Prioritizing the Truth

Episode Transcript
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Josiah (00:02):
Well, welcome to Praxis, a podcast where we explore how
to practice and embody the wayof Jesus in our everyday lives.
Thanks so much for taking thetime to listen.
We're in a series right nowfocused on cultivating a healthy
church culture.
Every church has a culture,whether they realize it or not.
Some cultures are reasonablyhealthy, while others are not,
and, of course, no church isperfect.

(00:23):
But part of the work everychurch needs to engage in is to
intentionally work to closewhatever gap exists between
being healthy and where theycurrently are.
So in this series, that's whatwe're doing.
We're seeking to close the gap,and this involves not only
talking about the marks of anunhealthy church culture, but
casting vision for how we, asthe church, can embody a way of

(00:45):
life together that, while it maynot be perfect, is oriented
towards goodness and kindnessand love.
So, after several episodes ofnaming some of the major toxins
in the American church soil, wehave turned the corner and are
now discussing some of thehealthy nutrients we can put
into the soil to help create ahealthy church culture.

(01:05):
And today we want to discussthe importance of trafficking in
the truth.
What does it mean to be achurch where we tell the truth.
How do we see Jesus speakingtruth and how can we do the same
?
So that's where we're headed.
We hope you enjoy today'sconversation.

Mac (01:32):
Well, welcome.
Welcome everyone.
My name is Mac.

Katie (01:36):
I'm Katie.

Josiah (01:37):
And I'm Josiah

Mac (01:39):
Al right.
So the 4th of July is rightaround the corner, at least at
the time of this recording, yep,and it got me thinking
something I'm curious about.
How do you all feel aboutparades?

Katie (01:53):
Parades with candy or without candy, or just in
general?

Mac (01:58):
Yeah, I was just thinking in general.
Maybe I could just provoke us alittle bit.
I can't stand parades, andwe're living in a community
where it feels like they'rehaving one literally every other
week.
If you notice this.

Josiah (02:09):
Wh at don't you like about parades?

Mac (02:13):
Oh well, the 4th of July, we'll start with that one.
Actually, my familyhistorically goes to the one in
Della field.
I don't know why, but it's hot.
You do get hit in the face withcandy, it's like.
And then it's just boring.
It's like why are we sittinghere watching?
I don't know, I just don't geta lot out of it.

Katie (02:32):
Yeah, I like them, okay, I really like them.
I like seeing people, I likegoing downtown.
We did the Oconomowoc one.
Well, you're a local, so youknow everyone.
Yeah, yeah, I like running around the kids.
You know I have young kids andthey like it, assuming there is
candy.
We did go to the memorial dayparade, which did not have candy
and it was very short, so theywere.

(02:53):
They were a little bummed yeah,that was interesting yeah you
were at that parade as well?

Josiah (02:58):
yeah, it was 12 minutes long, maybe yeah 15 maybe.

Katie (03:03):
Well, I think I figured out after the fact that it was
because they have the bigceremony at the band show before
it and then the differentgroups like the band and stuff
from the ceremony just kind ofparaded.
Anyways, that's fine.
Yeah, I think I like them.

Adam (03:16):
Okay.

Josiah (03:18):
Yeah, I don't know if you're the primary demographic
they're trying to go for yeah,because I think kids usually
like it.
You're with people, it's loudand people are there to see
people they know.
I don't know.

Mac (03:36):
Adam, how do you feel?

Adam (03:38):
I only go to parades if they're Wizard of Oz themed.
And luckily we live in acommunity that has one of those.
Our town's a little obsessedwith the Wizard of Oz themed and
luckily we live in a communitythat has one of those every year
too.

Josiah (03:47):
Our town's a little obsessed with the Wizard of Oz.

Mac (03:49):
Yes, for those who may not I mean those in our community
will understand the joke, butfor those who are listening,
that may not be.
Oconomowoc, where we live,premiered is a location of the
premiere of the Wizard of.
Oz, one of the premiere sites,and so that's I know.

Katie (04:05):
Let's not diminish it.

Mac (04:07):
It was the best premier site.
Clearly it's become like theclaim to fame.

Katie (04:13):
It has recently become a claim.
I grew up here and I don't everremember this Wizard of Oz
craze as a kid.
This started maybe 10 years ago, maybe 15.

Mac (04:24):
Maybe part of my resistance to parades again is just how
many there are.
If it was just like a onceevery, then fine, but it's like
almost every month you're beinginvited to some sort of a parade
for some reason.

Katie (04:35):
Yeah.

Mac (04:36):
It's like didn't we just do that?
I don't know.

Katie (04:39):
There's like excitement, like think about the homecoming
parade.

Mac (04:41):
You got the high school the marching band, like there's the
whole Maybe it's what we'recelebrating matters to me, sure,
I don't know.
Well, speaking of parades,we're gonna have a verbal parade
today, aren't we?

Katie (04:58):
Yes, let's do that.
Okay, we're in a series rightnow where we're talking about
healthy church cultures and wekeep coming back to this word
called tov, which tov is theHebrew word for good.
It's good, thanks, now, when Isay that, every time, I'm going
to think about you doing that.
So tov is the Hebrew word forgood and we're talking about it

(05:21):
with the idea that we want ourchurch, we want every church, to
have a culture of tov, or aculture of goodness.
So we've been saying throughoutthis series that every church
has a culture, whether we liketo admit it or not, and we've
been using a tree metaphor toexamine that culture.
So if we take a fruit tree, forexample, we say the tree has
branches that bear fruit, it hasa trunk that supports and feeds

(05:44):
the branches, and then it hasroots that suck up nutrients
from the soil.
And we've been saying, yes, mac.

Mac (05:51):
I've got a new metaphor that I wanted to try on, oh
great, go for it.
Yeah, you guys want to give somefeedback on this.
Yeah, so culture is sort oflike the operating system of a
computer.
The operating system governsthe interactions between
hardware and software.
So a culture is like anoperating system in that it

(06:22):
governs the beliefs and values,habits and practices which then
informs people's interactions,how they show up in our present.
But, as we keep talking aboutin this series, everybody has
some agency and responsibilityin how they relate to the
operating system, the culture,right.
So each person kind of has someresponsibility in helping build
out the operating system.
And you know how, if you getlike an update, like a software
update or something, there's asense in which your culture

(06:43):
always needs some tweaking orupdating.
So some people might beoperating on an older system
that no longer works or is nothelpful, right, um, and there
may be bugs or fixes along theway where you're like, oh, that
that's creating a glitch.
We need to like developsomething new to solve that
glitch, and then we all need todownload it and keep.

(07:03):
So what do you guys think?
Does it work?

Josiah (07:08):
Adam, you're the techie.

Adam (07:09):
Yeah, I think you can take it a step further too and say
that there are there's a lot ofpeople that don't like updates
because it changes things forthem Something that they were
used to.
Very deep so yeah, there's anelement of like the change is
probably for the better, butthere's also an element of
needing to get used to that newway of working things.

Mac (07:32):
Yeah, and sometimes our frame of reference, like what
we're focused on, is just thething in our hand, like you know
what I mean, like what we'reseeing, but the deeper work is
what's creating the experienceas a whole.
You know what I mean.
In the same way that, goingback to the tree metaphor, it's
easy just to look at the fruitor the leaves, but we're talking

(07:54):
about something that's not asvisible, which is the condition
of the soil that produces thehealth of the tree.

Katie (07:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so maybe to extend.
Okay, so what we've been sayingthus far is if there's toxins
in the soil, you get bad fruit.
If there's good things in thesoil, you get good fruit.
Maybe that would be like thedifference between a software
update and like malware.
Does that work?

Mac (08:15):
It works.

Adam (08:15):
Everyone's looking at me.
It works.

Katie (08:18):
You're the one who knows computers, adam.
So we can talk about updatingour operating system if we want
to go with that metaphor, alsolike putting nutrients in the
soil.
Or we can talk about, likemalware or a virus on an
operating system that you mightnot know it when you first get
it, but eventually you're goingto see the fruit or the
implications of that.
And so today, if we're talkingabout a good thing, a nutrient

(08:42):
to put in the soil to create ahealthy church culture We've
talked about so far aboutnurturing empathy, we've talked
about cultivating grace, we'vetalked about putting people
first, and today we want to talkabout the importance of telling
the truth.
So this whole time we've beendrawing on Scott and Laura's
book, that we've beenreferencing a church called Tove
.

Adam (09:02):
That's good.

Katie (09:04):
And today we want to submit that healthy churches,
churches with a culture ofgoodness, traffic and the truth
they're committed to living inand telling the truth about
reality.

Josiah (09:15):
Yeah, and just as a reminder I know you've already
kind of mentioned culture whenwe're speaking of culture, we're
speaking of how important it isthat everyone buys into what's
going on.
We are all of us are the onesshaping the culture, but we're
also being shaped by it.
So you know, we've used lots ofdifferent metaphors to help

(09:36):
describe this, but I guess theway I thought of it is, if
you're listening to this andyou're hearing us talk about
concepts within churchleadership, you may sort of tune
it out, being like, oh, this isthe staff's job, this is the
church leadership job to, um,that's their job to make sure
everything's great and healthy.

