February 27, 2025 • 14 mins
Sometimes life throws us curveballs, and it can be all too easy to leap into problem-solving mode when someone we care about is hurting. But let's hit the brakes for a moment! This episode is all about the beauty of just sitting in the mess with our friends when they’re going through tough times. Instead of offering advice or trying to fix things, we chat about how it’s way more powerful to simply be present and share in the heartbreak. After all, sometimes the best thing we can do is to lay down with someone in their pain and remind them, “Hey, this isn’t forever.” So come hang out with us as we share some laughs and dig deep into the reality of God’s grace, especially for the most broken among us!
Chapters:
- 00:02 - Confession and Faith
- 03:12 - The Edge of Decision
- 06:31 - The Illusion of Anonymity in Nashville
- 10:12 - The Power of Community Support
- 12:35 - Understanding Human Fallibility
Takeaways:
- Sitting in the pain with others is way better than trying to fix them up.
- Sometimes, just being there for someone is the best thing you can do.
- When folks are about to jump, they just want someone to catch them, not lecture.
- Grace is about loving people in their mess, not cleaning them up first.
- We all have junk; it's about falling into grace, not out of it.
- The best advice is often to just listen and say, 'I'm here for you.'
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It's one thing to say, yeah,I'm a sinner.
It's another thing to confessyour sins.
My faith is weak.
It is God's faithfulness thatis strong.
Dig deep and talk about that stuff.
In the history of revivals, italways goes in tandem with the confession,
the reckless confession ofhorrific sin.
(00:20):
The thing that drives that inrevival is the free, unadulterated
offer of grace.
And people throw themselvesand all of their junk.
Somebody on social mediaattacked me yesterday and said, who
wants any of this?
My response immediately was, alittle punchy.
The person who wouldn't darkenthe door of your church.
Yeah.
(00:40):
But I will tell you this.
I do know who wants it.
You're listening to the misfitpreachers, Talian Chavigian, Jean
Larue, and Byron Yan from ProdigalPodcast.com.
we're plagiarizing Jesus onepodcast at a time.
Now here are the misfits.
(01:02):
I was at a nightclub one nightwith my adult son, one of my adult
sons and one of my.
My adult daughter, my onlyadult daughter, to see a DJ that
we wanted to see late one night.
An old friend who my kids knew.
(01:22):
We know his wife, we know hiskids was there that night.
And I hadn't seen him inyears, and he had had a lot to drink,
and we're all giving eachother hugs.
He's hugging my kids, they'rehugging him.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
It's kind of like this.
Hey, you know, it's the.
It's sort of a fun atmosphere.
And so we're catching up asbest we can.
And then I walk to the bar toget a drink for me and my son and
(01:45):
my daughter.
And I come back and they'relike, dad, what's the deal with what's
his face?
And I said, why?
He's like, well, I just sawhim over there making out with some
girl.
And I'm like, what?
And I knew he was still married.
I'm like, what?
So I'm like, I don't know.
(02:06):
It's none of our business, honestly.
Plus, I don't want to bedistracted by that stuff.
And I'm having fun.
And then he comes back to meand he's like, dude, it's so good
to see you, man.
I've missed you and boughtout, you know, blah, blah, blah,
blah.
And he said, man, I gotta gettogether with you soon.
He's like, see that girl over there?
I was like, yeah.
He's like, man, she's an old friend.
(02:28):
We just recently Got reconnected.
I haven't been happy in mymarriage for a while and I'm just.
I'm feeling alive, but I know it's.
I know I shouldn't be doing it.
I.
I gotta talk to you.
At some point.
I was like, bro, of all thepeople you can talk to, you know,
you can talk to me.
Non.
Blinking, not shocked.
(02:48):
It's okay.
Let's just enjoy the night.
Call me tomorrow.
So we're driving home, it'slike 2:00 in the morning, out 2:30
in the morning.
Me and Jenna and Nate aredriving home and they're like, dad,
what do you do with somebodylike that?
You know?
