March 6, 2025 • 19 mins
Picture this: three former pastors, all wearing their battle scars from public failures, gather to chat about something super important—sitting with pain instead of throwing around advice like confetti at a party. Jean, Byron, and Tullian kick off the convo by admitting how hard it is to be real when the world expects you to put on a brave face. They dive into the messy reality of life, where sometimes all you need is a buddy to sit in the darkness with you, instead of trying to fix everything with a bunch of well-meaning clichés. It’s like when you're watching a sad movie and just need someone to hand you the popcorn instead of telling you to cheer up. They get into group therapy vibes, where people can spill their guts without judgment, and how that kind of vulnerability can actually be healing. By the end, they're all about that radical grace—where the biggest screw-ups are just the folks Jesus is looking to rescue.
In this wild ride of an episode, we tackle the tough stuff—pain, heartbreak, and why advice isn’t always the answer. The guys share stories of their own struggles, showing that it’s okay to be a hot mess. They explore the beauty of being present for others without trying to fix them. Think of it as being a lifeguard who actually knows how to swim! They stress that the best thing we can do sometimes is just sit there, be a listening ear, and create a safe space where honesty can actually happen. The humor is sprinkled throughout as they share their own misadventures, reminding us that laughter can be a balm, too. So, grab some snacks, kick back, and let’s get real about the messy, glorious journey of life together!
Takeaways:
- Sometimes, the best thing we can do for others is to just sit with their pain and not rush to give advice.
- Group therapy with honest, unmasked conversations can be a powerful healing tool for everyone involved.
- People often seek comfort in unhealthy ways, and it's important to address those root issues together.
- Creating a safe space for honesty is crucial, especially in places where vulnerability is often met with judgment.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It's a trap.
I can't talk to anybody, can'tbe honest with anybody.
What is the solution?
Where do I go?
Group therapy with non Christians.
Join a group and have honestconversations with people that are
going to be a vault themselves.
Put your shit out there andhave somebody with authority tell
you the truth and guide you.
(00:21):
If you don't have a group thatyou know of or that you feel comfortable
going to find an AA meeting,you don't have to be an alcoholic
to sit in a circle and listento people.
You don't even have to talk.
But hearing other people tellthe truth about themselves, hearing
other people unmasked willhelp you.
(00:41):
We give this paradigm where wesay there are surface sins and then
there are root sins.
Underneath this stuff,underneath are the kind of things
we want to talk becauseeverybody sees the.
And you already know thisthing is a disaster.
There is something for whichyou are seeking comfort, counsel,
approval, whatever that is, that.
That medicator is there,whether it's sex, drugs, porn, gambling.
(01:03):
I don't care what it is.
You're medicating something.
I had a friend call me,leading a church in the Midwest,
and he says, I need you tocome up here.
He was completely broken andshattered, and he goes, I've been
gay my entire life and marriedmy wife to fix myself.
She knew it and recently brokedown and had an affair with another
(01:25):
man.
She did.
He did.
He did.
He did.
Sin overcame him.
The struggle overcame him.
However you want to describeit, she's done, she's leaving.
That's the horizontalconsequence, right?
He goes, I need you to go inwith the.
To the board with me tomorrowso that I can tell them the shit
hits the fan.
You're listening to the misfitpreachers, Talian Chavigian, Jean
(01:48):
Larue, and Byron Yan fromProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing
Jesus one podcast at a time.
Now, here are the misfits.
Let me turn.
Can I use the word practicalin front of you without you attacking
me?
I was a philosophy major in college.
We hate practicality.
Yes, please.
(02:10):
So.
So the question is, it's a trap.
I can't talk to anybody, can'tbe honest with anybody.
What is the solution?
Where do I go?
I don't want to end up like Byron.
Yes and no.
What.
What in the world do do we do?
Where do we go?
Where do.
Where do we.
Where do we break the surfaceto breathe the air?
(02:34):
Right?
Breach.
And here's.
Here's my answer to that question.
I have one, too.
Yeah.
I was like, are we not goingto get the answer?
Back off, man.
Back off.
Group therapy with non Christians.
(02:55):
Join a group.
Yeah.
Led by a skilled director,moderator, therapist, whatever.
And have honest conversationswith people that are going to be
a vault themselves.
Yes.
And put your out there andhave somebody with authority tell
(03:15):
you the truth and guide youthrough it.
And I think that will helpanybody personally agree.