(09:58):
Uh, and it is part of their job, of course.
But um, if you're listening,this isn't just for the people
within church leadership, thisis for all of us.
If we are a community and weare the body of Christ dwelling
with each other, then all of ushave a responsibility and a role

(10:18):
to help shape that culture in away that is good.

Mac (10:21):
Yeah, yeah.
Maybe one example to get atthis like hey, this is the sum
total of all of our efforts thatcreates the culture that exists
.
I've had this experience beforewhere someone is going through
a difficult time and then theyfeel disappointed about how much
care they received from ourchurch and then you begin to
like unpack well, what did thatcare look like?

(10:44):
To kind of reflect on how couldwe have done a better job?
And then you discover, oh no,we actually had lots of people
from our church checking in,supporting, making meals, doing
different things for thisindividual.
They wanted more from, like meor you know, a staff member, and
that's to me, captures liketimeout.
Actually, that's an opportunityto celebrate captures like

(11:04):
timeout.
Actually, that's an opportunityto celebrate the church being
the church.
Right, yeah.

Katie (11:11):
Yeah.

Mac (11:11):
Does that make sense?
Yeah?

Katie (11:12):
Right.
We talk all the time about howhealthy churches have broad
participation.
This is not just like a companyor a restaurant where we sort
of run the show.
A church is the body ofbelievers and I think we get an
even clearer picture of thatwhen we look at the early church
in the New Testament and seehow they functioned.

Mac (11:29):
That's right.
So we have a responsibility asa staff, and I have a
responsibility as a pastor, tocare for people Absolutely, and
that's a responsibilityeverybody has in our church, and
so when someone's going througha difficult time, they should
experience all of that is atplay, not just part of it.

Josiah (11:47):
Yeah, we're not going to be able to reach our full
potential as a church communityif every bit of care has to
funnel through a staff memberRight, like in this example
specifically.
Yeah, if we're going to carefor people, it's going to have

(12:07):
to be flowing through everybody.

Katie (12:11):
And the people who step into that.
That's essential to theirdiscipleship.
That's how we grow as disciplesis by stepping into those
things.

Josiah (12:20):
Yeah.

Mac (12:39):
So all of us are here to contribute, and one of those
things that we're contributingtowards is sowing good nutrients
into the soil, and today thenutrient is trafficking in the
truth.
They're committed to living andtelling the truth about reality
.
And when we use that phrasetrafficking the truth what we're
getting at is simply being atruth-telling community, being a
community that's committed toliving into and telling the
truth.

(12:59):
So maybe, what does that meantruth-telling?
I would just maybe posit asimple definition of saying what
is so At its heart.
Truth-telling is about sayingwhat's so, what's true.
It's about stating the truth,expressing things as they are
and without any kind ofembellishment or reality

(13:20):
distortion.
So, like, the opposite oftruth-telling is deception,
which, interestingly, I justheard like this I was doing a
little research on truth tellingand they made this individual
made the case that at the heartof our problem is actually not
sin, it's deception, becausedeception is what leads to the

(13:40):
sin.
I just thought, wow, that's aninsightful observation.
So truth-telling is theopposite of deception and we
tell the truth without adding toor subtracting from it.
It's about being honest andstraightforward about a
situation or set of circumstance.
It's about honesty and clarityand authenticity, while
resisting deception and deceit.

Adam (14:01):
These are the user agreements of the new software
that you just downloaded yesthank you.

Mac (14:08):
Thank you, adam no problem so trafficking in the truth is
about being committed to reality, what is really true, and for
me, this isn't just about words,it's about being truthful in
both what you say and what youdo.
So there's like a coherencebetween the two.
So far, so good, all right.

(14:29):
So I just kind of want to jumpright into the mess.
Can we do that?
If we go?
Okay, it's about saying what isso, being committed to reality,
and so on and so forth.
I think there's two ways thatwe go wrong when it comes to the
truth, and I thought it mightbe good, just at the front end,
to get these on the table, as Iimagine we'll continue to build

(14:50):
on these as we move forward.

Katie (14:52):
Yeah, let's do it.
Rip the bandaid off.

Mac (14:54):
All right, let's just Way.
Number one we go wrong withtruth telling is hiding the
truth, and this is the one that,like the chapter in the book
Church Called Tov, focuses onthe most, and typically this
happens when there's someproblem in the church, you know,
a moral failure amongleadership or something that
isn't handled well.
Rather than telling the truthof what happened, oftentimes

(15:17):
those in charge suppress thetruth right of what happened,
and sometimes they'll evendevelop a counter narrative or
an alternative narrative thatprotects their reputation and
actually blames the victim.
And so then what happens is thevictim is further victimized
and the community at largeeither contributes to that right

(15:37):
Because they're getting falseinformation or not the whole
story, they join the leadershipin blaming the victim, or they
simply end up being superconfused and they don't know
what to believe, like whatactually happened.
Right, you guys follow on this.
So I thought this is one waythat churches go wrong with
truth telling is they hide thetruth.
Have you guys seen that at all?

(15:59):
Like, how have you noticed that?

Katie (16:01):
Yeah, I mean absolutely.
Well, I really liked theexample in the book, Like
there's a scandal and theimmediate reaction.
This is not unique to churches,this is every organization I
mean I worked in politics Likethis is everywhere.

Mac (16:14):
They invented this.

Katie (16:16):
Yeah, but something goes wrong.
Could be big, could be small,but the immediate default move
is to paint a picture thatminimizes harm to the church.
So just the example in the bookwas that the pastor was accused
of sexual harassment and theimmediate move was not to get to

(16:37):
the truth of it, it was to hirea PR firm and make sure that
they had a good message to tellor story to tell, so that people
wouldn't continue to press inand try to find the truth.
And every step of the way theycontinued to build on the story
that they were telling, with thegoal of protecting the brand,
protecting their reputation.

Mac (16:57):
Yeah.
So once a story begins that isless than truthful, now you
oftentimes have to maintain that, and it can get more.
Now you oftentimes have tomaintain that and it can get
more difficult as you continueto build it out to the point
where you end up again, if it'sbeing committed to reality, you
end up being very committed tosomething that's not real, a

(17:17):
false reality.

Josiah (17:19):
Yeah, yeah, I think there's.
You know, maybe this isn't evenjust in the realm of scandal.
This is just, in general, theway you communicate to your
congregation.
If the only things we ever sayfrom the stage are making us
look really good, that's, youknow.
We're sort of finding ways tohide, maybe, some of the

(17:42):
behind-the-scenes things.
And although there isdiscretion within transparency
right, not all the informationof everything needs to be known
to everybody at all times.
Being willing to, you know, getup in front of your people and
openly communicate hey, here'ssome things we're working on,
here's some spots that we'd liketo grow in as a community, and

(18:05):
maybe here's some ways that wefailed and we want to grow.
I just think being, you know,getting more reps of just being
willing to say if things aren'tperfect, is just a good practice
.

Mac (18:22):
Because that's how we learn and grow.
You know, we'd like to justgrow from how awesome we are and
keep growing more awesome,Because that's how we learn and
grow.
We'd like to just grow from howawesome we are and keep growing
more awesome, but that's nothow it works.
We often fumble, mess up, makemistakes, and the growth is in
attending to that reality andlearning from it.
And in just this.
What's bubbling up for me, youguys, is both of you sort of
mentioned the word reputation.
So if we're going to traffic inthe truth, we have to be very

(18:47):
honest about our reputation andhow easy it is, maybe
individually and collectively asa group, to prioritize that
over the truth.
And this is also why, when wetalk about cleaning up our
messes something we've talkedabout a lot on this podcast the
first step is to own that you'vecreated a mess and tell the
full truth about it in a waythat's not distorting the
details or minimizing something,in order to, like you know,

(19:11):
protect your reputation.

Katie (19:13):
Telling the truth is often inconvenient.
Yeah, at least telling thetruth about yourself.

Mac (19:18):
I'm feeling triggered.
There was that documentarycalled the Inconvenient Truth by
Al Gore.
Do you remember?

Katie (19:24):
that.
Oh yeah, like from, was it fromlike the nineties?

Mac (19:26):
Yeah, and it bothered me.
I'll just have a little ranthere.
It was all about.
I watched it, it was aboutclimate change, and so if you're
a listener you can have youropinion on that.
But here's, what bothered mewas the hypocrisy At the end of
it.
It was kind of like this wholething about determining your
global footprint based on howmuch energy and resources you're

(19:47):
using.
So there was a website you goto and like how often do you
drive a car, how often do youfly?
And then I'm thinking aboutthat stupid documentary and I'm
like this guy while he wasfilming it was on a helicopter,
on a submarine numerous planes.

Josiah (20:02):
I'm like what, the what?
What was your?

Mac (20:03):
global footprint just making this film?
Uh-huh, you know that's funny,I don't know anyway.

Josiah (20:09):
Rant over truth yeah, don't be triggered guys.

Mac (20:12):
I just go on rant sometimes , okay, so if the first thing is
hiding the truth, do we need toedit that?
Are we gonna make people upset?

Adam (20:19):
I don't think so okay, okay, I think we're good, All
right.

