January 15, 2025 • 67 mins
This episode dives deep into the importance of trauma-informed care within faith communities. We discuss the need for churches to shift their focus from outreach to nurturing spiritual formation and creating safe environments for healing.
• David Ruybalid shares his journey from a traumatic upbringing to becoming a pastor
• The significance of music in worship as a form of healing and connection
• Discussing the imbalance between mission-focused worship and formative practices
• Understanding the impact of religious trauma on individuals and communities
• Strategies for developing trauma-informed care within church settings
• The BLESS approach as a framework for nurturing conversations
• Examples of effective ministries addressing trauma and mental health
• Encouraging a culture of vulnerability and emotional safety in church environments
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The metaphor that I was sitting on was I feel like
we're feeding people McDonald'smeals as opposed to full course
meals.
If it's a formational piece forthem to go out, be formed in
the way of Jesus and live onmission, we're like here's some
cheeseburgers, you know asopposed to like stuff that's
(00:21):
going to nourish their soul andtransform them.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to the Tim Allman Podcast.
It's a great day to be alive.
I pray the joy of Jesus is yourstrength, that the love of
Christ is fueling you for a lifeof meaning and purpose
connected to your identity inJesus, and that you're buckled
up ready for a fun conversation.
Today on the Tim Allman PodcastI have David Rubelid.
Let me tell you a little bitabout him.
David has and maybe we'll starthere, david.
(00:50):
David has an extensive career inthe worship arts community
Performed, produced, mentored,artist, coached many artists.
He also has been a leader on apodcast which he just told me
right before we got going.
It's kind of on hold for aminute Evolution of Faith.
You could look it up some pastpodcasts, but we're also going
to be talking abouttrauma-informed care.
(01:10):
If you're in the ChristGreenfield community, we're
walking through a series calledNever Alone God's Presence in
the Midst of Trauma.
So that's where I think alion's share of our conversation
is going to go today.
But how are you doing, david?
Thanks for taking the time tohang out with me, man.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, I'm doing great .
Thank you so much.
I've been looking forward tothis.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, I know Right back at you.
So let's start just a littlebit of your story.
Worship arts, kind of life inthe church, Tell that story.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, I was born and raised in Colorado Springs,
which is like the home and meccaof evangelical you know, is
only got focus on the family andall the ministries there.
But my story was I was raisedin a tighter niche of the
Christian community calledChristian fundamentalism.
So if you understand, like BobJones Pensacola world, that was
(01:55):
the world in which I was raisedand kind of there were two
things that I walked throughthat were kind of life altering
for me.
The first was in my church.
My parents were one of thefirst couples to go through a
divorce in like the history like150 years of our church.
My dad was on the board and sothere was all kinds of stuff
(02:16):
with that and so that shook me.
But on top of that it was avery abusive, authoritarian
environment, really unhealthyenvironment, and I was sexually
abused in that environment aswell.
So I walked through some prettygnarly stuff in you know,
formative childhood years andwhen I was in high school I
(02:41):
started getting into music.
My dad realized that the way inwhich he could connect with me
was through music.
Being raised in fundamentalismyou can't do rock and roll,
music, drums, any.
Any of that stuff is seen assinful my dad reached out to me.
We kind of connected because hehad a history of like listening
(03:01):
to old 70s bands and pulled hisrecords off the shelf I didn't
even know he had and he wastaking me to go see Bob Dylan,
the Eagles, those sort of thingsand it was really music that
took me out of that kind oftoxic church experience.
I was raised in into a differentexperience at a church known as
(03:21):
New Life Church in ColoradoSprings, where you recognize
some of the songs that came outthere.
But I kind of cut my teeth as aworship leader around 17, 18,
musician 17, 18 age range.
And it was that around thenthat I started getting hired by
different youth groups, camps,those sort of things and, uh,
(03:44):
yeah, so played musicprofessionally for a while,
tried going to bible college fora year, hated it, moved back
and played music for I playedfor I don't know if excuse me,
if you know who mark tedder is,he's, uh, ryan tedder from one
republic's uncle.
So I was in his band, he was mymentor for years, played with
(04:04):
that guy, um, and, yeah, justdid the music thing for years,
got married, had a kid and atthat moment I had to grow up and
figure things out.
So I took my first full-timesalary position, moved from
colorado to california,california, and then I zigzagged
California to Phoenix,california to Phoenix.
