April 19, 2024 • 58 mins
Ryan George grew up in an abusive independent fundamental Baptist church led by his father. In the conversation, Ryan discusses how he eventually left that church and the abuse of his father and started a journey of healing from the trauma of his upbringing. He talks about some of the unhealthy and abusive behaviors he experienced. He also talks about how he eventually found healthy church communities that helped him heal and come to know Jesus in a new way. We talk secure attachments, fear and faith, and adventure. So join us as we wade through destructive behavior and trauma and find our way out towards healthy, faith-filled communities centered on Jesus.
Ryan George is the author of Scared to Life and Word on the Street. He’s the blogger behind Explorience.org. He co-founded and co-leads Dude Group, a spiritual
adventure community in the Blue Ridge Mountains where he lives with his wife,
Crystal, and daughter, Deonnie.
Ryan's Book:
Hurt and Healed by the Church
Ryan's Recommendation:
Will the Circle be Unbroken? by Sean Dietrich
Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.us
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ryan George (00:00):
It felt like we were the nerdy version of
(00:02):
church. So like, in school incollege, you know, you're not
one of the cool kids, we knew weweren't medical kids. But what
you start to adapt to is thisfeeling like but we're better,
right? Most fundamentalists willtell you where the purest
version of that faith, right andso it's an insecurity that leads
to arrogance, which is kind ofironic. But what I find in my
life is insecurity and arroganceare two sides of the same coin.
(00:24):
And I just flipped back andforth between the two, they
compensate for each other. Andso you just wrapped more and
more and more in it. As far asrealizing that it was abuse. I
didn't realize I didn't I didn'thave that word for that language
for till I was out for about 15years. It wasn't a instantaneous
thing. If you read the memoirsfrom the Duggar girls, or some
(00:46):
of these other high profilepeople were coming out of
similar background as me,depending on how many years
they've been out of it, you cansee how comfortable they are
talking about that something wasoff. So like you knew some
things were off, you didn't havea label for it, you didn't have
a language for you definitelydidn't have a verse for it.
Joshua Johnson (01:17):
Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create, and the impact we canmake. We longed to see the body
of Christ look like Jesus. I'myour host, Joshua Johnson. Go to
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(01:39):
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(01:59):
they should be listening aswell. If you're new here,
welcome. If you want to digdeeper find us on social media
at shifting culture podcastwhere I post video clips and
quotes and interact with all ofyou. Previous guests on the show
have included Scot McKnight,Jason Van ruler and Jamie
Winship. You can go back listento those episodes and more. But
today's guest is Ryan GeorgeRyan George is the author of
(02:22):
scarce life and word on thestreet. Ryan's latest book is
hurt and healed by the church.
He's the blogger behindexplorance.org And he co founded
and CO leads dude group, aspiritual adventure community in
the Blue Ridge Mountains, wherehe lives with his wife, Crystal
and his daughter Diani. Ryangrew up in an abusive,
independent fundamental BaptistChurch led by his father. In
(02:44):
this conversation, Ryandiscusses how he eventually left
that church and the abuse of hisfather and he started a journey
of healing from the trauma ofhis upbringing. He talks about
some of the unhealthy andabusive behaviors he
experienced. He also talks abouthow he eventually found healthy
church communities that helpedhim heal and come to know Jesus
in a new way. We talk secureattachments, fear and faith and
(03:08):
adventure. So join us as we wadethrough destructive behavior and
trauma and find our way outtowards healthy faith filled
communities centered on Jesus.
Here's my conversation with RyanGeorge Ryan, welcome to shifting
culture. Really excited to haveyou. Thanks for joining me. Oh,
(03:29):
I'm stoked. I'm looking forwardto this. Yeah, it's gonna be
good. But before we get into,you know, some fun adventure
stuff and and we we go into somereconstruction, we have to
actually go into some of yourstory. So we know where you're
starting from. So can you tellme your story growing up with a
(03:52):
independent fundamental Baptistpreacher as a father? What was
that? Like? How was your yourgrowing up? And what was church
for you? Oh, wow. That's a bigquestion. I know it's a big one.
So my parents were actuallyLutheran and Catholic. And then
when I was about four years old,they joined this movement within
(04:14):
the Baptist faith called theindependent fundamental Baptist.
And then there's subsets beneaththere, there's, it just
fractures out from there. And sofrom about the age of four until
I got married, that culture wasall I knew I went to an IFP
college I went to IFP camps. Iwas in an IFP church for
services a week. My dad was byvocational he got a letter to
(04:37):
start a church on an island andChesapeake base. We spent 12
years there while he tried toget that off the ground. But I
was homeschooled and that's nota big surprise. Very, that
turned out here on a lot ofpodcasts, a lot of books I read
his high control religion, a lotof superstition if you do this,
God would do that.
Ryan George (04:55):
And on top of that, which I think is abusive
theology, which is was theoriginal working title, this
book, actually, that I'mpitching right now, but the on
top of that there was alsophysical and verbal abuse in my
home. Later as we would find outthrough podcasts and other
things that my dad was a serialsexual abuser as well. And so
(05:17):
when I got married to missionarykid, and we started to figure
out what do we actually believe,as we was the first time I left
I ever had a shop for a church,I hate to use that term. But you
know, to look around for achurch, I live in a city that
has over 200 churches. So Imean, it's literally a process
of compare and contrast. And andstart asking questions, what do
I actually believe I wasmentored by some really
(05:39):
thoughtful, introspective mindsto ask me some really good
questions at the right point inmy life. And so I escaped that
cultish behavior and have beenon a journey ever since to
overcome the shadow of my dadovercome the shadow the face
system that I had to actuallyfind the real Jesus, the one
that was kept from me for somany years. So
Joshua Johnson (05:59):
what's that like, because you're in the
middle of it. And this is allyou know, you're swimming in
this water where, you know, fishdon't realize that they're in
water, that a lot of times theculture that we're we're in, we
think is, is normal, you thinkthat this is how the world
operates and works? What is itlike being in the midst of that
(06:21):
high controlling religion? Andhaving some spiritual abuse
happen? And how do you start toopen your eyes to it, saying
that this actually isn't Jesus?
This isn't the thing that I'mseeking. And this isn't right.
How do you how do you get tothat spot?
Ryan George (06:42):
So those are two different questions. So what it
felt like, it felt like we werethe nerdy version of church. So
like, in school in college, youknow, you're not one of the cool
kids, we knew we weren't medicalkids. But what you start to
adapt to is this feeling likebut we're better, right? Most
fundamentals will tell you wherethe purest version of that
faith, right. And so it's aninsecurity that leads to
(07:03):
arrogance, which is kind ofironic. But what I find in my
life is insecurity and arroganceare two sides of the same coin.
And I just flipped back andforth between the two, they
compensate for each other. Andso you just wrapped more and
more and more in it. As far asrealizing that it was abuse, I
didn't realize I didn't havethat word for that language for
(07:23):
it till I was out for about 15years. It wasn't a instantaneous
thing. If you read the memoirsfrom the Duggar girls, or some
of these other high profile,people were coming out of
similar background as me,depending on how many years
they've been out of it, you cansee how comfortable they are
talking about that something wasoff. So like you knew some
things were off, he didn't havea label for it, you didn't have
(07:45):
a language for you definitelydidn't have a verse for it. You
know, and so what changed in mewas seeing the exact opposite,
right to be in faithenvironments, whether my church
or parish church, or whatever,where you go, Oh, that's what
that's supposed to look like.
Like, that person actually lookslike they love Jesus, and like,
they're overwhelmed by him on adaily basis. That isn't such
contrast, like how they parenttheir kids, how their kids look
(08:09):
at them, right? Or how theytreat their wife or how they
talk about culture, how theytalk about people different than
them. You know, I want to belike that person. And then as
you talk to him is, and thishappened to me so many times, as
in like church now, if you werelooking at like your, you did
what? Like your you guys didwhat, like, your college guys
(08:30):
and girls had separate sidewalksand elevators and staircases,
like, just some of the rules wehad, like, I wasn't allowed to
talk to a girl before 730 In themorning like that. When I went
to propose to my wife, my littlebrother had to come with, Hey,
I'm at my grandma's house. I'mat my grandma's house and my
(08:51):
brother had to come with. Solike, there's just so many guys,
what, what in the world did weend they had a Bible verse for
everything, right? I'm
Joshua Johnson (09:01):
just now trying to think about people that are
in a similar situation that youwere. And I think that some
people don't realize thatthey're in that similar
situation, is it possible tostart to detangle some of these
things and realize what is goingon. without stepping back and
away from I know your story islike you had to get away from
(09:25):
it. And you said the Duggargirls as well. And some of the
Duggars are like, I have to stepaway. And then I realized this
is what was actually going on.
Is there any way that we canstart to detangle some of this
abuse certain control in thechurch while we're inside of it,
Ryan George (09:44):
inside of the Big C church? Yes. Inside of the
church where this is happening?
I don't think so. Because you'llstart asking questions and
questions aren't allowed. And Iwas I was physically abused for
asking In questions, right, likehe just when they didn't have an
answer, and when I called him onan answer we like, I remember
(10:04):
having these arguments with mydad. And he would just because
he couldn't, it's notsustainable to say, this is how
Jesus would do it right, like,and so he had to, he had to,
quote unquote, man up, he had tobe aggressive on that. So I
don't know. Now, whether you endup in a church, you know, that
has services on Sunday, whetherit's a faith community where
(10:26):
it's people who believe inJesus, but have been wounded,
and maybe their therapistsituation or counseling group or
survivor. It can take differentforms. And it has for me, my
counselor has a saying, I reallyappreciate that. She said,
insecure attachment is healedthrough secure attachment.
Relational wounds, are healedthrough healthy relationships.
And she said, church wounds arehealed through healthy church
(10:49):
situations. And so I, I fullygive grace to people who are
ready to come back to what youand I might describe as a church
service or a church environmentfor a while. But I have found,
whether it's hiking with people,or traveling with people, or
going out to coffee, whatever,that the connection to people
who have a healthy spiritualityeventually will lead you back to
(11:12):
places where more people likethat are hanging out.
Joshua Johnson (11:16):
That's one of the big things that we got
trained in to work with traumavictims, which we were with
Syrian refugees is that one ofthe first things to do is to
create some some good memories.
So the first thing that they goback to is not that the trauma,
the wounds of the past, they goback to those good memories. And
so, you know, we did things likeyou know, we had pen Jada's for
(11:38):
Syrian refugees. So we hadMexican culture in the midst of
Syrian culture, you know, we hadto go at different parties. We
had some groups we did a lot of,you know, Bible studies, Sharon
Jesus stories, there's all sortsof storytelling we did and but
it was the activities that wedid. So that can create new
memories. What are some of thosethings as you talk about secure
attachments, and you're talkingabout a new things to heal the
(12:01):
wounds of your past? What aresome of the things that you
started to engage in so thatyour, the wounds of your past
can become something that youcan heal from and move on? Yes,
Ryan George (12:16):
a lot of it for me is outdoor adventures. So my
number one spiritual pathway,depending on which framework you
use, there's like seven or ninedifferent spiritual pathways, my
perimeter one is nature, which Iactually didn't get a lot of as
a kid. And so my one of mypastors is a trained wilderness
guide. And other one isincredible wilderness,
Whitewater, kayaker, IceClimber, you know, all these
things. And so going outside andexperiencing an environment
(12:41):
where instead of pulpit and rowsand stuff is just projected at
me, and you don't ask questionswhere we're sitting around a
campfire, you know, we're havingthese road trips, you know,
those kinds of things. And theBible says that I lead now, I
think we had guys, four or five,maybe six different churches
that comes every Wednesdaynight, we just sit around a
fire, there's no teaching, youknow, it's all the egalitarian
(13:03):
around the circle. It's thoseenvironments where people were
Jesus to me, and let me askquestions, or ask me questions.
And let me go wrestle. Iremember, the first environment
where a lot of this started tocrack. I just told this guy this
Sunday. So this is 18 years ago,this month, I said, you and your
wife, were leading our smallgroup. And I've never been in a
(13:24):
small group. That was the firsttime I've ever done that in a
church. And I said, you guyswere struggling with
infertility. And you said outloud, we're having a really hard
time believing that God is good,right. And we were within the
church walls, you know, and thatutter honesty and authenticity
just went, Whoa, that's allowedhere. Like you're allowed to say
those things out loud. And sothen some of the other things
(13:44):
like some of the things that mydad told me, were secular, that
weren't holy, that we shouldn'tpursue that I started to do,
working with anticipation thatJesus would show up in them. I
started to see him way moreplaces than I was told that I
can experience God, which makessense, right? Because if you are
a man of God, which is what arecalled called the pastor, and
(14:07):
you you only interact with Jesusat the house of God, he's the
one controlling the spigot ofhow much God you get, right? And
so there's, that's where thecontrol comes in. So if you find
out, Oh, I don't have to go tothat place and that guy to turn
on the spigot to get it formyself. Well, then you can start
to see Jesus all over the place.