What's, what's, what's theirony of me saying that, Sean, Giving
that advice?
Because I haven't taken.
Oh, yeah.
You.
You're believing that by proxy.
But you can speak into it.
I want you to speak it.
I think that.
(03:36):
And I said in another episode that.
And make your elders pay for it.
If you don't have a group thatyou know of or that you feel comfortable
going to find an A meeting.
You don't have to be analcoholic to sit in a circle and
listen to people.
You don't even have to talk.
(03:57):
But hearing other people tellthe truth about themselves, hearing
other people unmasked willhelp you.
Would you recommend that theywear disguises to these or.
No, no.
It's Alcoholics Anonymous.
Right.
They're committed to anonymity there.
But here's what I would say.
Here's the caveat to that.
(04:17):
I think what you recommended,what I just recommended, is helpful.
Personally, professionally.
There is no way out.
And what I mean by that is theway the church is set up and it's
(04:37):
not going away.
The way it is currently set updoes not allow for this to happen.
It doesn't.
So there is no hope.
If you want to.
If you want to be a pastor inthe current setting that you're in,
most likely you are nevergoing to feel the freedom in that
(05:01):
setting to tell the truthabout yourself and to be unmasked
and to not put up a facade.
It's never going to happen.
The only reason, not the onlyreason, one of the reasons we started
this place was because Stacyand I needed this place.
And we created this place tobe the only place that I know of
(05:26):
where I, as the pastor, cantell the truth about myself and be
unmasked without losing mylivelihood, my life, my community,
my friends, all that stuff.
I say all that to say I havezero hope whatsoever that professional
(05:47):
Christians in the currentsetup will ever be able to be honest
and keep their jobs.
I don't believe it.
I.
I mean, I've seen it.
It is.
There is.
I am not an optimist when itcomes to this, and I'm not A pessimist.
I'm a realist when it comes to this.
The irony is their inabilityto be honest in their jobs is what
(06:09):
leads to them losing their jobs.
Yes.
Yeah.
Because when that stuff getsin there and.
And you've got.
I mean, the question.
I mean, you asked thequestion, what do you do?
And I agree with, like,there's a personal sense about what
you do in that.
And where I would start is.
And where I would say what wecan really offer, if you listen back
(06:30):
to our stories, we give thisparadigm where we say there are surface
sins and then there are rootsins underneath that are there.
This stuff underneath are thekind of things we want to talk about
because everybody sees the.
And you already know thisthing is a disaster.
But.
But there is something.
There is something for whichyou are seeking comfort, counsel,
(06:54):
approval, whatever that is, that.
That medicator is there,whether it's sex, drugs, porn, gambling,
I don't care what it is.
You're medicating somethingand you need people that you can
walk with you.
And let me illustrate this,sort of prove this point.
I was speaking somewhere and aguy who, a staff guy came up to me
in between sessions and wastalking to me.
(07:16):
And I can't say for certain,but I'm pretty sure that this guy
was gay.
He wasn't hitting on me.
He wasn't being in any wayinappropriate toward me.
I could just.
I have gay friends.
I can usually tell.
And yet this guy was marriedwith a couple of kids, and being
(07:37):
in the church that he served,I could tell.
This is, you know, there's noway in hell this guy could actually
be honest here.
So I come home from that trip.
Stacy asked me how it went.
I told her about this guy, andI really, I liked him.
Like, he was intelligent.
We had a great conversation.
And I said, I can't becertain, but I'm pretty sure he's
(07:58):
gay.
Pretty sure.
And.
And I said, and there is noway, no way this guy is ever going
to be able to tell the churchwhere he serves.
He's not going to be able totell a person in the church.
He's not going to be able totell his church board.
He's not going to be able totell his senior pastor.
(08:19):
There is no way.
I said, this is what's goingto happen.
If it's true.
What I'm saying that he is gay.
What's going to happen isthat's not just going to go away.
He's going to sneak over hereand sneak over there and sneak Here,
there, and everywhere.
And maybe it's 10 years fromnow, but at some point, he's going
to get caught.
Someone's going to see himsomewhere, something, words going
to get out, he's going to get caught.
(08:41):
And what will happen in thatmoment is that he will be demonized,
Demonized by the very peoplewho made it impossible for him to
come clean, to be honest, toshare his struggle, to help with
his family fallout, all that stuff.
And so I looked at my wifeStacy, when I was telling her this,
(09:05):
and I said, churches areculpable in this.