(04:27):
But it was that first time inPhoenix where I was serving on
worship staff there in actuallyin Chandler and at Cornerstone,
and that was where theybasically said, hey, I think you
might be called.
Where they basically said, hey,I think you might be called to
(04:48):
be a pastor, and I thought theywere crazy and so I kind of
entered into a, a kind of anordination process with them.
That took about two years andthen what happened was, uh,
after I was ordained I sensedGod was asking me to lay the
music side of what I was doingin a roll down kind of fought
him on it a little bit honestlyand then after that moved into a
(05:10):
associate pastor role inCalifornia and then came back
here where I serve up in Peoria.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So yeah, and your context right now for listeners.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Tell them about your context yeah, so, uh, I am, I'm
an associate pastor, uh overseediscipleship and outreach at a.
So here's, here's kind of thethe unique situation with me.
It's a non-denominationalchurch out of, uh, it's a church
plant with one of the pastorsout of, community church of joy,
(05:42):
which was was Lutheran up herein Peoria, and so we're
non-denominational.
I'm still connected with andhave, like I joke, dual
citizenship with the Anglicanchurches in North America and so
I am part of the Anglicanchurches in North America,
personally shared, or the bridgeat a non-denominational church
(06:05):
that still practices weeklycommunion and some of the you
know word and sacrament stuff,and so it's kind of a fun, fun
little venture.
Yeah, are you connected toKeith?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Andrews.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Okay, he's an Anglican friend of mine here on
the on the East side of Phoenix.
Anyway, thanks for sharing yourstory, man.
So many, so many things.
Going back to the role of music, you and I have a similar story
.
Like music was.
I'm not a, I'm not a artist byany stretch, I just was a singer
choirs and then early stages ofcontemporary worship, um, and
(06:39):
it really played and I had tokind of lay it down.
I say I lead worship, like Ising like once every quarter or
something like that.
Now I used to sing like twoservices or three services a
week in my different contexts,so in different seasons.
But there's something that'sextraordinary.
I mean the Bible talks aboutleft up hymns, spiritual songs
(07:01):
on the Lord, about hymns,spiritual songs unto the Lord.
You know, there's somethingabout joy and music.
I had like and I'm notcharismatic, necessarily, not
that I'm going to get againstthe gifts of the Holy Spirit by
any stretch, but being a veryconservative confessional
Lutheran denomination where wecan be, I think rightly so and
(07:21):
maybe not rightly so suspiciousof those types of gifts, but
like I'm brought to tears when Iand I don't listen to as much
contemporary music as I used to,I honestly am way more into
classical music today and as I'mreading and writing and doing
all those things.
But I was on the way to churchjust yesterday, david, and some
(07:46):
I don't know if the Holy Spiritor something said, hey, you got
to listen to King of Kings.
I'm not a Hillsong guy at all.
I don't for a variety ofreasons, but like that song and
I could list a whole number ofsongs Like when it hits and the
church of Christ was born andthe spirit lit the flame, I'm
just like a mess with Jesus andI was just so pumped to then
(08:09):
like come and speak yesterday.
So music still like touches mysoul and all different types of
and styles of music just touchesme in a unique way.
What is it about music?
Even physiologically?
Obviously there's a spiritualcomponent, but physiologically
it just changes the human heart.
David, any thoughts there?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, I think that's why the, the, the verse that you
were quoting says teach andadmonish one another in all
wisdom through him.
Uh, there's something about the, the, the, the musical portion
that is, uh, has such a strongway of of, of shaping and
(08:48):
forming us, I think.
I think, and one of the piecesI think in kind of Lutheran
world and and and Anglican worldwe might understand that I
think that I missed for years,is the formational element of
worship, Like, I think that alot of churches nowadays they
get the like, oh, the missionalelement, Like we want people
(09:09):
that are not yet followers ofJesus to be able to kind of, you
know, vibe with us and kind of,you know, a lot of
seeker-sensitive churches willutilize those means for the sake
of mission, will utilize thosemeans for the sake of mission.
But we, you know, in kind ofliturgical world, we forget the
(09:33):
formational.
We remember that.
I think that I forgot and didn'tunderstand the formational
piece, and I think it happensuniquely because of music.
I mean, I think that's whythat's mentioned there, it's
mentioned in Ephesians, the sameway as it pertains to being
filled with the Holy Spirit.