And my last book, what I wroteabout so I'm an adventure travel
guy. I've been all sevencontinents, both polar circles.
(14:29):
I've I found Jesus in a wholebunch of places I never thought
he would be. And he's beenfaithful in that way.
Joshua Johnson (14:37):
As a side note, I think, I don't know if you've
read Jesse Crookshanks book,ordinary discipleship, but she
was a wilderness guide for manyyears. Yeah, I read though, and,
yeah, so I just think he was awilderness guide and takes a lot
of constant work from outdoorsand talks about discipleship.
It's rarely go the
Ryan George (14:54):
way that they're trained in our town and other of
these long term wildernessguides you Steve go, Okay, you
just did something uncomfortablethat you didn't know you could
do or you didn't think you coulddo. What's something back home
that's uncomfortable, whetherit's in your faith, it's a
relationship, whatever that nowyou know that that's an
arbitrary line. And so there areso many parallels. I mean, Jesus
(15:15):
did the same thing withparables, right? He's walking
around it goes, here's a figtree. Let's talk about that.
Okay, here's a whitewater river.
Let's talk, you know, and forme, because that's my primary
spiritual pathway. I'm, I'mwired for that.
Joshua Johnson (15:26):
Yeah. Now, it's amazing. I love being outside.
In nature. I love creation.
Growing up in Seattle is the youknow, I thought that I thought
the whole world looked like thatuntil I'm going up to the edge
of a desert and an ugly town.
But you know, what I love aboutyour book hurt and heal by by
the church. It actually takesthe dysfunctions of church and
(15:49):
then shows us an a new way. Theso what are unsafe churches? And
then what are healthy churcheslook back and you go like every
chapter, you're you're into anew, a new health of, of church.
And so contrasting, unhealthy,unsafe, unhealthy to healthy as
you were starting to, to writesome of those things. Was there
(16:12):
anything that you started torealize that you were growing up
in or even the churchexperiences that you have now
that were unhealthy and unsafe,that you didn't actually
realize? Until you startedwriting? And digging deeper into
what this is? That'sfascinating,
Ryan George (16:32):
I haven't thought about that. I'm sure there, I'm
sure some of the details forsure. how pervasive something
is, when I started writing aboutthe silencing of women, I think
that's the longest chapter in abook. And I didn't start out for
that to be true. But my wife isa gifted disciple, where one of
our pastors stepped off ofprofessional pastoring to go
(16:54):
into marketplace. And when he,he's still at our church, he
serves me on Sundays. But whenhe left, he said, your wife is
the best recycler that we havein this in this community. And
it's true. I mean, I there'sconstant women in our house
being counseled to, I see mywife's location checker. She's
in a different person's houseall day long. She's just, and I
went, Oh, not letting my wife dothat, which my dad wouldn't have
(17:19):
allowed, right. And high controlreligion that women women don't
minister? How much that'sconnected to abuse? How much
guys are men in particular,insecure that women might do
ministry better? That wasprobably one of the ones that
was a big aha moment for me.
Yeah, there's, there's severalthose were I knew all of them,
(17:39):
because obviously, I outlined itbefore I started writing. But as
I got into it, oh, this is waymore pervasive than what I
thought it was. It wassurprising, and I knew it
physically. I've spent so muchtime in my counselor's office,
talking, trying to feel thingsbecause for some years, I
wouldn't listen to my body.
Because my boss told me to run,right. And I wrote a, I wrote a
(18:03):
chapter on the war motif, andanother chapter on anger, and
how everything about thechurches I grew up was based in
anger, like there was everythingand I started quoting a whole
bunch of pastors, names out ofthe books, one of them because
the guide certain assuming if Idid, but I never realized how
much my faith was built onanger, and, and just being
(18:27):
taught off all the time. So
Joshua Johnson (18:29):
what does that do? If you we get into this
place of anger, and I think evenin this political day and age in
America that we live in, we'reangry, to try and get somebody
to to our side and not Jesus,Jesus did something a little bit
different. As he interacted withpeople. He he was angry at
(18:52):
times, you know, he flipped sometables at the temple because
they were misusing the temple,selling selling things for
profit, when this is a place ofworship, so how do you how do we
wrestle with that and deal withthat as we're starting to talk
to people and to get away fromour our angry positions that we
(19:15):
start to try and woo peoplethrough anger? Is there a new
way? What's a better way, a waythat we should enter into?
Ryan George (19:23):
So two answers on that first is anger doesn't woo
anybody, but other angry people,right? Like this show that's
like everybody's talking abouthis love his blind show. Nobody
comes in there and just goes ontirades and try to attract
somebody, like when you're onTinder, and you get you finally
get to date or whatever appBumble or whatever, I never use
the app. I'm not all but you geton a date and you don't show up
(19:44):
and just start putting somebodyon blast that doesn't. It's not
attractive. And so I don't Idon't think that I realized
definitely, the movement I cameout of realized how unattractive
it was. But the other part Idon't think they realize part
two is that that wasn't Jesus'smodus operandi. That was his
exception, if anything, that thefact that it only happened once.
(20:07):
And in the recording of hisministry, he didn't deputize he
didn't go, Hey, guys, you guysbuild some whips to once you
flipped some tables, he therewas no hey, go do likewise there
are other things that Jesus saidgo and do likewise. Or do is if
you've seen me do or whatever,he didn't turn around his
disciples like, this is how wedo this. This that was the
exception to the rule. And itwas incredibly meek, because
(20:29):
that dude could have just said,gone, and there would be
nothing, there'll be nomolecules in front of it. And so
I actually see that scene asthat a lot of the angry people
of my youth use as justificationfor their anger as actually
demonstrating the exact oppositelike das Jesus, is meekness on
display. That's
Joshua Johnson (20:49):
really good to think through that. So what does
it look like to enter in meeklyinto conversation? And with
people? How do we do that? Well,asking,
Ryan George (21:00):
asking soft questions. There's a question
that we ask all the time of thefaith environments that I'm in,
you're just like, hey, help meunderstand that? What's going on
inside of you? I'll ask a guy.
What have you been praying aboutthis week? Because I usually
shows where his anxiety is,right? And if he says, I don't,
I couldn't pray this week, butokay. So what's behind that? You
know, I think seeking tounderstand coming and going. So
(21:20):
I went on a trip last year, twoor two years ago to the Faroe
Islands out in the NorthAtlantic. And the guy was was
far from Jesus grew up aroundministry seen the dark
underbelly of it said, I'm notgonna have a party, and he said
on the trip, and I was like,Okay, so what's bringing you
live, you know, and eventually,you can get into some really
(21:41):
cool conversations. Right? Ikeep coming back to the word
winsome, that Jesus's there werepeople, every buddy, from every
perspective, Jew and Gentile,male and female, rich and poor,
religious and not everybody wasattracted to Jesus. Why was
that? Because no matter how youcame to him, he was ready for
(22:02):
you and welcoming it before hetold the rich young ruler to go
sell everything. The Bible tellsus, and Jesus must have told His
disciples this because this isnot something he said out loud.
It said Jesus had compassion onit. Like there's this whole,
before he told the woman who wascaught underneath her adultery
goes into more before you that,hey, I don't condemn you.
There's this approach ability toto go, Hey, you can say whatever
(22:25):
you need to say in front of me,and I'm not going to, I'm not
going to judge you for it. Now.
I've had guys confessed tomolesting their daughter. I did.
You know, I've had guys confessto some things in their
marriage. There are action stepson that. But but even there are
softer ways to do that, too. Youknow?
Joshua Johnson (22:44):
You said they're softer ways to do that. Okay. i
That's, that's curious for me.
So if I'm in a situation wheresomebody is revealing, you know,
a, a sin. To me, that is notjust a we have to deal with this
together, you repent to theLord. But it's something we
actually have to report. And wehave to give to the authorities
(23:06):
because this is we just have toget you away for a while. It's
my that situation. How do you dothat? In a softer way, that
shows compassion to the personthat's in front of you, when it
is a vile situation. Yeah,
Ryan George (23:28):
I remember after the guy confessed at a table, I
was in a restaurant, the guyconfessed to me. I've been
pouring into this guy now. We'renot friends on Facebook anymore.
Like I'm not. We reported it. Hewent and served his time.
There's a registry that he isgoing to be off for however long
our state does that. But Iprayed over him. I put my hand
on their shoulder and I pray toHim because He knows what's
(23:48):
coming next. Right? You go, hey,it took her Ecoli what was true,
it took courage to tell us thatAndy Stanley has a saying that I
really like quote it all thetime, is some things are not
problems to be managed. Thereare problems to be solved their
tensions to be managed. Andthere's a tension there going, I
forgive us in my family, Iforgive my dad, and I pray
(24:10):
probably three times a month,Dear God, how we continue to
forgive my dad when I feel theseemotions come up. But at the
same time, would you soften hisheart and heal? You know, and
while that both of those aretrue, I also don't I'm not
physically around my dad, I donot answer his texts. He's not
allowed around my daughter, mywife, you know, so it's, it's
not there's no clear cut answersto these.
Joshua Johnson (24:32):
You know, we're right now in Kansas City. You
know, there's, you know, IHOPKansas City dealing with a lot
of abuse, sexual abuse ofminors, like of you know, Mike
pickle, so there's a lot ofrelief from like, oh my gosh,
like, what have I been in? Andwe have had some people come
(24:53):
from IHOP to our church and comein and, and joining and right
now they're they're in A lot ofpain. There's a lot of you know,
it's it's really hard for themto trust a another congregation
to trust the church to say, isthis going to be okay? Like, I
love Jesus, I want to be aroundpeople who love Jesus. But I
(25:17):
don't know if I can trust thechurch right now. How so? For
people like that, that arecoming out of this, these
revelations that they didn'tquite see. And now everything is
really, what are some steps totake in that healing process
moving forward? For these groupsof people?
Ryan George (25:38):
Yeah, I think one of the first things to do is to
acknowledge with them, yes, thisis disorienting, you know, did
it go? This conflict? Do youfeel that is totally reasonable,
you don't have to come back to achurch building out of guilt. I
definitely recommend there govisit a therapist, particularly
a Christian therapist trained ineither high control religion or
(25:59):
abuse, trauma, recovery,whatever, which is what I see.
Or who I see. I had thisconversation two weeks ago, a
friend of mine, she had a badexperience at our church. Right?
It wasn't abuse, like how wewould define it. But it was a
really uncomfortable situationthat now every time she walks in
the building, it's triggering toher. As like, you need to know
(26:20):
like, we love you. We love ourchurch, we love you. But we're
okay that you don't feel safehere. Please keep looking for a
safe place. I think there's somany deconstruction's podcasts
and books, I've read a wholebunch of them in preparation for
this press tour and for writingmy own book is to go. I think
what a lot of people do is theyjust they keep running and and
(26:43):
they never get it fixed. Theynever go. They never ask their
soul the level of questionslike, What did i What did I love
about being in a faithcommunity? What do I miss about
being in faith community? Andwhere can I get that in smaller
doses and safe ways? And thenwork myself back at the point
isn't for us all to go to Sundayservice, the point of us all is
(27:05):
to be connected to Jesus withother people who are connected
to Jesus. Some
Joshua Johnson (27:08):
people might say, I can't do it a Sunday
morning service. That's thething that feels very unsafe for
me. And triggering, how canpeople start to find their Jesus
community and a community thatis safe to move forward? If it
isn't a Sunday morning service?
What is that? What arecommunities out in the wild look
(27:30):
like? That are like surroundedsaying Jesus is our center and
we're gonna move forwardtogether as a community? That's
healthy?
Ryan George (27:41):
That's an interesting question, because I
didn't. This sounds reallyweird. I didn't go looking for
it. It found me. There was oneenvironment in our church that I
absolutely loved. And it gotshut down because it was
dwindling. Numbers don't runnumbers. And but the model of it
I absolutely loved. And so Ijust went out, started my own
and started writing guys from inmy life, just say, Hey, you have
(28:03):
Jesus and you have a version ofJesus that I like, we started
with three guys. And now there'salmost 40 guys in the group
text, right? There was a guygoing through a hard season, I
just said, Hey, I'll tell you, Idon't have curriculum. I don't
know, I'm not a trainer. Iwasn't even in therapy. At this
time. I didn't know anything. Hewas going through a hard time. I
was like, let's meet everyone'sand I read a chapter of a book
(28:24):
from Bob Gough, we'll pray overeach other. You know, whatever
it is to help you come throughyard get you through the week to
Sunday. So I just startedlooking for people one at a
time. And now what's funny is,wives will come to me and
they'll say, Hey, I've heardabout this thing that you guys
have gone down at the park onWednesday nights. Would you be
cool with my husband doing orcould you reach out to my
(28:46):
husband or whatever? So I don'tknow exactly if there's a
prescriptive way to do it.