And I responded to them andsaid something like this.
(03:12):
When someone is that close tothe edge, they've already decided
to jump and there isabsolutely nothing you can do or
say that will stop them.
So your job is to stand at thebottom and be there when they fall.
(03:33):
Period.
Wow.
So any attempt on our part totry to talk anyone out of jumping
over is not.
I mean, God can intervene.
Yes, thankfully, he doesregularly in many lives.
But nothing we say, nothingthat we can counsel is going to convince
someone who's alreadydetermined to jump not to jump.
(03:57):
I'll tell you why.
Because sin is a white noisein the conscience.
Yes, it's exactly right.
Drowns out wisdom.
Discernment, in my experiencein those situations is that most
often, like, if you.
If you take your jumperanalogy, right?
So the guy that shows up tohelp the jumper is going.
(04:18):
Jumping is wrong.
If you jump, it will hurt you.
We're not allowed to jump.
And the guy's like, yeah, Iknew all that when I climbed on the
ledge.
Right.
And what they're doing is if Ican just make sure they know the
law.
Yeah.
Then they won't.
And the truth is, standing atthe bottom, I love.
John Sartel was my seniorpastor for so many years in Memphis,
(04:38):
Tennessee.
And he used to say, when youunderstand the gospel, you know that
when Christians fall, theyfall into grace, not out of it.
To quote the great theologianChris Stapleton, falling feels like
flying until you hit the ground.
Yeah, right.
Beautiful.
Falling feels like flyinguntil I want that.
(04:59):
I was walking.
What's country?
I know you're not.
I'm not a country music guy,but I love the line.
I love the line also.
I won't get into music again.
Right.
I was walking down the streeton Broadway in Nashville.
I was down there doing duringCMA Fest.
Country.
Yeah, I know that.
(05:20):
I don't know why I was downthere there are a hundred thousand
people.
It's the heat of summer.
I'd been invited down therefor something in the middle of the
day.
Nobody who lives in Nashvillegoes to Broadway, right?
No one, no.
So I'm walking down the streetand coming at me is a pastor from
(05:41):
the institution that Igraduated from and the church associated
with it on staff and both.
And he's coming at me.
It's huge crowd and he'sholding hands with a woman who is
not his wife.
I know him and I know his wife.
They are, he's still marriedto his wife and I can see him.
(06:03):
And as the crowd breaks, wecross paths.
His head goes down immediately.
Their speed picks up.
He snatches his hand back awayfrom it.
Two days later, I get a callfrom this individual.
From this guy.
Yeah.
(06:23):
On staff at the seminary inthis year.
And he's trying to explainwhat you saw.
It isn't what it is, but it iswhat it is.
And he was there in the citybecause of anonymity.
What he didn't realize isNashville invented Christianity and
(06:44):
shipped it out to all the world.
So there's no being, there'sno anonymity.
Yeah.
And go to Manhattan whenyou're in.
The midst of all this, you,you have a false sense of anonymity
and these sorts of things.
Spiritually, you think you'renever going to get caught.
No one's ever going to see it.
So when he called me a coupledays later, he was trying to convince
me.
He said, please don't, I'mgoing to end it.
(07:06):
Because I wasn't buying it.
Sure, of course.
But held it in confidence with him.
To be honest, I don't knowwhat happened with.
But my response to him was surprising.
Which was, your secret safewith me.
Your secret safe for me is acomplicated process to get there
and this is long beforeanything happened to me.
But I will tell you in selfrighteousness, I did think to myself,
(07:29):
I will never be there.
I said to myself, that isfreaking insane.
Yeah, I believed the same thing.
Yeah.
You don't know until you're in it.
I, I, I've read this quote somany times in different places, but
(07:50):
it's a, it's an amazing line.
It goes back to what I told mykids in the car driving home that
early morning.
And I think it's very wisecounsel to not only give, but to
take ourselves.
When somebody falls apart,don't try to put them back together.
(08:13):
In fact, don't try toreassemble them at all.