Mac (20:24):
Second way we can go wrong with truth telling is we can
weaponize the truth right.
So follow this Using the truthagainst other people right,
Primarily by pointing out allthe ways that they're wrong or
deficient or in need oftransformation, so we can

(20:45):
actually weaponize the truth, orat least what we think is true
whenever we tell the truth in away that damages another person,
so we use the truth in a waythat manipulates or harms.
It's when we use the truth toexert control or gain power in a
situation.
We can weaponize the truthwhenever we fail to communicate
the truth in love.

(21:06):
I'd venture to say that if youmaybe heard the topic oh,
telling the truth, being a truthteller, trafficking in the
truth and you immediately gotexcited because you associated
it with telling that group like,ooh, we're gonna tell that
group how wrong they are or howbadly they need to repent, Well,

(21:26):
my guess is, probably you don'tstruggle with the first one.
Maybe you do, but you maydefinitely struggle with the
second one, which is where wecan actually leverage the truth
in ways that are harmful.
You guys following.
What does that?

Katie (21:42):
Yeah, what does that look for you?
Yeah, when I hear you know weneed to be truth tellers, my
mind immediately goes to thatsecond one.
Like when I hear, okay, yeah,like, let's tell the truth, my
mind the image I get is like, atleast in a church context, is
like telling the truth aboutpeople outside the church in

(22:02):
like a sort of condemning orjudgmental way.

Mac (22:06):
A really bad evangelism.

Katie (22:08):
Yeah, yeah, and claiming that it's for those people.
I think we're doing some verynecessary work of either
redefining or maybereprioritizing, telling the
truth about ourselves first.

Mac (22:29):
What about you, Josiah?

Josiah (22:31):
Yeah, I have a few thoughts.

Mac (22:34):
You have that face like something's coming.

Josiah (22:36):
I know Well, it's just determining which one to say
First off.
I would say that the gospel istruth too.
The good news of Jesus is truthas well.
So when we get hyper-focused ontruth and I'm using air quotes

(22:58):
as calling out what's bad thatis an important part of truth
telling.
But if you have no reps ofspeaking good news to the people
around you in your life, In away that sounds like good news.
Yeah, I'm saying, if you don't,if you have no reps of being
able to speak to the way Godloves someone, the way like

(23:25):
being able to speak out to callout good, like good truths, it's
probably gonna diminish yourcredibility.
To call out challenge forpeople when they're failing.

Mac (23:37):
Yeah, I think I hear what you're saying Like the gospel
itself is truth, yes, and yetwhen it was proclaimed, at least
the way Jesus proclaimed it, itwas incredibly.
At least the way Jesusproclaimed it, it was incredibly
good news.
And yet when we, if we were togo a step further and actually
look at how people share thequote, unquote good news.
Oftentimes it's not experiencedas good by those who are

(23:57):
hearing it.
Yes, and it's because truth maybe distorted and being
delivered in a way that is lessthan loving Right.

Adam (24:06):
Yeah, right.

Josiah (24:06):
Yeah, because multiple things can be true at the same
time.
And when we hyper-focus in onthe one truth of the fact that
like hey, this is wrong and Iguess I don't even mean that
corporately, I'm saying thatmore individually we get
hyper-focused on that one thing,we lose sight of other truths

(24:27):
that are true at the same time.

Katie (24:29):
Yeah, like God loves you and wants to restore you.

Josiah (24:32):
And there is nothing that could separate you.
So when we hold on to thosethings as foundational truths,
when we need to traffic in thetruth by calling attention to
something that needs to betalked about, I mean we have
referenced this in past episodesas well that we can be honest
because we know that, no matterwhat we discover when we look

(24:55):
below the surface or dig intosomething that God already knew
it was there and he's waitingwith grace and kindness and
restoration.
So if we know all that now, wecan traffic in the truth in a
way that is full of grace andtruth and meaning that we get to
experience God's lovethroughout the process.

Mac (25:15):
Well, maybe we should pivot , because I think we're talking
conceptually here, which isgreat.
We've named two ways we can gowrong with the truth.
We can hide it out ofself-protection or image
management, or we can actuallyleverage it against someone else
.
We can weaponize it and maybewe could get some handles on how

(25:37):
do we do this by looking atJesus.
So maybe we could set it upthis way.
We've talked a little bit aboutand I want to circle back to
this throughout our conversationthat Jesus loved people by
calibrating both grace and truth.
So he was full of both fullyfull of both grace and truth.
There was never a time that hewas deficient in either one.

(25:59):
So when we see these high truthmoments where he's saying hard
things, it's not because helacks grace, it's just that,
contextually, the person infront that's what they need the
most, and vice versa.
Okay, so how would you say?
We see Jesus calibrating truththroughout his life and ministry

(26:21):
?
How would you fill that out?

Katie (26:25):
Well, jesus, um, jesus calls himself the truth, right.
John 14, six says I'm the way,the truth and the life.
No one comes to the fatherexcept through me.
So Jesus not only speaks thetruth, but he actually is the
truth, and I think he does this.
I think he embodies the truthtowards people all over

(26:46):
scripture.
There's tons of examples, butmaybe one or two that stick out
to me of exactly how he doesthis.
One is the woman at the well.
Jesus meets a Samaritan womanand in a conversation she admits
to not having a husband, whichwould have been like a source of
shame in that culture.
And he looks at her and saysyou're right, you have had five

(27:06):
husbands and the man you're withnow is not your husband.
But he doesn't say this tocondemn her.
Instead, he says it to dignifyher and, I think, to call her
into a life of freedom andtransformation.
So Jesus is in conversation,he's sharing the truth with her
in order to expose, maybe, whatshe thought of as like this deep
, dark secret.
That's how I imagine this going.

(27:28):
But he's exposing not to shameher, not to condemn her, but in
fact to say I see you, I knowyou and I love you, and then to
tell her the truth about God,which is that God wants freedom
and forgiveness and restorationfor you.

(27:49):
Another example Time out.

Mac (27:52):
So if this is a significant source of shame for this woman
I mean she's at a well in themiddle of the day in a very hot
climate.
That's not when you want to bewalking to the well Maybe we
could assume this is a source ofshame and Jesus doesn't expose
it to go ha gotcha.
He exposes it so that she canexperience his love despite that

(28:12):
.
Is that what you're saying.

Katie (28:14):
I would say experience his love.
Yeah, in the middle of it.

Mac (28:17):
A transforming love.

Katie (28:18):
Yeah, like she wouldn't experience that deep love if it
didn't cut right to the core ofthe deepest part of shame in her
life.

Mac (28:29):
And it wasn't ignoring it.

Katie (28:31):
Right, right.
Right, yeah, it was telling thefull truth about something that
would have been really hard, sothat he could meet her there
with grace and with love.
There you go, yeah.
Another one that comes to mindis when Peter denies Jesus.
Jesus tells Peter you will denyme three times.
Before the rooster crows andPeter's like what are you
talking about?

(28:51):
In that moment I think Jesus istelling Peter the hard truth
about something that's going tohappen, but he's doing it
because you know we see.
Later on he restores Peter.
He asks him do you love methree times?
Okay, then feed my sheep.
So he at first tells him you'regoing to deny me.
He tells him a really hardtruth, but again it's aimed

(29:13):
towards Peter's ultimaterestoration.
He affirms him, he affirms hisidentity as his beloved disciple
, and then he commissions him toshare the good news of
repentance with others.
So I think both of thesestories to me show that
beautiful picture of repentance.
Both of these stories to me showthat beautiful picture of
repentance.
Repentance has to start withthe truth about where we

(29:35):
actually are.
We can't turn from something ifwe don't first tell the truth
about what's actually happening.
And when we tell the truthabout something that's actually
happening, we get to allow Godto meet us there.
And I think that's what Jesusis doing.
He helps them understand thetruth and then he shows them the
truth about God, which is thatGod wants to meet us there.
And I think that's what Jesusis doing.
He helps them understand thetruth and then he shows them the
truth about God, which is thatGod wants to meet you in that

(29:56):
and he loves you and he wantsyour wholeness and your healing
and your restoration.
So there's no shame in that.

Mac (30:02):
Yeah, so let's pick up on this for a moment, josiah.
What is the Greek word fortruth?
Alephia?

Josiah (30:13):
Yeah.

Mac (30:13):
How do you know that?

Josiah (30:13):
Well, because my daughter's name is.

Mac (30:14):
Alephia.
That word literally means tounveil or reveal.
So the question is when it saysyou know, jesus is the way, the
truth and life, what is it thathe's revealing?
What is it that he's unveiling?
My answer to that question isyou know, jesus was fully God
and fully human.
So he's revealing at the sametime who God is and who we are.

(30:39):
He's revealing the full truthabout here's, who God is, god's
character, and he's revealingthe truth about who we are and
how those two intersect, how Godviews us.
And what captures my attentionin the examples you use with
Peter and the woman at the wellis that that is the ultimate
truth that Jesus iscommunicating while attending to

(31:03):
the brokenness In that moment.
The ultimate truth that Jesusis revealing is who God is in
that moment and who this womanis and who Peter is.
In light of that and this getsat, I think, something you were
hinting at before Josiah, whichis, which truth takes priority?

