August 19, 2025 • 56 mins
What if healing doesn’t happen in isolation, but only in community? In this episode Toni Collier talks about her new book Don’t Try This Alone and the hard-won lessons she’s learned about vulnerability, resilience, and the necessity of others in our journey toward healing. Toni shares her story of brokenness and betrayal, the seasons of hopelessness she’s endured, and how confessional community became the place where God met her through the presence of others. We wrestle with questions of trust, forgiveness, church hurt, and what it takes to build relationships that reflect the love and presence of Jesus.
Toni Collier is the founder of an international women’s organization called Broken Crayons Still Color and helps women process through brokenness and get to healing and hope. Toni is a speaker, host of the Still Coloring podcast, and author of two books: Brave Enough to be Broken and her latest release, a children's book, Broken Crayons Still Color. Toni is teaching people all over the globe that you can be broken and still worthy, or feel unqualified and still be called to do great things.
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Toni's Recommendations:
Forgiving What You Can't Forget
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Toni Collier (00:00):
Don't waste that call. Get up, get healthy, be
(00:02):
honest. Do the hard work. It'shard, and it's gonna build
resilience in you, and you'regoing to be able to one day look
someone in the eye and say, Youknow what God's coming for you.
You know how I know it, becausehe came for me. And that's been
the greatest part of myhonestly, of everything, is that
I was weak enough to becomforted so that I know how to
(00:23):
comfort others.
Joshua Johnson (00:37):
Hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, our
culture tells us to go it alone,that strength is independence,
that resilience is selfsufficiency. But what if it's
wrong? What if healing real?
Healing doesn't happen inisolation, but only in the
(00:58):
presence of others that's at theheart of my conversation today
with Tony Collier. Tony's storyis raw, marked by brokenness,
betrayal and the kind of painmost of us would rather hide.
But it's also a story about theradical possibility of healing
in community, about howvulnerability and confession,
when practiced with others, canbecome a pathway not just to
(01:19):
personal wholeness, but toreshaping the church into
something more honest, morehuman and maybe even more
faithful. This isn't just aboutTony's journey. It's about ours.
What does it mean to stop tryingto muscle through life on our
own? What does it look like toborrow hope from someone else
when we don't have enough forourselves? And how do we begin
to imagine a community whereweakness isn't a liability for
(01:41):
the very place where God showsup. That's the conversation
ahead. I think you'll find it abeautiful, raw and challenging
conversation. So join us as welearn to not go it alone. Here
is my conversation with TonyCollier. Tony, welcome to
shifting culture. So excited tohave you on. Thanks for joining
(02:03):
me.
Toni Collier (02:05):
Yeah, let's do it.
I'm so excited and grateful tobe on, and I think it's gonna be
great.
Joshua Johnson (02:10):
Okay, let's dive deep. Right away. Are you ready
to dive
Toni Collier (02:13):
deep? I have a motto on my podcast, go deeper.
Go home. Okay, ready? All
Joshua Johnson (02:18):
right, so we're talking about Don't try this
alone. So your your new bookthat's out, want to make sure
that we could heal in community,that we can't do this by
ourselves. We live in a crazy,individualistic society and a
culture where we think that wehave to do everything by
ourselves. I want to know someof your story, so just bring me
into some of the the brokennessof Tony and then, and then,
(02:42):
where did you find places whereyou tried to isolate or do it on
your own? And then, How'd youmake your way to community?
Toni Collier (02:50):
Okay, I do. I'm gonna be honest with you. I love
this go deeper, go home thing.
There's been so much brokennessin my story. And you know, we
don't have to fall into the paincomparison trap, because all of
us have had brokenness in ourlife. We live in a fallen,
broken world. This is what we'vebeen dealt, the cards that we've
been dealt. And for mepersonally, there's been so
much. I mean, I was exposed topornography when I was just a
little girl at seven, my mom wasvery sick growing up, my
(03:13):
counselor would call itparentification, this idea of
like you becoming a parent toosoon, but just had to take care
of my mom out of a place ofsurvival. And really, I would
say that a lot of my story andthe brokenness that's in it
happened because of that. Ididn't have a mom that was able,
physically able to protect me. Iwas exposed to so much. I lost
(03:34):
my virginity at 13. I starteddrinking and smoking, doing
alcohol, drugs, partying, allthe things, okay at 14 and 15
and 16 and so promiscuity andwild partying, all those things
are part of my story. When I wasjust 19, I graduated college. I
graduated high school in threeyears in college, in three
years. I was a little bit of anerd, but I kind of lived this
(03:56):
double life where it was likenerd in school, but then like
crazy party girl, for real, forreal, and ended up getting with
a guy that I knew for like,three months, and moving from
Texas, where I'm originallyfrom, to Georgia. And I was
like, let's go. Let's getmarried. Let's do the thing so
bad. It was so so bad, so fast.
Okay, a lot of verbal abusestarted off as verbal abuse
(04:17):
turned into physical I ended uphaving a daughter in that
marriage and getting a divorcewhen she was just one, I wanted
to create more safety for her,and ended up getting saved at 21
and got into church ministry,which is still crazy to me.
Every day I wake up, I'm like,Lord, are you sure? Because I
don't really know what's goingon here. Are you sure you want
to use the crazy, wild partygirl? He's like, yep, bring
(04:38):
yourself on. And after I got adivorce, I honestly thought that
ministry was over for me. I hada lot of church hurt from my
first church, and I thought myredemption story was starting
because I got remarried to apastor, and I was like, This is
it, baby, I have arrived. Okay.
This is it. It's gonna be great.
(04:58):
We were married for eight years.
He had a son, and the truth is,I was hiding in the marriage.
Year two, I found out aboutinfidelity, and there were just
repeated acts of infidelity overand over again, sex addiction,
and it got to the point abouttwo years ago where my ex
husband called me and confessedthat he'd been extorted, and
there was a video, and there'sjust so much more infidelity
(05:20):
that I did not know about. Ihonestly thought that we were
healing and growing and ourmarriage was taking a turn, and
it just wasn't, it just wasn'tat all. And that was the moment
where I think I probably felthopelessness for the first time
in my whole life. Even with allthat trauma and brokenness and
all the things there, was stilljust like this Teletubby spirit
that I've got in me that's like,everything's great. Life is
(05:43):
good, frolicking around. Andwhat happens, I think,
naturally, when we get on ahealing journey, is that we kind
of start ripping those band aidsoff, and we see that it really,
there's some wounds there thatneed surgery, and there was a
lot of wounds that neededsurgery. And as a public figure,
you know divorce is hard.
Divorce in public is evenharder. And there was just a
(06:06):
point where I knew that Icouldn't do it alone, and that
was the point where I reachedout to friends my community, and
I realized, maybe for the firsttime in my life, how desperately
we need people, how desperatelywe need them, and that's why I'm
here talking about this book.
Don't try this alone, tellingpeople not from a place of pride
or even leadership honestly,from a place of personal
(06:28):
conviction and doing it wrong afew times, that truly, we should
not be trying to live this lifealone, especially trying to heal
alone. And so there's a littlebit of a go deeper. Go home for
you.
Joshua Johnson (06:42):
Thanks for going deep. Thanks for going deep.
Yeah, when you said you finallyhit this place of hopelessness,
you just, you're you're done,you're hope like you don't have
hope anymore. Some people thinkthat hope means maybe if I
change the morality of thestory, like there's some hope,
or if I, you know, do somethingdifferent, that's going to be my
(07:06):
hope, yep. But so then, once youhit hopelessness, even when
you're trying to do the rightthings, what was true hope for
you? Where did you have youfound true hope? Yet? Have you
gotten there, if not, that'sokay, but we can get there
together.
Toni Collier (07:24):
Have we really arrived at all
Joshua Johnson (07:26):
anyway? We'll never we'll never arrive.
Toni Collier (07:29):
But what I say now, I run some women's course
groups on healing. We do like,eight weeks once or twice a
year, and one of the things Itell these women at the very
beginning now is that hopereally is just a belief that
things can get better when weget to a point where we actually
don't believe that there's morefor us, that God is doing a good
(07:50):
work in us, that actually thepain is not worth it, but it's
100% not wasted, that anythingand everyone can be redeemed,
which is kind of Hard to say,especially in a situation like
mine, where I had a wholemarriage end an unwanted
divorce, because someonewouldn't change, right? I still
do deeply believe it, becauseI've seen it, and I've witnessed
(08:11):
it, and the truth is, we have ahope. It's anchored in Jesus,
and also it's anchored in theway that we show up, right, the
way that we believe about thisworld and what we can offer, and
that's where the hope is comingfrom. Me, it's like no, no, no,
I've bounced back before. I'veseen the goodness of the Lord in
the land of the living before.
It's okay, like I can get backup again. And I think for many
(08:33):
people, it's just hard tobelieve that for themselves, and
so that may just mean that, likeme, in a moment of hopelessness,
you need other people to giveyou hope, to let you borrow hope
until you can hope for yourself
Joshua Johnson (08:47):
again. We're in a day and age, though, where
community has let us down. Weare in places where we've looked
up to to leaders and they're notthe people we thought they were.
Yeah, there is different typesof abuse. There's there's other
things that community is like,Man, I don't want it anymore. I
want Jesus. I don't want hisbody. I where people are at,
(09:13):
yeah, for some strange reason,Jesus decided to use humans,
yeah, his hands and feet to bethe embodiment of him, to
absolutely that we need oneanother. How do we continue
like? What does healthycommunity look like? How do we
build some of that health? Yeah,air that it actually reflects
(09:34):
more of Jesus than it does ourbroken humanity.
Toni Collier (09:39):
Well, I think one of the things that you first
said touches on one of mypoints, and it's we've really
put a lot of eggs in thepastoral leadership basket. We
are quite literally puttingpeople on pedestals that we want
to rip them off of when werealize that they're human and
our tension is that, you know,Jesus came. To level the playing
(10:00):
field like I don't know whathappened somewhere along the way
with the church, but somebodyconvinced somebody, and a whole
generation of people, that Jesusdid not level the playing field,
that actually pastors andleaders and your favorite Bible
teacher and your favoriteworship leader have somewhat
developed this access to Godthat everyone doesn't have and
(10:21):
that's just not true. And and soI think we start there. It's
that we are all human, and wecannot make pastors and leaders
our Savior. We actually have tolet Jesus be our Savior, and we
have to stop putting people onpedestals. And it's it's our
responsibility as leaders aswell. I am very like anti
celebrity culture in the church,I'm just not in for it. And the
(10:42):
truth is, yes, consumers,members, followers, whatever you
got to control your desire toidolize people. But as leaders,
we also have to push back on it.
Oh, wait, no, that's weird.
Don't do that like I'mimperfect, I'm flawed. We also
have to practice beingvulnerable and honest about our
flaws. I think nine times out of10 you get into a relationship
(11:04):
with someone and you get hurtbecause your expectations aren't
met, because you've hadexpectations that don't align
with their abilities. And sowhat happens naturally is that
people start exposing theiraddictions, not you know, all
these different things in arelationship, and you're shocked
and disappointed, but it'sbecause there was a lack of
vulnerability and honesty. Ifyou get into a relationship with
(11:25):
me, you will know very quickly Ihave ADHD, okay, blame it on my
mind, not my heart. I may forgetthings. I may forget to call you
back like I struggle with this,you'll know these things about
me on the front end, because I'mnot afraid to be vulnerable
about who I am and myweaknesses. I'm not afraid to
talk about my past addictionsand the things that have really
(11:45):
held me up. I'm not afraid tosay I had to stop with alcohol
completely because I don't haveself control in that area. It is
what it is. And the Bible, andmy knowledge of the Bible, does
not change that weakness, but itgives me the ability to say,
here is a weakness. This iswhere I may fall short. This is
what you can expect. And now youget to actually see that God is
(12:09):
big. Because if God would stilluse me a crazy, flawed ex
addict, crazy party girl, thenhe can use anyone. And I think
that's the tension in us tryingto build community. The last
thing I'll say about this isactually not my words at all. I
was just filming with um, twoincredible leaders, Crystal
Evans Hurst and Sheila Walsh,and they said something so
(12:32):
profound that changed the gamefor me when it comes to betrayal
and building community andtrusting again. Sheila Walsh
said the beauty of the 11outweighs the betrayal of the
one. And she was talking aboutthe disciples and Judas. Come
on. The truth is Jesus knewJudas would betray him, and he
allowed the other disciples tosee it happen. He also knew that
(12:55):
Peter would betray him. Let's behonest. There was a couple
betrayers in the group. Okay.