Because we've done it on thedownload. My wife's the ministry
that she started that now aspart of our church. They were
not they're affiliated with ourchurch when they started but
they were a home they pray theirhome thing. So I don't know
that. I would hope no matterwhat you came out of that Jesus
(29:06):
would give you one person thatlooks real in your life whether
that's somebody you meet online,or follow on Instagram or Yeah,
I don't That's a really toughquestion. I feel very blessed
because mine fell into my lifeat the exact moment I needed
them and some of them like ayear or two before I really
needed you know
Joshua Johnson (29:28):
yeah yeah. I think that's one of the things
that we're we're wrestling witha little bit within our church
is that there's some people havea big desire for that. I think
men especially have a desire forfor deeper connection with other
men but don't actually know howto go about like, reaching out
(29:49):
they feel vulnerable, insecurehave like a opening up to the
place of saying I need somebodynow can you meet with me? Can
you be with me? And I'm reallyappreciative of the people that
reach out to me and say, Hey,can we meet we talk because it's
easier to receive something likethat it's hard for somebody to,
(30:11):
to make that first move. How,what, as you're hanging out and
doing these, this thing with,with all these these men? How do
men start to reach across andsaying, I need connection? I
need help in this place. Let's,let's meet, what are some ways
that men can, can do that?
Ryan George (30:32):
Well, let me back up and say one of the things I
think we can claim the promiseof Jesus, he said, If you seek
Me, you will find me if you seekwith your own heart. And I think
Jesus, the way he designed thechurch should be he wants people
to be in spiritual community,with him and with others. So I
think if, if you don't have thatone person be praying for it,
God will bring that person toyou. As far as how to make men
(30:53):
comfortable in thoseenvironments. One of my mentors
gave me a imperative severalyears ago. He said, give men the
gift of going second. And sowhenever I'm in an environment,
particularly when there's newguys, like guys will come to sit
around the fire for a week. Andyou can see him there looking
around, how does this? How doesthis group work? What's the
(31:16):
dynamics here. And so what Itried to do is, whatever level
of authenticity I want, thoseguys to eventually get to, I
have to model. So I have to say,I'm struggling in my marriage
this week with x, or I've reallybeen wrestling with this truth
that Jesus did, or for me, so Inever wanted to be a dad, you
(31:37):
can read about the book, all theabuse that I had, as a kid, I
just didn't want to be a dad, Ididn't trust myself. And God, I
sick, bless me against my will,I was on a helicopter expedition
up in British Columbia, and getback to civilization. There's a
text saying, Oh, by the way,young lady sought refuge in your
home. Long story short, she'snow my daughter. So I went from
(31:57):
actively trying not to be a dad,to all of a sudden, I am a dad,
you know, to then pursuingadoption. And so just to be
real, my guys be like, Hey,guys, you guys know, I had all
three versions of the vasectomy,make sure this wouldn't happen.
And here I am. And I have a 15year old African American
daughter now like, I'm scared,or I don't know what to do. I've
(32:19):
never washed a bra from somebodyother than my wife, like, what
do you do with this? Right? Idon't know if that I got that
specific. But just to be like,I, I didn't save to this, I
don't have money to buy her acar, I don't have money to put
her through college. So thelevel of authenticity that the
person who starts theconversation sets the tone for
the circle. And I've seen thatin multiple shape environments,
(32:42):
not just mine. It's interesting,because therapy doesn't work
that way, right? Like yourtherapist doesn't tell them,
they can't tell you so much. Butoutside of therapy, that has
been true of almost everyenvironment where I left,
feeling like my heart was seen.
And my soul was felt by anotherman. Another parishioner was,
somebody went first. And I've,I've been with grown men crying
(33:03):
in an airport in South America,confessing some they never, you
know, I've been going throughthis, and I never told anybody
about their job, their marriage,or kids, or whatever it is. So
if we give people the gift ofgoing second, and again, if
we're looking for it, people aregoing to be attracted to the
people who are authentic likethat,
Joshua Johnson (33:21):
you know, for what I see in us as I see
somebody who is a learner,somebody that that loves
adventure and wants to connectdeeply with others. That's
pretty difficult when what wasmodeled for most of your life
was the quite the opposite. Itis, don't be vulnerable. Be
(33:42):
certain, be strong, yell and saythis is this is the right way
and don't have any insecurities.
And if you do hide them, right,how do you how do you move into
a new space and learn a totallyopposite completely different
way of life? What does thattransition like to relearn the
(34:02):
way you interact in the world?
Ryan George (34:09):
I learned basically what you're saying is the first
time in my life, I wascontrolled by sticks, not
carrots, right. And what I'velearned is to use my body's
biological dopamine rewardsystem. So when I do some scary
like, BASE jump or bungee jumpor skydive or whatever, I go out
on the wings of airplanes whilethey're doing aerobatic
maneuvers, it's one of my funthings to do.
Joshua Johnson (34:30):
The first the how many people say that?
Ryan George (34:33):
There's only 1300 people in the world who've gone
to the class. It's amazing. It'sincredible. But anyway, I'm
scared like crazy people thinkthat I don't that I do those
things because I'm not scared. Iwas like no, no, I'm actually
scared of heights like I freakout. I do them though because I
am scared because the way ourbody works with dopamine and all
(34:55):
the other adrenaline all theother chemicals we get is the
reward is the roughlyproportional to how scared we
are right? And so it's been thesame in my faithful life, right
when I've asked a question thatI thought was scary, and it was
met with grace, and met withkindness and met with. Alright,
let's talk about that. Yeah. Sothe reward for that becomes
(35:17):
habit forming. Right. So when I,when I have to have a heart, I
hate I nonconfrontational to anend, because the way I grew up,
right, and I've seen my wife,Molly, like, sometimes you have
to address things with people,and I'm so scared. And it's
amazing how many times you goagainst was softly, all the ways
you do it appropriately. You getthere, and then you go, and at
(35:39):
the end of it, you're closerthan when you start. You go, oh,
so what happens is there's thisreward system. When you say,
when you say, I don't know,right? That's a very scary thing
to say, in a faith community, orwhen you say, I'm scared or
whatever it is. That when that'smet now, that's not always met
with what you need, right?
That's we're humans. But Jesushas been so faithful to me that
(36:00):
so many times when I'm scared,relationally, spiritually,
whatever, he's met me there, andthat part of it, too, was
realizing, oh, so I have to havea lot of faith in my harness for
a lot of things that I do. Ihave to have a lot of faith in
the equipment and my pilot,whatever. And Jesus said, The
just shall live by faith. That'sall throughout the New
(36:22):
Testament. Paul said otherpeople said, Well, you can't
have faith unless there's alittle doubt, or a little fear,
or both. So I'm not scared onthe wing of an airplane. Unless
I don't trust my pilot. I don'ttrust my equipment. Right? If
so, faith, the word faith for megoing up meant you're totally
sure of things. Now. I amconfident in my pilot, he's a
former aerobatic Are you stillaerobatic pilot, a former like
(36:44):
Air Force, fighter, whatever.
But it wasn't until I grewcomfortable with him that I grew
less fearful out on the wing, ifthat makes sense. And so this
idea for faith for me is such areal object lesson because so
many times I have to trust. Iremember, I was up in your old
neck of the woods outside ofSeattle, I went to DirtFish
(37:05):
Rally school. And it's where youlearn how to ride rally dry
rally cars, kind of like slideron curves and stuff. And my
instructor kept saying you'rehitting the brake too early.
He's like, I told you not to hitit until I say break. He's like,
You don't trust it. I know whento break because we were driving
at a concrete barrier. He'slike, it's not yet. And he's
like, you lost all your momentumto finish this whole big cool
(37:25):
thing because you needed tobreak before I said, break. You
have to trust me more than youreyes. And once I learned that, I
didn't hit break until he said,Man, I started do some stuff
with a car I've never done in mylife. Right? It's the same
thing. So I have all theseobject lessons. You go, Oh, God,
that's what you mean. And thenthat transferred, not just
(37:45):
spiritually but relationally. Togo. When I say the hard thing to
a friend. When I confront this,or maybe an awkward
encouragement. That's a weirdthing. But in guys worlds,
there's weird things toencourage other guys. When you
say that awkward thing that'smaybe not the most alpha male
NFL, you know, scratch yourchest type of thing. And then
it's received with tears or withsomeone saying, Hey, would you
(38:08):
be would you officiate mywedding? Or, you know, would you
do whatever counseling orwhatever. And so, the rewards
that I've learned, my faithsystem now is built on my
rewards. If
Joshua Johnson (38:21):
that's interesting, What's the scariest
thing you've ever done? How didyou get courage to do it?
Ryan George (38:25):
Become a dad, and I didn't, I came home is there.
But even in that, so like, I, I,this isn't the last chapter of
the book. As I said, so manythings opened up for me and my
family. And that's how I seeJesus, I, I always like to talk
about God through Jesus, not asGod the Father, because
fatherhood is scary for me. AndI said, But God wanted me to
(38:48):
pursue adoption of our daughter,to show me how he pursues our
heart. I get more scared doingrelational stuff than I do
jumping off cliffs or mountainsor whatever.
Joshua Johnson (38:58):
Yeah, relational things are, are scary. And
walking into those things, it'sreally difficult to, to open
yourself up, especially whenyou've been in a situation and a
life that you have been in, it'shard to open up and but once you
continue to see Grace aftergrace, you see your mat with
(39:19):
with loving kindness, and thatyou could actually then start to
move into secure attachment toothers, then you're able to
safely open up with thosepeople. I think that's really
important to be able to do that.
You have your reward system, youhave adventure. What does it
mean for us to have the theadventure of faith? How do we
(39:42):
move into our faith asadventure? And not just a box
that we have to check to say,I've done my my spiritual thing?
What does it look like to haveadventure faith?
Ryan George (40:00):
People have asked me like so do you think
everybody should go out on thewings of an airplane? I don't
have any problem with it. Idon't think it's fish for
everybody and not my wife, rightlike, but what I've said to
people who asked me that is thisbut all of us have something in
the back of our head that we'rescared of. And we need to move
towards that one of my buddiesgave his life to Christ. Not
long after this really weirdencounter, he was at our local
(40:20):
grocery store. And he was shortto pay cash for batteries and he
didn't want to use his companycredit card cuz then you gotta
report into the receipts,whatever else. And some stranger
walked out he, to this day, westill don't know this guy is
he's never been walked all theway from the front of grocery
store, put the amount of changeon the belt that he needed to
walk away. Before he left. Hesaid, Jesus told me to give you
that and just walked away. I waslike that dude at the door.
(40:43):
Again, we don't know his name. Idon't even remember his age. And
from the story, got anassignment from Jesus to go put
$1.47 or whatever was on thebelt and walk away said Jesus
loves you. That was probably theweirdest, scariest thing and,
and that dude probably alsodoesn't know that my buddy John
gave his life to Jesus. Right?
I've been so scared. I was inPortland writing my last book.
(41:04):
And I was had this prop put thismat, exact number of large tip
on there. On your tab. And rightJesus loves you on the on the
receipt. And I struggled forlike three minutes. It's in
there. Come on. I can't this isPortland. Like I've heard about
Portland. This isn't the rightkind of weird, you know. But in
(41:25):
those Mo, we all have that. Alot of times it's relational.
It's to a send a card to thatperson. And, you know, in our
culture, it's not normal for mento send each other cards, call
something out and somebody say,Hey, I saw this in you. And I
just think it should be affirm.
I do it all the time. But it wasit still gets weird. Never gets
(41:46):
easy. It's I think we all havesomething. And it's different
for each of us. Right? Likethere are people who pined to be
parents, I mean, they the allthis discussion about in vitro
fertilization, how much 10s of1000s of dollars and all the
medical procedures to try. Andfor them, being a parent wasn't
courageous at all. Like that'sthe passion of their heart. For
(42:07):
me, that was scarier than doingaerobatics on an airplane out on
the wing, right. And so I thinkwe all have something. And if we
don't have one on a regularbasis, I tell this to people all
the time. If God hasn't given mean uncomfortable assignment,
while I check in with Jesus tobe like, Hey, are we good?
Right? Because if the just shalllive by faith, I have to keep
(42:28):
being put in positions where Ineed faith to go, Oh, I gotta
trust him for this. This is soawkward.
Joshua Johnson (42:36):
Yeah, that's tough to go out. I think one of
the things there is the nudgingthe Holy Spirit, you know, going
into probably, you know, from aspace, I think, grown up, who
probably didn't want to be ableto say, Hey, I hear from the
Holy Spirit, and be able to dodo that, you know, the man of
God in the mouths of God gets todo those things and tells you
(42:58):
what to think. Right? Becausehow do you start to hear the
Najee and the voice of the HolySpirit in your everyday life?