You know, be not drunk withwine in excess, it leads to
(09:53):
debauchery, but be filled withthe Holy Spirit, which leads to
singing psalms and spiritualsongs.
So something about the you know, spirit filled people are
singing people.
It's just kind of the way it is.
Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
No, I couldn't agree more.
And there is, we could go downthis trail.
Maybe we're not going to do itextensively, but that debate
between the focus of worship I'mof the mind, just to kind of
lay my cards on the table, faceup that worship is for the
formation of the believer.
We're confessing who God is andwhat he's done one to another,
(10:32):
and then we're being catalyzedthrough the forgiveness of sins
to go offer that forgiveness andlove to the world.
I view Sunday, or whenever yougather, as a catalyst for
mission rather than kind of thefocal point of mission.
Any thoughts?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
there.
Yeah, I think that's kind ofwhat I'm getting at is Sunday
morning has the focal point inso many spaces has become
mission that we don't hit theformation piece.
Do you know who Glenn Packiamis?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
No, tell me.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Glenn Packiam.
He's at Rock Harbor now inCalifornia.
He's like me where he'sAnglican but in a
non-denominational space.
He was at New Life Church aswell and kind of what wound up
happening?
He started asking differentquestions about worship.
(11:26):
But he's he's a Durham guy.
He has his PhD from Durham in,uh, in worship formation and uh,
he writes.
Check out some of his stuff.
He writes very specificallyabout there's three paradigms in
worship, uh, that we need tofocus on, and we tend to just
focus on expression and missionand forget about formation.
(11:50):
But it's always the work ofworship that brings about
formation.
If you're familiar with LexCredendi, lex Ordonde's, it's
it's the way we worship, the waywe pray, the way we worship
(12:12):
becomes what we believe, and soif we understand that, that'll
change the dynamics and the wayin which we think through
worship.
Uh, and you know, one of thethings I as a worship pastor,
before I kind of moved out ofthat space, I started asking
those questions and I kind ofthe metaphor that I was sitting
on was I feel like we're feedingpeople McDonald's meals as
opposed to full course meals Ifit's a formational piece for
(12:35):
them to go out, be formed in theway of Jesus and live on
mission.
We're like here's somecheeseburgers, you know, as
opposed to like stuff that'sgoing to nourish their soul and
transform them.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
So yeah, and in our kind of ancient traditions,
liturgical traditions, becausewe stand on the shoulders of the
Western church, roman Catholicchurch and the Eastern Orthodox
Churches as well.
Obviously, I'm a product ofLutheranism 500, some years ago.
Luther never wanted to becalled Lutheranism, by the way,
(13:12):
he just was returned back to thegospel.
But what he was kind offrustrated with was the move
away from all of the rites andrituals, the liturgies that had
normed us.
He was trying to pull us back.
All the sacraments aren't bad,hold it up a little bit.
And so we today have a very, Iguess, well agreed upon, and I'm
(13:38):
in a church that does both highchurch and I don't like low
church, but more modern worship.
But the form is there and theform is formative.
You make your beginning in thename of the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit.
What's that all about?
It's baptism, right.
There's going to be a time inworship where we confess how far
(13:58):
we are, on our own, away fromGod, and sometimes these are
like words that are connected toscripture, or it's just.
Someone gets up and says man,I've really made a mess of my
life in this way, tied to thetheme somehow.
So confession, and then someonemost often it's a pastor gets
up as a calling to answer theword.
I announced the forgiveness ofJesus unto you.
(14:19):
You are forgiven corporatelyand we can go a little side note
there too.
I think confession andabsolution is very, very huge,
not just corporately butindividually, and we could
explore making that kosher again, I guess.
And then we move on time andhearing of the word, obviously
the proclamation of the word,and for us in our tradition it's
law gospel.
You're always going to hear.
You're always going to hearabout Jesus the work, the word
(14:42):
and the way of you're going tohear about Jesus.
The work, the word and the wayof you're going to hear about
Jesus.
Whether the text brings them upor not, we're importing Jesus.
He's on every, every page ofscripture, right.
So a good Lutheran sermon isgoing to have have law gospel
proclamation and then we'regoing to have to spend time in
prayer.
We're going to celebrate theLord's supper.