Peter would deny even knowinghim, which is such a crazy form
of betrayal, and he would showus what it looks like to go
after Peter again, to believe inHim again, to love him again, to
put boundaries around him,healthy boundaries, because
boundaries are biblical, whichmaybe is another conversation.
(13:16):
But Jesus taught us that we canhave these friendship circles,
and we can trust in people againand believe in people again and
rebuild everything again,
Joshua Johnson (13:26):
vulnerability and weakness. Of Paul's boasting
in his weakness and saying, youknow, the power of Christ will
come through me like so thatChrist could be lifted up. How
do we do that? Well, when wethink like, Hey, I'm just gonna
dump, like, trauma dump on onpeople. Like, that's gonna be
weakness. And so Jesus isactually working in here, but
(13:48):
that's not actually healthy andgood if we trauma dump. So what
does it look like to to really,truly be weak so that Christ can
work through us?
Toni Collier (13:56):
Yeah, I think it's actually two things. I think the
first thing, and I've alwayssaid this, people are like,
whoa, Tony. You're sovulnerable. You're so honest
about your story, like we knoweverything about you. And the
truth is, people may knoweverything about me, but
actually you know everythingabout me in certain seasons and
certain timing. Because I thinkthe litmus test for us, the
filter that we have to put ourvulnerability through, is, am I
(14:19):
bitter about this or hopefulabout this. The truth is, when I
first found out that my exhusband was still cheating and
was being extorted and had,like, sent all this money to
this person, it was crazy. I didnot process it well, on social
media, I actually started beinga little feisty, a little
subliminal. I went on Facebook,took my marriage relationship
(14:40):
status down. Changed it tosingle out, because I got some
spice in me. Okay, the spice isthere, honey. And then I had a
leader, friend, two leaders,Gerald and Reed, and they text
me, and they were like, hey,this doesn't look great. You
don't need to do this publicly.
You got to figure out anotherway to do this. I ended up
putting an advisory. Board inplace to kind of protect me in
some of my weakest moments, andsteward me and lead me to better
(15:03):
decisions online. Because I'vealways filtered leadership and
vulnerability through thisfilter. And the filter is, Are
you hopeful about it, or are youbitter? And I was bitter, and
time needed to pass for me toheal so that I could get to a
hopeful place and talk about itfrom that place. And the truth
is we know that. We know thedifference of somebody posting a
(15:24):
status on Facebook, lookingcrazy, telling all their
business about to lose theirjob, okay, because they didn't
put all their business outthere. And we know when someone
has healed enough to be hopefulabout the pain, and that's the
litmus test. The second thing isthat we have to form friendship
circles. I talk about this in mynew book. Even Jesus had
(15:48):
circles, and we see them soclearly outlined. If we were to
crack open our Bibles, the truthis his most intimate circle was
him and God. There were momentswhere no one else was around,
except for him and the Lord, hismost intimate, vulnerable
moments outside of that circle,the next circle was just three
disciples, actually, not all 12.
(16:09):
We see that in the Garden ofGethsemane, when he only brought
three clothes, Peter, James andJohn and them suckers, still
fell asleep. Let's talk aboutthat. Okay, they did but, but
the other disciples, for someodd reason, we're not invited
into that vulnerable space. Heonly chose three, and we see the
through line of Jesus's trustwith Peter, James and John, post
crucifixion. Then we see theother disciples. We have to get
(16:34):
good at creating circles thatcan be shields for us to share
our vulnerability until we canshare it with others. There has
to be your three. There has tobe God. First, take a pit stop
at the feet of Jesus and bevulnerable and honest. That's
your practice ground. And thenwho are your like close people?
Who are your people that aresafe, that you can trust and be
(16:56):
honest with, and that, I think,shields us from being all up on
social media, looking crazy likeI was,
Joshua Johnson (17:04):
when people have betrayal after betrayal and get
hurt and say, I'm gonna openmyself up and I'm going to then
try to actually cultivate theseclose friendships so that I
could be okay I get anotherbetrayal. How do we continue to
foster community so that we cancontinue to heal, even though we
know that, hey, Judas is therein the room. We have our
(17:28):
betrayers. It's happening, yeah?
How do we continue in it? Like,it makes me want to give up at
times. Like, okay, here it goesagain. Yeah? Like, so what's
what
Toni Collier (17:40):
do we do? What do we do? I'm gonna be honest. This
is a spicy answer, but I had todo it myself. We have to look
inward. Oftentimes, some of thereasons why we end up in
repeated situations where we'vebeen betrayed is because we
attract it. Oh, jeez. The truthis, I attracted unhealthy men in
(18:02):
my life because I was unhealthyand I wasn't unhealthy by
choice. I had a dad who's analcoholic, very verbally abusive
in so many ways, we have sinceredeemed our whole relationship.
That's another conversation.
It's beautiful. I'm grateful forit. But the truth is our most
formative years in the way thatour neuro pathways form is from
zero to 13, we are learning howto be treated and how to treat
(18:24):
others during those years. Sowhatever that cultivated in you,
you carry that into all yourrelationships. And that's what I
did. I attracted men who wereaggressive, yelling, screaming,
and thought that was love,because that's what I saw in my
dad. I made men my saviorinstead of my partner, because I
didn't have a Savior. I didn'tget saved until I was 21 I was,
(18:47):
you know, deep in the trenchesof all kinds of sin, and at the
end of the day, we as humans, wewe have this thing in us that
the Lord, I think, has put in usthat we crave for something and
someone to follow. And theproblem is we exchange God for
everything else that's easy, myboyfriend, my girlfriend,
(19:08):
addictions. I mean, for me,alcohol, we drugs, all kind of
x, all that stuff, because we,our bodies, are longing to be
deeply connected to someonewho's trustworthy. And that's in
Jesus. And so I definitely thinkthe first thing that we have to
do is look inward heal some ofthe things that we have. I know
that the future of relationshipsfor me will be healthier because
(19:30):
I can see things now that Ididn't see before my unhealth.
Joshua Johnson (19:36):
I mean growing up, if you have these disordered
attachments that you know, hey,this is what you were given.
Attachment to love is not safe,and to others. How did you start
to form a healthy attachment toGod so that you could actually
see that he's the the one, he'sthe savior, he's the one that is
(19:57):
trustworthy, that you could goto, that you. He will not
forsake you in the
Toni Collier (20:01):
middle of things, well, there's two things. Number
one, I had to develop a faith ofmy very own. I had a very
fragile faith at first. At 21 Igot saved. I hopped into a
church that didn't really have agood discipleship model. So it
was like the pastor, the pastor,the pastor, the pastor, and his
depiction of God was, God'sgoing to be mad at you if you
(20:22):
don't do what he says that ifyou don't tithe enough, do
enough, serve enough, like veryperformative, very prosperity
gospel, that's what my faith wasformed in, right? So then, when
I started to get mentors in mylife who were a little bit
healthier, who had a little abetter view of God and who he
was, they started to say, youknow, that's not true. The Bible
(20:45):
actually says this, right? Whichis honestly the tension with
prosperity gospel, because ain'tbarely no scriptures being used
at all, okay? Or they're beingthwarted with no context.
They're dry and they're skinnyand they are used to prove a
point versus proving a Savior.
You know, it's crazy, butanyways, so at first, I had to
develop enough fortitude. Andalso, again, this goes back to
(21:08):
community, enough trusted peoplearound me to help me reshape my
faith in God. I went to a newchurch, North Point, ministries
under the leadership of AndyStanley for almost eight years,
and it totally changed the way Isee I saw God, because at that
church, a healthy God was rootedout of a healthy church
(21:29):
environment, the people werehealthy, and so they pointed to
a version of God that was trueand pure and healthy. No, God is
not turning his back on youbecause you didn't give the $100
in the tithe. Call, okay, no, heis longing for presence and
witness with you. He wants toequip you, show you, talk to
you, comfort you. All thesethings that I just did not
(21:52):
believe God could do. I mean, Iwas just like, shocked. I was
like, well, he's so nice. Whathappened? It's like, Well, duh,
you know. And and I think thatstarts with us choosing again,
counseling community and ahealthy church really help it
matters. But the truth is, ourfaith starts and ends with us,
(22:13):
and so we have to develop apersonal relationship with the
God of the universe enough toknow His voice that when you go
into a church that pretends thatit's his voice and it's not
really you know it for yourself.
Joshua Johnson (22:28):
We also live in a culture where some pockets of
Christianity worship a idealizedversion of family with mom and
dad, two kids, yep, my picketfence, and this is what God's
intention is for family. Jesussaid some crazy things, like,
hey, unless you hate your motherand father, brother, sister, you
(22:52):
can't follow me. And he saysyou're going to form a new
family. Like this is we have anew family now, when we're with
God, how do we navigatesingleness and marriage that's
good and a new family and we'relooking for places of healing
and growth, and what it lookslike for us as believers, I
Toni Collier (23:15):
love that you asked that question because it
gives me the opportunity tooffer up the reality that I Have
a weird family dynamic to somepeople, right? Like, I'm a
single mama. I've got a 10 yearold strong will blessing who is
just giving us a run for ourmoney right now, my sweet
daughter, Dylan, I've got athree year old boy, Sammy, who
is he just runs. He just runs,and he jumps off of things, and
(23:35):
it's crazy work. And then I havean au pair that lives with me, a
living nanny from Brazil. It isjust like people are like, What
is even happening right now?
Very interesting family dynamic.
For a long time, I felt like ifI wasn't married, I would be
discounted from doing ministry.
And the truth is that wasn'tjust a belief that lived on the
inside of me. It's the realityof so many things that have been
(23:57):
insinuated about marriage. I wassitting in church the other
week, and you know, I do love mychurch. I think they're doing
the best they can, but theyhanded out these little flyers,
and it was for a parent's night,if you want to get better with
parenting. I turned the flyerover, and it was like, moms and
dads, husbands and wives, wecan't wait to see you as we all
learn how to parent better. Andit just is like, Oh, well, is
(24:21):
this just only for like,husbands and wives? Because I'm
a parent, and why wouldn't theysay husbands, wives, single
parents? Like, why not? And Ithink it's because of what
you're talking about, societyhas painted this picture that
the abundant life only comes ina certain package, and what a
(24:42):
belittling way to view God.
What? What? What a primeopportunity to put our God in a
box to somehow make people feellike again, the the playing
field is not leveled, and he canonly bless certain people in
certain. Situations that justmakes him small. And I don't
know about you, Josh, but I wanta big God. I want a God that can
(25:06):
defy all of my norms. I want aGod that can show me that it
doesn't matter if I'm single,married, divorced, one time, two
times, that he still hasgoodness on the way for me. And
that's what we should be tellingpeople, that goodness is on the
way. My friend, any of downs,she's been single for years and
years and years and years, neverbeen married, doing ministry,
crushing it. She goes. We needto make sure that every single
(25:27):
human on this earth knows thatthe abundant life is possible
for anyone. If the path looksdifferent, great, but the
abundant life is available forall sons and daughters, single
or not. And I'm hopeful, though,truly, I feel like there's a
wave coming that's getting usedto that in ways, but we've got
(25:47):
to reiterate it, because we'rekind of like reworking a
theology that got thwarted. Sowe're really going to have to be
intentional about talking aboutit.
Joshua Johnson (25:56):
If you're saying, you've said over and
over already, that God hasleveled the playing fields like,
Okay, we all play our part. Weall have responsibility in it.