Agreed.
I mean, they are absolutelyculpable to the degree that you are
a contributing factor to thefacade that the focus of the Christian
faith is the pure life of the Christian.
To the degree that youcontribute to that bullshit, you
(09:26):
are culpable for the secretsthat pastors keep.
I'm not blaming them for the secrets.
But even if a pastor wanted toshare his secrets, if a staff member
felt compelled to share hissecrets, they have created an environment
where doing so is impossible.
Agreed.
Impossible.
And that, sadly, is not goingto change.
(09:50):
I wish it would.
It's not.
That's why I'm more a believerin recovery places than local churches.
Amen.
If.
I mean, I would.
If somebody says that, is sucha pessimist, you know, glass half
empty.
What I want to say is, thentell us how it gets fixed.
Yeah.
Or you want to prove it.
(10:10):
I mean, there was a.
I was doing a Q A with achurch staff one time, and I was
saying some of these things,and one of the staff members, idealistic
seminary student type, said,but you're speaking so pessimistically
about the church, which is thebride of Christ.
And he.
All the lofty theological language.
(10:30):
And I said, yeah, I hear you.
I get that.
But I'll tell you what.
You tell me how beautiful thebride of Christ is.
The way you're describing it,when you stand up in front of your
church and tell them youcheated on your first wife, see what
they do?
You tell me.
So all of it is theory, it'sall idealism until it happens.
(10:51):
And then you realize, I can't.
I can't.
I cannot be honest here.
Yeah, it's kind of like this.
The sport of free drive, free diving.
Hold your breath and hope youmake it.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
I read through the book ofHebrews recently.
I just say that to impress myfriends here.
That's great.
In Greek.
(11:12):
Did you.
I was going to ask whether itwas Greek, Latin.
I had the fourth edition in my hand.
Oh, just checking, Lunita.
Yes, just checking the textualapparatus when I came across a word
I was curious about.
But anyway, I got to theChrist, the high priest.
And every priest dies.
(11:34):
You need a high priest that's eternal.
But in there, one of thepoints the preacher makes in the
book is that.
And the priest had tosacrifice for themselves first.
And it was a very, veryblatant testimony of the fact that
(11:54):
that was a broken, sinfulhuman being like everybody else.
And their choice in that rolewasn't any evidence of a difference
in the quality of the personthat they are.
Right.
Because it's a graphic death.
I need this to do this for youbecause you need this as well.
(12:18):
But I can't get there unlessthis thing dies for me as well.
So they had blood on theirhands as human beings.
Well.
And a rope tied around theirwaist because it was such an impending
doom.
Drag their body out.
Our context, it doesn't havethat right.
We can't.
It doesn't.
Anyway, people's perception ismuch different in our roles as pastors
(12:42):
and leaders.
I had a friend call me, greatguy, smart guy, leading a church
in the Midwest.
And he calls me one night andhe says, I need you to come up here.
And I said, okay, Wayne, I'vegot some free time in a couple weeks.
And he goes, I mean, tomorrowI'll buy your airline ticket.
And he goes, my world camecrashing down.
(13:03):
I'm meeting with my elderboard tomorrow.
I need you to be there.
I have to tell him something.
They're not going to be thereto believe, but I have to tell him.
My wife caught me.
I have to tell him, okay, I'mthere, get on a plane, fly to this
town, meet him.
It's like 9:00.
(13:25):
He was completely broken andshattered, exhausted, a shell of
himself.
Just like I looked whensomebody had compassion on me at
some point in my life.
I recognized him and me later, right?
So I said, what is it, brother?
Well, how can I help?
Like, no information on the ride.
(13:46):
He was totally silent on theride from the airport to the house.
We sit down at his kitchen table.
It's like one o'clock in the morning.
We're drinking coffee, whichis a huge no, no for me at 1 o'clock
in the morning.
And he goes, I've been gay myentire life and married my wife to
fix myself.
She knew it and recently brokedown and had an affair with another
(14:07):
man.
She did.
He did.
He did, he did.
Sin overcame him.
The struggle overcame him.
However you want to describe It.
And she is.
She's done.
She's leaving.
That's the horizontalconsequence, Right.
That's simple math.
You do this, you get that.
(14:28):
And he goes, I need you to goin with the.
To the board with me tomorrowso that I can tell them before the
hits the fan.
I was like, this should be fun.
So we go to.
He's this.