We're going to have the Lord'sprayer, the creed, and then the
benedediction I need to gothrough and the blessing which
(15:04):
numbers chapter six normally,which is the presence of God
that goes with his people.
It's a missional sending of thepeople out in the community
with presence of God, imagebearers of the king Right.
So so that is our kind of formand I have to like walk through
that because there are some,some people in my respective
tribe and Lutheran churchMissouri synod who think because
we've uh, because we havemodern instrumentation, we have
(15:32):
no value for the formation ofthe liturgy and nothing could be
further from the truth.
So that's kind of our normalform, whether it's in a hymnal
or on a screen or whatever, inyour tradition Anglican.
What kind of resonates orwhat's different in your
experiences?
Speaker 1 (15:41):
It's really not much different actually in your
experiences.
It's really not much differentactually.
We make sure that at multipletimes, yeah, the law is
proclaimed, gospel is proclaimed, and we walk through.
We say that within our liturgythere are kind of two peaks word
and sacrament.
And so the way we think throughit is you have the ministry of
the word, the ministry of thesacrament, and in that there's
(16:04):
multiple proclamations of um,depending on what right you're
utilizing, it speaks, you know,love, lord your god, with all
your heart, soul, mind, loveyour neighbor as yourself.
And then you go into the curia,you realize that we, we've
missed the mark.
And then there's a proclamationof the gospel, same thing as
after the hearing of the word uh, normally, depending on on the
(16:26):
right and and the congregation,uh, you know, we, we affirm our
faith by uh, nicene creed at uh,baptisms it's normally apostles
creed, because that we've.
We see that as the, the baptismcreed, with the language there
Um.
After moving out of that, wehave times of prayer and then we
(16:48):
have times of confession,absolution, passing of the peace
as we move towards the table,and the table too has that
moment of its proclamation ofthe celebration of the
sacrificial lamb.
And what I love about thatmovement in so many ways,
(17:11):
compared to kind of some of theother traditions I've been a
part of, is that the focal pointis not on consumerism of so
many things that you can't, it'sthe table.
I mean you come to the tableand then you receive.
(17:34):
You know, you know it's againthe gospel proclamation receive
by faith, the grace, it's a giftoffered, and so every week in
that way the gospel isproclaimed in that way as well
(17:54):
as you leave.
But yeah, we kind of see it astwo peaks.
I don't know if you kind of seeit that way, but it's the
ministry of the word, ministryof the sacrament, but within
that you see that same rhythm ofproclaiming this love the Lord,
your God, with all your heart.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
I fall short than the gospels proclaim, but yeah, I
guess there's a nuanced debatein Lutheranism around what peak
is higher.
You know what gets primacy.
I mean, some people argue thatyou got the altar right there in
the middle.
So obviously, even in ourworship spaces and that's one of
(18:36):
the biggest critiques of maybemodern contemporary worship is
where's?
Where's the altar right?
Yeah, because you got drums.
Is that we worshiping drums?
Obviously we're not worshipingdrums.
But yeah, I really I think it'sdefinitely balanced, are we?
We have to hear the word, we'reconfessing people who are
shaped by the word, which isJesus, and then we're obviously
(18:57):
shaped by the word becomingflesh and laying his life down
for us and giving us his verybody and blood for the
forgiveness of sin.
So, yeah, I like, I like twopeaks, two peaks as well.
Well, let's get into.
I love it.
We could, we could talk worshipand those things for a while,
but the lion's share of thisconversation is going to be
around trauma, informed care.
I mean, in your story you kindof just walked quickly through
(19:18):
some things.
You're like, oh man, that'srough, that stinks, and you even
mentioned a church like NewLife.
And I remember New Life frombeing in Colorado.
I mean it was in the headlinesand for the life of me I can't
remember the pastor's name, butthere was some tough stuff.
I think that happened at NewLife.
(19:39):
So, anyway, you want to go intodeeper things there and then, as
we hedge, into religious traumain the church.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of things I kind of
glossed over.
I gave a snapshot.
I've experienced, at leastwithin ministry I've experienced
it's pretty gnarly stuff.
Yeah.
So New Life if you don't knowthe story, ted Haggard was a
founding pastor.
He was a president of theNational Association of
Evangelicals and while servingin those roles, new Life I mean
(20:11):
they were a 14,000-member church, huge their music.
I mean.
You know, you have songs likeif I just name I Am Free some
other ones, the Great I Am.