What does that look like foryou? So
Ryan George (43:09):
I don't know if you're familiar with Erwin
McManus, the pastor out in LosAngeles, but he has a saying
that when you say yes to God,His was comes louder and
clearer, louder and clearer. Andwhen you say no, becomes fainter
and fainter and fainter. And soI just got afraid that I would,
I have to say yes to whatever heputs in front of me so that I
don't lose connection to hisvoice. So the first one, one of
(43:30):
the first yeses for me was to goto a church that didn't look
like the one I grew up in. Imean, I was, I didn't tell my
parents. I didn't tell them likenobody. I didn't even tell my
pastor at the time. I was livingout in Indiana, and we sneak to
this other church on theweekends. That was my first Yes.
Right. And then you get otheryeses to go. I'm gonna, I'm
gonna put myself out there andtry a small group thing that I
(43:52):
hear about, I'm going to try.
And eventually, it's not thatthey all build and get bigger
and bigger. It's just that Idon't know for me, the more I
say yes, the more assignments Iget, if
Joshua Johnson (44:02):
somebody is afraid that they're going to
fail. If they say yes, and theymove forward, so they're afraid
of that. Of that? Yes. Is thereanything that you could you
could share to help them havecourage to move into something
even though it may not even workout?
Ryan George (44:22):
Well, I would definitely tell them it may not
work out. It doesn't always inmy life. I also have Furman
peep. This sounds really weird,but I have a friend was like,
It's good that you're scared. Iremember the first time I told
that to somebody. Oh, was it? Itwas one of the adrenaline things
I did. And oh, no, it was me. Iremember the first time I bungee
jumped. I won't swear on yourpodcast, but I swore in front of
(44:44):
Scott. He goes, How are youdoing right now? It's about the
jump. It was 439 feet. Well, I'mlooking down. I'm scared, bleak.
And we're in New Zealand becausethat's good, mate. The more
scared you are, the better theride is down. And so what I tell
people is you're right to bescared. That is a hard
conversation to have with yourwife. That is an awkward moment
(45:05):
with your son. Let's talk aboutthat. What are your prayers?
Like? What would you ask Jesusfor? I like to turn it into a
teaching moment right to go.
Alright, so how do we pray aboutthis? What is the Bible? Are
there any verses? Are there anythings in Jesus example, or in a
study works in the red lettersthat wouldn't speak to this
right now? What did Jesus dowhen it got awkward? And so,
(45:27):
yeah, I tend to affirm the fear.
And it's easy for me, because inmy community around here, I'm
known as adventure guy, rightlike that, oh, that's just fine.
But you can have powerfulmoments when you go, yeah,
that's a natural thing to feelright now. And also, Jesus
designed our systems to feelthis. Like we, he's not one of
(45:52):
the phrases I use all the time,Jesus is not pacing the floor of
heaven, hoping that you pick theright answer. Like, he's just,
he's gonna be with you no matterwhat. And so you don't have to
worry that you're gonna loseJesus's love that you're gonna
lose your faith. Like, I mean,if you're committing a crime,
that's one thing, but I mean,most of the decisions that
people have in front of you go,just be Jesus in that situation.
(46:13):
Figure out what that is. Yeah,
Joshua Johnson (46:16):
that's good. The first time I went bungee jumping
was in New Zealand as well. And,yeah, it was so scary. Like it
was the day after I got married.
And then I jumped off a bridge,you know, that's fantastic. And
then, you know, my wife wasthere as in Queenstown, so my
wife Yeah, and went paragliding.
She wouldn't go bungee jumping,but she's like, I'll, I'll jump
(46:37):
off a mountain. I'll do that. Sowe both had gotten paragliding.
It's a beautiful spot man. Asone of the most beautiful places
right at the bottom of thegondola. Yeah, yeah. So
gorgeous. So amazing. Man, Iwant to go back. Now. Yeah,
maybe for New Zealand's it'stime to go back to New Zealand.
(46:58):
Ryan, what's, what's the hopethat you have for your readers
reading this incredible book,
Ryan George (47:04):
The Day would feel seen. It's been interesting. So
I've given advanced readercopies to I don't know, 100
different people. And the numberone feedback I get from people
is, you wrote that book for melike I, you wrote my story, it's
like, well, that's becausethere's 10s of 1000s of people
in our country with this story.
Maybe Maybe their dad isn't inthe news for sexually abusing a
series of women, that that'skind of niche. But to be in a
(47:26):
high control religion or to totransition from a superstitious
faith to one that gives youlife. So I hope people find
courage to tell their story. Togo, Yeah, I'm, I'm ready to tell
the world. This was me too. Thatwould be huge. It is not a book
to convince people to go tochurch. It tells people how I
(47:48):
found the safe church, you know?
Yeah, I just hope people feelsafe to tell their stories, and
that it leads them to anenvironment where they can tell
because I think it's a chainreaction. Right? When you tell
your story, then it givessomebody else the courage to
tell theirs. And we keep thisgoing until hopefully we can
route more and more of thisstuff out of the church. Yeah,
Joshua Johnson (48:07):
that's, that's my prayer. Over and over, I want
to see the church look likeJesus. And I mean, that's,
that's why we're here with theImam supposed to be the
embodiment of Jesus. To theworld like this, we're supposed
to look exactly like Jesus, Hegave us his gift so that we
could look like him. So and wecould grow up into him who's the
(48:27):
head and that he is full oflove, and grace and compassion.
We need to be morecompassionate, to listen to each
other stories and to be safepeople to be able to receive
those stories. And not to flexwe're really good at deflecting
stories, and we're good atdeflecting things or even
(48:48):
saying, I can't enter into yourstory because I feel pain right
now. And so that's the onlything that I can focus on. I
can't focus on somebody else'sstory. But I know in my life
when I have pain, sorrow thatI'm going through, it actually
also helps me listening to otherpeople's stories is not just for
(49:09):
the person telling the story.
But that goes a long way.
Ryan George (49:13):
Storytelling should it shouldn't surprise that
that's how Jesus designed thechurch to work. Amen. Amen.
James wrote, confess your sinsone to another so that you may
be healed. Now, it's not alwayssins that were confessing. But
that principle works for me, themore I tell my story, the more
healing I find from telling mystory. Yeah. And why why should
(49:34):
we be surprised that that's howit work when that's how the
Bible says it should. Yeah,Jesus said I came to give you
life life more abundant. I cameto set you free. We so many
people in his culture andcurrently in ours, think of that
as like a political freedom orlike a specific mandate. I was
like Nintendo. One of myfavorite verses in the Old
Testament is where God said,Hey, I came to remove your heart
(49:54):
of stone and give you a heart offlesh. In other words, I want
you to feel more not less likeI'm The inventor of emotions,
I'm the inventor of physicality.
I want to inhabit that spacewith you so that you can feel
more. He's like, I want to turnyour RGB levels up. Like I want
your world to be full color. Andyou experience all that. That's
why I gave you so many senses,because I want you to experience
(50:15):
me as much as you can.
Joshua Johnson (50:18):
And we can have all the other conversation
about, about emotions andfeeling Yeah, especially. Okay,
but let's go back to advice thatyou would give to your 21 year
old self. And I think this isthis be helpful for anybody in
your situation when you were 21.
So what, what advice would yougive to yourself now? So
Ryan George (50:36):
I've been listening to your podcasts prepare for
this interview? Yeah. What's thecause? Like, Oh, no. Because I
have a like, Back to the Futureview. Like if I went back to 21
year old me, I think I wouldmess everything up. You know, if
I, I could, I could be a lotwealthier now. But as far as an
aside, has been thinking like,I'd have to have an answer for
Joshua, I have to have ananswer. I, I think what I would
(50:59):
tell 21 year old me is insteadof chasing affirmation, Chase
influence, whether you will everbe noticed, recognize no matter
how many likes you get, nomatter you know, I was bullied
in school, I wasn't one of thecool kids. I tried so hard. Once
a week, the reason I got intoaction sports, was to try to
prove to the world that I wasworth their attention. And I
would turn on that GoPro and I'dsuddenly have courage, do the
(51:20):
things I never had courage to domy life, just hoping for a
little bit of dopamine onFacebook. And I would tell a 21
year old me, Hey, man, you maynot ever get enough of that, if
you believe I'm at all and I do,Kevin traveled all over the
world, you can take that trainall the way out. And it still
won't be enough. But what itfeels like when you see your
influence coming alive and thepeople you disciple, and the
(51:42):
people that you mentor, thatthere's an abundance of that,
and that's plentiful.
Joshua Johnson (51:49):
That's really good. And that goes from the
macro to the micro, right, thatyou're the influences in the
micro areas, the places whereit's in relationships, one to
another, on on a place where youcould actually have
conversations with people,right. And so I think that's
really important. I mean, that'swhat discipleship looks like
this, we're discipling others incommunity in relationship. It
(52:12):
has to be a shared life has tobe part of it. You know, I
could, you know, I can have allthese conversations I want,
that's great. But I have to havea shared life with others to
grow and loving relationshipwith Jesus as well. So that's
good. I love that. That's agreat, great answer you and I
(52:32):
pat it. Good job. Good job.
Anything you've been readingwatching lately, you could
recommend?
Ryan George (52:38):
Absolutely. So I haven't been able to read for
the last three months, becauseof preparing for launch of my
book and whatever else, whateverI can. I've listened to my book
to say that I'm ready to quoteit and whatever. But the last
book I read was the best book Iread in 2024. by Sean Dietrich,
he goes by Shaun of the South, Ithink it's called will the
(52:59):
circle be unbroken, there's aheron on the front cover. And he
lost his dad to suicide when hewas like 12, I think. And it's
about how he put his life backtogether after losing his dad.
And his beautiful it is, for aman who never got a high school
diploma, it is the best writingI've ever read. I've read both
of his books, but that his lasttwo books, but yet, it just I
(53:23):
was in the canyon lands ofTexas, New Years, and right
after fishing or listening tothat book, and he had recorded
it in the same studio that Irecorded mine. That's how I
found out about it. And we'regoing down this canyon, 1600
foot rock walls on either side,going down the Rio Grande,
Mexico on the right, Texas onthe left, and a heron lands in
front of me and follows me, theentire trip outs just stink just
(53:47):
off the end of my canoe. And Ilost it. I just wept. And it was
as if Jesus was saying, I sentyou that book about how to deal
with grieving your father. Rightbefore this time when you'd have
to go and talk to a whole bunchof people about what it is to
lose so much that fatherhoodcarries what church meant to
you, whatever else. And it was avery tender moment with my
(54:08):
heavenly Father. And so maybe Ihave more connected in that book
than most of the people who hearthis or see this would but man
it was it was absolutelypowerful.
Joshua Johnson (54:18):
Yeah, but friends who lost her sister and
really close in a heron came andand that has she was just, you
know, on her porch watching andthat gave her you know, so much
hope that she was still therewith her. It was for some
(54:39):
reason, you know, herons areassigned that God's with us,
which is interesting, you know.
Ryan George (54:47):
Chesapeake Bay, I worked at a golf course that was
built out into the water, and Imowed the greens. You know, it
was, you know, unskilled labor.
And in the morning, you know, myhouse was tumultuous, right? So
work was actually a safe placefor me. Just sit there in the
morning and wash these herons.
They can stand utterly still forhours. And I can't I still
(55:08):
struggled to be still for morethan three minutes because my
thoughts get too much. You goman, I would love to just sit in
that water for 45 minuteswaiting for one fish. Like it's
just so fascinating.
Joshua Johnson (55:18):
I still go back to my memories of setting pens
in the morning, early morningwhen before everybody everybody
gets up. You know, it's it'ssuch a peaceful place to be out
there on the bandstand.
Ryan George (55:31):
They never let me set pens points to you, man. I
was not good enough to do that.
Joshua Johnson (55:37):
Thank you. Thank you. I was advanced. Yeah, maybe
you know, my, my best friend'sfamily on the golf course.
Ryan George (55:43):
Oh, there you go.
You had a nail.
Joshua Johnson (55:45):
I had men. I did had that. So Ryan, how can
people get your book and connectwith you? Where would you like
to point people to?
Ryan George (55:54):
Yeah, so two places, you can follow me on
Instagram, I'm making all myannouncements there. It's I'm at
ride plane. It's ry, Pl A and E.
And then you can order all thevarious versions of my book at
books by ryan.com. Because rightnow you can preorder. And then
as more and more editions areavailable, audiobook, ebook,
whatever they're all be postedright there at books by
ryan.com.
Joshua Johnson (56:13):
Arrived. This is a fantastic book to take people
into your story of, of abuse,but then moving into a place of
reconstruction and being healedby the church and saying that
the church can be a safe placewe can find our community we can
find the people that would wouldshow us a better way, a new way,
a way that looks like Jesus. Andso I do pray that many people
(56:35):
are seeing this, if they're inthis situation, that they could
find their way into safecommunities that will love them.
The way that Jesus loves thesinner, the what the abused, the
outcasts, the the lonely, heloved us all, and he sees us
all. And we as community can dothat for other people. So just
(57:00):
pray that they are able to findthat safe space, and the place
where they're going to be behealed in a way that brings them
to a loving relationship withwith Jesus. And man, because
humans suck sometimes, but she'sgotten away of it for sure. And
we do get in the way of it. So,Ryan, thank you for this book.