He was the senior pastor ofthis senior pastor.
Been there for a very long time.
Over 10 years, right.
So we go sit down with hisboard, who, like, don't know what's
(14:52):
coming, but know what's coming.
If there's never been anemergency meeting called to all the
elders and leaders out there,if you ever get one, assume the worst,
right?
So we sit down with them andwe work through kind of.
There's no good way to deliverbad news.
No.
There's no angle at reenteringthe earth that something doesn't
(15:12):
burn.
So he sits down with them andjust begins to weep and weep and
not weep in.
I've been caught.
He weeped in a.
I'm so relieved to have thissecret out and off my back.
Sure.
And it resonated with them.
They knew what he was weepingfor, right?
(15:34):
Contrition, repentance, relief.
He breached the surface,breathed the air, and then he told
them the story exactly like that.
Struggled with this forever.
Got married to fix it.
Couldn't.
Marriage broke down, did this.
She's leaving.
For the first time ever, aunicorn ran through the room being
(15:58):
ridden by Bigfoot.
Like the chairman gets up,comes around.
The table, shut up.
No.
Like Rembrandts.
Prodigal painting hugs this man.
Now, I don't know any elderthat would hug someone that confesses
(16:23):
to struggle with homosexualityor even be near them, period, in
the conservative church.
And the next thing you know,I'm crushed up against them because
10 men are weeping over this man.
And I think just blown away bythe burden he's been carrying, what
(16:45):
he did to himself.
They didn't excoriate him.
They didn't run him out on a rail.
They did what should have been done.
They gave him a very longRunway, created an exit plan, and
did the wise thing.
You shouldn't be in ministry now.
You need to go heal and workon yourself.
And cared for this man sodelicately that it really changed
(17:11):
my paradigm forever.
Because as much as I wanted tosay that I can be accepting of any
circumstance, I'd never seenit done on that level before.
And so my question is, how doyou create that as a culture in a
(17:33):
context that allows people tobe protected from themselves in those
circumstances, to get thatcapacity to confess and people receive
and hold something.
I don't have any.
Let me.
What are you about to say?
Say it.
I was getting ready to.
I know, but I can't believethis is coming out of your mouth.
(17:55):
Go ahead.
I don't have any answer to this.
That is wrong.
No, it's wrong.
Listen to me.
You.
You created that.
I'm about to say that.
And you gave it.
You gave it to me.
All of my pastoral peerscompletely rejected me.
My world turned into a ghosttown and I needed them.
(18:17):
And when you're down as low asI am, I don't care about anybody's
criticism of me at all.
I just needed to get nearhumanity and be loved and be heard.
I needed to be loved and be heard.
And he did that for me.
And you've done that for me.
And I was lost.
(18:38):
I was lost.
I had no hope.
I had no idea.
I could care less of whether Iwas used in this capacity ever or
not.
It wasn't my ambition.
And that's what most people gofor first.
That's not what I went for.
And that's what people assumeis going to happen.
All I wanted was some friends.
(19:00):
You've been listening to themisfit preachers.
Like subscribe and share moregrace centered resources@prodigalpodcasts.com
that's Prodigal P R O D I G AL podcasts with an s dot com.
It's a trap.
I can't talk to anybody, can'tbe honest with anybody.
What is the solution?
Where do I go?
Group therapy with non Christians.
Join a group and have honestconversations with people that are
going to be a vault themselves.
Put your shit out there andhave somebody with authority tell
you the truth and guide you.
(00:21):
If you don't have a group thatyou know of or that you feel comfortable
going to find an AA meeting,you don't have to be an alcoholic
to sit in a circle and listento people.
You don't even have to talk.
But hearing other people tellthe truth about themselves, hearing
other people unmasked willhelp you.
(00:41):
We give this paradigm where wesay there are surface sins and then
there are root sins.
Underneath this stuff,underneath are the kind of things
we want to talk becauseeverybody sees the.
And you already know thisthing is a disaster.
There is something for whichyou are seeking comfort, counsel,
approval, whatever that is, that.
That medicator is there,whether it's sex, drugs, porn, gambling.
(01:03):
I don't care what it is.
You're medicating something.
I had a friend call me,leading a church in the Midwest,
and he says, I need you tocome up here.
He was completely broken andshattered, and he goes, I've been
gay my entire life and marriedmy wife to fix myself.
She knew it and recently brokedown and had an affair with another
(01:25):
man.
She did.
He did.
He did.