Then, then I have to show up forother people. I can't just say,
hey, somebody else is going todo the work it now is on all of
us. Yeah, and so. So how do weshift that mindset? How do we
(26:17):
move into a place where Iactually have a role and a
responsibility to the communityaround me. It's not all about
me. I'm not a consumer. Peopleare not just going to feed me
and feed me and feed me. Thisisn't just about my healing and
grow. It's for the healing ofour community. Yeah, I have to
do the work and show up and takeresponsibility for what my role
(26:40):
in community is,
Toni Collier (26:42):
you know, it's interesting because I did a
podcast season and I talkedabout this concept of being the
one or the 99 and I did itbecause I felt like we do exist
in a generation of, honestly, ifwe're just gonna be 100% of weak
Christians, okay, and not in theway that it's like I'm going to
submit my weakness, but in theway that says I'm not going to
(27:04):
get back up again, because Iactually enjoy being a victim. I
want to be, you know, in a placewhere people are serving me, and
I get to serve at a women'sshelter here in Atlanta, once a
month, I teach a healing class,and I can tell you know these
women, they have been abused andtrafficked and prostituted, and
all these in jail, in and out ofjail, losing their kids. And for
(27:26):
many of them, they are fightingto not be a victim, because
that's all that they've known.
And I just feel like theyinspire me so much because they
are living out what it lookslike to be the one right to be
the one sheep that's lost andabused and hurt and broken and
all the things and for God tocome after you and comfort you
(27:46):
in that place, but not to staythere. God did not leave the 99
to go with the one and stay inpain, stay feeling lost in the
wilderness. No, he goes to getthe one, to bring them back so
they can be a part of the 99again, the truth is the 99 being
the 99 is hard. It means youhave to stand in the trenches.
It means that you're going to beoffended and you're going to
(28:09):
have to turn the other cheek.
Being the 99 is a narrow road.
This is not wide. And I alsothink we have convinced a whole
generation of Christians thatwhen you say yes to Jesus, all
the things get good. And I said,Well, actually, y'all lied.
Okay, all of y'all suckersdidn't lie. Because it actually
got harder. Because whilethere's a target on my back from
the enemy of our souls that'strying, with everything in him
(28:31):
to get me to sin and beseparated from God, I want to be
the 99 and I'm okay. Let me saythis. I'm okay with being the
one, and we have to be okay withbeing the one that needs
rescued, sure that needs rescue.
But I also thoroughly feel likeit's a privilege to be the 99 to
(28:51):
stand strong with Jesus and togo rescue others. What are you
freaking kidding me? It'sbeautiful. And the truth is we
have to do our work to get to aplace where we are rescuers,
where we can go back and grabpeople with God who doesn't even
really need our help, but hasjust somewhat decided that we
get to be a part of this thing,which is amazing, but don't I
(29:14):
mean, don't waste that, don'twaste that. Call. Get up, get
healthy, be honest. Do the hardwork. It's hard, and it's going
to build resilience in you, andyou're going to be able to one
day look someone in the eye andsay, You know what God's coming
for you. You know how I know it,because he came for me. And
that's been the greatest part ofmy honestly, of everything, is
(29:35):
that I was weak enough to becomforted, so that I know how to
comfort others.
Joshua Johnson (29:39):
So good. What else do we feel good? You know?
Yeah, yeah. A lot of people say,Hey, you're just a sheep. You're
dumb. You just need to be fedand fed. But if you look at
sheep in a pen, they won't bepent up like they will scream
and yell to be let out
Toni Collier (29:56):
floors and sisters, yes, they're yeah,
there's
Joshua Johnson (29:59):
their. Whole life needs to be in the pasture,
on the hills, out of the pen.
And what we have done in thechurch is we have said, Here you
sheep, stay in the pen. We'llfeed you. That's good. What
you're calling us to is beingpart of a 99 that goes out of
the pen and goes with theshepherd to rescue the one to be
(30:20):
that part of healing. It'sbeautiful,
Toni Collier (30:26):
good. Well, I like how you put that. I'ma steal
that one. I will reference you.
I do want you to know
Joshua Johnson (30:32):
you could have it. You don't even need to
reference me. I'm sure I stoleit from somebody else. That's
what we all borrow from eachother. That's good. What does
then healing start to look likein community? How do we grow
into a better place? What is,what is the healing journey with
(30:54):
Jesus and community startsactually look
Toni Collier (30:57):
well, I only know this, and only have the
authority to say this becauseI've done it wrong, and over the
past two years, I havefortunately been able to do it
right. The day that my exhusband called me to tell me
about this infidelity, he wasbeing extorted. He had to tell
me there was a video. It wascrazy. It was interesting,
because I was actually not home.
I live in Atlanta, Georgia, butI was in Nashville, Tennessee,
(31:17):
and I was filming a show with aChristian Network, and the next
day, I got this call from my exhusband. I get off the phone,
and I was like, Lord, what do Ido? And I just felt an
impression on my heart to callmy friends. Now, lucky for me, I
have been in what's called aconfessional community for
almost four years. It's seven ofus. We have all come together
(31:39):
and committed to doing a life ofvery deep vulnerability, and
every month we get together on athree hour zoom call and we
confess, which is just as scaryas it sounds. Okay. Never gets
better, but what? But what we'retrying to do is build the muscle
of confession that we can get toa point where we're so
comfortable with our flaws andmistakes and our imperfections
(32:01):
as humans that we share them incommunity, and then we're met
with the power of witness. It'scrazy that the day that I got
the call from my ex husband, twoof the women in my confessional
community, two of my closestfriends, were in the same hotel
because they were also filmingwith this Christian Network. Now
we live in two different statesand cities, and they were there,
(32:22):
and I just felt the Lord impresson my heart to call my people.
And thankfully for me, we have aGod that plans for our pain. And
I called my friends, and theywere right there, and I told
them everything. What'sinteresting is that I had
confessed a lot of things inthis confessional community, but
I never talked about all theinfidelity we had been through,
(32:43):
because I thought, oh, that's inthe past. Like, that's not going
to happen again. And so I wasable to share everything with
them year two, finding out aboutinfidelity, finding discovering
videos between my ex husband andassistants, like, nasty, I mean,
just stuff, like really, reallyhorrific things that I got to
share with my people. And youknow what they did? One of them
(33:05):
ordered me room service becauseshe knew already that when I get
really anxious and I'm understress, I don't eat, she quite
literally, was like the handsand feet of Jesus. The other one
text me this long prayer that Istill have to this day. And she
said, From this day on, I wantyou to create a little note of
all the god wings that God willdo for you in this season. Now I
(33:25):
am fresh in the trauma. I'mlike, I don't know what you're
talking about, but she she knewbecause she wasn't in trauma.
This is the power of communitythat can quite literally be our
strength when we don't have ourhands, when we don't when we our
arms are too weak, our legs whenit feels like we're going to
give out and fall to the ground,like they get to be this. This
is why it's so passionate for meright now. Is because I've
(33:46):
walked through what it lookslike to live on the offense and
not the defense, to have areserve of people that that
caught me when I fell, thatdidn't have to pick me up off
the ground because they caughtme when I was falling because
they were already there. That'swhat it looks like. And you
trust them, and you share withthem, and you allow them to help
(34:07):
you. My friends created anAmazon wish list for me, my kids
in our new house, like I can'teven tell. I mean the countless
things my friends financiallysupport, prayer, everything they
were everything to me,everything, that's how you do
it. Folks show up, sell all yourbusiness again and again and
again, until you close peopleyou know
Joshua Johnson (34:31):
share your business as a confession
community. I think confession isso key to our healing, we often
think, you know the sin is toomuch, or this, this thing that
has been done, we've done is waytoo much. We want to hide it.
One of the things you write isbeing found out. Is not a
punishment. Surprise. Why is theexposure of sin? Why is the
(34:56):
confession so important to ourhe. Process. What does that do
for us?
Toni Collier (35:02):
Brene Brown has this quote. She says, We are
imperfect and we are wired forstruggle, but we are still
worthy of love and belonging.
And the truth is, this makes mewant to cry. How much more does
it mean to be worthy of love andbelonging when someone can look
you in the face and say, I knoweverything you've done. I know
the nasty, dirty stuff that youdon't want to tell nobody, and
you barely was honest about itwith yourself. Okay? I know
(35:25):
everything, and I love you thesame that changes you. It
changes you. We can all love theperfect patty, the righteous
Ryan. It's easy. We all havethat one friend that one friend
that just doesn't stop smiling.
You know what I'm saying? Like,it's like, you kind of want to,
like, hit them, just to see whatthey would do. You know, those
(35:46):
people are so easy to lovebecause they're showing up with
the charcuterie, they've got thegolf clubs, they're bringing
water and Gatorades foreverybody. That's easy stuff.
The friend that you know thatyou barely want to invite, when
you invite them, it changesthem, because it shows us a love
on the earth that only comesfrom heaven, a love that says,
(36:09):
while you were still in sin, Iloved you and I sacrificed
everything for you. And when weget to be my friend, Anne
Voskamp says, when we get to beJesus with skin on. When we get
to live a cruciformed life forother people, we get to remind
people that there is a Jesus wholoves them like this. I'm not
(36:32):
leaving the room. I'm righthere. And the next time you have
something that you need toconfess, it's way easier,
because, you know, these peoplearen't leaving, and it changes
you
Joshua Johnson (36:44):
that sounds like what the church is supposed to
be.
Toni Collier (36:51):
Right? They meant by Ecclesia is this? Is this
what was happening in Acts inthe upper room, when everything
had, when everyone hadeverything they need, because
everyone gave and showed up. Oh,
Joshua Johnson (37:04):
that's what it is. Amazing. We I know people
that have had hidden sin for 25years, yeah, and they're forced
to confess some other time, andit's just a confession that
doesn't mean anything. It's butI truly believe that if we have
what you have, theseconfessional communities, that
(37:27):
we normalize confession, that'sit. You build the muscle, and
you build the muscle over time,over and over again, this long
term, hidden abuse and sin, comeon, it's gonna get exposed so
quickly, and it's just gonna be,like, thrown away. It's nothing,
it's nothing. What? So I want toknow, how do we start to build
(37:51):
these communities? These areimportant, like, I this is gonna
heal the church?
Toni Collier (37:57):
No, it is truly.
How do we build these things?
How do we build it? Tell me. SoI actually write about this in
my new book. I have a chapter onconfessional communities. And
honestly, I've been doing like,women's course groups, like 50
to 100 women eight weeks, twotimes a year. And after the
course group was over, it waslike, bye, girl. Like it was
(38:18):
just kind of over. Well, when Istarted in my confessional
community, I was like, Man, Ineed to, like, maybe take my
course group of 50 to 100 womenand offer that they continue to
do life together. So my last twocourse groups have transitioned
into confessional communities,and I can't even we, we like, do
a lot of surveys because wereally want to know that we're
(38:38):
being effective. And mygoodness, we last month,
literally just last month, oneof the women that are from our
course group, and I will get tohow to build a course group, I
promise. But I want to distressthe importance so that, you
know, it's important to do thisand to really go deep. One of
the women from my last coursegroup, she called me. She was
like, Hey, we've had anemergency in our confessional
community. I'm like, oh mygoodness, call me. What's
(39:00):
happening? One of the women inthe conventional community that
had transitioned from the coursegroup passed away. She had a
daughter with severe autism andcerebral palsy and just a
really, really difficultsituation. And those women,
strangers that had never met inperson, on met on the internets,
on a zoom that Tony Collier puttogether, were at that funeral
(39:23):
for her pulled together.
Resources showed up, and this isthe thing that makes me
emotional, is that I think abouther daughter, who, I mean, gets
to see what it looks like for agroup of practically strangers
to say, we will be the churchfor your mama and for you. I
(39:43):
can't even imagine the rippleeffect of generations that that
daughter will get to witness,because these women practice
witness. And the truth is, it'ssimple, truly. Some confessional
communities start withstrangers, complete, actual
strangers. The concept is camefrom a brilliant psychiatrist
(40:06):
named Dr Kurt Thompson. Hasradically changed my life, and
he literally will put strangersin a room. They will commit to
meeting one time a year or onetime a month for however many
hours. And within theconfessional community, the
template, if you will, is askingthe question, what are you
grieving and what are youlonging for? What are you
(40:28):
grieving and what are youlonging for? And truly, it
guides the confessionalcommunity. We also go through
something called story, liturgy.