(57:23):
And thank you for thisconversation. It was really fun
to talk to you. So thank you somuch.
Ryan George (57:27):
Thanks for having me.
It felt like we were the nerdy version of
(00:02):
church. So like, in school incollege, you know, you're not
one of the cool kids, we knew weweren't medical kids. But what
you start to adapt to is thisfeeling like but we're better,
right? Most fundamentalists willtell you where the purest
version of that faith, right andso it's an insecurity that leads
to arrogance, which is kind ofironic. But what I find in my
life is insecurity and arroganceare two sides of the same coin.
(00:24):
And I just flipped back andforth between the two, they
compensate for each other. Andso you just wrapped more and
more and more in it. As far asrealizing that it was abuse. I
didn't realize I didn't I didn'thave that word for that language
for till I was out for about 15years. It wasn't a instantaneous
thing. If you read the memoirsfrom the Duggar girls, or some
(00:46):
of these other high profilepeople were coming out of
similar background as me,depending on how many years
they've been out of it, you cansee how comfortable they are
talking about that something wasoff. So like you knew some
things were off, you didn't havea label for it, you didn't have
a language for you definitelydidn't have a verse for it.
Joshua Johnson (01:17):
Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create, and the impact we canmake. We longed to see the body
of Christ look like Jesus. I'myour host, Joshua Johnson. Go to
shifting culture podcast.com tointeract and donate. And don't
forget to hit the Follow buttonon your favorite podcast app to
be notified when new episodescome out each week, and go leave
(01:39):
a rating and review. It's easy,it only takes a second and it
helps us find new listeners tothe show. Just go to the Show
page on the app that you'reusing right now and hit five
stars. Thank you so much. Youknow what else would help us
out? share this podcast withyour friends, your family, your
network? Tell them how much youenjoy it and let them know that
(01:59):
they should be listening aswell. If you're new here,
welcome. If you want to digdeeper find us on social media
at shifting culture podcastwhere I post video clips and
quotes and interact with all ofyou. Previous guests on the show
have included Scot McKnight,Jason Van ruler and Jamie
Winship. You can go back listento those episodes and more. But
today's guest is Ryan GeorgeRyan George is the author of
(02:22):
scarce life and word on thestreet. Ryan's latest book is
hurt and healed by the church.
He's the blogger behindexplorance.org And he co founded
and CO leads dude group, aspiritual adventure community in
the Blue Ridge Mountains, wherehe lives with his wife, Crystal
and his daughter Diani. Ryangrew up in an abusive,
independent fundamental BaptistChurch led by his father. In
(02:44):
this conversation, Ryandiscusses how he eventually left
that church and the abuse of hisfather and he started a journey
of healing from the trauma ofhis upbringing. He talks about
some of the unhealthy andabusive behaviors he
experienced. He also talks abouthow he eventually found healthy
church communities that helpedhim heal and come to know Jesus
in a new way. We talk secureattachments, fear and faith and
(03:08):
adventure. So join us as we wadethrough destructive behavior and
trauma and find our way outtowards healthy faith filled
communities centered on Jesus.
Here's my conversation with RyanGeorge Ryan, welcome to shifting
culture. Really excited to haveyou. Thanks for joining me. Oh,
(03:29):
I'm stoked. I'm looking forwardto this. Yeah, it's gonna be
good. But before we get into,you know, some fun adventure
stuff and and we we go into somereconstruction, we have to
actually go into some of yourstory. So we know where you're
starting from. So can you tellme your story growing up with a
(03:52):
independent fundamental Baptistpreacher as a father? What was
that? Like? How was your yourgrowing up? And what was church
for you? Oh, wow. That's a bigquestion. I know it's a big one.
So my parents were actuallyLutheran and Catholic. And then
when I was about four years old,they joined this movement within
(04:14):
the Baptist faith called theindependent fundamental Baptist.
And then there's subsets beneaththere, there's, it just
fractures out from there. And sofrom about the age of four until
I got married, that culture wasall I knew I went to an IFP
college I went to IFP camps. Iwas in an IFP church for
services a week. My dad was byvocational he got a letter to
(04:37):
start a church on an island andChesapeake base. We spent 12
years there while he tried toget that off the ground. But I
was homeschooled and that's nota big surprise. Very, that
turned out here on a lot ofpodcasts, a lot of books I read
his high control religion, a lotof superstition if you do this,
God would do that.
Ryan George (04:55):
And on top of that, which I think is abusive
theology, which is was theoriginal working title, this
book, actually, that I'mpitching right now, but the on
top of that there was alsophysical and verbal abuse in my
home. Later as we would find outthrough podcasts and other
things that my dad was a serialsexual abuser as well. And so
(05:17):
when I got married to missionarykid, and we started to figure
out what do we actually believe,as we was the first time I left
I ever had a shop for a church,I hate to use that term. But you
know, to look around for achurch, I live in a city that
has over 200 churches. So Imean, it's literally a process
of compare and contrast. And andstart asking questions, what do
I actually believe I wasmentored by some really
(05:39):
thoughtful, introspective mindsto ask me some really good
questions at the right point inmy life. And so I escaped that
cultish behavior and have beenon a journey ever since to
overcome the shadow of my dadovercome the shadow the face
system that I had to actuallyfind the real Jesus, the one
that was kept from me for somany years. So
Joshua Johnson (05:59):
what's that like, because you're in the
middle of it. And this is allyou know, you're swimming in
this water where, you know, fishdon't realize that they're in
water, that a lot of times theculture that we're we're in, we
think is, is normal, you thinkthat this is how the world
operates and works? What is itlike being in the midst of that
(06:21):
high controlling religion? Andhaving some spiritual abuse
happen? And how do you start toopen your eyes to it, saying
that this actually isn't Jesus?
This isn't the thing that I'mseeking. And this isn't right.
How do you how do you get tothat spot?
Ryan George (06:42):
So those are two different questions. So what it
felt like, it felt like we werethe nerdy version of church. So
like, in school in college, youknow, you're not one of the cool
kids, we knew we weren't medicalkids. But what you start to
adapt to is this feeling likebut we're better, right? Most
fundamentals will tell you wherethe purest version of that
faith, right. And so it's aninsecurity that leads to
(07:03):
arrogance, which is kind ofironic. But what I find in my
life is insecurity and arroganceare two sides of the same coin.
And I just flipped back andforth between the two, they
compensate for each other. Andso you just wrapped more and
more and more in it. As far asrealizing that it was abuse, I
didn't realize I didn't havethat word for that language for
(07:23):
it till I was out for about 15years. It wasn't a instantaneous
thing. If you read the memoirsfrom the Duggar girls, or some
of these other high profile,people were coming out of
similar background as me,depending on how many years
they've been out of it, you cansee how comfortable they are
talking about that something wasoff. So like you knew some
things were off, he didn't havea label for it, you didn't have
(07:45):
a language for you definitelydidn't have a verse for it. You
know, and so what changed in mewas seeing the exact opposite,
right to be in faithenvironments, whether my church
or parish church, or whatever,where you go, Oh, that's what
that's supposed to look like.
Like, that person actually lookslike they love Jesus, and like,
they're overwhelmed by him on adaily basis. That isn't such
contrast, like how they parenttheir kids, how their kids look
(08:09):
at them, right? Or how theytreat their wife or how they
talk about culture, how theytalk about people different than
them. You know, I want to belike that person. And then as
you talk to him is, and thishappened to me so many times, as
in like church now, if you werelooking at like your, you did
what? Like your you guys didwhat, like, your college guys
(08:30):
and girls had separate sidewalksand elevators and staircases,
like, just some of the rules wehad, like, I wasn't allowed to
talk to a girl before 730 In themorning like that. When I went
to propose to my wife, my littlebrother had to come with, Hey,
I'm at my grandma's house. I'mat my grandma's house and my
(08:51):
brother had to come with. Solike, there's just so many guys,
what, what in the world did weend they had a Bible verse for
everything, right? I'm
Joshua Johnson (09:01):
just now trying to think about people that are
in a similar situation that youwere. And I think that some
people don't realize thatthey're in that similar
situation, is it possible tostart to detangle some of these
things and realize what is goingon. without stepping back and
away from I know your story islike you had to get away from
(09:25):
it. And you said the Duggargirls as well. And some of the
Duggars are like, I have to stepaway. And then I realized this
is what was actually going on.
Is there any way that we canstart to detangle some of this
abuse certain control in thechurch while we're inside of it,
Ryan George (09:44):
inside of the Big C church? Yes. Inside of the
church where this is happening?
I don't think so. Because you'llstart asking questions and
questions aren't allowed. And Iwas I was physically abused for
asking In questions, right, likehe just when they didn't have an
answer, and when I called him onan answer we like, I remember
(10:04):
having these arguments with mydad. And he would just because
he couldn't, it's notsustainable to say, this is how
Jesus would do it right, like,and so he had to, he had to,
quote unquote, man up, he had tobe aggressive on that. So I
don't know. Now, whether you endup in a church, you know, that
has services on Sunday, whetherit's a faith community where
(10:26):
it's people who believe inJesus, but have been wounded,
and maybe their therapistsituation or counseling group or
survivor. It can take differentforms. And it has for me, my
counselor has a saying, I reallyappreciate that. She said,
insecure attachment is healedthrough secure attachment.
Relational wounds, are healedthrough healthy relationships.
And she said, church wounds arehealed through healthy church
(10:49):
situations. And so I, I fullygive grace to people who are
ready to come back to what youand I might describe as a church
service or a church environmentfor a while. But I have found,
whether it's hiking with people,or traveling with people, or
going out to coffee, whatever,that the connection to people
who have a healthy spiritualityeventually will lead you back to
(11:12):
places where more people likethat are hanging out.
Joshua Johnson (11:16):
That's one of the big things that we got
trained in to work with traumavictims, which we were with
Syrian refugees is that one ofthe first things to do is to
create some some good memories.
So the first thing that they goback to is not that the trauma,
the wounds of the past, they goback to those good memories. And
so, you know, we did things likeyou know, we had pen Jada's for
(11:38):
Syrian refugees. So we hadMexican culture in the midst of
Syrian culture, you know, we hadto go at different parties. We
had some groups we did a lot of,you know, Bible studies, Sharon
Jesus stories, there's all sortsof storytelling we did and but
it was the activities that wedid. So that can create new
memories. What are some of thosethings as you talk about secure
attachments, and you're talkingabout a new things to heal the
(12:01):
wounds of your past? What aresome of the things that you
started to engage in so thatyour, the wounds of your past
can become something that youcan heal from and move on? Yes,
Ryan George (12:16):
a lot of it for me is outdoor adventures. So my
number one spiritual pathway,depending on which framework you
use, there's like seven or ninedifferent spiritual pathways, my
perimeter one is nature, which Iactually didn't get a lot of as
a kid. And so my one of mypastors is a trained wilderness
guide. And other one isincredible wilderness,
Whitewater, kayaker, IceClimber, you know, all these
things. And so going outside andexperiencing an environment
(12:41):
where instead of pulpit and rowsand stuff is just projected at
me, and you don't ask questionswhere we're sitting around a
campfire, you know, we're havingthese road trips, you know,
those kinds of things. And theBible says that I lead now, I
think we had guys, four or five,maybe six different churches
that comes every Wednesdaynight, we just sit around a
fire, there's no teaching, youknow, it's all the egalitarian
(13:03):
around the circle. It's thoseenvironments where people were
Jesus to me, and let me askquestions, or ask me questions.
And let me go wrestle. Iremember, the first environment
where a lot of this started tocrack. I just told this guy this
Sunday. So this is 18 years ago,this month, I said, you and your
wife, were leading our smallgroup. And I've never been in a
(13:24):
small group. That was the firsttime I've ever done that in a
church. And I said, you guyswere struggling with
infertility. And you said outloud, we're having a really hard
time believing that God is good,right. And we were within the
church walls, you know, and thatutter honesty and authenticity
just went, Whoa, that's allowedhere. Like you're allowed to say
those things out loud. And sothen some of the other things
(13:44):
like some of the things that mydad told me, were secular, that
weren't holy, that we shouldn'tpursue that I started to do,
working with anticipation thatJesus would show up in them. I
started to see him way moreplaces than I was told that I
can experience God, which makessense, right? Because if you are
a man of God, which is what arecalled called the pastor, and
(14:07):
you you only interact with Jesusat the house of God, he's the
one controlling the spigot ofhow much God you get, right? And
so there's, that's where thecontrol comes in. So if you find
out, Oh, I don't have to go tothat place and that guy to turn
on the spigot to get it formyself. Well, then you can start
to see Jesus all over the place.
And my last book, what I wroteabout so I'm an adventure travel
guy. I've been all sevencontinents, both polar circles.
(14:29):
I've I found Jesus in a wholebunch of places I never thought
he would be. And he's beenfaithful in that way.