That's not your job.
Instead, lay on the groundwith them and scoop as many of their
broken pieces into your handsand every now and then whisper to
those pieces, this is not forever.
Never.
(08:33):
Who wrote that from?
I don't know.
The Samson Society.
My friend Nate Larkin'sorganization posted it, but without
a name.
And I loved it when I firstsaw it.
And I think when we'rediscussing an issue like this, it's
very, very tempting, givenwhere we've been, what we've seen,
(08:54):
and what we've experiencedourselves, even for the three of
us to want to warn, fix, solvethe problem before it happens.
And I see our role assomething very different than that.
I see our role not so much asthe people who are warning you against
(09:14):
doing what we did.
I see our role as befriendingthose who are about to do what we
did.
Preventative.
We are somewhat of apreventative measure in that regard,
would you agree?
I.
Preventative in the sense thatif we're open about our stories,
maybe someone will say it'll click.
99% of the time.
(09:35):
I look at myself as the guy onthe bottom just waiting for the fall
and sitting with them in theirblood and guts, period.
Yeah.
My experience, when somebodysays to me, like, I'll get a phone
call and somebody says, hey,listen, my pastor told me I should
call you and talk about mymarriage, I was like, oh, you must
be really screwed up.
(09:56):
And they always start laughing.
And I've never heard theannounce, like the falling, the whole
thing you're talking about,just to be there at the bottom.
But I mean, I think that's the deal.
Yeah.
We have a.
We have a group of men thatmeet here.
I'm part of it.
And it's a blessing to be thepastor of this church and be a part
of this group.
Not as a leader, not as afacilitator, just as a participant.
(10:18):
It's called the Vault, andit's basically like a recovery group,
but not for anything in particular.
We go around the room,everybody introduces themselves.
They give.
They give us.
They give the room one thingthat feels like a win in their life
and then one thing that is apresent struggle.
(10:40):
And so there's a lot ofrawness, a lot of honesty, a lot
of F bombs, a lot of.
There are no rules.
No rules.
You do it to her.
You just.
No, I know.
No, no, I do it.
And I do it, too.
Everybody in this church is.
Everybody in that room hasheard me say the F word multiple
times.
They've heard me.
They've seen me cry, they'veseen me yell, which is huge because,
(11:01):
you know, as pastors, we werealways told, you need to find a group
of people that you can behonest with, but make sure they're
not people in your church.
I have that group in mychurch, which I think sets this place
apart in so many different ways.
But one of our rules, there'sno restriction on language.
(11:22):
There's no restriction onanything you can say.
Whatever is said there stays there.
But the one rule that we dohave is we are not here to counsel
you.
We are not here to solve your problems.
We are not here to fix you.
We are here to listen and bearyour burden with you so that you
(11:43):
don't feel as alone as you feel.
And I have taken that approachto ministry as a whole and to relationships
across the board that it isGod's job to change people and it
is my job to love them, period.
And when you believe that, itsimplifies your relationship with
(12:05):
everybody on planet Earth.
I don't gotta fix you.
I don't gotta convict you.
I don't have to.
I just have to love you.
Whether you're at the top andyou walk away from the ledge, or
whether you're at the top andyou fall flat on your face, I'm there
to love you, Period.
And so this thing right here,in essence, is us looking at those
people and in this particularcase, pastors and going, we're not
(12:29):
here to do anything except tolove you.
I expect fallen people to fall down.
I expect broken people tobreak down.
I expect sinners to sin.
Which is why I'm not shockedby any confession.
When this whole thing withSteve happened, I was sad because
(12:50):
I've been there and I knowwhat that feels like, and I know
what he's about to experience.
But I wasn't shocked at all.
I mean, I'm like, dude, this is.
I don't care what.
I don't care what peoplethought about this guy.
I know myself well enough toknow he's not that much different
than me or any of us.
And we are all incredibly capable.
In fact, my friend Jacob Smithsays that all of us are.
(13:14):
Are three bad days away frombeing the next tabloid headline.