So once you form yourconfessional community, that may
be for you. If you're in a smallgroup and you're like, Hey,
y'all like, the Bible study iskind of cool, but like, Y'all
want to go deep about some realstuff. You know what I'm saying?
(40:48):
You could start theseconversations within the context
of your small group, your sportsgroup, your pickleball team,
your family, I mean, all thesethings. And we go around the
room and we talk about whatwe're grieving and what we're
longing for, and no one everresponds with a solution. This
is actually the key, instead ofsolution, which is like left
(41:10):
brain logistics, we turn thatsucker off, we go straight up
right brain. When you said that,it made me feel this, because
oftentimes when you get in aroom full of pain, when someone
says something about their pain,and it impacts you deeply, it's
because it's touching up onsomething in your story. When
you say something like, Oh, Igot this scripture. And if you
(41:33):
do this, it detaches you fromtheir story and points them back
to another source, which is areally valid source. But when
we're in the room, we get to beliterally Jesus with skin on for
each other. We invite the HolySpirit into the room, and then
we stay present. We justpractice withness. I'm not here
for solutions, I'm here forwithness, and we stay
consistent. And you also needleaders, okay, because a titanic
(41:56):
that's going down needs somebodyto turn the ship. Okay? So you
have a leader that'scoordinating these calls every
single month that's intentionalabout keeping everyone
connected, that starts the grouptext so that you guys are
together and practicing withnessthroughout the month, with
before the call. And that's it,meeting and dwelling together.
(42:17):
That's it.
Joshua Johnson (42:18):
That's good. I think facilitation of groups is,
is really important to figureout how to do that. Well, I
mean, we you run into thosethings all the time. Those
groups can go off the rails ifyou don't have someone knowing
how to we
Toni Collier (42:31):
didn't have some off moments too, you know. So we
like, Yo, When are we meetingagain? Okay, wait a minute,
Joshua Johnson (42:37):
you know. So how do you turn off the solution
mode. How do you turn that off?
Like we're it's ingrained in meto be the Savior. Like I want to
be the Savior. I want to fix it.
That's I'm still learning it.
I'm like, I'm learning it withmy wife. I'm like, Okay, I know
you don't want me to fix itright now, but I sure want to
fix it right now. How do youturn that off?
Toni Collier (43:01):
You know? It's the viral video of, like the woman
with the nail in her head andand she's like, I have such a
headache. And my husband islike, well, there isn't No, no,
you're not listening to me. Ihave such a headache. And he's
like, but if you just let mejust pull it out, you know? And
the truth is, we're made in theimage of God. So yeah, we want
(43:23):
to save. We are mirroring asavior, of course, and Jesus
showed us that sometimes weepingis the only solution. I mean,
gosh, can you just imagine whenhe's in front of Mary and
Martha, their brother has died,and he's been dead for four
days. And what's interestingabout that day thing, and the
(43:44):
reason why they bring it up isbecause in that context, in that
time, there was kind of like thesuperstitious belief that your
body hovered over you for threedays. There was a chance you
could come back to life. Lazarusis dead for four days, and Jesus
comes back on the scene, andMartha Lokey gives him some
grace. She At first, she waslike, Hey, where were you? If
you were here, my brotherwouldn't have died. And she
(44:05):
gives him grace by saying, Iknow Lord, like I know that he's
gonna, you know, rise again inthe end days when you return, I
know. And then Mary comes up,and she is pissed. Okay, let's
just call it for what is. She'sso mad. She's hurting. She
didn't even leave the house togo see Jesus. At first he had to
call her to him. She comes tohim, Where were you? Why don't
(44:27):
you save my brother? And Jesuslooks around the room at the two
women crying, and there wasthere said, there was also some
other people in the communitythat was consoling Mary. He's
looking at his people, and hestarts to cry. And the question
that you want to ask yourselfis, now, Jesus, you know You
about to raise this man from thedead, why wouldn't you just tell
(44:52):
them? Why would you just as amatter of fact, Jesus, we've
actually seen you heal someonefrom a different city. Yeah, so
why don't you just speak like,why didn't you do that? And I
just think that Jesus wanted tomodel to us that, yeah, he is
going to work all things out forthe good of those who love Him.
And it's okay for us to grievetoo in the waiting. It's okay.
(45:17):
It's actually holy. Presence isholy. Withness is holy before
the solution comes before thecherry on top comes. Jesus
showed us that. And I just thinkwe get to model it. And I think
it heals us truly, truly. I'veseen it. It
Joshua Johnson (45:37):
does. It can, yeah, but, man, it's so hard
when, like, hey, there's it'sreal, like I, I know that I just
want Jesus is going to weep withme. He's present with me. This
person is sitting here, presentwith me. That's great. But also,
you want a solution? I want
Toni Collier (45:58):
it to go away. But no, tell me, though, no, you
know, it's interesting. We havethis saying in our confessional
community, and we're a group ofseven women who, like all do the
same thing. We're leaders, we'respeakers, podcasters, authors,
all the things. And so we aresmart. We can come up with
solutions. And we have thissaying in our confessional
community, because, again, thosethree hours are saved and
(46:21):
separated for withness, andwe're all very well connected,
and we're all very smart. So wehave this saying in the group,
when you're ready and notbefore. We say things like, hey
when the call is over, if you'dlike, I'd love to talk through
some solutions, but when you'reready, and not before. Because
(46:44):
what's easy for all of us is torush through the pain. We want
to get out. We want to get tosolution. I just kind of sort of
believe that that messy middleis where resilience grows. It's
where capacity grows. I tell mywoman, women in the healing
course, I'm like, Guys, healingis not about somehow getting to
(47:06):
a point where a perfect lifemagically appears. It's about
creating capacity to hold thepain, and that capacity is
created in the valleys when youlet yourself feel it. And that's
what we're doing. We'refostering a separate time for us
to just be with each other, notvoid, eventually, of solution,
(47:26):
because we have to work, youknow what I'm saying. We have to
get out of things that areabusive. We have to, you know,
all these things. And I think wedo surgery when we just let it
be about with this for a littlewhile.
Joshua Johnson (47:43):
Yeah, witness is so important. We, my wife and I
worked with war refugees for along time in the Middle East.
And like at first we we went tothe Middle East so that we could
see Jesus be known in placeshe's not yet known. Wow. And we
realized working with warrefugees like part of it is
actually being the presence ofJesus in those places. It's not
(48:08):
just about telling them aboutJesus. It's actually being like
Jesus with them. I remembersomeone had their four day old
daughter passed away like sothey come out there, the war
refugees coming out of the warand, you know, and then another
tragedy happens. This four dayold daughter dies. And we come
(48:30):
over and like, what do you do?
What do you say? And so we'resitting there, and all i i Just
remember, it's my wife went upnext to her, and she said, hey,
when Jesus's friend died, hewept, he cried, and he's weeping
with you, and she just put herarm around her and just sat
there and just held her. Andsometimes that's all we could
(48:52):
do, but sometimes that's thebest thing, yep, that we could
do,
Toni Collier (48:58):
yeah, the best thing. I love that so much, and
I love it for the person whosays, Well, I'm not a
communicator, I'm not a writer,I'm not a podcaster, like, how
can I be Jesus? For people Idon't have these gifts and
talents. Presence is enough.
It's just enough. I don't haveany other fancy thing to say.
All I know is in some of thehardest moments of my whole life
(49:22):
these past two years, it wasn'tthe donuts that my friends
brought, it wasn't the furniturethat they put in my house.
Sometimes it was my friendAaron, just quiet on the phone
while I wept that those it'slike seared into my brain that I
had people that would just bewith me, that didn't expect
(49:46):
anything from me, I didn't haveto articulate all the things I
was feeling, that they wouldjust let me cry. That takes a a
strong, faithful friend. To say,Man, I could offer up so many
different things right now, butpresence, I know, is what you
need, and it's enough. Truly.
Joshua Johnson (50:10):
Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, that's
beautiful. So what is your hopefor your readers, the people
pick up, don't try this alone.
What do you hope that we Yeah,
Toni Collier (50:19):
I think the first thing is, I really hope that the
book validates pain and bringsout bravery from that place,
because I do think it takesbravery to be honest about what
you're going through. I thinkfrom that place of being brave
enough to be honest, I deeply,deeply pray that people would
(50:42):
start to get bold, that theywould start to put themselves
out there. I mean, it's awkward.
It's awkward as an adult, youknow, like, Hey, you're gonna be
my friend. What are you eventalking about? Like, it is just
difficult and awkward, and ittakes a boldness that says, I
know that I can't do this lifealone, and so I'm going to fight
for it. I'm gonna get back upagain. I'm gonna trust again.
(51:05):
I'm gonna believe that there are11 out there that I can trust,
even though that one betrayedme. I'm not gonna let anyone
take away my opportunity to havepeople that see me and know me
and soothe me and create safetyfor me and secure attachment. I
just I pray that bravery comes.
I pray that a boldness comes,and then when you have built a
(51:28):
solid community, my prayer isthat you would be a good friend.
That's been the awesome thingabout my story is that I've seen
so much pain and I needed to berescued from so many things that
now I know how to rescue I knowwhat people need, because I've
been shown such a grace and alove and just I just have the
(51:50):
best people in my life. I haveprayed for them. I've had hard
conversations with them, like wehave had ruptures, is what we
call them, and we have repairedthem. But now I can like because
I've experienced what it feelslike to have good friends. I can
be that to other people. I canbe that to my children.
Joshua Johnson (52:06):
So good. If you go back to your 21 year old
self, what advice would yougive?
Toni Collier (52:10):
Hey, close your legs. Okay. Uh, I'm sorry that
one just came out of me. It'strue. Um, maybe it's something
more profound that's going tocome here in a second, but that
was the first thing that canOkay, um, no, but I, I was, um,
I've been a performer my wholelife. I've been on stages. I
graduated high school at 16,college at 19, like, I mean,
(52:31):
just run, run, run, run, run,check off the to do list all the
things like it was about doing.
And truly, I wish I could lookat 21 year old Tony and say the
greatest thing you'll ever do isbe a daughter of God, like not
do anything. It's like thegreatest thing you'll ever do is
be like you will just learn howto just be, and I'm still
learning that. But that piece ofadvice, I think, would have
(52:55):
helped me invite people insooner. I don't think I would
have been in pain alone for solong if I would have known that
I didn't even have to doanything to be loved. Okay, so
that's my second answer, butthat first one remains true,
dang it. Okay. You're loved.
Joshua Johnson (53:14):
You're loved so deeply loved. Yes, anything
you've been reading or watchinglately you could recommend,
Toni Collier (53:20):
ooh, that's a hard okay, so I read good boundaries
and goodbyes by Lisa Turkers.
Game Changer. I am clawing. I'mtalking about clawing because I
don't want to read it forgivingwhat you can't forget. It's like
the prelude to my book. It'slike, if you're having a
difficult time trusting people,that's where you start, and then
you'll come on over to my book.
You know what I'm saying? Yeah,but, my goodness, it is. It's
(53:43):
just been like the hardest thingfor me to forgive, you know, and
I just don't want that to holdme back from a really fruitful
life of community and withness.
But those are the two.
Joshua Johnson (53:55):
Well, that's good, because you know what
forgiveness does? It releasesyou from the chains that you're
carrying, not from what someonedid to you or anything else.
That's it. It is, it is abeautiful thing. It's so good.
And it's Yeah, it doesn't givepeople excuses at all, but it
releases you from the chainsthat you've been carrying. So,
(54:18):
yeah, forgiveness. It's want it,but the secret sauce. It is the
secret sauce. Is the secretsauce. Tony, this book,
fantastic. I really want peopleto go and get this book, learn
how to actually do it with acommunity, to heal, to come
together, start theseconfessional communities,
(54:39):
because these confessionalcommunities will heal the
church. We've come up with asolution. We know it to consult
your church. That's right. Andso Tony, this has been
fantastic. Is where can peopleconnect with you? Where would
you like to point people to? Isthere anywhere specific you'd
like to get have people get thebook?