(31:23):
Right, when you're dealing withsomeone who has something going
on in their life that is quoteunquote deeply sinful, let's
just say it's sinful.
Who has something going on intheir life that is quote,
unquote deeply sinful, let'sjust say it's sinful.
Right, what truth matters.
It's not just one truth that'sat play.
Right, you've got tons oftruths that are at play.
What's the weightier truth thatneeds to be communicated?
That this person's sin is aproblem, which, by the way, they

(31:44):
probably already know.
Right, if you're dealing withan alcoholic, they already know.
I would suggest that part ofthe truth that Jesus is
calibrating in those moments andprioritizing is the truth of
who God is and how God relatesto their value, worth and
dignity, despite the mess intheir lives.

Josiah (32:06):
Yeah.

Mac (32:07):
Is this even coherent what I'm saying?

Josiah (32:09):
Yeah, I think of it as trafficking in the truth is more
of a means than it is an end initself.
If we are going to unveil, in away of saying we're going to be
fully honest and transparentand even thinking of it as on an

(32:29):
individual basis, if I'm goingto do that, like with my own
kids, what is the purpose?
The purpose is to unveil notjust what was wrong.
More so, we're unveiling sothat what like the forgiveness
and restoration that needs to bereceived, can be received, and
you can't do that when it'shidden.

Adam (32:51):
Yes.

Josiah (32:52):
So the purpose of dealing in the truth in this way
is so that we can be open andexposed to receive God's
fullness of love.

Mac (33:04):
Yeah, yes, let me continue to build something out in
conjunction of what we'retalking about, okay.
Yes, let me continue to buildsomething out in conjunction of
what we're talking about.
Okay, earlier, I mentioned thatsin isn't the ultimate problem.
What drives sin is deception,right, the antidote to deception
is truth.
If we look at Genesis 3, howdid Adam and Eve end up

(33:26):
committing sin?
They were deceived, right, andthe deception revolved around
who God is.
The serpent portrays God as sortof a deity that's withholding
something that Adam and Evecould really benefit from.
So he's kind of a stingy deitythat isn't actually looking out
for their best interest.
They buy into that portrait ofGod and then, out of that, reach

(33:48):
for the fruit to improve thingson their own, okay, so we're
seeing those two things.
The reality distortion that theserpent brings about is a lie
about who God is and a lie aboutwho they are.
They don't have enough as theyare, right.
Yeah, so that's what I'mgetting at.
I guess, when I say what truthdoes Jesus prioritize in these

(34:10):
moments, I'm getting at, I guesswhen I say what truth does
Jesus prioritize in thesemoments, he's actually the truth
he's prioritizing is gettingunder the deception itself
Instead of just treating thesymptom, which is the behavior,
he's actually going a layerdeeper and revealing the full
truth of here's who God is inrelationship to you and here's
your value and worth as a humanbeing, despite this mess.

Katie (34:29):
It's like a totally different way of experiencing
and seeing truth than what Ithink we often see in our
culture and even in our churches.
Frankly, I mean, you thinkabout the loudest voices out
there on social media or thenews or whatever, who are
telling the truth.
It doesn't sound anything likethat.
The way that Jesus tells thetruth about people and tells the

(34:51):
truth about God feels likesomething just radically
different to me, because it'sactually for people, it's for
their good, it's telling thetruth about someone in a way
that is aimed at restoring theminto loving relationship with
God.

Mac (35:04):
That's right and that is what I submit that Jesus
embodies.
When we say Jesus embodied thetruth to all people, he's
counteracting that deception ofwhat they believe about God and
themselves by revealing who Godis and their value, worth and
dignity.

Josiah (35:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Another way we see Jesus doingthis is that he asked people
lots of questions to help themown what is true.
So Jesus didn't weaponize thetruth right by just speaking it,
although he did.
You notice that throughout theGospels he asked tons of
questions, often responding topeople's questions to him with

(35:46):
questions for themselves.
That would have been soannoying.
Yeah, questions for themselves,that would have been so
annoying.
Yeah, right.
And and I think that we can, wecan.
We can see the value in thisbecause when, when you just
speak something to someone and Ijust tell you what you're
supposed to think or believe,how well does that often go over
?
Not well, no, if you have kids,you notice how well that goes

(36:10):
over as well.
Like, I have a couple of middleschoolers and it's really easy
just to want to meet that withchallenge and to speak what is
to sort of force it into theirbrains and you want them to
believe it.
So bad, and you know you'reright and you know that it would
really benefit them to embodythe thing that you're trying to

(36:33):
tell them what is right.
But it doesn't go over well,and why?
Because people are their ownagents.
Like, I'm not the onecontrolling those things.
But coming back to this ideathat Jesus asked questions, he's
onto something that askingquestions, provoking questions,

(36:56):
allows people to own the truththemselves rather than being
sort of beat over the head withit and Jesus had something we
don't, which is a perfect graspof reality.

Mac (37:11):
Don't which is a perfect grasp of reality.
You know, remember when we weretalking?
about like dogmatism and howwe're overly certain and I
mentioned Renee Magritte and youknow this is not a pipe Like
all of that's important here,because some of the I would say
some of the reasons we do damagewhen we're so-called
trafficking in the truth isbecause we actually are more
confident that we have, we knowwhat this person needs, or you

(37:32):
know what I mean and we actuallydon't.
We're assuming, we're wayoverconfident in thinking, hey,
this will fix their problem orthey really need to hear this.
It may not be actually whatthey need to hear, it may not be
right at all.
Yeah, and Jesus still, eventhough he had perfect insight
into knowing the truth of aperson's life in ways that we

(37:53):
don't we often assume we knowpeople way better than we
actually do he still askedquestions so they could discover
things themselves.

Josiah (38:00):
Yeah.

Mac (38:01):
I mean, he's asking questions that go deep, Like
people have to.
What is it that you really want?

Josiah (38:09):
Yeah, even in that scenario,how easy would it be for any of
us to walk up to someone who iseither blind or paralyzed on the
side of the road begging formoney to say, like I know
exactly what you need.
Pretty easy to tell.
Like you need to come up with awhole list.

(38:31):
Jesus still asks questions tohelp them.

Mac (38:35):
What do you want me to do for you?
What do you want me to do foryou?
Why are you so afraid?
Who do you say that I am?
I'm going to tell you who I am.
Who do you say that I am?

Katie (38:46):
Yeah, he helps people own the truth about themselves,
which I think does a work insideus.
That doesn't happen if someonetells us the truth about
themselves.

Mac (38:57):
This is such a challenging concept and it's one that I
still struggle with daily is, ifpart of truth-telling is asking
questions, then we need tobecome much better at asking
Jesus-like questions.
And Jesus asked questions notjust to get information from
people, but to provoketransformation for people.

(39:19):
And I'll just name like I'm ona journey of trying to learn how
to do that.
If I'm going to be a truthteller, if I'm going to traffic
in the truth, I need to learnhow to ask insightful questions
the way Jesus did.

Josiah (39:33):
Yeah, maybe we need to do a little less diagnosing when
people around us either fail orare dealing with or struggling
with sin.
A little less diagnosing ofthis is the problem that we can
admit our own shortcomings andbe humble enough to say I don't

(39:55):
know anything for sure of what's, of coming to someone in
humility, even though Jesus knewstuff we didn't.

Mac (40:22):
Less diagnosis and more curiosity.

Katie (40:26):
I love that.

Mac (40:28):
Okay.
Now I imagine let me share athird way we see Jesus doing
that.
When Jesus does speak the hardtruth, it wasn't with those
you'd expect, Okay.
So I imagine someone might belistening to this and go well,
but I can give you a number ofexamples where Jesus is speaking
the plain hard truth to peoplein a really direct way.

(40:49):
He's not asking questions, he'stelling it like it is.
What place does that have forus as followers of Jesus?
Like, aren't there times whenwe should be speaking the plain
hard truth in a really directway without asking questions?
Can I say a couple of thingsabout that hypothetical person

(41:10):
who just asked me that question?

Katie (41:12):
Yes, Would you like to give them a name?

Mac (41:15):
Yeah, one thing that I've noticed is it really wasn't with
the people you'd expect.
So, yes, there are times whenJesus says some really direct
and confrontational things.
Yes, absolutely.
But it wasn't with those awfulsinners who need to clean up
their lives.
He didn't drop truth bombs onthe prostitute right.

(41:38):
He calibrated a high degree ofgrace with those people because,
again, he's revealing the truthof who God is and who they are.
In those moments, a higherdegree, a different kind of
priority, a different truthpriority was at play there, but
he gives us most.
Those most confrontationalmoments are with the religious

(41:58):
leaders, who are stuck inself-righteousness.
I just think that's interesting.
And this leads me, maybe, tothe second thing.
I'll say.
This to say about this is thatI think a strong case can be
made that even in these mostconfrontational moments with the
religious leaders, where Jesusis, boom, direct truth, even

(42:20):
there he's not weaponizing thetruth, but rather he's motivated
by love.
He's motivated to wake them upto the truth of who God is and
the truth of who they are, sothey can better participate in
God's story of redemption.
And he's doing it becausethey're currently self-deceived,

(42:41):
right, they're caught inself-righteousness, and what
other way than to wake them upto that reality so they can
rediscover God's grace and thenbe part of extending grace to
other people.
And I think what happens andthis goes to the second way we
get truth wrong, we weaponize itis that so many people in the

(43:02):
church get this backwards.
When we think about speakingthe hard truth, we think about
speaking it to whatever group ofpeople struggle with a sin that
we're really amped up about,rather than realizing that Jesus
actually said the mostconfrontational things to those
who were quote unquote religiousinsiders.