And most of us are already onday two.
I'm going to make an observation.
I'm going to make anobservation which I think is in the
mind of many listeners.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
Now, when you said you knowhim well enough to know that he's
no different than you.
Yeah.
There are people out thereright now saying that is not true.
(13:37):
Yep.
That what?
That the two of you are notthe same in that respect.
In terms of humanity.
Yeah.
I would say the proof is inthe pudding.
Right?
Look at what happened to him,look at what happened to me.
And that's the fact that wehave to fix.
Yeah.
You've been listening to theMisfit preachers like subscribe and
share more grace centeredresources@prodigalpodcasts.com that's
(14:01):
prodigal P R O D I G A Lpodcasts with an s dot com.
It's one thing to say, yeah,I'm a sinner.
It's another thing to confessyour sins.
My faith is weak.
It is God's faithfulness thatis strong.
Dig deep and talk about that stuff.
In the history of revivals, italways goes in tandem with the confession,
the reckless confession ofhorrific sin.
(00:20):
The thing that drives that inrevival is the free, unadulterated
offer of grace.
And people throw themselvesand all of their junk.
Somebody on social mediaattacked me yesterday and said, who
wants any of this?
My response immediately was, alittle punchy.
The person who wouldn't darkenthe door of your church.
Yeah.
(00:40):
But I will tell you this.
I do know who wants it.
You're listening to the misfitpreachers, Talian Chavigian, Jean
Larue, and Byron Yan from ProdigalPodcast.com.
we're plagiarizing Jesus onepodcast at a time.
Now here are the misfits.
(01:02):
I was at a nightclub one nightwith my adult son, one of my adult
sons and one of my.
My adult daughter, my onlyadult daughter, to see a DJ that
we wanted to see late one night.
An old friend who my kids knew.
(01:22):
We know his wife, we know hiskids was there that night.
And I hadn't seen him inyears, and he had had a lot to drink,
and we're all giving eachother hugs.
He's hugging my kids, they'rehugging him.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
It's kind of like this.
Hey, you know, it's the.
It's sort of a fun atmosphere.
And so we're catching up asbest we can.
And then I walk to the bar toget a drink for me and my son and
(01:45):
my daughter.
And I come back and they'relike, dad, what's the deal with what's
his face?
And I said, why?
He's like, well, I just sawhim over there making out with some
girl.
And I'm like, what?
And I knew he was still married.
I'm like, what?
So I'm like, I don't know.
(02:06):
It's none of our business, honestly.
Plus, I don't want to bedistracted by that stuff.
And I'm having fun.
And then he comes back to meand he's like, dude, it's so good
to see you, man.
I've missed you and boughtout, you know, blah, blah, blah,
blah.
And he said, man, I gotta gettogether with you soon.
He's like, see that girl over there?
I was like, yeah.
He's like, man, she's an old friend.
(02:28):
We just recently Got reconnected.
I haven't been happy in mymarriage for a while and I'm just.
I'm feeling alive, but I know it's.
I know I shouldn't be doing it.
I.
I gotta talk to you.
At some point.
I was like, bro, of all thepeople you can talk to, you know,
you can talk to me.
Non.
Blinking, not shocked.
(02:48):
It's okay.
Let's just enjoy the night.
Call me tomorrow.
So we're driving home, it'slike 2:00 in the morning, out 2:30
in the morning.
Me and Jenna and Nate aredriving home and they're like, dad,
what do you do with somebodylike that?
You know?
And I responded to them andsaid something like this.
(03:12):
When someone is that close tothe edge, they've already decided
to jump and there isabsolutely nothing you can do or
say that will stop them.
So your job is to stand at thebottom and be there when they fall.
(03:33):
Period.
Wow.
So any attempt on our part totry to talk anyone out of jumping
over is not.
I mean, God can intervene.
Yes, thankfully, he doesregularly in many lives.
But nothing we say, nothingthat we can counsel is going to convince
someone who's alreadydetermined to jump not to jump.