Toni Collier (54:59):
Yes. You can head to my website. It's tonyj
collier.com, T, o, n, i, j, c,O, L, L, I, E, R, everything is
there that you need. I hope youdive in. I hope you grab some of
the freebies that's on thewebsite too. Those are super
helpful and useful. And I hopeyou grab the book. Don't try
this alone.
Joshua Johnson (55:15):
Perfect. Well, Tony, thank you for this
conversation. It was fantastic.
I really enjoyed talking to you,thank you for going deep right
away, and it was fantastic. Sothank you. Thank you.
Don't waste that call. Get up, get healthy, be
(00:02):
honest. Do the hard work. It'shard, and it's gonna build
resilience in you, and you'regoing to be able to one day look
someone in the eye and say, Youknow what God's coming for you.
You know how I know it, becausehe came for me. And that's been
the greatest part of myhonestly, of everything, is that
I was weak enough to becomforted so that I know how to
(00:23):
comfort others.
Joshua Johnson (00:37):
Hello and welcome to the shifting culture
podcast in which we haveconversations about the culture
we create and the impact we canmake. We long to see the body of
Christ look like Jesus. I'm yourhost. Joshua Johnson, our
culture tells us to go it alone,that strength is independence,
that resilience is selfsufficiency. But what if it's
wrong? What if healing real?
Healing doesn't happen inisolation, but only in the
(00:58):
presence of others that's at theheart of my conversation today
with Tony Collier. Tony's storyis raw, marked by brokenness,
betrayal and the kind of painmost of us would rather hide.
But it's also a story about theradical possibility of healing
in community, about howvulnerability and confession,
when practiced with others, canbecome a pathway not just to
(01:19):
personal wholeness, but toreshaping the church into
something more honest, morehuman and maybe even more
faithful. This isn't just aboutTony's journey. It's about ours.
What does it mean to stop tryingto muscle through life on our
own? What does it look like toborrow hope from someone else
when we don't have enough forourselves? And how do we begin
to imagine a community whereweakness isn't a liability for
(01:41):
the very place where God showsup. That's the conversation
ahead. I think you'll find it abeautiful, raw and challenging
conversation. So join us as welearn to not go it alone. Here
is my conversation with TonyCollier. Tony, welcome to
shifting culture. So excited tohave you on. Thanks for joining
(02:03):
me.
Toni Collier (02:05):
Yeah, let's do it.
I'm so excited and grateful tobe on, and I think it's gonna be
great.
Joshua Johnson (02:10):
Okay, let's dive deep. Right away. Are you ready
to dive
Toni Collier (02:13):
deep? I have a motto on my podcast, go deeper.
Go home. Okay, ready? All
Joshua Johnson (02:18):
right, so we're talking about Don't try this
alone. So your your new bookthat's out, want to make sure
that we could heal in community,that we can't do this by
ourselves. We live in a crazy,individualistic society and a
culture where we think that wehave to do everything by
ourselves. I want to know someof your story, so just bring me
into some of the the brokennessof Tony and then, and then,
(02:42):
where did you find places whereyou tried to isolate or do it on
your own? And then, How'd youmake your way to community?
Toni Collier (02:50):
Okay, I do. I'm gonna be honest with you. I love
this go deeper, go home thing.
There's been so much brokennessin my story. And you know, we
don't have to fall into the paincomparison trap, because all of
us have had brokenness in ourlife. We live in a fallen,
broken world. This is what we'vebeen dealt, the cards that we've
been dealt. And for mepersonally, there's been so
much. I mean, I was exposed topornography when I was just a
little girl at seven, my mom wasvery sick growing up, my
(03:13):
counselor would call itparentification, this idea of
like you becoming a parent toosoon, but just had to take care
of my mom out of a place ofsurvival. And really, I would
say that a lot of my story andthe brokenness that's in it
happened because of that. Ididn't have a mom that was able,
physically able to protect me. Iwas exposed to so much. I lost
(03:34):
my virginity at 13. I starteddrinking and smoking, doing
alcohol, drugs, partying, allthe things, okay at 14 and 15
and 16 and so promiscuity andwild partying, all those things
are part of my story. When I wasjust 19, I graduated college. I
graduated high school in threeyears in college, in three
years. I was a little bit of anerd, but I kind of lived this
(03:56):
double life where it was likenerd in school, but then like
crazy party girl, for real, forreal, and ended up getting with
a guy that I knew for like,three months, and moving from
Texas, where I'm originallyfrom, to Georgia. And I was
like, let's go. Let's getmarried. Let's do the thing so
bad. It was so so bad, so fast.
Okay, a lot of verbal abusestarted off as verbal abuse
(04:17):
turned into physical I ended uphaving a daughter in that
marriage and getting a divorcewhen she was just one, I wanted
to create more safety for her,and ended up getting saved at 21
and got into church ministry,which is still crazy to me.
Every day I wake up, I'm like,Lord, are you sure? Because I
don't really know what's goingon here. Are you sure you want
to use the crazy, wild partygirl? He's like, yep, bring
(04:38):
yourself on. And after I got adivorce, I honestly thought that
ministry was over for me. I hada lot of church hurt from my
first church, and I thought myredemption story was starting
because I got remarried to apastor, and I was like, This is
it, baby, I have arrived. Okay.
This is it. It's gonna be great.
(04:58):
We were married for eight years.
He had a son, and the truth is,I was hiding in the marriage.
Year two, I found out aboutinfidelity, and there were just
repeated acts of infidelity overand over again, sex addiction,
and it got to the point abouttwo years ago where my ex
husband called me and confessedthat he'd been extorted, and
there was a video, and there'sjust so much more infidelity
(05:20):
that I did not know about. Ihonestly thought that we were
healing and growing and ourmarriage was taking a turn, and
it just wasn't, it just wasn'tat all. And that was the moment
where I think I probably felthopelessness for the first time
in my whole life. Even with allthat trauma and brokenness and
all the things there, was stilljust like this Teletubby spirit
that I've got in me that's like,everything's great. Life is
(05:43):
good, frolicking around. Andwhat happens, I think,
naturally, when we get on ahealing journey, is that we kind
of start ripping those band aidsoff, and we see that it really,
there's some wounds there thatneed surgery, and there was a
lot of wounds that neededsurgery. And as a public figure,
you know divorce is hard.
Divorce in public is evenharder. And there was just a
(06:06):
point where I knew that Icouldn't do it alone, and that
was the point where I reachedout to friends my community, and
I realized, maybe for the firsttime in my life, how desperately
we need people, how desperatelywe need them, and that's why I'm
here talking about this book.
Don't try this alone, tellingpeople not from a place of pride
or even leadership honestly,from a place of personal
(06:28):
conviction and doing it wrong afew times, that truly, we should
not be trying to live this lifealone, especially trying to heal
alone. And so there's a littlebit of a go deeper. Go home for
you.
Joshua Johnson (06:42):
Thanks for going deep. Thanks for going deep.
Yeah, when you said you finallyhit this place of hopelessness,
you just, you're you're done,you're hope like you don't have
hope anymore. Some people thinkthat hope means maybe if I
change the morality of thestory, like there's some hope,
or if I, you know, do somethingdifferent, that's going to be my
(07:06):
hope, yep. But so then, once youhit hopelessness, even when
you're trying to do the rightthings, what was true hope for
you? Where did you have youfound true hope? Yet? Have you
gotten there, if not, that'sokay, but we can get there
together.
Toni Collier (07:24):
Have we really arrived at all
Joshua Johnson (07:26):
anyway? We'll never we'll never arrive.
Toni Collier (07:29):
But what I say now, I run some women's course
groups on healing. We do like,eight weeks once or twice a
year, and one of the things Itell these women at the very
beginning now is that hopereally is just a belief that
things can get better when weget to a point where we actually
don't believe that there's morefor us, that God is doing a good
(07:50):
work in us, that actually thepain is not worth it, but it's
100% not wasted, that anythingand everyone can be redeemed,
which is kind of Hard to say,especially in a situation like
mine, where I had a wholemarriage end an unwanted
divorce, because someonewouldn't change, right? I still
do deeply believe it, becauseI've seen it, and I've witnessed
(08:11):
it, and the truth is, we have ahope. It's anchored in Jesus,
and also it's anchored in theway that we show up, right, the
way that we believe about thisworld and what we can offer, and
that's where the hope is comingfrom. Me, it's like no, no, no,
I've bounced back before. I'veseen the goodness of the Lord in
the land of the living before.
It's okay, like I can get backup again. And I think for many
(08:33):
people, it's just hard tobelieve that for themselves, and
so that may just mean that, likeme, in a moment of hopelessness,
you need other people to giveyou hope, to let you borrow hope
until you can hope for yourself
Joshua Johnson (08:47):
again. We're in a day and age, though, where
community has let us down. Weare in places where we've looked
up to to leaders and they're notthe people we thought they were.
Yeah, there is different typesof abuse. There's there's other
things that community is like,Man, I don't want it anymore. I
want Jesus. I don't want hisbody. I where people are at,
(09:13):
yeah, for some strange reason,Jesus decided to use humans,
yeah, his hands and feet to bethe embodiment of him, to
absolutely that we need oneanother. How do we continue
like? What does healthycommunity look like? How do we
build some of that health? Yeah,air that it actually reflects
(09:34):
more of Jesus than it does ourbroken humanity.
Toni Collier (09:39):
Well, I think one of the things that you first
said touches on one of mypoints, and it's we've really
put a lot of eggs in thepastoral leadership basket. We
are quite literally puttingpeople on pedestals that we want
to rip them off of when werealize that they're human and
our tension is that, you know,Jesus came. To level the playing
(10:00):
field like I don't know whathappened somewhere along the way
with the church, but somebodyconvinced somebody, and a whole
generation of people, that Jesusdid not level the playing field,
that actually pastors andleaders and your favorite Bible
teacher and your favoriteworship leader have somewhat
developed this access to Godthat everyone doesn't have and
(10:21):
that's just not true. And and soI think we start there. It's
that we are all human, and wecannot make pastors and leaders
our Savior. We actually have tolet Jesus be our Savior, and we
have to stop putting people onpedestals. And it's it's our
responsibility as leaders aswell. I am very like anti
celebrity culture in the church,I'm just not in for it. And the
(10:42):
truth is, yes, consumers,members, followers, whatever you
got to control your desire toidolize people. But as leaders,
we also have to push back on it.
Oh, wait, no, that's weird.
Don't do that like I'mimperfect, I'm flawed. We also
have to practice beingvulnerable and honest about our
flaws. I think nine times out of10 you get into a relationship
(11:04):
with someone and you get hurtbecause your expectations aren't
met, because you've hadexpectations that don't align
with their abilities. And sowhat happens naturally is that
people start exposing theiraddictions, not you know, all
these different things in arelationship, and you're shocked
and disappointed, but it'sbecause there was a lack of
vulnerability and honesty. Ifyou get into a relationship with
(11:25):
me, you will know very quickly Ihave ADHD, okay, blame it on my
mind, not my heart. I may forgetthings. I may forget to call you
back like I struggle with this,you'll know these things about
me on the front end, because I'mnot afraid to be vulnerable
about who I am and myweaknesses. I'm not afraid to
talk about my past addictionsand the things that have really
(11:45):
held me up. I'm not afraid tosay I had to stop with alcohol
completely because I don't haveself control in that area. It is
what it is. And the Bible, andmy knowledge of the Bible, does
not change that weakness, but itgives me the ability to say,
here is a weakness. This iswhere I may fall short. This is
what you can expect. And now youget to actually see that God is
(12:09):
big. Because if God would stilluse me a crazy, flawed ex
addict, crazy party girl, thenhe can use anyone. And I think
that's the tension in us tryingto build community. The last
thing I'll say about this isactually not my words at all. I
was just filming with um, twoincredible leaders, Crystal
Evans Hurst and Sheila Walsh,and they said something so
(12:32):
profound that changed the gamefor me when it comes to betrayal
and building community andtrusting again. Sheila Walsh
said the beauty of the 11outweighs the betrayal of the
one. And she was talking aboutthe disciples and Judas. Come
on. The truth is Jesus knewJudas would betray him, and he
allowed the other disciples tosee it happen. He also knew that
(12:55):
Peter would betray him. Let's behonest. There was a couple
betrayers in the group. Okay.