Joshua Johnson (14:37):
As a side note, I think, I don't know if you've
read Jesse Crookshanks book,ordinary discipleship, but she
was a wilderness guide for manyyears. Yeah, I read though, and,
yeah, so I just think he was awilderness guide and takes a lot
of constant work from outdoorsand talks about discipleship.
It's rarely go the
Ryan George (14:54):
way that they're trained in our town and other of
these long term wildernessguides you Steve go, Okay, you
just did something uncomfortablethat you didn't know you could
do or you didn't think you coulddo. What's something back home
that's uncomfortable, whetherit's in your faith, it's a
relationship, whatever that nowyou know that that's an
arbitrary line. And so there areso many parallels. I mean, Jesus
(15:15):
did the same thing withparables, right? He's walking
around it goes, here's a figtree. Let's talk about that.
Okay, here's a whitewater river.
Let's talk, you know, and forme, because that's my primary
spiritual pathway. I'm, I'mwired for that.
Joshua Johnson (15:26):
Yeah. Now, it's amazing. I love being outside.
In nature. I love creation.
Growing up in Seattle is the youknow, I thought that I thought
the whole world looked like thatuntil I'm going up to the edge
of a desert and an ugly town.
But you know, what I love aboutyour book hurt and heal by by
the church. It actually takesthe dysfunctions of church and
(15:49):
then shows us an a new way. Theso what are unsafe churches? And
then what are healthy churcheslook back and you go like every
chapter, you're you're into anew, a new health of, of church.
And so contrasting, unhealthy,unsafe, unhealthy to healthy as
you were starting to, to writesome of those things. Was there
(16:12):
anything that you started torealize that you were growing up
in or even the churchexperiences that you have now
that were unhealthy and unsafe,that you didn't actually
realize? Until you startedwriting? And digging deeper into
what this is? That'sfascinating,
Ryan George (16:32):
I haven't thought about that. I'm sure there, I'm
sure some of the details forsure. how pervasive something
is, when I started writing aboutthe silencing of women, I think
that's the longest chapter in abook. And I didn't start out for
that to be true. But my wife isa gifted disciple, where one of
our pastors stepped off ofprofessional pastoring to go
(16:54):
into marketplace. And when he,he's still at our church, he
serves me on Sundays. But whenhe left, he said, your wife is
the best recycler that we havein this in this community. And
it's true. I mean, I there'sconstant women in our house
being counseled to, I see mywife's location checker. She's
in a different person's houseall day long. She's just, and I
went, Oh, not letting my wife dothat, which my dad wouldn't have
(17:19):
allowed, right. And high controlreligion that women women don't
minister? How much that'sconnected to abuse? How much
guys are men in particular,insecure that women might do
ministry better? That wasprobably one of the ones that
was a big aha moment for me.
Yeah, there's, there's severalthose were I knew all of them,
(17:39):
because obviously, I outlined itbefore I started writing. But as
I got into it, oh, this is waymore pervasive than what I
thought it was. It wassurprising, and I knew it
physically. I've spent so muchtime in my counselor's office,
talking, trying to feel thingsbecause for some years, I
wouldn't listen to my body.
Because my boss told me to run,right. And I wrote a, I wrote a
(18:03):
chapter on the war motif, andanother chapter on anger, and
how everything about thechurches I grew up was based in
anger, like there was everythingand I started quoting a whole
bunch of pastors, names out ofthe books, one of them because
the guide certain assuming if Idid, but I never realized how
much my faith was built onanger, and, and just being
(18:27):
taught off all the time. So
Joshua Johnson (18:29):
what does that do? If you we get into this
place of anger, and I think evenin this political day and age in
America that we live in, we'reangry, to try and get somebody
to to our side and not Jesus,Jesus did something a little bit
different. As he interacted withpeople. He he was angry at
(18:52):
times, you know, he flipped sometables at the temple because
they were misusing the temple,selling selling things for
profit, when this is a place ofworship, so how do you how do we
wrestle with that and deal withthat as we're starting to talk
to people and to get away fromour our angry positions that we
(19:15):
start to try and woo peoplethrough anger? Is there a new
way? What's a better way, a waythat we should enter into?
Ryan George (19:23):
So two answers on that first is anger doesn't woo
anybody, but other angry people,right? Like this show that's
like everybody's talking abouthis love his blind show. Nobody
comes in there and just goes ontirades and try to attract
somebody, like when you're onTinder, and you get you finally
get to date or whatever appBumble or whatever, I never use
the app. I'm not all but you geton a date and you don't show up
(19:44):
and just start putting somebodyon blast that doesn't. It's not
attractive. And so I don't Idon't think that I realized
definitely, the movement I cameout of realized how unattractive
it was. But the other part Idon't think they realize part
two is that that wasn't Jesus'smodus operandi. That was his
exception, if anything, that thefact that it only happened once.
(20:07):
And in the recording of hisministry, he didn't deputize he
didn't go, Hey, guys, you guysbuild some whips to once you
flipped some tables, he therewas no hey, go do likewise there
are other things that Jesus saidgo and do likewise. Or do is if
you've seen me do or whatever,he didn't turn around his
disciples like, this is how wedo this. This that was the
exception to the rule. And itwas incredibly meek, because
(20:29):
that dude could have just said,gone, and there would be
nothing, there'll be nomolecules in front of it. And so
I actually see that scene asthat a lot of the angry people
of my youth use as justificationfor their anger as actually
demonstrating the exact oppositelike das Jesus, is meekness on
display. That's
Joshua Johnson (20:49):
really good to think through that. So what does
it look like to enter in meeklyinto conversation? And with
people? How do we do that? Well,asking,
Ryan George (21:00):
asking soft questions. There's a question
that we ask all the time of thefaith environments that I'm in,
you're just like, hey, help meunderstand that? What's going on
inside of you? I'll ask a guy.
What have you been praying aboutthis week? Because I usually
shows where his anxiety is,right? And if he says, I don't,
I couldn't pray this week, butokay. So what's behind that? You
know, I think seeking tounderstand coming and going. So
(21:20):
I went on a trip last year, twoor two years ago to the Faroe
Islands out in the NorthAtlantic. And the guy was was
far from Jesus grew up aroundministry seen the dark
underbelly of it said, I'm notgonna have a party, and he said
on the trip, and I was like,Okay, so what's bringing you
live, you know, and eventually,you can get into some really
(21:41):
cool conversations. Right? Ikeep coming back to the word
winsome, that Jesus's there werepeople, every buddy, from every
perspective, Jew and Gentile,male and female, rich and poor,
religious and not everybody wasattracted to Jesus. Why was
that? Because no matter how youcame to him, he was ready for
(22:02):
you and welcoming it before hetold the rich young ruler to go
sell everything. The Bible tellsus, and Jesus must have told His
disciples this because this isnot something he said out loud.
It said Jesus had compassion onit. Like there's this whole,
before he told the woman who wascaught underneath her adultery
goes into more before you that,hey, I don't condemn you.
There's this approach ability toto go, Hey, you can say whatever
(22:25):
you need to say in front of me,and I'm not going to, I'm not
going to judge you for it. Now.
I've had guys confessed tomolesting their daughter. I did.
You know, I've had guys confessto some things in their
marriage. There are action stepson that. But but even there are
softer ways to do that, too. Youknow?
Joshua Johnson (22:44):
You said they're softer ways to do that. Okay. i
That's, that's curious for me.
So if I'm in a situation wheresomebody is revealing, you know,
a, a sin. To me, that is notjust a we have to deal with this
together, you repent to theLord. But it's something we
actually have to report. And wehave to give to the authorities
(23:06):
because this is we just have toget you away for a while. It's
my that situation. How do you dothat? In a softer way, that
shows compassion to the personthat's in front of you, when it
is a vile situation. Yeah,
Ryan George (23:28):
I remember after the guy confessed at a table, I
was in a restaurant, the guyconfessed to me. I've been
pouring into this guy now. We'renot friends on Facebook anymore.
Like I'm not. We reported it. Hewent and served his time.
There's a registry that he isgoing to be off for however long
our state does that. But Iprayed over him. I put my hand
on their shoulder and I pray toHim because He knows what's
(23:48):
coming next. Right? You go, hey,it took her Ecoli what was true,
it took courage to tell us thatAndy Stanley has a saying that I
really like quote it all thetime, is some things are not
problems to be managed. Thereare problems to be solved their
tensions to be managed. Andthere's a tension there going, I
forgive us in my family, Iforgive my dad, and I pray
(24:10):
probably three times a month,Dear God, how we continue to
forgive my dad when I feel theseemotions come up. But at the
same time, would you soften hisheart and heal? You know, and
while that both of those aretrue, I also don't I'm not
physically around my dad, I donot answer his texts. He's not
allowed around my daughter, mywife, you know, so it's, it's
not there's no clear cut answersto these.
Joshua Johnson (24:32):
You know, we're right now in Kansas City. You
know, there's, you know, IHOPKansas City dealing with a lot
of abuse, sexual abuse ofminors, like of you know, Mike
pickle, so there's a lot ofrelief from like, oh my gosh,
like, what have I been in? Andwe have had some people come
(24:53):
from IHOP to our church and comein and, and joining and right
now they're they're in A lot ofpain. There's a lot of you know,
it's it's really hard for themto trust a another congregation
to trust the church to say, isthis going to be okay? Like, I
love Jesus, I want to be aroundpeople who love Jesus. But I
(25:17):
don't know if I can trust thechurch right now. How so? For
people like that, that arecoming out of this, these
revelations that they didn'tquite see. And now everything is
really, what are some steps totake in that healing process
moving forward? For these groupsof people?
Ryan George (25:38):
Yeah, I think one of the first things to do is to
acknowledge with them, yes, thisis disorienting, you know, did
it go? This conflict? Do youfeel that is totally reasonable,
you don't have to come back to achurch building out of guilt. I
definitely recommend there govisit a therapist, particularly
a Christian therapist trained ineither high control religion or
(25:59):
abuse, trauma, recovery,whatever, which is what I see.
Or who I see. I had thisconversation two weeks ago, a
friend of mine, she had a badexperience at our church. Right?
It wasn't abuse, like how wewould define it. But it was a
really uncomfortable situationthat now every time she walks in
the building, it's triggering toher. As like, you need to know
(26:20):
like, we love you. We love ourchurch, we love you. But we're
okay that you don't feel safehere. Please keep looking for a
safe place. I think there's somany deconstruction's podcasts
and books, I've read a wholebunch of them in preparation for
this press tour and for writingmy own book is to go. I think
what a lot of people do is theyjust they keep running and and
(26:43):
they never get it fixed. Theynever go. They never ask their
soul the level of questionslike, What did i What did I love
about being in a faithcommunity? What do I miss about
being in faith community? Andwhere can I get that in smaller
doses and safe ways? And thenwork myself back at the point
isn't for us all to go to Sundayservice, the point of us all is
(27:05):
to be connected to Jesus withother people who are connected
to Jesus. Some
Joshua Johnson (27:08):
people might say, I can't do it a Sunday
morning service. That's thething that feels very unsafe for
me. And triggering, how canpeople start to find their Jesus
community and a community thatis safe to move forward? If it
isn't a Sunday morning service?
What is that? What arecommunities out in the wild look
(27:30):
like? That are like surroundedsaying Jesus is our center and
we're gonna move forwardtogether as a community? That's
healthy?
Ryan George (27:41):
That's an interesting question, because I
didn't. This sounds reallyweird. I didn't go looking for
it. It found me. There was oneenvironment in our church that I
absolutely loved. And it gotshut down because it was
dwindling. Numbers don't runnumbers. And but the model of it
I absolutely loved. And so Ijust went out, started my own
and started writing guys from inmy life, just say, Hey, you have
(28:03):
Jesus and you have a version ofJesus that I like, we started
with three guys. And now there'salmost 40 guys in the group
text, right? There was a guygoing through a hard season, I
just said, Hey, I'll tell you, Idon't have curriculum. I don't
know, I'm not a trainer. Iwasn't even in therapy. At this
time. I didn't know anything. Hewas going through a hard time. I
was like, let's meet everyone'sand I read a chapter of a book
(28:24):
from Bob Gough, we'll pray overeach other. You know, whatever
it is to help you come throughyard get you through the week to
Sunday. So I just startedlooking for people one at a
time. And now what's funny is,wives will come to me and
they'll say, Hey, I've heardabout this thing that you guys
have gone down at the park onWednesday nights. Would you be
cool with my husband doing orcould you reach out to my
(28:46):
husband or whatever? So I don'tknow exactly if there's a
prescriptive way to do it.