(03:57):
I'll tell you why.
Because sin is a white noisein the conscience.
Yes, it's exactly right.
Drowns out wisdom.
Discernment, in my experiencein those situations is that most
often, like, if you.
If you take your jumperanalogy, right?
So the guy that shows up tohelp the jumper is going.
(04:18):
Jumping is wrong.
If you jump, it will hurt you.
We're not allowed to jump.
And the guy's like, yeah, Iknew all that when I climbed on the
ledge.
Right.
And what they're doing is if Ican just make sure they know the
law.
Yeah.
Then they won't.
And the truth is, standing atthe bottom, I love.
John Sartel was my seniorpastor for so many years in Memphis,
(04:38):
Tennessee.
And he used to say, when youunderstand the gospel, you know that
when Christians fall, theyfall into grace, not out of it.
To quote the great theologianChris Stapleton, falling feels like
flying until you hit the ground.
Yeah, right.
Beautiful.
Falling feels like flyinguntil I want that.
(04:59):
I was walking.
What's country?
I know you're not.
I'm not a country music guy,but I love the line.
I love the line also.
I won't get into music again.
Right.
I was walking down the streeton Broadway in Nashville.
I was down there doing duringCMA Fest.
Country.
Yeah, I know that.
(05:20):
I don't know why I was downthere there are a hundred thousand
people.
It's the heat of summer.
I'd been invited down therefor something in the middle of the
day.
Nobody who lives in Nashvillegoes to Broadway, right?
No one, no.
So I'm walking down the streetand coming at me is a pastor from
(05:41):
the institution that Igraduated from and the church associated
with it on staff and both.
And he's coming at me.
It's huge crowd and he'sholding hands with a woman who is
not his wife.
I know him and I know his wife.
They are, he's still marriedto his wife and I can see him.
(06:03):
And as the crowd breaks, wecross paths.
His head goes down immediately.
Their speed picks up.
He snatches his hand back awayfrom it.
Two days later, I get a callfrom this individual.
From this guy.
Yeah.
(06:23):
On staff at the seminary inthis year.
And he's trying to explainwhat you saw.
It isn't what it is, but it iswhat it is.
And he was there in the citybecause of anonymity.
What he didn't realize isNashville invented Christianity and
(06:44):
shipped it out to all the world.
So there's no being, there'sno anonymity.
Yeah.
And go to Manhattan whenyou're in.
The midst of all this, you,you have a false sense of anonymity
and these sorts of things.
Spiritually, you think you'renever going to get caught.
No one's ever going to see it.
So when he called me a coupledays later, he was trying to convince
me.
He said, please don't, I'mgoing to end it.
(07:06):
Because I wasn't buying it.
Sure, of course.
But held it in confidence with him.
To be honest, I don't knowwhat happened with.
But my response to him was surprising.
Which was, your secret safewith me.
Your secret safe for me is acomplicated process to get there
and this is long beforeanything happened to me.
But I will tell you in selfrighteousness, I did think to myself,
(07:29):
I will never be there.
I said to myself, that isfreaking insane.
Yeah, I believed the same thing.
Yeah.
You don't know until you're in it.
I, I, I've read this quote somany times in different places, but
(07:50):
it's a, it's an amazing line.
It goes back to what I told mykids in the car driving home that
early morning.
And I think it's very wisecounsel to not only give, but to
take ourselves.
When somebody falls apart,don't try to put them back together.
(08:13):
In fact, don't try toreassemble them at all.
That's not your job.
Instead, lay on the groundwith them and scoop as many of their
broken pieces into your handsand every now and then whisper to
those pieces, this is not forever.
Never.
(08:33):
Who wrote that from?
I don't know.
The Samson Society.
My friend Nate Larkin'sorganization posted it, but without
a name.
And I loved it when I firstsaw it.
And I think when we'rediscussing an issue like this, it's
very, very tempting, givenwhere we've been, what we've seen,
(08:54):
and what we've experiencedourselves, even for the three of
us to want to warn, fix, solvethe problem before it happens.