He did.
Sin overcame him.
The struggle overcame him.
However you want to describeit, she's done, she's leaving.
That's the horizontalconsequence, right?
He goes, I need you to go inwith the.
To the board with me tomorrowso that I can tell them the shit
hits the fan.
You're listening to the misfitpreachers, Talian Chavigian, Jean
(01:48):
Larue, and Byron Yan fromProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing
Jesus one podcast at a time.
Now, here are the misfits.
Let me turn.
Can I use the word practicalin front of you without you attacking
me?
I was a philosophy major in college.
We hate practicality.
Yes, please.
(02:10):
So.
So the question is, it's a trap.
I can't talk to anybody, can'tbe honest with anybody.
What is the solution?
Where do I go?
I don't want to end up like Byron.
Yes and no.
What.
What in the world do do we do?
Where do we go?
Where do.
Where do we.
Where do we break the surfaceto breathe the air?
(02:34):
Right?
Breach.
And here's.
Here's my answer to that question.
I have one, too.
Yeah.
I was like, are we not goingto get the answer?
Back off, man.
Back off.
Group therapy with non Christians.
(02:55):
Join a group.
Yeah.
Led by a skilled director,moderator, therapist, whatever.
And have honest conversationswith people that are going to be
a vault themselves.
Yes.
And put your out there andhave somebody with authority tell
(03:15):
you the truth and guide youthrough it.
And I think that will helpanybody personally agree.
What's, what's, what's theirony of me saying that, Sean, Giving
that advice?
Because I haven't taken.
Oh, yeah.
You.
You're believing that by proxy.
But you can speak into it.
I want you to speak it.
I think that.
(03:36):
And I said in another episode that.
And make your elders pay for it.
If you don't have a group thatyou know of or that you feel comfortable
going to find an A meeting.
You don't have to be analcoholic to sit in a circle and
listen to people.
You don't even have to talk.
(03:57):
But hearing other people tellthe truth about themselves, hearing
other people unmasked willhelp you.
Would you recommend that theywear disguises to these or.
No, no.
It's Alcoholics Anonymous.
Right.
They're committed to anonymity there.
But here's what I would say.
Here's the caveat to that.
(04:17):
I think what you recommended,what I just recommended, is helpful.
Personally, professionally.
There is no way out.
And what I mean by that is theway the church is set up and it's
(04:37):
not going away.
The way it is currently set updoes not allow for this to happen.
It doesn't.
So there is no hope.
If you want to.
If you want to be a pastor inthe current setting that you're in,
most likely you are nevergoing to feel the freedom in that
(05:01):
setting to tell the truthabout yourself and to be unmasked
and to not put up a facade.
It's never going to happen.
The only reason, not the onlyreason, one of the reasons we started
this place was because Stacyand I needed this place.
And we created this place tobe the only place that I know of
(05:26):
where I, as the pastor, cantell the truth about myself and be
unmasked without losing mylivelihood, my life, my community,
my friends, all that stuff.
I say all that to say I havezero hope whatsoever that professional
(05:47):
Christians in the currentsetup will ever be able to be honest
and keep their jobs.
I don't believe it.
I.
I mean, I've seen it.
It is.
There is.
I am not an optimist when itcomes to this, and I'm not A pessimist.
I'm a realist when it comes to this.
The irony is their inabilityto be honest in their jobs is what
(06:09):
leads to them losing their jobs.
Yes.
Yeah.
Because when that stuff getsin there and.
And you've got.
I mean, the question.
I mean, you asked thequestion, what do you do?
And I agree with, like,there's a personal sense about what
you do in that.
And where I would start is.
And where I would say what wecan really offer, if you listen back
(06:30):
to our stories, we give thisparadigm where we say there are surface
sins and then there are rootsins underneath that are there.
This stuff underneath are thekind of things we want to talk about
because everybody sees the.
And you already know thisthing is a disaster.
But.
But there is something.
There is something for whichyou are seeking comfort, counsel,
(06:54):
approval, whatever that is, that.
That medicator is there,whether it's sex, drugs, porn, gambling,
I don't care what it is.
You're medicating somethingand you need people that you can
walk with you.
And let me illustrate this,sort of prove this point.
I was speaking somewhere and aguy who, a staff guy came up to me
in between sessions and wastalking to me.
(07:16):
And I can't say for certain,but I'm pretty sure that this guy
was gay.
He wasn't hitting on me.