Katie (43:19):
Yeah.
So what you're saying is he'sactually doing the same thing
with both groups of people,which is exposing who God is and
who they are.
Yep, but he's doing it indifferent ways.

Mac (43:32):
Yes, because one group is stuck in shame and guilt and
another group is stuck inself-righteousness.

Katie (43:42):
And in both cases he's showing them the truth about
themselves and the truth aboutGod.

Mac (43:47):
Yes, think about the parable of the prodigal father
he goes out to meet both sons.

Katie (43:55):
Yeah.

Mac (43:55):
Right, those speeches go different.
What he embodies is different.
You know what I mean, but inboth cases he's revealing.
Here's the truth of who I amrelated to, who you are Right.

Adam (44:07):
Yeah.

Mac (44:09):
And one group group.
The younger son represents thepeople.
Jesus is hanging out with thesinners, the tax collectors,
those on the margins.

Josiah (44:18):
The older brother represents the religious leaders
yes yeah, both are truthmoments and grace moments yeah,
and it makes sense, right, Ifsomeone is caught in
self-righteousness and pride andis deceived into thinking they

(44:40):
have it together from astrategic point, you're going to
have to point out the ways inwhich they don't out, the ways
in which they don't.
But someone who is strugglingand knows they're struggling and
is living in that the way tolike they don't need to be told

(45:01):
how terrible they have it.
They don't need to be toldthey're wrong.
Most of the time that's alreadyhappening.
It's very much an internalbattle, Like I even think about
it with my kids.
Happening is very much aninternal battle, Like I even
think about it with my kids.
Um, there are times when my, my, my eldest can get pretty
stubborn and, uh, cancommunicate very confidently

(45:22):
that they're right.
And there are times when ourconversations are a little more
like high truth and I'm notsaying I calibrated perfectly, I
don't at all but it does takesome challenge to say like no,
I've got to like.
The point of this is I need toexpose there's like some real,
like false things that you'rebelieving and now you're trying
to treat me that way.

(45:42):
So you have to like it's alittle harder to get under the
surface.
And then you have someone elsewho makes a mistake and is
clearly feeling bad about it,Like coming in telling them how
terrible they are.
It's not going to be the bestway to get in in order to expose
God's love and and or my lovein the case of parenting.

(46:03):
So I I I feel like strategicallythat even would make some
common sense just for how werelate as humans.
But you are right in that weoften get it wrong and
unfortunately we're known for it, Even within certain statistics
.
That would be shown that peopledon't see us as people who tell

(46:23):
truth in a way to expose whoGod is and his character.
They see us as people who taketruth and beat other people over
the heads with it.

Katie (46:37):
Yeah, and one thing I would say I mean Jesus, um, to
his benefit.
Knew everyone's motives andheart perfectly.

Josiah (46:42):
Right.

Katie (46:43):
Unfortunately we don't have that, but I do think
there's a lot of discerning thatwe can do to determine who
hears the truth and in what way.

Mac (46:51):
For some reason, as you're talking, as we're talking um,
the image of like martial artsis coming to mind, but a
particular form.

Katie (47:00):
Is it because I talk with my hands a lot?
That could be.
You do karate, chop the airquite a bit when you're making a
point and get amped up.

Mac (47:08):
Aikido is that what it's called.
It's almost like a judo, whereyou're not really attacking
people but you're using theirmomentum against themselves.
So when they come after you,you're not like doing something
offensively, your offense is adefense.
And and that's kind of how Isee Jesus doing some truth
telling with the religiousleaders.

(47:28):
He's like taking the momentumthat they're on and sort of
allowing it to flip.
It flips them so that they cansee the truth of where this is
leading.
And then, now he's got hisattention, he's pointing to a
better way.

Josiah (47:40):
Yeah, and if someone has a much more, if they are in a
defensive posture as opposed toan offensive one, it would
greatly impact your next move.
Yes, right, if you're like, ifyou're someone's coming at you,
like in your example you'regiving, if someone's coming at
you and using their momentumagainst you, well then the move

(48:03):
is going to be quite a bitdifferent than someone who isn't
engaged in the fight at all.

Mac (48:07):
Right.

Josiah (48:07):
Someone who really isn't fighting you, but open.
Yes, that's right.

Katie (48:12):
Good analogy, I like that .

Mac (48:16):
I don't know what's happening today, guys, I've had
several cups of coffee.
Well, there you go.

Katie (48:21):
Maybe that's why I struggle sometimes I can't have
coffee Okay.

Mac (48:26):
Do you guys know the reference when I say it's good?

Katie (48:28):
Maybe you should explain it.

Mac (48:29):
No, I think it's from Bruce Almighty movie with Jim Carrey.
You should know this, katie,you're a huge Jim Carrey fan.

Katie (48:36):
I love Jim Carrey.
I just am terrible atmemorizing lines.
Okay, like I could have seen it10 times and I still wouldn't
recognize it.
Okay, so we've started withJesus.
We've had a lengthyconversation about how Jesus
embodied the truth and word, andindeed, so why don't we switch
gears?
Now I want to ask the questionso how do we do this as a

(48:57):
community Beyond?
Just live like Jesus?
What would it look like for us,sitting around this table and
in our broader church community,to live into trafficking in the
truth?

Josiah (49:07):
Yeah Well, I think, first off, as a foundation, we
need to start by telling thetruth about ourselves.
We need to get better at owningthe truth about ourselves
before we try to own the truthabout other people, or tell own
the truth about other people ortell others the truth about them
.
Yeah, is that what you're saying?
Yes, okay, yes, we own thetruth about ourselves and are

(49:28):
willing to tell it and be honest.
Right, it's like removing thelog out of our own eye before we
try to pick the speck out ofsome other Gosh, but it's so
much better.

Katie (49:38):
It's so hard, it's so hard.

Josiah (49:41):
Yeah, and I love that picture Jesus created, because
just think of how ridiculous itlooks if you had a log sticking
out of your eye and you'retrying to say hey, let me get
that out of your eye.

Adam (49:56):
Let me get that eyelash.

Mac (49:57):
That's kind of obstructing your vision.
Yeah.

Josiah (50:00):
And here's the thing, not just admitting it to
yourself, but being willing totalk about it openly, having,
and I don't know.
I even think of Paul referringto himself as the chief of
sinners when he's writing topeople that he is leading.
Does that mean Paul livedconstantly sinning, all the time

(50:22):
?
No, but he was willing to.
He was aware enough of his ownshortcomings and his own
humanity that he was, and he waswilling to admit it openly.
And I think that that's reallyimportant.
When we start saying what doesit look like for us as a church
community to traffic in thetruth?
Well, all of us can start byhaving a responsibility to

(50:45):
owning the truth about ourselves, owning our own shortcomings,
our own defaults, and a lot ofthis is just a way of practicing
confession and repentance withother people committing to be
open about when hey, I messed uphere and it affected you.
Right, cleaning up our messes,all of this, all of this is very

(51:08):
you know, stuff we've gone over.

Mac (51:11):
It strikes me that one thing that would help people
like all of us learn to tell thetruth about ourselves in a way
that involves confession andrepentance is having a safe
environment that is shame-free.
Like if we're gonna say, hey,you gotta tell the truth about
yourself, that could be reallyhard if the moment you do that,

(51:31):
like someone leverages thatagainst you.
So, man, just the importance Imean.
If we're gonna really pursue atruth-telling posture, if we're
going to really pursue atruth-telling posture, if we're
going to embody this, we've gotto be able to create an
environment that's safe forpeople to do that.
When they do that, you don'theap on the shame right, you

(51:52):
meet them with the posture ofJesus.

Josiah (51:55):
Yeah, I find it.
I'm bringing up parentingreferences and again I just want
to like come right out and saythat I am not dude, we know you
keep saying it we know you're ahorrendous parent.
No, I am sometimes but I do findit creates an openness with my

(52:17):
kids when we're having to dealwith a topic that they're
clearly struggling with, to say,to name for them like yeah,
this has been a struggle for metoo, um, wow and or.
Or.
I'll mention like hey, likewe're talking about a certain
level of emotional awareness andemotional regulation that I was

(52:37):
just like.
I know a lot of adults whostruggle, who who probably will
never master this.

Mac (52:42):
Yeah.

Josiah (52:42):
Like Adam, my goodness, so so.
So, admitting some of myshortcomings, like hey, I still
struggle with this daily Um, um,it creates an openness and a
connection with other, withother people.
That I think is a reallybeautiful thing and it plays
into just what what you'retalking about creating an

(53:03):
environment where it's safe toname your shortcomings and
they're not going to be usedagainst you, and it creates
connection.

Katie (53:11):
Yeah, I just did that last night with my son Charlie.
He's kind of like a mini parentand he will boss the other two
around and I had to go.
I didn't love your tone towardsyour brother and then I said
and I realized where you gotthat tone, because I have that
tone.