Because we've done it on thedownload. My wife's the ministry
that she started that now aspart of our church. They were
not they're affiliated with ourchurch when they started but
they were a home they pray theirhome thing. So I don't know
that. I would hope no matterwhat you came out of that Jesus
(29:06):
would give you one person thatlooks real in your life whether
that's somebody you meet online,or follow on Instagram or Yeah,
I don't That's a really toughquestion. I feel very blessed
because mine fell into my lifeat the exact moment I needed
them and some of them like ayear or two before I really
needed you know
Joshua Johnson (29:28):
yeah yeah. I think that's one of the things
that we're we're wrestling witha little bit within our church
is that there's some people havea big desire for that. I think
men especially have a desire forfor deeper connection with other
men but don't actually know howto go about like, reaching out
(29:49):
they feel vulnerable, insecurehave like a opening up to the
place of saying I need somebodynow can you meet with me? Can
you be with me? And I'm reallyappreciative of the people that
reach out to me and say, Hey,can we meet we talk because it's
easier to receive something likethat it's hard for somebody to,
(30:11):
to make that first move. How,what, as you're hanging out and
doing these, this thing with,with all these these men? How do
men start to reach across andsaying, I need connection? I
need help in this place. Let's,let's meet, what are some ways
that men can, can do that?
Ryan George (30:32):
Well, let me back up and say one of the things I
think we can claim the promiseof Jesus, he said, If you seek
Me, you will find me if you seekwith your own heart. And I think
Jesus, the way he designed thechurch should be he wants people
to be in spiritual community,with him and with others. So I
think if, if you don't have thatone person be praying for it,
God will bring that person toyou. As far as how to make men
(30:53):
comfortable in thoseenvironments. One of my mentors
gave me a imperative severalyears ago. He said, give men the
gift of going second. And sowhenever I'm in an environment,
particularly when there's newguys, like guys will come to sit
around the fire for a week. Andyou can see him there looking
around, how does this? How doesthis group work? What's the
(31:16):
dynamics here. And so what Itried to do is, whatever level
of authenticity I want, thoseguys to eventually get to, I
have to model. So I have to say,I'm struggling in my marriage
this week with x, or I've reallybeen wrestling with this truth
that Jesus did, or for me, so Inever wanted to be a dad, you
(31:37):
can read about the book, all theabuse that I had, as a kid, I
just didn't want to be a dad, Ididn't trust myself. And God, I
sick, bless me against my will,I was on a helicopter expedition
up in British Columbia, and getback to civilization. There's a
text saying, Oh, by the way,young lady sought refuge in your
home. Long story short, she'snow my daughter. So I went from
(31:57):
actively trying not to be a dad,to all of a sudden, I am a dad,
you know, to then pursuingadoption. And so just to be
real, my guys be like, Hey,guys, you guys know, I had all
three versions of the vasectomy,make sure this wouldn't happen.
And here I am. And I have a 15year old African American
daughter now like, I'm scared,or I don't know what to do. I've
(32:19):
never washed a bra from somebodyother than my wife, like, what
do you do with this? Right? Idon't know if that I got that
specific. But just to be like,I, I didn't save to this, I
don't have money to buy her acar, I don't have money to put
her through college. So thelevel of authenticity that the
person who starts theconversation sets the tone for
the circle. And I've seen thatin multiple shape environments,
(32:42):
not just mine. It's interesting,because therapy doesn't work
that way, right? Like yourtherapist doesn't tell them,
they can't tell you so much. Butoutside of therapy, that has
been true of almost everyenvironment where I left,
feeling like my heart was seen.
And my soul was felt by anotherman. Another parishioner was,
somebody went first. And I've,I've been with grown men crying
(33:03):
in an airport in South America,confessing some they never, you
know, I've been going throughthis, and I never told anybody
about their job, their marriage,or kids, or whatever it is. So
if we give people the gift ofgoing second, and again, if
we're looking for it, people aregoing to be attracted to the
people who are authentic likethat,
Joshua Johnson (33:21):
you know, for what I see in us as I see
somebody who is a learner,somebody that that loves
adventure and wants to connectdeeply with others. That's
pretty difficult when what wasmodeled for most of your life
was the quite the opposite. Itis, don't be vulnerable. Be
(33:42):
certain, be strong, yell and saythis is this is the right way
and don't have any insecurities.
And if you do hide them, right,how do you how do you move into
a new space and learn a totallyopposite completely different
way of life? What does thattransition like to relearn the
(34:02):
way you interact in the world?
Ryan George (34:09):
I learned basically what you're saying is the first
time in my life, I wascontrolled by sticks, not
carrots, right. And what I'velearned is to use my body's
biological dopamine rewardsystem. So when I do some scary
like, BASE jump or bungee jumpor skydive or whatever, I go out
on the wings of airplanes whilethey're doing aerobatic
maneuvers, it's one of my funthings to do.
Joshua Johnson (34:30):
The first the how many people say that?
Ryan George (34:33):
There's only 1300 people in the world who've gone
to the class. It's amazing. It'sincredible. But anyway, I'm
scared like crazy people thinkthat I don't that I do those
things because I'm not scared. Iwas like no, no, I'm actually
scared of heights like I freakout. I do them though because I
am scared because the way ourbody works with dopamine and all
(34:55):
the other adrenaline all theother chemicals we get is the
reward is the roughlyproportional to how scared we
are right? And so it's been thesame in my faithful life, right
when I've asked a question thatI thought was scary, and it was
met with grace, and met withkindness and met with. Alright,
let's talk about that. Yeah. Sothe reward for that becomes
(35:17):
habit forming. Right. So when I,when I have to have a heart, I
hate I nonconfrontational to anend, because the way I grew up,
right, and I've seen my wife,Molly, like, sometimes you have
to address things with people,and I'm so scared. And it's
amazing how many times you goagainst was softly, all the ways
you do it appropriately. You getthere, and then you go, and at
(35:39):
the end of it, you're closerthan when you start. You go, oh,
so what happens is there's thisreward system. When you say,
when you say, I don't know,right? That's a very scary thing
to say, in a faith community, orwhen you say, I'm scared or
whatever it is. That when that'smet now, that's not always met
with what you need, right?
That's we're humans. But Jesushas been so faithful to me that
(36:00):
so many times when I'm scared,relationally, spiritually,
whatever, he's met me there, andthat part of it, too, was
realizing, oh, so I have to havea lot of faith in my harness for
a lot of things that I do. Ihave to have a lot of faith in
the equipment and my pilot,whatever. And Jesus said, The
just shall live by faith. That'sall throughout the New
(36:22):
Testament. Paul said otherpeople said, Well, you can't
have faith unless there's alittle doubt, or a little fear,
or both. So I'm not scared onthe wing of an airplane. Unless
I don't trust my pilot. I don'ttrust my equipment. Right? If
so, faith, the word faith for megoing up meant you're totally
sure of things. Now. I amconfident in my pilot, he's a
former aerobatic Are you stillaerobatic pilot, a former like
(36:44):
Air Force, fighter, whatever.
But it wasn't until I grewcomfortable with him that I grew
less fearful out on the wing, ifthat makes sense. And so this
idea for faith for me is such areal object lesson because so
many times I have to trust. Iremember, I was up in your old
neck of the woods outside ofSeattle, I went to DirtFish
(37:05):
Rally school. And it's where youlearn how to ride rally dry
rally cars, kind of like slideron curves and stuff. And my
instructor kept saying you'rehitting the brake too early.
He's like, I told you not to hitit until I say break. He's like,
You don't trust it. I know whento break because we were driving
at a concrete barrier. He'slike, it's not yet. And he's
like, you lost all your momentumto finish this whole big cool
(37:25):
thing because you needed tobreak before I said, break. You
have to trust me more than youreyes. And once I learned that, I
didn't hit break until he said,Man, I started do some stuff
with a car I've never done in mylife. Right? It's the same
thing. So I have all theseobject lessons. You go, Oh, God,
that's what you mean. And thenthat transferred, not just
(37:45):
spiritually but relationally. Togo. When I say the hard thing to
a friend. When I confront this,or maybe an awkward
encouragement. That's a weirdthing. But in guys worlds,
there's weird things toencourage other guys. When you
say that awkward thing that'smaybe not the most alpha male
NFL, you know, scratch yourchest type of thing. And then
it's received with tears or withsomeone saying, Hey, would you
(38:08):
be would you officiate mywedding? Or, you know, would you
do whatever counseling orwhatever. And so, the rewards
that I've learned, my faithsystem now is built on my
rewards. If
Joshua Johnson (38:21):
that's interesting, What's the scariest
thing you've ever done? How didyou get courage to do it?
Ryan George (38:25):
Become a dad, and I didn't, I came home is there.
But even in that, so like, I, I,this isn't the last chapter of
the book. As I said, so manythings opened up for me and my
family. And that's how I seeJesus, I, I always like to talk
about God through Jesus, not asGod the Father, because
fatherhood is scary for me. AndI said, But God wanted me to
(38:48):
pursue adoption of our daughter,to show me how he pursues our
heart. I get more scared doingrelational stuff than I do
jumping off cliffs or mountainsor whatever.
Joshua Johnson (38:58):
Yeah, relational things are, are scary. And
walking into those things, it'sreally difficult to, to open
yourself up, especially whenyou've been in a situation and a
life that you have been in, it'shard to open up and but once you
continue to see Grace aftergrace, you see your mat with
(39:19):
with loving kindness, and thatyou could actually then start to
move into secure attachment toothers, then you're able to
safely open up with thosepeople. I think that's really
important to be able to do that.
You have your reward system, youhave adventure. What does it
mean for us to have the theadventure of faith? How do we
(39:42):
move into our faith asadventure? And not just a box
that we have to check to say,I've done my my spiritual thing?
What does it look like to haveadventure faith?
Ryan George (40:00):
People have asked me like so do you think
everybody should go out on thewings of an airplane? I don't
have any problem with it. Idon't think it's fish for
everybody and not my wife, rightlike, but what I've said to
people who asked me that is thisbut all of us have something in
the back of our head that we'rescared of. And we need to move
towards that one of my buddiesgave his life to Christ. Not
long after this really weirdencounter, he was at our local
(40:20):
grocery store. And he was shortto pay cash for batteries and he
didn't want to use his companycredit card cuz then you gotta
report into the receipts,whatever else. And some stranger
walked out he, to this day, westill don't know this guy is
he's never been walked all theway from the front of grocery
store, put the amount of changeon the belt that he needed to
walk away. Before he left. Hesaid, Jesus told me to give you
that and just walked away. I waslike that dude at the door.
(40:43):
Again, we don't know his name. Idon't even remember his age. And
from the story, got anassignment from Jesus to go put
$1.47 or whatever was on thebelt and walk away said Jesus
loves you. That was probably theweirdest, scariest thing and,
and that dude probably alsodoesn't know that my buddy John
gave his life to Jesus. Right?
I've been so scared. I was inPortland writing my last book.
(41:04):
And I was had this prop put thismat, exact number of large tip
on there. On your tab. And rightJesus loves you on the on the
receipt. And I struggled forlike three minutes. It's in
there. Come on. I can't this isPortland. Like I've heard about
Portland. This isn't the rightkind of weird, you know. But in
(41:25):
those Mo, we all have that. Alot of times it's relational.
It's to a send a card to thatperson. And, you know, in our
culture, it's not normal for mento send each other cards, call
something out and somebody say,Hey, I saw this in you. And I
just think it should be affirm.
I do it all the time. But it wasit still gets weird. Never gets
(41:46):
easy. It's I think we all havesomething. And it's different
for each of us. Right? Likethere are people who pined to be
parents, I mean, they the allthis discussion about in vitro
fertilization, how much 10s of1000s of dollars and all the
medical procedures to try. Andfor them, being a parent wasn't
courageous at all. Like that'sthe passion of their heart. For
(42:07):
me, that was scarier than doingaerobatics on an airplane out on
the wing, right. And so I thinkwe all have something. And if we
don't have one on a regularbasis, I tell this to people all
the time. If God hasn't given mean uncomfortable assignment,
while I check in with Jesus tobe like, Hey, are we good?
Right? Because if the just shalllive by faith, I have to keep
(42:28):
being put in positions where Ineed faith to go, Oh, I gotta
trust him for this. This is soawkward.
Joshua Johnson (42:36):
Yeah, that's tough to go out. I think one of
the things there is the nudgingthe Holy Spirit, you know, going
into probably, you know, from aspace, I think, grown up, who
probably didn't want to be ableto say, Hey, I hear from the
Holy Spirit, and be able to dodo that, you know, the man of
God in the mouths of God gets todo those things and tells you
(42:58):
what to think. Right? Becausehow do you start to hear the
Najee and the voice of the HolySpirit in your everyday life?
What does that look like foryou? So
Ryan George (43:09):
I don't know if you're familiar with Erwin
McManus, the pastor out in LosAngeles, but he has a saying
that when you say yes to God,His was comes louder and
clearer, louder and clearer. Andwhen you say no, becomes fainter
and fainter and fainter. And soI just got afraid that I would,
I have to say yes to whatever heputs in front of me so that I
don't lose connection to hisvoice. So the first one, one of
(43:30):
the first yeses for me was to goto a church that didn't look
like the one I grew up in. Imean, I was, I didn't tell my
parents. I didn't tell them likenobody. I didn't even tell my
pastor at the time. I was livingout in Indiana, and we sneak to
this other church on theweekends. That was my first Yes.
