybe we're we're
(04:28):
becoming overly critical to the point where we've got ourselves
painted into a corner where we're never going to be
content at at any church. That's a dangerous place to be,
isn't it?
S3 (04:40):
Yeah, absolutely. So I can tell you a bit more
of my own journey because I relate to that feeling. Um,
you know, when I was in high school, I went
to a very, very large youth group, and I would
say the, the youth group taught things from the Bible.
(05:01):
I wouldn't say that they taught the Bible exactly. I
would say the main message I got from youth group was,
you have a dream that's in your heart, and God
wants you to fulfill that dream in your life. Uh,
which I would not now say that is the gospel,
but that's the way I was taught it. Um, and
so part of my own disillusionment was my senior year
(05:23):
of high school. That very youth group, actually, we took
a trip to South Africa, to a small village that
was very impoverished. And we were walking around and talking
to people who lived in tin sheds. You know, they're
eating bone broth for dinner. And I just thought about
those people who were very warm and hospitable, and I
(05:44):
thought about my own life. And I thought, man, uh,
if if the gospel is that God wants to fulfill
everybody's dreams, it feels to me like he must really
not like these people or something. And that just didn't
it didn't add up for me. It wasn't it wasn't
clicking in my head. And so a couple of weeks later,
(06:05):
this was two weeks before I left for college. I
had probably, yeah, I would say the worst experience I've
had in my life so far, which is the drowning
of my youngest brother in our backyard pool. And at
that time I was thinking, boy, if if the gospel
is that God wants me to fulfill all my dreams
(06:25):
while I'm living in a nightmare right now. So maybe,
maybe God doesn't want to fulfill my dreams. Maybe God
doesn't love me. Maybe God doesn't like me. And so
when I stepped outside the church, um, that's how I
was feeling. I was feeling like, um, that whatever that
message was that I was taught, it wasn't for me.
(06:46):
Maybe it wasn't true. And I had all these questions.
And so I think you're right. A lot of what
hurt me was, uh, a church community that maybe didn't
believe or teach the gospel. And what I wish I
would have gone back to my I 18 year old
self and said is here's the tricky thing about being
a human. We are most hurt by people and we
(07:11):
can only find healing through people. That's just the way
it works. And the truth is, we can be very,
very hurt by churches. Um, but we can only find healing.
I believe in the church that Jesus gave us. So
it's not a matter of, am I going to be
part of the church or not? It's can I find
(07:31):
the right church? Can I find a safe church? Can
I find a church that is going to proclaim Jesus
and practice the Christian faith in a way that is
holistic and good and healthy?
S1 (07:41):
Well, we're just talking about real stuff here, as we
always do every morning. I mean, this is this is
the reality for us as believers. It's not always everything
works out the way we think it should. I mean,
this is a imperfect world. And obviously even in the
local church, it's, uh, we're imperfect, right? We're sinners in
(08:02):
need of a Savior. But I tell you, it's a
lot easier to find one of these types of churches
that you described. Uh, Nick, it's, uh, it's a lot
easier to talk about that than actually find one.
S3 (08:15):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But, you know, um, one of the
things I've had the privilege of seeing over the last
several years, even here at our church, Redeemer, Indianapolis. Lots
of people, I would say most of our congregation are
folks who have walked away from the church for a
period of time because they had a sense of disillusionment,
(08:37):
but have come into a beautiful, safe community where we
show forth Jesus and we talk about, hey, we are
all sinful and perfect people. Um, one particular story that
I think is really encouraging and maybe encouraging for those
of you who know people who've de-churched is, um, in
my book The Light in Our Eyes, which is coming
(08:57):
out on Tuesday.
S1 (08:58):
Yeah, this is great. It's a new release, I love it.
All right. Coming out on Tuesday. Excellent.
S4 (09:04):
That's right. Yes.
S3 (09:05):
So one of the stories I tell, and I tell
lots of stories of people who've experienced disillusionment, but also
a sense of restoration is the story of my friend Joseph.
So my friend Joseph, he's kind of an intimidating guy.