Josiah (53:27):
You're mimicking my tone .

Katie (53:29):
Yeah, yeah, and I was like, yeah, I will own that.
I don't always have the besttone and sometimes I hear you
kind of doing the same thing, sohow about we both try to work
on that and all of a sudden it'sboth of us kind of owning the
truth together, rather than mejust coming down hard on him.

Mac (53:45):
My favorite Charlie moment was we were having a coffee hour
Sunday.
So like once a month, we just,you know, between services, we
have coffee and fruit and peoplehang out for an hour and just
connect and there's just-.

Josiah (54:00):
And donuts.
And donuts.

Mac (54:01):
Sorry, why didn't I say that?

Josiah (54:03):
I was like it's not going to be a very good
advertisement if you just say wehave fruit.

Mac (54:08):
Donuts coffee friends.
Well, I look over and Charliehad an apple slice and he drops
it on the floor and then hepicks it up and puts it on
Millie's plate.

Katie (54:20):
That's so great, did he kind of giggle too.
He knew we caught him, yeah, wecaught him and he chuckled
about it.
He was not telling the truth inthat moment.

Josiah (54:31):
That's right, but, yeah, one thing to add I have here in
the notes is there are twodifferent layers to this telling
the truth about ourselves.
We've been talking aboutstarting individually, that,
like I can learn to deal more inthe truth, be willing to admit
short shortcomings with thepeople in my life, but there's
also a corporate side to this aswell.

(54:53):
We're talking about withinchurch leadership and in church
culture.
Being willing to tell the truthon a corporate level is really
important, and it's reallytempting, when you are
formulating language for theweekend service and for mass
communication, to only tell thethings that are flattering about

(55:15):
us, and that is a temptationthat we need to ultimately avoid
if we want a culture of Tov.

Mac (55:24):
Yeah, I think you're right and it is really hard.
I know we want to grow intothat as a church staff and
leadership team.
Maybe one example just tohighlight hey, here's an effort
to do that.
Recently that comes to my mindis our church survey.
Recently that comes to my mindis our church survey.
We solicited a lot of feedbackand of course, we wanted to

(55:44):
present that within the dynamicsof culture we've been talking
about that.
We all are responsible for thecommunity that exists here and
how we're showing up and beingpresent, and we got a lot to
celebrate.
That's great, but we alsowanted to.
We touched on a couple itemsthat it's like, hey, we not just
staff and leadership, but wewant to grow in these areas.
And it was communication.

(56:05):
Both giving and receiving goes,communication goes two ways.
And community life post COVIDhow do we become more connected
as a community?
Of course we have aresponsibility for some of that,
as staff and leadership andother people have a
responsibility to actually takesteps to get connected.

Katie (56:21):
Yeah, that's a great example.
I am reading a really good bookright now, recommended by my
friend Mac McCarthy.
It's called Kingdom Ethics.

Mac (56:29):
Oh yes.

Katie (56:32):
And I just love it.
I was reading it yesterday andthe authors were talking about
how our witness as a church tothe world starts with our
repentance.
I love that, Like the mostimportant thing we can do to
share God's love with the worldstarts with telling the truth
about ourselves and modelingwhat it looks like to repent

(56:55):
when we fall short.

Mac (56:56):
Yeah, and part of it is that, again, if we know the
truth of who God is and who weare, it changes how we orient to
repentance, Because I think ait is that again, if we know the
truth of who God is and who weare, it changes how we orient to
repentance, Because I think alot of people.
Again, if we just kind of said,okay, how have you experienced
repentance?
It's often you know the angrypreacher who's demanding you do
it right.
It's a negative thing ratherthan in a positive experience,

(57:19):
Like if you would have talked tothe woman at the well or Peter
after he failed right, thoseweren't negative experiences,
they were life-changing positiveexperiences.
And disciples of Jesus don'trepent once when they put their
hand in the air or pray a prayer, they are committing to a
lifetime of repentance, ofgetting closer to understanding

(57:39):
who God is in the relationshipwith God and who they are as
they become more like Jesus.

Josiah (57:46):
Yeah, yeah, sorry, one more parenting reference.
I just think it's very it'sjust a lot of material.
It's low hanging fruit, I know.
I know not everybody is aparent, so I apologize for that.

Adam (57:58):
They're feeling excluded right now.
I apologize for that.

Josiah (58:01):
But you could do the same thing with the other people
in your life.
If you want to model God's lovetowards the people in your life
, and if we're talking aboutkids and you never give them any
, you never have anyopportunities or give yourself
any opportunities to demonstraterepentance and forgiveness and

(58:22):
restoration.
You're having to hide a lot ofshortcomings in order to do that
.
They see them anyways, dude.
Yeah they see them and they lookback and they think of all the
times and I don't know.
It was really helpful for me inparenting, because it's really
easy to beat yourself up whenyou make mistakes in front of
your kids, um, but being able totake a mistake and then be

(58:45):
honest about it models an entireside.
I'm like I know that we'resupposed to model God's love
towards people, and so then thisassumption comes in in in my
mind like oh great, when I messup, then I didn't model it well,
and then there's all kinds ofshame built into that, and then
you hide it and then you figureout how to like double down and

(59:06):
sort of leverage things when inthe end, we're not God.
And it's really important forthe people around us, when they
see us make mistakes, to be ableto own it.

Mac (59:16):
Yeah, totally Okay.
So we're on this question.
How can we do this as acommunity?
Josiah, you shared.
Hey, we can tell the truthabout ourselves, and it seems
like most of that is abouttelling the truth about
ourselves when we fall short.
And that's individual andcollective.
Yeah, um, I want to share asecond one, which is just

(59:36):
learning how to show up honest.
Okay, so we talked I've shareda little bit about what we do in
our leadership intensivesaround learning how to love the
way Jesus loved, by calibratinggrace and truth.
You all know this already, butmaybe some of our listeners
don't.
We spend a lot of time lookingat how Jesus calibrates grace

(59:57):
and truth in his interactionswith various types of people so
that we can learn how to do thesame.
What gets exposed as we do thatis realizing that, apart from
the redemptive love of Jesus andthe empowerment of the spirit,
we're not able to calibrate thatkind of love.
In fact, most of our efforts tolove usually fall drastically
short and we in our leadershipintensives.

(01:00:19):
There's three categories wetalk about where we fall short.
Our natural human default fallsshort, okay, one of those is
like people who naturally orientto being really high truth or
challenge.
They tend to weaponize thetruth, right, and they need to

(01:00:40):
learn how to extend grace toother people.
Okay, there's other people,though, who naturally know how
to extend lots of grace topeople, but have a much harder
time saying what's true, right,so they need to learn how to
like be truth tellers.
Okay, confession when I firststarted wading into this, as

(01:01:02):
someone who's more of a truthteller and needs to learn how to
extend grace to other people,I've been on a 10 year journey
with that it struck me asobviously problematic why people
get into trouble.
Who are truth tellers, becauseI've done that my whole life,
okay.
I'll admit, though, to me I hada much get into trouble who are

(01:01:23):
truth tellers, because I'vedone that my whole life.
Okay.
I'll admit, though, to me I hada much harder time seeing how
those who were just graceextenders created messes.
And now, 10 years later, I willtell you those who don't show
up honest create messeseverywhere.
It's not just those who saymore than they should or are too
aggressive in assertingthemselves or the quote unquote

(01:01:46):
truth.
It's those who don't show uphonest, who minimize or pretend
or fake, even though they'rethinking or feeling differently.
It creates a massive amount ofmesses in churches, and I think
we're actually spirituallyconditioned just to do just that

(01:02:07):
that when something is going,when we don't feel right about
something, we've beenspiritualized or formed to
actually pretend like we're okaywhen we're not.
And what I'm saying is isthat's not actually consistent
with the way of Jesus?

Katie (01:02:22):
Yeah.

Mac (01:02:22):
You're looking at me with big eyes.

Katie (01:02:25):
No, I think you're onto something and I think there's
something unique about churchculture and I might even say
something unique about likewomen or girls in church culture
.
I think that, having grown upas a girl in church culture, it
was instilled in me to be nice.

(01:02:45):
Okay, that was like a value,not only like because of my
gender, but also just because ofChristians are supposed to be
nice people and being nice, Idon't think I was given a lot of
categories or examples of howto tell the truth in a
grace-filled, Jesus-centered way, and I think this is really

(01:03:05):
common.
I mean, there's books, podcaststhat are written on it.
Once you start being inpositions where it's like, okay,
well, then I need to tell thetruth.
Well, all of a sudden you don'thave like a good handle on it
and then it either comes outwonky, like you're beating
around the bush and not sayingwhat you need to say, or it

(01:03:26):
comes out overly aggressivebecause you haven't been given
good categories for how to tellthe truth in a grace filled way.
So, um, so yeah, I would justsay like this has been instilled
in us and in church culture andsociety to to be nice, which
we're calling high grace orcheap grace.
It's not it's not Jesus grace,it's.
It's a grace that lacks truth,and I can.
I totally agree.
It does a whole lot of damage,and maybe in a sneakier, more

(01:03:47):
deceptive way.