Right. And then you get otheryeses to go. I'm gonna, I'm
gonna put myself out there andtry a small group thing that I
(43:52):
hear about, I'm going to try.
And eventually, it's not thatthey all build and get bigger
and bigger. It's just that Idon't know for me, the more I
say yes, the more assignments Iget, if
Joshua Johnson (44:02):
somebody is afraid that they're going to
fail. If they say yes, and theymove forward, so they're afraid
of that. Of that? Yes. Is thereanything that you could you
could share to help them havecourage to move into something
even though it may not even workout?
Ryan George (44:22):
Well, I would definitely tell them it may not
work out. It doesn't always inmy life. I also have Furman
peep. This sounds really weird,but I have a friend was like,
It's good that you're scared. Iremember the first time I told
that to somebody. Oh, was it? Itwas one of the adrenaline things
I did. And oh, no, it was me. Iremember the first time I bungee
jumped. I won't swear on yourpodcast, but I swore in front of
(44:44):
Scott. He goes, How are youdoing right now? It's about the
jump. It was 439 feet. Well, I'mlooking down. I'm scared, bleak.
And we're in New Zealand becausethat's good, mate. The more
scared you are, the better theride is down. And so what I tell
people is you're right to bescared. That is a hard
conversation to have with yourwife. That is an awkward moment
(45:05):
with your son. Let's talk aboutthat. What are your prayers?
Like? What would you ask Jesusfor? I like to turn it into a
teaching moment right to go.
Alright, so how do we pray aboutthis? What is the Bible? Are
there any verses? Are there anythings in Jesus example, or in a
study works in the red lettersthat wouldn't speak to this
right now? What did Jesus dowhen it got awkward? And so,
(45:27):
yeah, I tend to affirm the fear.
And it's easy for me, because inmy community around here, I'm
known as adventure guy, rightlike that, oh, that's just fine.
But you can have powerfulmoments when you go, yeah,
that's a natural thing to feelright now. And also, Jesus
designed our systems to feelthis. Like we, he's not one of
(45:52):
the phrases I use all the time,Jesus is not pacing the floor of
heaven, hoping that you pick theright answer. Like, he's just,
he's gonna be with you no matterwhat. And so you don't have to
worry that you're gonna loseJesus's love that you're gonna
lose your faith. Like, I mean,if you're committing a crime,
that's one thing, but I mean,most of the decisions that
people have in front of you go,just be Jesus in that situation.
(46:13):
Figure out what that is. Yeah,
Joshua Johnson (46:16):
that's good. The first time I went bungee jumping
was in New Zealand as well. And,yeah, it was so scary. Like it
was the day after I got married.
And then I jumped off a bridge,you know, that's fantastic. And
then, you know, my wife wasthere as in Queenstown, so my
wife Yeah, and went paragliding.
She wouldn't go bungee jumping,but she's like, I'll, I'll jump
(46:37):
off a mountain. I'll do that. Sowe both had gotten paragliding.
It's a beautiful spot man. Asone of the most beautiful places
right at the bottom of thegondola. Yeah, yeah. So
gorgeous. So amazing. Man, Iwant to go back. Now. Yeah,
maybe for New Zealand's it'stime to go back to New Zealand.
(46:58):
Ryan, what's, what's the hopethat you have for your readers
reading this incredible book,
Ryan George (47:04):
The Day would feel seen. It's been interesting. So
I've given advanced readercopies to I don't know, 100
different people. And the numberone feedback I get from people
is, you wrote that book for melike I, you wrote my story, it's
like, well, that's becausethere's 10s of 1000s of people
in our country with this story.
Maybe Maybe their dad isn't inthe news for sexually abusing a
series of women, that that'skind of niche. But to be in a
(47:26):
high control religion or to totransition from a superstitious
faith to one that gives youlife. So I hope people find
courage to tell their story. Togo, Yeah, I'm, I'm ready to tell
the world. This was me too. Thatwould be huge. It is not a book
to convince people to go tochurch. It tells people how I
(47:48):
found the safe church, you know?
Yeah, I just hope people feelsafe to tell their stories, and
that it leads them to anenvironment where they can tell
because I think it's a chainreaction. Right? When you tell
your story, then it givessomebody else the courage to
tell theirs. And we keep thisgoing until hopefully we can
route more and more of thisstuff out of the church. Yeah,
Joshua Johnson (48:07):
that's, that's my prayer. Over and over, I want
to see the church look likeJesus. And I mean, that's,
that's why we're here with theImam supposed to be the
embodiment of Jesus. To theworld like this, we're supposed
to look exactly like Jesus, Hegave us his gift so that we
could look like him. So and wecould grow up into him who's the
(48:27):
head and that he is full oflove, and grace and compassion.
We need to be morecompassionate, to listen to each
other stories and to be safepeople to be able to receive
those stories. And not to flexwe're really good at deflecting
stories, and we're good atdeflecting things or even
(48:48):
saying, I can't enter into yourstory because I feel pain right
now. And so that's the onlything that I can focus on. I
can't focus on somebody else'sstory. But I know in my life
when I have pain, sorrow thatI'm going through, it actually
also helps me listening to otherpeople's stories is not just for
(49:09):
the person telling the story.
But that goes a long way.
Ryan George (49:13):
Storytelling should it shouldn't surprise that
that's how Jesus designed thechurch to work. Amen. Amen.
James wrote, confess your sinsone to another so that you may
be healed. Now, it's not alwayssins that were confessing. But
that principle works for me, themore I tell my story, the more
healing I find from telling mystory. Yeah. And why why should
(49:34):
we be surprised that that's howit work when that's how the
Bible says it should. Yeah,Jesus said I came to give you
life life more abundant. I cameto set you free. We so many
people in his culture andcurrently in ours, think of that
as like a political freedom orlike a specific mandate. I was
like Nintendo. One of myfavorite verses in the Old
Testament is where God said,Hey, I came to remove your heart
(49:54):
of stone and give you a heart offlesh. In other words, I want
you to feel more not less likeI'm The inventor of emotions,
I'm the inventor of physicality.
I want to inhabit that spacewith you so that you can feel
more. He's like, I want to turnyour RGB levels up. Like I want
your world to be full color. Andyou experience all that. That's
why I gave you so many senses,because I want you to experience
(50:15):
me as much as you can.
Joshua Johnson (50:18):
And we can have all the other conversation
about, about emotions andfeeling Yeah, especially. Okay,
but let's go back to advice thatyou would give to your 21 year
old self. And I think this isthis be helpful for anybody in
your situation when you were 21.
So what, what advice would yougive to yourself now? So
Ryan George (50:36):
I've been listening to your podcasts prepare for
this interview? Yeah. What's thecause? Like, Oh, no. Because I
have a like, Back to the Futureview. Like if I went back to 21
year old me, I think I wouldmess everything up. You know, if
I, I could, I could be a lotwealthier now. But as far as an
aside, has been thinking like,I'd have to have an answer for
Joshua, I have to have ananswer. I, I think what I would
(50:59):
tell 21 year old me is insteadof chasing affirmation, Chase
influence, whether you will everbe noticed, recognize no matter
how many likes you get, nomatter you know, I was bullied
in school, I wasn't one of thecool kids. I tried so hard. Once
a week, the reason I got intoaction sports, was to try to
prove to the world that I wasworth their attention. And I
would turn on that GoPro and I'dsuddenly have courage, do the
(51:20):
things I never had courage to domy life, just hoping for a
little bit of dopamine onFacebook. And I would tell a 21
year old me, Hey, man, you maynot ever get enough of that, if
you believe I'm at all and I do,Kevin traveled all over the
world, you can take that trainall the way out. And it still
won't be enough. But what itfeels like when you see your
influence coming alive and thepeople you disciple, and the
(51:42):
people that you mentor, thatthere's an abundance of that,
and that's plentiful.
Joshua Johnson (51:49):
That's really good. And that goes from the
macro to the micro, right, thatyou're the influences in the
micro areas, the places whereit's in relationships, one to
another, on on a place where youcould actually have
conversations with people,right. And so I think that's
really important. I mean, that'swhat discipleship looks like
this, we're discipling others incommunity in relationship. It
(52:12):
has to be a shared life has tobe part of it. You know, I
could, you know, I can have allthese conversations I want,
that's great. But I have to havea shared life with others to
grow and loving relationshipwith Jesus as well. So that's
good. I love that. That's agreat, great answer you and I
(52:32):
pat it. Good job. Good job.
Anything you've been readingwatching lately, you could
recommend?
Ryan George (52:38):
Absolutely. So I haven't been able to read for
the last three months, becauseof preparing for launch of my
book and whatever else, whateverI can. I've listened to my book
to say that I'm ready to quoteit and whatever. But the last
book I read was the best book Iread in 2024. by Sean Dietrich,
he goes by Shaun of the South, Ithink it's called will the
(52:59):
circle be unbroken, there's aheron on the front cover. And he
lost his dad to suicide when hewas like 12, I think. And it's
about how he put his life backtogether after losing his dad.
And his beautiful it is, for aman who never got a high school
diploma, it is the best writingI've ever read. I've read both
of his books, but that his lasttwo books, but yet, it just I
(53:23):
was in the canyon lands ofTexas, New Years, and right
after fishing or listening tothat book, and he had recorded
it in the same studio that Irecorded mine. That's how I
found out about it. And we'regoing down this canyon, 1600
foot rock walls on either side,going down the Rio Grande,
Mexico on the right, Texas onthe left, and a heron lands in
front of me and follows me, theentire trip outs just stink just
(53:47):
off the end of my canoe. And Ilost it. I just wept. And it was
as if Jesus was saying, I sentyou that book about how to deal
with grieving your father. Rightbefore this time when you'd have
to go and talk to a whole bunchof people about what it is to
lose so much that fatherhoodcarries what church meant to
you, whatever else. And it was avery tender moment with my
(54:08):
heavenly Father. And so maybe Ihave more connected in that book
than most of the people who hearthis or see this would but man
it was it was absolutelypowerful.
Joshua Johnson (54:18):
Yeah, but friends who lost her sister and
really close in a heron came andand that has she was just, you
know, on her porch watching andthat gave her you know, so much
hope that she was still therewith her. It was for some
(54:39):
reason, you know, herons areassigned that God's with us,
which is interesting, you know.
Ryan George (54:47):
Chesapeake Bay, I worked at a golf course that was
built out into the water, and Imowed the greens. You know, it
was, you know, unskilled labor.
And in the morning, you know, myhouse was tumultuous, right? So
work was actually a safe placefor me. Just sit there in the
morning and wash these herons.
They can stand utterly still forhours. And I can't I still
(55:08):
struggled to be still for morethan three minutes because my
thoughts get too much. You goman, I would love to just sit in
that water for 45 minuteswaiting for one fish. Like it's
just so fascinating.
Joshua Johnson (55:18):
I still go back to my memories of setting pens
in the morning, early morningwhen before everybody everybody
gets up. You know, it's it'ssuch a peaceful place to be out
there on the bandstand.
Ryan George (55:31):
They never let me set pens points to you, man. I
was not good enough to do that.
Joshua Johnson (55:37):
Thank you. Thank you. I was advanced. Yeah, maybe
you know, my, my best friend'sfamily on the golf course.
Ryan George (55:43):
Oh, there you go.
You had a nail.
Joshua Johnson (55:45):
I had men. I did had that. So Ryan, how can
people get your book and connectwith you? Where would you like
to point people to?
Ryan George (55:54):
Yeah, so two places, you can follow me on
Instagram, I'm making all myannouncements there. It's I'm at
ride plane. It's ry, Pl A and E.
And then you can order all thevarious versions of my book at
books by ryan.com. Because rightnow you can preorder. And then
as more and more editions areavailable, audiobook, ebook,
whatever they're all be postedright there at books by
ryan.com.
Joshua Johnson (56:13):
Arrived. This is a fantastic book to take people
into your story of, of abuse,but then moving into a place of
reconstruction and being healedby the church and saying that
the church can be a safe placewe can find our community we can
find the people that would wouldshow us a better way, a new way,
a way that looks like Jesus. Andso I do pray that many people
(56:35):
are seeing this, if they're inthis situation, that they could
find their way into safecommunities that will love them.
The way that Jesus loves thesinner, the what the abused, the
outcasts, the the lonely, heloved us all, and he sees us
all. And we as community can dothat for other people. So just
(57:00):
pray that they are able to findthat safe space, and the place
where they're going to be behealed in a way that brings them
to a loving relationship withwith Jesus. And man, because
humans suck sometimes, but she'sgotten away of it for sure. And
we do get in the way of it. So,Ryan, thank you for this book.
(57:23):
And thank you for thisconversation. It was really fun
to talk to you. So thank you somuch.
Ryan George (57:27):
Thanks for having me.
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