He wasn't being in any wayinappropriate toward me.
I could just.
I have gay friends.
I can usually tell.
And yet this guy was marriedwith a couple of kids, and being
(07:37):
in the church that he served,I could tell.
This is, you know, there's noway in hell this guy could actually
be honest here.
So I come home from that trip.
Stacy asked me how it went.
I told her about this guy, andI really, I liked him.
Like, he was intelligent.
We had a great conversation.
And I said, I can't becertain, but I'm pretty sure he's
(07:58):
gay.
Pretty sure.
And.
And I said, and there is noway, no way this guy is ever going
to be able to tell the churchwhere he serves.
He's not going to be able totell a person in the church.
He's not going to be able totell his church board.
He's not going to be able totell his senior pastor.
(08:19):
There is no way.
I said, this is what's goingto happen.
If it's true.
What I'm saying that he is gay.
What's going to happen isthat's not just going to go away.
He's going to sneak over hereand sneak over there and sneak Here,
there, and everywhere.
And maybe it's 10 years fromnow, but at some point, he's going
to get caught.
Someone's going to see himsomewhere, something, words going
to get out, he's going to get caught.
(08:41):
And what will happen in thatmoment is that he will be demonized,
Demonized by the very peoplewho made it impossible for him to
come clean, to be honest, toshare his struggle, to help with
his family fallout, all that stuff.
And so I looked at my wifeStacy, when I was telling her this,
(09:05):
and I said, churches areculpable in this.
Agreed.
I mean, they are absolutelyculpable to the degree that you are
a contributing factor to thefacade that the focus of the Christian
faith is the pure life of the Christian.
To the degree that youcontribute to that bullshit, you
(09:26):
are culpable for the secretsthat pastors keep.
I'm not blaming them for the secrets.
But even if a pastor wanted toshare his secrets, if a staff member
felt compelled to share hissecrets, they have created an environment
where doing so is impossible.
Agreed.
Impossible.
And that, sadly, is not goingto change.
(09:50):
I wish it would.
It's not.
That's why I'm more a believerin recovery places than local churches.
Amen.
If.
I mean, I would.
If somebody says that, is sucha pessimist, you know, glass half
empty.
What I want to say is, thentell us how it gets fixed.
Yeah.
Or you want to prove it.
(10:10):
I mean, there was a.
I was doing a Q A with achurch staff one time, and I was
saying some of these things,and one of the staff members, idealistic
seminary student type, said,but you're speaking so pessimistically
about the church, which is thebride of Christ.
And he.
All the lofty theological language.
(10:30):
And I said, yeah, I hear you.
I get that.
But I'll tell you what.
You tell me how beautiful thebride of Christ is.
The way you're describing it,when you stand up in front of your
church and tell them youcheated on your first wife, see what
they do?
You tell me.
So all of it is theory, it'sall idealism until it happens.
(10:51):
And then you realize, I can't.
I can't.
I cannot be honest here.
Yeah, it's kind of like this.
The sport of free drive, free diving.
Hold your breath and hope youmake it.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
I read through the book ofHebrews recently.
I just say that to impress myfriends here.
That's great.
In Greek.
(11:12):
Did you.
I was going to ask whether itwas Greek, Latin.
I had the fourth edition in my hand.
Oh, just checking, Lunita.
Yes, just checking the textualapparatus when I came across a word
I was curious about.
But anyway, I got to theChrist, the high priest.
And every priest dies.
(11:34):
You need a high priest that's eternal.
But in there, one of thepoints the preacher makes in the
book is that.
And the priest had tosacrifice for themselves first.
And it was a very, veryblatant testimony of the fact that
(11:54):
that was a broken, sinfulhuman being like everybody else.
And their choice in that rolewasn't any evidence of a difference
in the quality of the personthat they are.
Right.
Because it's a graphic death.
I need this to do this for youbecause you need this as well.
(12:18):
But I can't get there unlessthis thing dies for me as well.
So they had blood on theirhands as human beings.
Well.
And a rope tied around theirwaist because it was such an impending
doom.
Drag their body out.
Our context, it doesn't havethat right.
We can't.
It doesn't.
Anyway, people's perception ismuch different in our roles as pastors
(12:42):
and leaders.
I had a friend call me, greatguy, smart guy, leading a church
in the Midwest.
And he calls me one night andhe says, I need you to come up here.
And I said, okay, Wayne, I'vegot some free time in a couple weeks.