Mac (01:03:48):
Yeah, and it's not as obvious.
I guess what I was trying toname is like when someone you
know is super aggressive intelling the truth.
That's obvious.
I think people who fall intothis category often give
themselves a pass, which isactually part of the problem,
because it's kind of like moreof a sin of omission.
They show up on the outside asif everything's fine and okay

(01:04:09):
and we're good, when in fact,underneath the surface, they're
irritated, they're bothered,they're stewing and there's a
gap between what's happening onthe inside and the outside.
I can think of examples where,despite creating tons of
collaborative space for peopleto show up and be honest and
talk about decisions that arebeing made and so on and so
forth, they're showing up andthey're nodding in agreement,

(01:04:32):
they're participating, as ifthey're all on board, and then
you find out later like oh,there's all this stuff that was
going on underneath the surfaceand you didn't tell anyone about
it, and now we've got thismassive mess that could have
been solved if you just hadshowed up honest.

Adam (01:04:46):
Yeah.

Josiah (01:04:47):
Right, yeah, well, I think the reason why I had big
eyes is in my mind.
I'm thinking, man, we could doa whole episode.
We could do a whole episode onrelational dynamics in this.
We could do a whole episode onrelational dynamics in this.
I think that so many peoplestruggle with resentment towards

(01:05:17):
people in their lives becausethey don't have an imagination
for, or the safety or, I guess,the yeah, they don't have an
imagination for what it lookslike to show up honest in their
relationships.
So this is not just a churchleadership matter Like.
This is all of life.

Mac (01:05:27):
This is a human life thing and safety is a variable.
I'm fully aware of that.
Right, we talked about hey, ifyou're going to tell the truth
about yourself, well, we have tocultivate a safe environment
where people can do that, can behonest and vulnerable about
their mistakes without thosemistakes being leveraged against
them.
Then it's the same thing withshowing up honest.
Well, then, we need to have asafe environment when people

(01:05:48):
show up honest and it gets messyto be able to deal with that.
But I guess what I'm naming iswhen that safety is there and
permission is granted and evenencouragement to do so, and
people still hide in the shadows, it creates a mess.

Katie (01:06:04):
And a mess that's hard to address, because you don't know
, you don't know.
You don't know what's there.
Yeah, yeah, that's so true.
So okay, josiah, you talkedabout telling the truth about
ourselves.
Mac mentioned the importance ofshowing up honest.
I would add guarding againstgossip.
Here I'm going to go out on alimb and say that whenever

(01:06:26):
you're on the receiving end ofinformation or a story about
someone else that you're hearingthrough a third party, I can
almost guarantee that it's notthe whole story.
Like if you're in that place,you are essentially hearing a
false narrative or partial truthmight be partially true, but
it's usually not the whole truth.

(01:06:46):
So anytime you're in thatposition where you're receiving
secondhand information, it's thean opportunity to pause and to
take the time to find out theactual truth.
If we want to be people oftruth and we want to build a
culture of truth, then we needto be committed to guarding
against gossip, both repeatingit but also even being on the

(01:07:07):
receiving end of it, justknowing that there's almost no
good that can come out of it.

Mac (01:07:11):
It's like that telephone game.
You know where you stand in acircle and someone says
something somewhat complicatedand then you get to round the
end of the circle.

Josiah (01:07:18):
It's like not close to what it was originally said.
You have someone in the.
If it's youth kids, it'ssomeone in the group who
purposefully sabotages it withsomething.

Adam (01:07:26):
Oh yeah, my kids have started playing it, except they
start out with gibberish.
If you don't get the gibberishright at the end, then you lost.

Mac (01:07:37):
Okay, so add to the telephone game social media, and
what a mess.
Because someone can go onlineand post something they've heard
from someone, from someone,from someone that is now
distorted.
It's distorted the facts, andnow it's out there, right, in a

(01:07:58):
way that people are interactingwith, commenting on so on and so
forth.
And I've, I just know manychurches who have hiccups.
You know they're, they're in atricky season.
Uh, where it gets infinitelymore complicated is when people
take things online, and sothat's very I would just name
for our listeners.
That's very unhelpful, right?
It's very unhelpful for that tobe the platform we're trying to

(01:08:20):
work through complicatedvariables, um, to preserve unity
and trust and all the thingsthat we say we value.

Josiah (01:08:29):
Yeah, well, jesus.
Jesus also gave pretty specificinstructions for some of those
things like go to the persondirectly, yeah, and if you can't
go to the person directly?
Obviously there are.
There are variables in whichsafety is a concern.
Right, it's not like every.
The point is that if your, ifyour aim is to restore a

(01:08:51):
relationship, you're going to goto the person if so and I guess
the way I see these thingsKatie is um is gossip is more of
like a symptom that the firstpart isn't happening.

Katie (01:09:05):
Interesting.

Josiah (01:09:06):
Gossip like.
Addressing the gossip isimportant and guarding against
it so that it doesn't grow outof control.
But it starts by just beingwilling to show up honest with
the people in your lives.
And gossip happens because wedon't, because you don't, and
you have things that arebothering you and you can't.
You don't and you have thingsthat are bothering you and you
don't talk to the person aboutit, but someone who's a little

(01:09:27):
less connected well, they're alot easier to talk to about it
and then, I can say it in a waythat I'm not actually having to
think through what I'm sayingbecause they're standing in
front of me.
I'm saying it in a way that'sjust venting.

Katie (01:09:41):
In systems theory.
That's what triangles are about.
I was going to say, see ourprevious episode on triangles.

Mac (01:09:45):
Right.
So we've got an inherentlyunstable is a one-to-one
relationship.
When things get turbulent oruncertain there, our natural
default and I would say ourfallen default is to pull
someone else in to relieve ourown anxiety.
Download our side of the story.
So Jesus seems to give positiveinstructions as to how to keep

(01:10:05):
that one-to-one intact.
You go and talk to the personand scripture forbids us to
slander or gossip about otherpeople.
So there's not only a positiveinstruction about what we're
supposed to do, there's alsoinstruction about what to avoid.
And when we don't do that, itcreates a mess, a massive mess,
and it can be really frustrating.

(01:10:26):
If I'm honest, there's thiswoman in our community who has
posted on social media numeroustimes that I don't believe the
Bible, that I just think it'spoetry.

Katie (01:10:34):
That you don't.

Mac (01:10:35):
Yes, okay, I'm just like what.
And she keeps it's just likeshe took, okay.
So there's different genres inscripture.
You know there's epistles thoseare letters, right, you've got
gospels.
Those are the stories of JesusYou've got narrative right.
One of the types of literaturein the scripture is poetry.

(01:10:57):
It's wisdom literature, like.
I literally had to take a classin grad school on the wisdom
literature of the Old Testamentand the poetic books.
So this woman heard me name.
This is the genre of literaturewe're dealing with which you
need to name in order to be ableto actually interpret it
correctly.
You're not gonna interpret anarrative the same way you would

(01:11:20):
an encyclopedia.
Those are not the same.
If you're going to interpretthe wisdom literature the way it
was supposed to be understood,you need to have some
understanding of how it works.
Man, this lady took my commentabout the genre and assumed that
I was saying the entire Bibleis just poetry, which is
ridiculous.
But now it's out there.

(01:11:40):
In fact, you're the one thattold me about it, katie.

Katie (01:11:42):
Really yeah, it was on the women's page or whatever.

Adam (01:11:46):
I was like I don't belong to that group.
It's ridiculous.

Mac (01:11:49):
Anyway, rant over yes.

Katie (01:11:52):
Clearly it didn't make a mark in my mind.

Mac (01:11:55):
Well, that's because you believe in the Bible.

Katie (01:11:57):
Yeah, I guess so.

Josiah (01:11:59):
Well, why don't we, as we're landing the plane here,
why don't we spend some timetalking about what are specific
practices we can do in our livesto implement some of the things
we've been learning?

Mac (01:12:15):
Okay.
So let's first thing and itcomes right off this
conversation we're having aboutshowing up honest.
Let your yes be yes and your nobe no.
Jesus teaches this in theSermon on the Mount.
His brother James talks aboutit in his letter, and that

(01:12:35):
involves a congruency andintegrity in how you're using
your words and it relates toyour actions.
So when you say yes tosomething, you're the kind of
person where you follow throughon what you gave your word to
and you clean it up if you don'tright.
When you can't do something,instead of saying yes because
you're afraid of disappointingsomeone, you learn how to say no

(01:12:57):
, right?
There should be an alignmentbetween those two.
In addition, I would even say inthe Sermon on the Mount, jesus
says hey, and don't swear byanything, right?
Don't try to add weight to yourword by swearing on the temple
or this or that, like we don'thave a temple to swear on, but
we might say, well, I swear onmy mother's grave or I swear on

(01:13:19):
a stack of Bibles.
It's a way of going.
You can't just trust my wordsand I'm adding something to my
words so you'll believe it.
The challenge here is simply tobecome the kind of people who
show up honestly so that who weare is truthful and can be
trusted.
And anytime you have to addweight to your words by pulling

(01:13:40):
in someone else or something,you know what I mean.
Then now you're puffing up tokind of make your assertion, or
anytime you have to shrink backright.
You're not showing up on us,you're not being fully present
the way you truly are.
You're not letting your yes beyes and your no be no.
You're doing somethingdifferent, yeah.