And I see our role assomething very different than that.
I see our role not so much asthe people who are warning you against
(09:14):
doing what we did.
I see our role as befriendingthose who are about to do what we
did.
Preventative.
We are somewhat of apreventative measure in that regard,
would you agree?
I.
Preventative in the sense thatif we're open about our stories,
maybe someone will say it'll click.
99% of the time.
(09:35):
I look at myself as the guy onthe bottom just waiting for the fall
and sitting with them in theirblood and guts, period.
Yeah.
My experience, when somebodysays to me, like, I'll get a phone
call and somebody says, hey,listen, my pastor told me I should
call you and talk about mymarriage, I was like, oh, you must
be really screwed up.
(09:56):
And they always start laughing.
And I've never heard theannounce, like the falling, the whole
thing you're talking about,just to be there at the bottom.
But I mean, I think that's the deal.
Yeah.
We have a.
We have a group of men thatmeet here.
I'm part of it.
And it's a blessing to be thepastor of this church and be a part
of this group.
Not as a leader, not as afacilitator, just as a participant.
(10:18):
It's called the Vault, andit's basically like a recovery group,
but not for anything in particular.
We go around the room,everybody introduces themselves.
They give.
They give us.
They give the room one thingthat feels like a win in their life
and then one thing that is apresent struggle.
(10:40):
And so there's a lot ofrawness, a lot of honesty, a lot
of F bombs, a lot of.
There are no rules.
No rules.
You do it to her.
You just.
No, I know.
No, no, I do it.
And I do it, too.
Everybody in this church is.
Everybody in that room hasheard me say the F word multiple
times.
They've heard me.
They've seen me cry, they'veseen me yell, which is huge because,
(11:01):
you know, as pastors, we werealways told, you need to find a group
of people that you can behonest with, but make sure they're
not people in your church.
I have that group in mychurch, which I think sets this place
apart in so many different ways.
But one of our rules, there'sno restriction on language.
(11:22):
There's no restriction onanything you can say.
Whatever is said there stays there.
But the one rule that we dohave is we are not here to counsel
you.
We are not here to solve your problems.
We are not here to fix you.
We are here to listen and bearyour burden with you so that you
(11:43):
don't feel as alone as you feel.
And I have taken that approachto ministry as a whole and to relationships
across the board that it isGod's job to change people and it
is my job to love them, period.
And when you believe that, itsimplifies your relationship with
(12:05):
everybody on planet Earth.
I don't gotta fix you.
I don't gotta convict you.
I don't have to.
I just have to love you.
Whether you're at the top andyou walk away from the ledge, or
whether you're at the top andyou fall flat on your face, I'm there
to love you, Period.
And so this thing right here,in essence, is us looking at those
people and in this particularcase, pastors and going, we're not
(12:29):
here to do anything except tolove you.
I expect fallen people to fall down.
I expect broken people tobreak down.
I expect sinners to sin.
Which is why I'm not shockedby any confession.
When this whole thing withSteve happened, I was sad because
(12:50):
I've been there and I knowwhat that feels like, and I know
what he's about to experience.
But I wasn't shocked at all.
I mean, I'm like, dude, this is.
I don't care what.
I don't care what peoplethought about this guy.
I know myself well enough toknow he's not that much different
than me or any of us.
And we are all incredibly capable.
In fact, my friend Jacob Smithsays that all of us are.
(13:14):
Are three bad days away frombeing the next tabloid headline.
And most of us are already onday two.
I'm going to make an observation.
I'm going to make anobservation which I think is in the
mind of many listeners.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
Now, when you said you knowhim well enough to know that he's
no different than you.
Yeah.
There are people out thereright now saying that is not true.
(13:37):
Yep.
That what?
That the two of you are notthe same in that respect.
In terms of humanity.
Yeah.
I would say the proof is inthe pudding.
Right?
Look at what happened to him,look at what happened to me.
And that's the fact that wehave to fix.
Yeah.
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