And he goes, I mean, tomorrowI'll buy your airline ticket.
And he goes, my world camecrashing down.
(13:03):
I'm meeting with my elderboard tomorrow.
I need you to be there.
I have to tell him something.
They're not going to be thereto believe, but I have to tell him.
My wife caught me.
I have to tell him, okay, I'mthere, get on a plane, fly to this
town, meet him.
It's like 9:00.
(13:25):
He was completely broken andshattered, exhausted, a shell of
himself.
Just like I looked whensomebody had compassion on me at
some point in my life.
I recognized him and me later, right?
So I said, what is it, brother?
Well, how can I help?
Like, no information on the ride.
(13:46):
He was totally silent on theride from the airport to the house.
We sit down at his kitchen table.
It's like one o'clock in the morning.
We're drinking coffee, whichis a huge no, no for me at 1 o'clock
in the morning.
And he goes, I've been gay myentire life and married my wife to
fix myself.
She knew it and recently brokedown and had an affair with another
(14:07):
man.
She did.
He did.
He did, he did.
Sin overcame him.
The struggle overcame him.
However you want to describe It.
And she is.
She's done.
She's leaving.
That's the horizontalconsequence, Right.
That's simple math.
You do this, you get that.
(14:28):
And he goes, I need you to goin with the.
To the board with me tomorrowso that I can tell them before the
hits the fan.
I was like, this should be fun.
So we go to.
He's this.
He was the senior pastor ofthis senior pastor.
Been there for a very long time.
Over 10 years, right.
So we go sit down with hisboard, who, like, don't know what's
(14:52):
coming, but know what's coming.
If there's never been anemergency meeting called to all the
elders and leaders out there,if you ever get one, assume the worst,
right?
So we sit down with them andwe work through kind of.
There's no good way to deliverbad news.
No.
There's no angle at reenteringthe earth that something doesn't
(15:12):
burn.
So he sits down with them andjust begins to weep and weep and
not weep in.
I've been caught.
He weeped in a.
I'm so relieved to have thissecret out and off my back.
Sure.
And it resonated with them.
They knew what he was weepingfor, right?
(15:34):
Contrition, repentance, relief.
He breached the surface,breathed the air, and then he told
them the story exactly like that.
Struggled with this forever.
Got married to fix it.
Couldn't.
Marriage broke down, did this.
She's leaving.
For the first time ever, aunicorn ran through the room being
(15:58):
ridden by Bigfoot.
Like the chairman gets up,comes around.
The table, shut up.
No.
Like Rembrandts.
Prodigal painting hugs this man.
Now, I don't know any elderthat would hug someone that confesses
(16:23):
to struggle with homosexualityor even be near them, period, in
the conservative church.
And the next thing you know,I'm crushed up against them because
10 men are weeping over this man.
And I think just blown away bythe burden he's been carrying, what
(16:45):
he did to himself.
They didn't excoriate him.
They didn't run him out on a rail.
They did what should have been done.
They gave him a very longRunway, created an exit plan, and
did the wise thing.
You shouldn't be in ministry now.
You need to go heal and workon yourself.
And cared for this man sodelicately that it really changed
(17:11):
my paradigm forever.
Because as much as I wanted tosay that I can be accepting of any
circumstance, I'd never seenit done on that level before.
And so my question is, how doyou create that as a culture in a
(17:33):
context that allows people tobe protected from themselves in those
circumstances, to get thatcapacity to confess and people receive
and hold something.
I don't have any.
Let me.
What are you about to say?
Say it.
I was getting ready to.
I know, but I can't believethis is coming out of your mouth.
(17:55):
Go ahead.
I don't have any answer to this.
That is wrong.
No, it's wrong.
Listen to me.
You.
You created that.
I'm about to say that.
And you gave it.
You gave it to me.
All of my pastoral peerscompletely rejected me.
My world turned into a ghosttown and I needed them.
(18:17):
And when you're down as low asI am, I don't care about anybody's
criticism of me at all.
I just needed to get nearhumanity and be loved and be heard.
I needed to be loved and be heard.
And he did that for me.
And you've done that for me.
And I was lost.
(18:38):
I was lost.
I had no hope.
I had no idea.
I could care less of whether Iwas used in this capacity ever or
not.
It wasn't my ambition.
And that's what most people gofor first.
That's not what I went for.
And that's what people assumeis going to happen.
All I wanted was some friends.
(19:00):
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