Peter would deny even knowinghim, which is such a crazy form
of betrayal, and he would showus what it looks like to go
after Peter again, to believe inHim again, to love him again, to
put boundaries around him,healthy boundaries, because
boundaries are biblical, whichmaybe is another conversation.
(13:16):
But Jesus taught us that we canhave these friendship circles,
and we can trust in people againand believe in people again and
rebuild everything again,
Joshua Johnson (13:26):
vulnerability and weakness. Of Paul's boasting
in his weakness and saying, youknow, the power of Christ will
come through me like so thatChrist could be lifted up. How
do we do that? Well, when wethink like, Hey, I'm just gonna
dump, like, trauma dump on onpeople. Like, that's gonna be
weakness. And so Jesus isactually working in here, but
(13:48):
that's not actually healthy andgood if we trauma dump. So what
does it look like to to really,truly be weak so that Christ can
work through us?
Toni Collier (13:56):
Yeah, I think it's actually two things. I think the
first thing, and I've alwayssaid this, people are like,
whoa, Tony. You're sovulnerable. You're so honest
about your story, like we knoweverything about you. And the
truth is, people may knoweverything about me, but
actually you know everythingabout me in certain seasons and
certain timing. Because I thinkthe litmus test for us, the
filter that we have to put ourvulnerability through, is, am I
(14:19):
bitter about this or hopefulabout this. The truth is, when I
first found out that my exhusband was still cheating and
was being extorted and had,like, sent all this money to
this person, it was crazy. I didnot process it well, on social
media, I actually started beinga little feisty, a little
subliminal. I went on Facebook,took my marriage relationship
(14:40):
status down. Changed it tosingle out, because I got some
spice in me. Okay, the spice isthere, honey. And then I had a
leader, friend, two leaders,Gerald and Reed, and they text
me, and they were like, hey,this doesn't look great. You
don't need to do this publicly.
You got to figure out anotherway to do this. I ended up
putting an advisory. Board inplace to kind of protect me in
some of my weakest moments, andsteward me and lead me to better
(15:03):
decisions online. Because I'vealways filtered leadership and
vulnerability through thisfilter. And the filter is, Are
you hopeful about it, or are youbitter? And I was bitter, and
time needed to pass for me toheal so that I could get to a
hopeful place and talk about itfrom that place. And the truth
is we know that. We know thedifference of somebody posting a
(15:24):
status on Facebook, lookingcrazy, telling all their
business about to lose theirjob, okay, because they didn't
put all their business outthere. And we know when someone
has healed enough to be hopefulabout the pain, and that's the
litmus test. The second thing isthat we have to form friendship
circles. I talk about this in mynew book. Even Jesus had
(15:48):
circles, and we see them soclearly outlined. If we were to
crack open our Bibles, the truthis his most intimate circle was
him and God. There were momentswhere no one else was around,
except for him and the Lord, hismost intimate, vulnerable
moments outside of that circle,the next circle was just three
disciples, actually, not all 12.
(16:09):
We see that in the Garden ofGethsemane, when he only brought
three clothes, Peter, James andJohn and them suckers, still
fell asleep. Let's talk aboutthat. Okay, they did but, but
the other disciples, for someodd reason, we're not invited
into that vulnerable space. Heonly chose three, and we see the
through line of Jesus's trustwith Peter, James and John, post
crucifixion. Then we see theother disciples. We have to get
(16:34):
good at creating circles thatcan be shields for us to share
our vulnerability until we canshare it with others. There has
to be your three. There has tobe God. First, take a pit stop
at the feet of Jesus and bevulnerable and honest. That's
your practice ground. And thenwho are your like close people?
Who are your people that aresafe, that you can trust and be
(16:56):
honest with, and that, I think,shields us from being all up on
social media, looking crazy likeI was,
Joshua Johnson (17:04):
when people have betrayal after betrayal and get
hurt and say, I'm gonna openmyself up and I'm going to then
try to actually cultivate theseclose friendships so that I
could be okay I get anotherbetrayal. How do we continue to
foster community so that we cancontinue to heal, even though we
know that, hey, Judas is therein the room. We have our
(17:28):
betrayers. It's happening, yeah?
How do we continue in it? Like,it makes me want to give up at
times. Like, okay, here it goesagain. Yeah? Like, so what's
what
Toni Collier (17:40):
do we do? What do we do? I'm gonna be honest. This
is a spicy answer, but I had todo it myself. We have to look
inward. Oftentimes, some of thereasons why we end up in
repeated situations where we'vebeen betrayed is because we
attract it. Oh, jeez. The truthis, I attracted unhealthy men in
(18:02):
my life because I was unhealthyand I wasn't unhealthy by
choice. I had a dad who's analcoholic, very verbally abusive
in so many ways, we have sinceredeemed our whole relationship.
That's another conversation.
It's beautiful. I'm grateful forit. But the truth is our most
formative years in the way thatour neuro pathways form is from
zero to 13, we are learning howto be treated and how to treat
(18:24):
others during those years. Sowhatever that cultivated in you,
you carry that into all yourrelationships. And that's what I
did. I attracted men who wereaggressive, yelling, screaming,
and thought that was love,because that's what I saw in my
dad. I made men my saviorinstead of my partner, because I
didn't have a Savior. I didn'tget saved until I was 21 I was,
(18:47):
you know, deep in the trenchesof all kinds of sin, and at the
end of the day, we as humans, wewe have this thing in us that
the Lord, I think, has put in usthat we crave for something and
someone to follow. And theproblem is we exchange God for
everything else that's easy, myboyfriend, my girlfriend,
(19:08):
addictions. I mean, for me,alcohol, we drugs, all kind of
x, all that stuff, because we,our bodies, are longing to be
deeply connected to someonewho's trustworthy. And that's in
Jesus. And so I definitely thinkthe first thing that we have to
do is look inward heal some ofthe things that we have. I know
that the future of relationshipsfor me will be healthier because
(19:30):
I can see things now that Ididn't see before my unhealth.
Joshua Johnson (19:36):
I mean growing up, if you have these disordered
attachments that you know, hey,this is what you were given.
Attachment to love is not safe,and to others. How did you start
to form a healthy attachment toGod so that you could actually
see that he's the the one, he'sthe savior, he's the one that is
(19:57):
trustworthy, that you could goto, that you. He will not
forsake you in the
Toni Collier (20:01):
middle of things, well, there's two things. Number
one, I had to develop a faith ofmy very own. I had a very
fragile faith at first. At 21 Igot saved. I hopped into a
church that didn't really have agood discipleship model. So it
was like the pastor, the pastor,the pastor, the pastor, and his
depiction of God was, God'sgoing to be mad at you if you
(20:22):
don't do what he says that ifyou don't tithe enough, do
enough, serve enough, like veryperformative, very prosperity
gospel, that's what my faith wasformed in, right? So then, when
I started to get mentors in mylife who were a little bit
healthier, who had a little abetter view of God and who he
was, they started to say, youknow, that's not true. The Bible
(20:45):
actually says this, right? Whichis honestly the tension with
prosperity gospel, because ain'tbarely no scriptures being used
at all, okay? Or they're beingthwarted with no context.
They're dry and they're skinnyand they are used to prove a
point versus proving a Savior.
You know, it's crazy, butanyways, so at first, I had to
develop enough fortitude. Andalso, again, this goes back to
(21:08):
community, enough trusted peoplearound me to help me reshape my
faith in God. I went to a newchurch, North Point, ministries
under the leadership of AndyStanley for almost eight years,
and it totally changed the way Isee I saw God, because at that
church, a healthy God was rootedout of a healthy church
(21:29):
environment, the people werehealthy, and so they pointed to
a version of God that was trueand pure and healthy. No, God is
not turning his back on youbecause you didn't give the $100
in the tithe. Call, okay, no, heis longing for presence and
witness with you. He wants toequip you, show you, talk to
you, comfort you. All thesethings that I just did not
(21:52):
believe God could do. I mean, Iwas just like, shocked. I was
like, well, he's so nice. Whathappened? It's like, Well, duh,
you know. And and I think thatstarts with us choosing again,
counseling community and ahealthy church really help it
matters. But the truth is, ourfaith starts and ends with us,
(22:13):
and so we have to develop apersonal relationship with the
God of the universe enough toknow His voice that when you go
into a church that pretends thatit's his voice and it's not
really you know it for yourself.
Joshua Johnson (22:28):
We also live in a culture where some pockets of
Christianity worship a idealizedversion of family with mom and
dad, two kids, yep, my picketfence, and this is what God's
intention is for family. Jesussaid some crazy things, like,
hey, unless you hate your motherand father, brother, sister, you
(22:52):
can't follow me. And he saysyou're going to form a new
family. Like this is we have anew family now, when we're with
God, how do we navigatesingleness and marriage that's
good and a new family and we'relooking for places of healing
and growth, and what it lookslike for us as believers, I
Toni Collier (23:15):
love that you asked that question because it
gives me the opportunity tooffer up the reality that I Have
a weird family dynamic to somepeople, right? Like, I'm a
single mama. I've got a 10 yearold strong will blessing who is
just giving us a run for ourmoney right now, my sweet
daughter, Dylan, I've got athree year old boy, Sammy, who
is he just runs. He just runs,and he jumps off of things, and
(23:35):
it's crazy work. And then I havean au pair that lives with me, a
living nanny from Brazil. It isjust like people are like, What
is even happening right now?
Very interesting family dynamic.
For a long time, I felt like ifI wasn't married, I would be
discounted from doing ministry.
And the truth is that wasn'tjust a belief that lived on the
inside of me. It's the realityof so many things that have been
(23:57):
insinuated about marriage. I wassitting in church the other
week, and you know, I do love mychurch. I think they're doing
the best they can, but theyhanded out these little flyers,
and it was for a parent's night,if you want to get better with
parenting. I turned the flyerover, and it was like, moms and
dads, husbands and wives, wecan't wait to see you as we all
learn how to parent better. Andit just is like, Oh, well, is
(24:21):
this just only for like,husbands and wives? Because I'm
a parent, and why wouldn't theysay husbands, wives, single
parents? Like, why not? And Ithink it's because of what
you're talking about, societyhas painted this picture that
the abundant life only comes ina certain package, and what a
(24:42):
belittling way to view God.
What? What? What a primeopportunity to put our God in a
box to somehow make people feellike again, the the playing
field is not leveled, and he canonly bless certain people in
certain. Situations that justmakes him small. And I don't
know about you, Josh, but I wanta big God. I want a God that can
(25:06):
defy all of my norms. I want aGod that can show me that it
doesn't matter if I'm single,married, divorced, one time, two
times, that he still hasgoodness on the way for me. And
that's what we should be tellingpeople, that goodness is on the
way. My friend, any of downs,she's been single for years and
years and years and years, neverbeen married, doing ministry,
crushing it. She goes. We needto make sure that every single
(25:27):
human on this earth knows thatthe abundant life is possible
for anyone. If the path looksdifferent, great, but the
abundant life is available forall sons and daughters, single
or not. And I'm hopeful, though,truly, I feel like there's a
wave coming that's getting usedto that in ways, but we've got
(25:47):
to reiterate it, because we'rekind of like reworking a
theology that got thwarted. Sowe're really going to have to be
intentional about talking aboutit.
Joshua Johnson (25:56):
If you're saying, you've said over and
over already, that God hasleveled the playing fields like,
Okay, we all play our part. Weall have responsibility in it.
Then, then I have to show up forother people. I can't just say,
hey, somebody else is going todo the work it now is on all of
us. Yeah, and so. So how do weshift that mindset? How do we
(26:17):
move into a place where Iactually have a role and a
responsibility to the communityaround me. It's not all about
me. I'm not a consumer. Peopleare not just going to feed me
and feed me and feed me. Thisisn't just about my healing and
grow. It's for the healing ofour community. Yeah, I have to
do the work and show up and takeresponsibility for what my role
(26:40):
in community is,
Toni Collier (26:42):
you know, it's interesting because I did a
podcast season and I talkedabout this concept of being the
one or the 99 and I did itbecause I felt like we do exist
in a generation of, honestly, ifwe're just gonna be 100% of weak
Christians, okay, and not in theway that it's like I'm going to
submit my weakness, but in theway that says I'm not going to
(27:04):
get back up again, because Iactually enjoy being a victim. I
want to be, you know, in a placewhere people are serving me, and
I get to serve at a women'sshelter here in Atlanta, once a
month, I teach a healing class,and I can tell you know these
women, they have been abused andtrafficked and prostituted, and
all these in jail, in and out ofjail, losing their kids. And for
(27:26):
many of them, they are fightingto not be a victim, because
that's all that they've known.