He's he's very muscular and, um, he's very smart. So
when I say things, he will sometimes say, well, why
(09:26):
did you say that? And I'm thinking, I don't I
don't know, I'm just I'm just talking. Joseph. Just don't
even pay attention to what I'm saying, you know, and
but he's he's sort of an intimidating guy. Yeah. So
we met when he was feeling some sense of disillusionment. Uh,
he had been part of a college ministry where a
lot of his friends were also part of that ministry,
and every single one of them, through the pandemic, had
(09:49):
de-churched and left and I would say truly deconstructed and
departed from faith entirely. And he was really the last
guy standing. Uh, but we started to have some conversations
and he had some really hard questions. He had some
really big questions, but one of the things that Joseph
did that I thought was really interesting, and he would
only say and he would say in retrospect, this was
(10:10):
the best thing I did. I didn't know, I didn't
know it at the time is that even in the
midst of all of his questions, he would come to
Redeemer every single Sunday. And for him, one of the
things that he looks back on is he says, you know,
I had all these, these big questions and these hard
questions and we had all these hard conversations. But he
would say, the thing for me that helped me feel
(10:31):
restored in the love of Jesus is being part of
the local church every Sunday. Uh, something we do here
at Redeemer is we get down on our knees every
Sunday and we confess our sins, and we have different
ways that we write our confession every week that are
very specific and personal and kind of tick me off
sometimes because they're so personal. Uh, but he would say,
getting on my knees, confessing my sins, and hearing a
(10:54):
pastor say, hey, Jesus loves you. He gave himself for you, uh,
through the bread and the wine of communion. Um, the
way Joseph put it, I thought he put it very
beautifully as he said, you know, after two years of that,
it's not that my questions became unimportant. It's just that
they became quieter because I realized what I was looking
for was the real question behind all of it was,
(11:16):
Does Jesus love me? Does he care about me? And
so he said, I could only find that through that
Sunday morning experience. And so that's what I would encourage
those who've, who've de-churched to, to pursue. Is that not
just the answers? The answers are important, but also that
community that can say, hey, we're all sinners. Jesus loves you.
S5 (11:38):
Thank you for taking some time to listen to this
episode of the Curtin Kate Mornings podcast. We always welcome
a review with your thoughts and comments, and please feel
free to subscribe and follow us as well.
S1 (11:50):
One of the things that seems to occur to me
we were talking about doubt, people with their doubts and stuff.
Nick I think when we struggle, if we're the person
who's doubting and we're struggling with our faith, I think
the worst kind of doubt is when you have, you know,
(12:14):
the Bible well, you you're pretty good with your theology.
You're Orthodox, so to speak, and you know all the
right answers to the questions you have, and yet the
right answers are not satisfying. What do you do if
you're in that place?
S4 (12:36):
Yeah, that is so well said.
S3 (12:38):
I. The reason I wrote this book is because I
unsuccessfully tried to have lots of conversations with De-churched people
for a long time. And so I have a background
in campus ministry. I was working with college students at
the University of Missouri. And I think of one particular
(12:58):
student named Michael. And Michael would always he's just the
student you're describing, Kurt. You know, he had all the
Bible answers, and he would often bring very difficult questions
to me. And I thought I gave him pretty good answers.
I mean, I had thought about these questions and I
thought I gave him pretty compelling answers, but it was
(13:19):
like anytime I gave him the answer, I could see
it in his eyes. It was almost like he was disappointed.
And after a year or two, I thought, you know,
I think the questions that you're asking, there are all
these big questions, but but I don't think I don't
think they're the questions that your heart is really asking him,
(13:41):
because I think what Michael was looking for, and this
is something that I've, I've discovered about this particular generation is,
is I don't think he was just looking for answers.
I think he was looking for hope. I think the
heart question behind all of his questions is, um, could
you give me a sense of hope for my life,
for our world? Does Jesus give me a sense of
(14:02):
hope for the future. Um, and this this is a
shift a little bit. But, you know, years ago, when
I was doing high school ministry, this was maybe 15
years ago, I would do this a little bit where
I was trying to, um, teach our students not to
place too much, I'll say existential weight on their future
(14:25):
spouse or marriage partner, and not to make that sort
of their salvation story in their head. Oh, once I
get married, everything will be fine. So my my perfect
target for that was the movie tangled, the Disney movie tangled. Yeah.