Josiah (01:13:57):
A way that people often add weight to their words is by
saying everybody agrees with me.
Maybe, like well, everyone saysthis, or I know lots of people
who are thinking that you'rethis.

Mac (01:14:12):
Yeah, and maybe one caveat would just be like I'm not
saying you lack, like, don't dothis in a way that lacks
emotional intelligence.
When I say show up honest, betruthful, that's not giving
license to just kind of be ajerk or wear your emotions on
your sleeve.
No, there's obviously matureways you can do this in ways
that aren't harmful right.

Katie (01:14:32):
Yeah, practice discernment.
Maybe another practice would beto focus on yourself rather
than others.
We've talked about this quite abit already, but again, I think
it can be easy to say the truthabout others and really hard to
say the truth about ourselves,and I think that's where our
primary work lies, and that'snot to say that there will never
be an opportunity to tell thetruth about someone else.

(01:14:54):
I think there are those times,but I think that those times are
when we have been invited in,like when we have the
credibility, when we've investedin relationship.
So you guys know this, I was aYoung Life leader when I was in
college and then in my kind ofearly adult life after college,
and the whole premise of YoungLife it's a youth ministry and

(01:15:16):
the whole premise is that, likeearning the right to be heard,
like you love kids where they'reat, you get to know them, you
show up at their games andinvest in their lives and you
spend hours upon hours uponhours just investing and getting
to know kids and meeting themwhere they're at and they
eventually open up to you withinthe context of relationship.
Okay, so that's the whole ideaof once you have credibility

(01:15:39):
with someone, then maybe theywill invite you in.
They still may not, but thenthey invite you in and that may
be an opportunity to tell thetruth to someone not unsolicited
truth telling with someone thatyou don't have the right or the
opportunity to be doing that.
So, again, going back to theidea of weaponizing the truth
versus telling the truth, Ithink that's an important

(01:16:00):
distinction here.
If we don't have the right tobe heard in someone's life,
we're more likely to beweaponizing the truth, using the
truth as a weapon to accomplishsomething that we want to
accomplish which might not bewhat's actually best for the
person.
So again, this is about us.
We want to focus on ourselvesindividually and ourselves as a
church community and commit totelling the truth, no matter how

(01:16:22):
hard it might be, no matterwhat harm we think we might do
to our reputation, no matterwhat we think the outcome might
be.
We want to commit to speakinghonestly and transparently as a
way of cultivating goodness inthe way of Jesus.

Mac (01:16:38):
You ever have those moments in your house where everybody's
just kind of snippy.
You know, there have been timeswhen, like my strategy, when
everybody's snippy is to like,try to get someone else to stop
being snippy even though I'mstill snippy and it never goes
well.
But I've noticed that if I'm theone who changes, sometimes

(01:17:00):
other people will get on board.
I say sometimes, because notalways, but sometimes when you
are like, okay, I'm going tostop this pattern, like I'm
contributing to it, I'm going tostop, I'm going to focus on
myself here.
It may be, you know, severaldays could be a couple hours.
But all of a sudden, whenthere's that charge moment and
someone sees you respondingdifferently, it's enough to like

(01:17:20):
, oh, I'm giving a vision forhow this could be a couple hours
.
But all of a sudden, whenthere's that charge moment and
someone sees you respondingdifferently, it's enough to like
, oh, I'm giving a vision forhow this could be different, you
know yeah, katie, I think ofthe just what we named earlier
the avoiding the drive bydiagnosis yeah because when you
don't have credibility, they'remore likely to resist it anyway

(01:17:41):
and the further you are awayfrom yeah because when you don't
have credibility, they're morelikely to resist it anyway.

Josiah (01:17:43):
And the further you are away from relationship, the less
you know about what's actuallygoing on.
So how are you supposed tocalibrate the truth properly if
you don't actually know thesituation?
So we love to sit in our towersand look down and say, see,
well, if they were able to do X,Y and Z, they would be fine.
But without a relationship andknowing what's going on in their

(01:18:06):
lives, without asking questions, your judgments are more likely
to be wrong.

Katie (01:18:11):
Yes, and even if they are right, they're not going to
hear it.

Josiah (01:18:15):
Right, yes, yes, okay.
A third practice I would nameis just to identify your shadow
side.
Mack, you talked earlier aboutcalibrating grace and truth and
sort of admitting that you tendto gravitate towards living out
of high truth or pseudo truth,yep, more than high grace, and

(01:18:41):
how both sides can be damaging.
Thanks for drawing attention tothat again.
Yeah, I just wanted to point itout.

Adam (01:18:45):
I'm just trying to help you own the truth about yourself
.

Josiah (01:18:52):
No, so my shadow side is probably a little more on the
grace side.
I tend to like I don't likelove conflict all the time.
I'd rather not have anyrelational tension with anyone,
so I'm much more apt to avoid itor to not even see it.
Or if I do see it, I'm going tofind ways around it.

(01:19:14):
So I know that for me, learningto go directly to people
instead of venting to someoneelse, that is a continual
challenge for me.
Learning to go directly topeople instead of venting to
someone else, that is acontinual challenge for me.
But I have enough repsthroughout the years, especially
on staff and with people in mylife, that when I have to go

(01:19:34):
there with someone, it tends togo well, because I have people
in my life that want to meet mein that space and they want a
relationship with me, so they'rewilling to go there with me in
order to resolve the issue.

Mac (01:19:48):
Yeah.

Josiah (01:19:49):
So when you have reps, it starts to build on a
confidence, and I even thinkabout it within our staff
meeting context, or our weekendplanning meetings, our, our
weekend planning meetings Um, Ifeel so much more uh, so much
more permission now, and so I'mso much more bold to be able to
say I don't like that or I don'tknow about that, um, compared

(01:20:11):
to when it was an issue.

Mac (01:20:14):
Yeah, I've seen you grow into that I've seen you grow
into that quite a bit, um, andyou and one thing I would say
about identifying your shadowside is it does help to have
other people you can invite intothat.
And so when you find yourself ina situation you're uncertain
what it looks like to show upwith love, maybe someone with an

(01:20:37):
opposite default can help buildout your imagination.
So, for instance, if I'm kindof more on the true side, that's
not where I need to grow, aslike having the courage to name
what I think or whatever, but Imight need to talk to someone
who has a much largerimagination for what grace could

(01:20:58):
look like.
So it fills out my posture oflove in any given moment.
So find some of those people.
Find some of those people thathave the opposite default that
you can trust and go.
Man, here's how I think I wouldapproach the situation, but I
know that you might have someother defaults that could help
me grow.

Josiah (01:21:15):
Yeah, yeah.
And if you're a people pleaser,then identify someone in your
life who is a little more bluntwith their words and being able
to say hey, there is actually alot of value in naming what is
so with the people in my lives,instead of beating around the
bush and trying to pretend likeeverything's okay all the time.

Mac (01:21:34):
I just got off a conversation with someone who
said I am a lifetime peoplepleaser and in order to grow
that I am a lifetime peoplepleaser and in order to outgrow
that, I do daily experimentsthat involve courage.
And then I realized, as wecontinue to talk, that in order
to outgrow any of this, you needdaily experiments of courage,

(01:21:55):
because oftentimes, being bluntand direct, you know you're
you're doing so because you feelvulnerable in a different area,
like it takes courage to resistthat Courage is doing it scared
.

Katie (01:22:10):
And would you say?
It takes courage, if you're atruth teller, to practice grace.

Mac (01:22:13):
Yes, that's what I'm saying .

Katie (01:22:14):
In a different way.

Mac (01:22:16):
Yeah, people compensate for a vulnerability by being more
aggressive.

Katie (01:22:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I vulnerability by being
more aggressive.

Mac (01:22:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Katie (01:22:24):
All right, well, good conversation, guys.
I think we covered a lot ofground.
We've been talking for a while,like an hour and a half maybe.

Mac (01:22:31):
Before we hit record, josiah, I was like I'm not sure
I have a lot to say about thisone.

Katie (01:22:34):
Yeah, you did great.
I certainly had a lot to say.
All right, so big picture.
If we want to cultivate aculture of tov or goodness, then
we need to be committed totrafficking in the truth.
And the way we tell the truthis the way that Jesus told the
truth, which is always full oflove and grace and in a way that
pointed people towards the loveof God.

(01:22:54):
As followers of Jesus, we'recalled to be truth tellers
telling the truth aboutourselves and telling the truth
about God.

Mac (01:23:02):
Yeah, Thanks for joining us today.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Next time we've got a bonusepisode coming out and I'm
excited about.
That's all I'm going to say.

Adam (01:23:15):
Just keep people on the edge of their seats or earbuds
or whatever Praxis is recordedand produced at Crosspoint
Community Church.
You can find out more about theshow and our church at
crosspointwicom.
If you have any questions,comments or have any suggestions
for future topics, feel free tosend us an email.
Also, if you enjoy the show,consider leaving a review and if
you haven't already, be sure tosubscribe wherever you get your

(01:23:36):
podcasts.
That's good.

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