And I just feel like theyinspire me so much because they
are living out what it lookslike to be the one right to be
the one sheep that's lost andabused and hurt and broken and
all the things and for God tocome after you and comfort you
(27:46):
in that place, but not to staythere. God did not leave the 99
to go with the one and stay inpain, stay feeling lost in the
wilderness. No, he goes to getthe one, to bring them back so
they can be a part of the 99again, the truth is the 99 being
the 99 is hard. It means youhave to stand in the trenches.
It means that you're going to beoffended and you're going to
(28:09):
have to turn the other cheek.
Being the 99 is a narrow road.
This is not wide. And I alsothink we have convinced a whole
generation of Christians thatwhen you say yes to Jesus, all
the things get good. And I said,Well, actually, y'all lied.
Okay, all of y'all suckersdidn't lie. Because it actually
got harder. Because whilethere's a target on my back from
the enemy of our souls that'strying, with everything in him
(28:31):
to get me to sin and beseparated from God, I want to be
the 99 and I'm okay. Let me saythis. I'm okay with being the
one, and we have to be okay withbeing the one that needs
rescued, sure that needs rescue.
But I also thoroughly feel likeit's a privilege to be the 99 to
(28:51):
stand strong with Jesus and togo rescue others. What are you
freaking kidding me? It'sbeautiful. And the truth is we
have to do our work to get to aplace where we are rescuers,
where we can go back and grabpeople with God who doesn't even
really need our help, but hasjust somewhat decided that we
get to be a part of this thing,which is amazing, but don't I
(29:14):
mean, don't waste that, don'twaste that. Call. Get up, get
healthy, be honest. Do the hardwork. It's hard, and it's going
to build resilience in you, andyou're going to be able to one
day look someone in the eye andsay, You know what God's coming
for you. You know how I know it,because he came for me. And
that's been the greatest part ofmy honestly, of everything, is
(29:35):
that I was weak enough to becomforted, so that I know how to
comfort others.
Joshua Johnson (29:39):
So good. What else do we feel good? You know?
Yeah, yeah. A lot of people say,Hey, you're just a sheep. You're
dumb. You just need to be fedand fed. But if you look at
sheep in a pen, they won't bepent up like they will scream
and yell to be let out
Toni Collier (29:56):
floors and sisters, yes, they're yeah,
there's
Joshua Johnson (29:59):
their. Whole life needs to be in the pasture,
on the hills, out of the pen.
And what we have done in thechurch is we have said, Here you
sheep, stay in the pen. We'llfeed you. That's good. What
you're calling us to is beingpart of a 99 that goes out of
the pen and goes with theshepherd to rescue the one to be
(30:20):
that part of healing. It'sbeautiful,
Toni Collier (30:26):
good. Well, I like how you put that. I'ma steal
that one. I will reference you.
I do want you to know
Joshua Johnson (30:32):
you could have it. You don't even need to
reference me. I'm sure I stoleit from somebody else. That's
what we all borrow from eachother. That's good. What does
then healing start to look likein community? How do we grow
into a better place? What is,what is the healing journey with
(30:54):
Jesus and community startsactually look
Toni Collier (30:57):
well, I only know this, and only have the
authority to say this becauseI've done it wrong, and over the
past two years, I havefortunately been able to do it
right. The day that my exhusband called me to tell me
about this infidelity, he wasbeing extorted. He had to tell
me there was a video. It wascrazy. It was interesting,
because I was actually not home.
I live in Atlanta, Georgia, butI was in Nashville, Tennessee,
(31:17):
and I was filming a show with aChristian Network, and the next
day, I got this call from my exhusband. I get off the phone,
and I was like, Lord, what do Ido? And I just felt an
impression on my heart to callmy friends. Now, lucky for me, I
have been in what's called aconfessional community for
almost four years. It's seven ofus. We have all come together
(31:39):
and committed to doing a life ofvery deep vulnerability, and
every month we get together on athree hour zoom call and we
confess, which is just as scaryas it sounds. Okay. Never gets
better, but what? But what we'retrying to do is build the muscle
of confession that we can get toa point where we're so
comfortable with our flaws andmistakes and our imperfections
(32:01):
as humans that we share them incommunity, and then we're met
with the power of witness. It'scrazy that the day that I got
the call from my ex husband, twoof the women in my confessional
community, two of my closestfriends, were in the same hotel
because they were also filmingwith this Christian Network. Now
we live in two different statesand cities, and they were there,
(32:22):
and I just felt the Lord impresson my heart to call my people.
And thankfully for me, we have aGod that plans for our pain. And
I called my friends, and theywere right there, and I told
them everything. What'sinteresting is that I had
confessed a lot of things inthis confessional community, but
I never talked about all theinfidelity we had been through,
(32:43):
because I thought, oh, that's inthe past. Like, that's not going
to happen again. And so I wasable to share everything with
them year two, finding out aboutinfidelity, finding discovering
videos between my ex husband andassistants, like, nasty, I mean,
just stuff, like really, reallyhorrific things that I got to
share with my people. And youknow what they did? One of them
(33:05):
ordered me room service becauseshe knew already that when I get
really anxious and I'm understress, I don't eat, she quite
literally, was like the handsand feet of Jesus. The other one
text me this long prayer that Istill have to this day. And she
said, From this day on, I wantyou to create a little note of
all the god wings that God willdo for you in this season. Now I
(33:25):
am fresh in the trauma. I'mlike, I don't know what you're
talking about, but she she knewbecause she wasn't in trauma.
This is the power of communitythat can quite literally be our
strength when we don't have ourhands, when we don't when we our
arms are too weak, our legs whenit feels like we're going to
give out and fall to the ground,like they get to be this. This
is why it's so passionate for meright now. Is because I've
(33:46):
walked through what it lookslike to live on the offense and
not the defense, to have areserve of people that that
caught me when I fell, thatdidn't have to pick me up off
the ground because they caughtme when I was falling because
they were already there. That'swhat it looks like. And you
trust them, and you share withthem, and you allow them to help
(34:07):
you. My friends created anAmazon wish list for me, my kids
in our new house, like I can'teven tell. I mean the countless
things my friends financiallysupport, prayer, everything they
were everything to me,everything, that's how you do
it. Folks show up, sell all yourbusiness again and again and
again, until you close peopleyou know
Joshua Johnson (34:31):
share your business as a confession
community. I think confession isso key to our healing, we often
think, you know the sin is toomuch, or this, this thing that
has been done, we've done is waytoo much. We want to hide it.
One of the things you write isbeing found out. Is not a
punishment. Surprise. Why is theexposure of sin? Why is the
(34:56):
confession so important to ourhe. Process. What does that do
for us?
Toni Collier (35:02):
Brene Brown has this quote. She says, We are
imperfect and we are wired forstruggle, but we are still
worthy of love and belonging.
And the truth is, this makes mewant to cry. How much more does
it mean to be worthy of love andbelonging when someone can look
you in the face and say, I knoweverything you've done. I know
the nasty, dirty stuff that youdon't want to tell nobody, and
you barely was honest about itwith yourself. Okay? I know
(35:25):
everything, and I love you thesame that changes you. It
changes you. We can all love theperfect patty, the righteous
Ryan. It's easy. We all havethat one friend that one friend
that just doesn't stop smiling.
You know what I'm saying? Like,it's like, you kind of want to,
like, hit them, just to see whatthey would do. You know, those
(35:46):
people are so easy to lovebecause they're showing up with
the charcuterie, they've got thegolf clubs, they're bringing
water and Gatorades foreverybody. That's easy stuff.
The friend that you know thatyou barely want to invite, when
you invite them, it changesthem, because it shows us a love
on the earth that only comesfrom heaven, a love that says,
(36:09):
while you were still in sin, Iloved you and I sacrificed
everything for you. And when weget to be my friend, Anne
Voskamp says, when we get to beJesus with skin on. When we get
to live a cruciformed life forother people, we get to remind
people that there is a Jesus wholoves them like this. I'm not
(36:32):
leaving the room. I'm righthere. And the next time you have
something that you need toconfess, it's way easier,
because, you know, these peoplearen't leaving, and it changes
you
Joshua Johnson (36:44):
that sounds like what the church is supposed to
be.
Toni Collier (36:51):
Right? They meant by Ecclesia is this? Is this
what was happening in Acts inthe upper room, when everything
had, when everyone hadeverything they need, because
everyone gave and showed up. Oh,
Joshua Johnson (37:04):
that's what it is. Amazing. We I know people
that have had hidden sin for 25years, yeah, and they're forced
to confess some other time, andit's just a confession that
doesn't mean anything. It's butI truly believe that if we have
what you have, theseconfessional communities, that
(37:27):
we normalize confession, that'sit. You build the muscle, and
you build the muscle over time,over and over again, this long
term, hidden abuse and sin, comeon, it's gonna get exposed so
quickly, and it's just gonna be,like, thrown away. It's nothing,
it's nothing. What? So I want toknow, how do we start to build
(37:51):
these communities? These areimportant, like, I this is gonna
heal the church?
Toni Collier (37:57):
No, it is truly.
How do we build these things?
How do we build it? Tell me. SoI actually write about this in
my new book. I have a chapter onconfessional communities. And
honestly, I've been doing like,women's course groups, like 50
to 100 women eight weeks, twotimes a year. And after the
course group was over, it waslike, bye, girl. Like it was
(38:18):
just kind of over. Well, when Istarted in my confessional
community, I was like, Man, Ineed to, like, maybe take my
course group of 50 to 100 womenand offer that they continue to
do life together. So my last twocourse groups have transitioned
into confessional communities,and I can't even we, we like, do
a lot of surveys because wereally want to know that we're
(38:38):
being effective. And mygoodness, we last month,
literally just last month, oneof the women that are from our
course group, and I will get tohow to build a course group, I
promise. But I want to distressthe importance so that, you
know, it's important to do thisand to really go deep. One of
the women from my last coursegroup, she called me. She was
like, Hey, we've had anemergency in our confessional
community. I'm like, oh mygoodness, call me. What's
(39:00):
happening? One of the women inthe conventional community that
had transitioned from the coursegroup passed away. She had a
daughter with severe autism andcerebral palsy and just a
really, really difficultsituation. And those women,
strangers that had never met inperson, on met on the internets,
on a zoom that Tony Collier puttogether, were at that funeral
(39:23):
for her pulled together.
Resources showed up, and this isthe thing that makes me
emotional, is that I think abouther daughter, who, I mean, gets
to see what it looks like for agroup of practically strangers
to say, we will be the churchfor your mama and for you. I
(39:43):
can't even imagine the rippleeffect of generations that that
daughter will get to witness,because these women practice
witness. And the truth is, it'ssimple, truly. Some confessional
communities start withstrangers, complete, actual
strangers. The concept is camefrom a brilliant psychiatrist
(40:06):
named Dr Kurt Thompson. Hasradically changed my life, and
he literally will put strangersin a room. They will commit to
meeting one time a year or onetime a month for however many
hours. And within theconfessional community, the
template, if you will, is askingthe question, what are you
grieving and what are youlonging for? What are you
(40:28):
grieving and what are youlonging for? And truly, it
guides the confessionalcommunity. We also go through
something called story, liturgy.
So once you form yourconfessional community, that may
be for you. If you're in a smallgroup and you're like, Hey,
y'all like, the Bible study iskind of cool, but like, Y'all
want to go deep about some realstuff. You know what I'm saying?