Which is, uh, you know, you've got Rapunzel. She's up
in a tower. And then this dude, Flynn Rider, he's
not a good guy. He's a thief. He comes and
(14:46):
he rescues her from her tower, and they get married.
And that's the end of the movie. And I would
always say to my students, do you know what? I
would like them to write a sequel to tangled, when
Flynn Rider is still a thief and a kleptomaniac and
he's stealing things from the his, his king and queen,
father in law and mother in law, and he's eating
Doritos on the couch because that's that's where that story's
(15:06):
going to end up. And maybe 15 years ago, my
high school students, they were just mad at me about that. No,
that's not that's not the way it's going to work.
It's all going to be beautiful. We're going to get
married and live happily ever after. So, uh, five years ago,
I tried to tell that story to my students at
the University of Missouri, and they just looked at me like, duh!
Of course, nothing ever works out. And there's this real
(15:29):
sense of cynicism and despair. And, uh, we had a
conversation about it one night on campus. I said, are
you guys pretty cynical? Um, and just head nodding, nodding
all around? Yes, yes we are. Why are you cynical?
We don't know. We just are. Uh, and what I
realized is that what a lot of those students were
(15:49):
seeing is that they would return to their local churches,
and they would just see more cynicism and more fear.
And the one thing they were looking for hope. It
seemed like the one place they wouldn't find it was
in the church. And so what I began to do
with my conversations with Michael is I started to unpack. Hey,
here's the dreams of Jesus. Here's what Jesus wants for you.
(16:12):
Here's what Jesus wants for the world. And it was
like you could just see it in his eyes. The
conversation changed. We had tears. We had okay, this is
what I've been looking for. No one's ever told me
that Jesus gives me real hope for this life in
the next.
S1 (16:28):
Well, this is good. Yeah. The context is is is
excellent in your in your article that we ran across.
You talk about a comedian who tells the story of
the worst comedy show he's ever performed. This is great.
It was at a large business conference right here in Tampa.
And he told all of his greatest jokes. No laughs, nothing.
(16:49):
Zippo at the end of the night. He he concludes
and says, man, sorry. I used to be able to
do comedy. I guess I just lost it. And the
CEO of, you know, he was he was a part
of this conference. Uh, he said, no, it's not your fault.
I realized halfway through your set that most of my
(17:09):
employees don't even speak English. So, uh, that'll do it,
won't it? I mean, we trying to trying to speak
to your d church friend without understanding why they're De-churched
is a little like that. That's why your book and
your article, I think, is really important for us. It's helpful.
S3 (17:29):
Yeah, absolutely. And I've been that guy. All right. So
don't get me wrong. Uh, but yeah. So some of
the categories I lay out in that particular article are
things I found very helpful over the years, even to
sit down with somebody who's de-churched, or maybe they just
have one foot out the door and often they'll use
the word I think I'm deconstructing and I'll say, okay, well,
(17:51):
let's let's think about that word. Are you deconstructing? Because
I would the way I would describe someone who's deconstructing
would be, um, you are somebody who would say, um,
that you are the authority over the Christian faith. You
get to decide what it is and what it isn't.
And I've met lots of people in that space. So
(18:13):
I remember a particular conversation with a young person several
years ago who said something like, um, you know, I
think of Christianity as this room that it's been decorated
for me, and I feel like it's my job to
take down all the decorations that I don't like and
put up new decorations. Um, and I thought, you know,
(18:34):
I just I can't imagine somebody 200 years ago saying
anything like that. It's such a it's such a very
particular kind of Western modern way to think about Christianity.
And I said to to that person, have you really
thought a whole lot about not only, um, maybe your
critical thoughts about the American church, but have you, have
(18:55):
you thought about the way you think about things? Because
that just sounds like the way that we Westerners think
about things. Um, so but I would say that's someone
who's really deconstructing. It's like I'm the authority, but I think,
you know, there's 40 million people who've left the church
over the last decade. 40 million. Wow. Um, that's that's
more than those who came to faith during the First
(19:16):
Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening and the Billy Graham crusades combined. Wow.
So this is a huge, huge number of people. I
would say the number of people who are truly deconstructing
is very, very slim part of that population. I would
say a lot of people are people who were like
me in college, where they're just feeling disillusioned, and what
(19:37):
they're looking for is they're looking for a sense of hope.
Can the gospel give me hope? And that's what my
friend Michael needed. That's kind of where he was. He
just needed to hear that Jesus has good news for
your life. Um, now there's another category of of person
who's maybe just the doubting person. Maybe they do have
some serious doubts, like we were talking about earlier, and
(19:58):
they're looking for answers. And so when you give them answers,
that's that's what they want to hear. Um, but I
think that disillusion Dissolution category is the category maybe we miss.
And if we don't understand. Hey, this person is looking
for hope and we only give them answers. I think
we're going to lose a lot of those 40 million people.
So we need to we need to learn to retell
the story of the gospel the way that Jesus tells it.
(20:19):
It's a story of hope. It's about his dreams coming true,
his kingdom coming to this world and making everything new again.
S1 (20:25):
And you know what? Maybe someone who walks away from
the church, they never really understood the gospel to begin with.
S2 (20:32):
Yeah, prosperity gospel that'll that'll kill your your faith.
S3 (20:38):
Yes, absolutely. And you know, that's one side of the coin.
I also one of the stories I tell in the
book is my friend Luke, who lives here in Indianapolis.
But he was actually one of my my students at
the University of Missouri. And Luke, he had left the
church from a very different background. I had left a very, uh,
kind of conservative fundamentalist church, but he was part of
(21:01):
a very progressive leaning church, uh, growing up, and as
he was in youth group and asking his pastor questions,
he began to think, you know what? It sounds like
a lot of the things that we're saying are just
things that people who are politically progressive say. So if
I just if I just take the church part out
(21:21):
of the equation, I just, I feel like I can
get all that somewhere else. Right. And so he left
the church. Um, but one of the interesting things with
Luke is that we met on campus. We started doing
some Bible studies together, and after a couple of years
of being connected to a gospel preaching church, Luke became
a Christian in a really cool way. So I'm so
(21:43):
thankful for his story. But I remember sitting down with
him one time and I asked him, So Luke, why?
Why did you become a Christian after these two years?
I don't really understand your story. I'm not sure why
you joined our Bible studies. I'm not sure why you
were coming to large group. Um, and he thought about
it for a moment. And here's what he said. He said, well,
(22:06):
there was one night when you told all of the
freshmen that although it was really cool that we were
getting together for Bible study every week, it would also
be really cool if we did things like hang out together. Okay,
so I had maybe a little bit of an awkward
group of freshmen. And so I sat down with them
(22:26):
and I said, so, so let's, let's do that. And
they said, okay, well, what should we do? And I said, well,
how about we make pizzas at my house one night?
And this is the way that Luke described it. He
said that when he walked into our house, um, and
he was part of this, I'm going to say pretty
awkward little party we were putting together. I mean, this
was here's what I was thinking during this party. This
(22:48):
is not a good event. I wish I wish Luke
wasn't here. This is going terribly. People are talking about
their math homework. Yes. One kid will only talk to
my dog in the corner. It's a very weird event,
and I'm thinking, this is terrible. Um, but when I
asked Luke that question, why did you become a Christian?
He pointed back to that night and he said, this
(23:08):
just felt like only something God could put together. Look
at that.
S1 (23:13):
See? So we can't take credit for it. This is
just the way God works. He loves to use us
when we think, well, you know, we're going down the tubes.
And he says, no, no, I just want to make
sure that, you know, it's me.
S3 (23:25):
Yes, absolutely. And so it's not about having the perfect answers.
We had some hard conversations. I tried to give him
some good answers, but at the end of the day,
he just saw that God was putting something together that
he just didn't see anywhere else. And it gave him
the sense of, hey, Jesus is doing things in the world,
and I want to be part of that. And and
I think that's what he latched on to. And so, um, yeah,
(23:47):
I think it was that sense of hope.
S2 (23:50):
Thanks for listening to Kurt and Kate Mornings podcast. Please
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