(40:48):
You could start theseconversations within the context
of your small group, your sportsgroup, your pickleball team,
your family, I mean, all thesethings. And we go around the
room and we talk about whatwe're grieving and what we're
longing for, and no one everresponds with a solution. This
is actually the key, instead ofsolution, which is like left
(41:10):
brain logistics, we turn thatsucker off, we go straight up
right brain. When you said that,it made me feel this, because
oftentimes when you get in aroom full of pain, when someone
says something about their pain,and it impacts you deeply, it's
because it's touching up onsomething in your story. When
you say something like, Oh, Igot this scripture. And if you
(41:33):
do this, it detaches you fromtheir story and points them back
to another source, which is areally valid source. But when
we're in the room, we get to beliterally Jesus with skin on for
each other. We invite the HolySpirit into the room, and then
we stay present. We justpractice withness. I'm not here
for solutions, I'm here forwithness, and we stay
consistent. And you also needleaders, okay, because a titanic
(41:56):
that's going down needs somebodyto turn the ship. Okay? So you
have a leader that'scoordinating these calls every
single month that's intentionalabout keeping everyone
connected, that starts the grouptext so that you guys are
together and practicing withnessthroughout the month, with
before the call. And that's it,meeting and dwelling together.
(42:17):
That's it.
Joshua Johnson (42:18):
That's good. I think facilitation of groups is,
is really important to figureout how to do that. Well, I
mean, we you run into thosethings all the time. Those
groups can go off the rails ifyou don't have someone knowing
how to we
Toni Collier (42:31):
didn't have some off moments too, you know. So we
like, Yo, When are we meetingagain? Okay, wait a minute,
Joshua Johnson (42:37):
you know. So how do you turn off the solution
mode. How do you turn that off?
Like we're it's ingrained in meto be the Savior. Like I want to
be the Savior. I want to fix it.
That's I'm still learning it.
I'm like, I'm learning it withmy wife. I'm like, Okay, I know
you don't want me to fix itright now, but I sure want to
fix it right now. How do youturn that off?
Toni Collier (43:01):
You know? It's the viral video of, like the woman
with the nail in her head andand she's like, I have such a
headache. And my husband islike, well, there isn't No, no,
you're not listening to me. Ihave such a headache. And he's
like, but if you just let mejust pull it out, you know? And
the truth is, we're made in theimage of God. So yeah, we want
(43:23):
to save. We are mirroring asavior, of course, and Jesus
showed us that sometimes weepingis the only solution. I mean,
gosh, can you just imagine whenhe's in front of Mary and
Martha, their brother has died,and he's been dead for four
days. And what's interestingabout that day thing, and the
(43:44):
reason why they bring it up isbecause in that context, in that
time, there was kind of like thesuperstitious belief that your
body hovered over you for threedays. There was a chance you
could come back to life. Lazarusis dead for four days, and Jesus
comes back on the scene, andMartha Lokey gives him some
grace. She At first, she waslike, Hey, where were you? If
you were here, my brotherwouldn't have died. And she
(44:05):
gives him grace by saying, Iknow Lord, like I know that he's
gonna, you know, rise again inthe end days when you return, I
know. And then Mary comes up,and she is pissed. Okay, let's
just call it for what is. She'sso mad. She's hurting. She
didn't even leave the house togo see Jesus. At first he had to
call her to him. She comes tohim, Where were you? Why don't
(44:27):
you save my brother? And Jesuslooks around the room at the two
women crying, and there wasthere said, there was also some
other people in the communitythat was consoling Mary. He's
looking at his people, and hestarts to cry. And the question
that you want to ask yourselfis, now, Jesus, you know You
about to raise this man from thedead, why wouldn't you just tell
(44:52):
them? Why would you just as amatter of fact, Jesus, we've
actually seen you heal someonefrom a different city. Yeah, so
why don't you just speak like,why didn't you do that? And I
just think that Jesus wanted tomodel to us that, yeah, he is
going to work all things out forthe good of those who love Him.
And it's okay for us to grievetoo in the waiting. It's okay.
(45:17):
It's actually holy. Presence isholy. Withness is holy before
the solution comes before thecherry on top comes. Jesus
showed us that. And I just thinkwe get to model it. And I think
it heals us truly, truly. I'veseen it. It
Joshua Johnson (45:37):
does. It can, yeah, but, man, it's so hard
when, like, hey, there's it'sreal, like I, I know that I just
want Jesus is going to weep withme. He's present with me. This
person is sitting here, presentwith me. That's great. But also,
you want a solution? I want
Toni Collier (45:58):
it to go away. But no, tell me, though, no, you
know, it's interesting. We havethis saying in our confessional
community, and we're a group ofseven women who, like all do the
same thing. We're leaders, we'respeakers, podcasters, authors,
all the things. And so we aresmart. We can come up with
solutions. And we have thissaying in our confessional
community, because, again, thosethree hours are saved and
(46:21):
separated for withness, andwe're all very well connected,
and we're all very smart. So wehave this saying in the group,
when you're ready and notbefore. We say things like, hey
when the call is over, if you'dlike, I'd love to talk through
some solutions, but when you'reready, and not before. Because
(46:44):
what's easy for all of us is torush through the pain. We want
to get out. We want to get tosolution. I just kind of sort of
believe that that messy middleis where resilience grows. It's
where capacity grows. I tell mywoman, women in the healing
course, I'm like, Guys, healingis not about somehow getting to
(47:06):
a point where a perfect lifemagically appears. It's about
creating capacity to hold thepain, and that capacity is
created in the valleys when youlet yourself feel it. And that's
what we're doing. We'refostering a separate time for us
to just be with each other, notvoid, eventually, of solution,
(47:26):
because we have to work, youknow what I'm saying. We have to
get out of things that areabusive. We have to, you know,
all these things. And I think wedo surgery when we just let it
be about with this for a littlewhile.
Joshua Johnson (47:43):
Yeah, witness is so important. We, my wife and I
worked with war refugees for along time in the Middle East.
And like at first we we went tothe Middle East so that we could
see Jesus be known in placeshe's not yet known. Wow. And we
realized working with warrefugees like part of it is
actually being the presence ofJesus in those places. It's not
(48:08):
just about telling them aboutJesus. It's actually being like
Jesus with them. I remembersomeone had their four day old
daughter passed away like sothey come out there, the war
refugees coming out of the warand, you know, and then another
tragedy happens. This four dayold daughter dies. And we come
(48:30):
over and like, what do you do?
What do you say? And so we'resitting there, and all i i Just
remember, it's my wife went upnext to her, and she said, hey,
when Jesus's friend died, hewept, he cried, and he's weeping
with you, and she just put herarm around her and just sat
there and just held her. Andsometimes that's all we could
(48:52):
do, but sometimes that's thebest thing, yep, that we could
do,
Toni Collier (48:58):
yeah, the best thing. I love that so much, and
I love it for the person whosays, Well, I'm not a
communicator, I'm not a writer,I'm not a podcaster, like, how
can I be Jesus? For people Idon't have these gifts and
talents. Presence is enough.
It's just enough. I don't haveany other fancy thing to say.
All I know is in some of thehardest moments of my whole life
(49:22):
these past two years, it wasn'tthe donuts that my friends
brought, it wasn't the furniturethat they put in my house.
Sometimes it was my friendAaron, just quiet on the phone
while I wept that those it'slike seared into my brain that I
had people that would just bewith me, that didn't expect
(49:46):
anything from me, I didn't haveto articulate all the things I
was feeling, that they wouldjust let me cry. That takes a a
strong, faithful friend. To say,Man, I could offer up so many
different things right now, butpresence, I know, is what you
need, and it's enough. Truly.
Joshua Johnson (50:10):
Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, that's
beautiful. So what is your hopefor your readers, the people
pick up, don't try this alone.
What do you hope that we Yeah,
Toni Collier (50:19):
I think the first thing is, I really hope that the
book validates pain and bringsout bravery from that place,
because I do think it takesbravery to be honest about what
you're going through. I thinkfrom that place of being brave
enough to be honest, I deeply,deeply pray that people would
(50:42):
start to get bold, that theywould start to put themselves
out there. I mean, it's awkward.
It's awkward as an adult, youknow, like, Hey, you're gonna be
my friend. What are you eventalking about? Like, it is just
difficult and awkward, and ittakes a boldness that says, I
know that I can't do this lifealone, and so I'm going to fight
for it. I'm gonna get back upagain. I'm gonna trust again.
(51:05):
I'm gonna believe that there are11 out there that I can trust,
even though that one betrayedme. I'm not gonna let anyone
take away my opportunity to havepeople that see me and know me
and soothe me and create safetyfor me and secure attachment. I
just I pray that bravery comes.
I pray that a boldness comes,and then when you have built a
(51:28):
solid community, my prayer isthat you would be a good friend.
That's been the awesome thingabout my story is that I've seen
so much pain and I needed to berescued from so many things that
now I know how to rescue I knowwhat people need, because I've
been shown such a grace and alove and just I just have the
(51:50):
best people in my life. I haveprayed for them. I've had hard
conversations with them, like wehave had ruptures, is what we
call them, and we have repairedthem. But now I can like because
I've experienced what it feelslike to have good friends. I can
be that to other people. I canbe that to my children.
Joshua Johnson (52:06):
So good. If you go back to your 21 year old
self, what advice would yougive?
Toni Collier (52:10):
Hey, close your legs. Okay. Uh, I'm sorry that
one just came out of me. It'strue. Um, maybe it's something
more profound that's going tocome here in a second, but that
was the first thing that canOkay, um, no, but I, I was, um,
I've been a performer my wholelife. I've been on stages. I
graduated high school at 16,college at 19, like, I mean,
(52:31):
just run, run, run, run, run,check off the to do list all the
things like it was about doing.
And truly, I wish I could lookat 21 year old Tony and say the
greatest thing you'll ever do isbe a daughter of God, like not
do anything. It's like thegreatest thing you'll ever do is
be like you will just learn howto just be, and I'm still
learning that. But that piece ofadvice, I think, would have
(52:55):
helped me invite people insooner. I don't think I would
have been in pain alone for solong if I would have known that
I didn't even have to doanything to be loved. Okay, so
that's my second answer, butthat first one remains true,
dang it. Okay. You're loved.
Joshua Johnson (53:14):
You're loved so deeply loved. Yes, anything
you've been reading or watchinglately you could recommend,
Toni Collier (53:20):
ooh, that's a hard okay, so I read good boundaries
and goodbyes by Lisa Turkers.
Game Changer. I am clawing. I'mtalking about clawing because I
don't want to read it forgivingwhat you can't forget. It's like
the prelude to my book. It'slike, if you're having a
difficult time trusting people,that's where you start, and then
you'll come on over to my book.
You know what I'm saying? Yeah,but, my goodness, it is. It's
(53:43):
just been like the hardest thingfor me to forgive, you know, and
I just don't want that to holdme back from a really fruitful
life of community and withness.
But those are the two.
Joshua Johnson (53:55):
Well, that's good, because you know what
forgiveness does? It releasesyou from the chains that you're
carrying, not from what someonedid to you or anything else.
That's it. It is, it is abeautiful thing. It's so good.
And it's Yeah, it doesn't givepeople excuses at all, but it
releases you from the chainsthat you've been carrying. So,
(54:18):
yeah, forgiveness. It's want it,but the secret sauce. It is the
secret sauce. Is the secretsauce. Tony, this book,
fantastic. I really want peopleto go and get this book, learn
how to actually do it with acommunity, to heal, to come
together, start theseconfessional communities,
(54:39):
because these confessionalcommunities will heal the
church. We've come up with asolution. We know it to consult
your church. That's right. Andso Tony, this has been
fantastic. Is where can peopleconnect with you? Where would
you like to point people to? Isthere anywhere specific you'd
like to get have people get thebook?
Toni Collier (54:59):
Yes. You can head to my website. It's tonyj
collier.com, T, o, n, i, j, c,O, L, L, I, E, R, everything is
there that you need. I hope youdive in. I hope you grab some of
the freebies that's on thewebsite too. Those are super
helpful and useful. And I hopeyou grab the book. Don't try
this alone.
Joshua Johnson (55:15):
Perfect. Well, Tony, thank you for this
conversation. It was fantastic.
I really enjoyed talking to you,thank you for going deep right
away, and it was fantastic. Sothank you. Thank you.
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