I mean all these songs, I couldjust keep naming them.
I used to work and play withDaniel Basher who wrote my God's
not dead, he's surely alive.
(20:33):
It was all kind of in the soupof new life there.
And Ted Haggard, at a certainpoint it came out in 2006, that
he had been visiting, as he wentup to Denver to write his book.
I was actually out at this timebut my wife we weren't married
yet, she was still attending NewLife and all the band members
(20:54):
were like my best friends andstuff.
And so in 2006, yeah, it cameout that Ted Haggard, as he was
going to denver for writing hisbook, on those trips he was
seeing a male prostitute anddoing meth and so, and it was
this, this, this male prostitutethat uh, outed him because he
(21:14):
saw him on an interview on thehistory channel, and so that was
, that was I say not only formyself personally but for the
entire city of Colorado Springsthat just shook them because New
Life had such a dominatingpresence in Colorado Springs and
then a reach out nationally,and so that was crazy, crazy.
(21:38):
And then, man, they brought inbrady boyd, who was the.
He became the lead pastor andshortly after there was a
shooting.
So a gunman walked in, therewas a shooting and this is what
got crazy.
I I was at this point marriedthe security guard that took
(22:00):
down the gunman there actuallyworked for my wife, whoa, and so
she actually, like ourChristmas tree that we had for
like the first 10 years of ourmarriage was a gift from her and
stuff.
So so all these things of this,what was kind of the you call
(22:21):
it, like the evangelicalVaticanatican, uh, that I was
intertwined with, there was justa lot of like pain and stuff
from these situations thathappened.
Um, I remember my buddy, davidlee, the keyboard player,
calling me like literally themoment after he left after the
shooting and, uh, and, andtalking and talking with me,
(22:41):
yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Well, so much, uh so, and thanks for thanks for
sharing that.
That was kind of ancienthistory.
I'd forgotten that story.
I was a young pastor, um, juststarting in Lakewood, colorado,
and uh, and those, thoseshootings.
What year was that shooting?
Remind me.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I think that was oh no, oh seven.
Oh, I think that was oh no, ohseven, oh eight.
Something might have been sevenor eight, yeah yeah, I think it
was.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, I started in in colorado in oh eight.
I think I was already alreadythere like 26 year old young guy
just getting going.
It was awful.
And didn't didn't the shootergo from arvada down to colorado
springs, didn't it wasn't theshooting in arvada first?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
yeah, so it was the yAM, the YWAM headquarters up
there in your area.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, yeah, it was kind of like the loss of
innocence in that decade inColorado, from Columbine to that
shooting and the whole the, theshooting in the theater.
It was very traumatic.
There in Aurora it was aroundthe same time.
So, yeah, no, there's life isreally really hard.
The message of the sermon thatI preached yesterday, david, was
(23:45):
life is loss.
And looked at the story of Joband Job's.
Everybody knows kind of Job'sfriends and they do some good
things, they sit with him, don'tsay a whole lot for, sit in
grief for a week and then theysay a lot of things.
Basically, what they said isyou're the problem, like you
(24:06):
must have done something to tickGod off.
And then obviously Job's wifecurse God and die.
He says something that youshould probably not tell your
wife Job does.
He says you're a foolish woman.
I mean you might want to bemore tactful than that.
But yeah, I mean Job's storyit's just consistent loss and
that was really the through linewas because we got to get to
(24:26):
Jesus.
Jesus is the better, perfectJob who had everything and then
lost it all, even to the pointof death on a cross, and through
his resurrection we have life,as Christ has been raised, so
will we be raised in all of ouryou say, fortunes?
I guess in this life will berestored at the return of Christ
, when we have perfection withGod, self, others and the rest
(24:47):
of creation.
That would be prettyextraordinary.
But in the meantime, we have toget better at caring for one
another.
So let's talk about the thingsthat churches do that are not
helpful in caring for those whoare dealing and you could use a
word that's in popularvernacular, I mean trigger, that
could trigger, even inreligious institutions, those
(25:08):
that have walked throughincredible trauma.
So 24 million people sufferfrom PTSD.
8% of the population these arethe two kind of stats were as we
go through this sermon 8% ofthe population has some form of
post-traumatic stress disorder,and it's wild.
So in our pews, chairs,whatever, there are people that
are deeply hurting.
(25:29):
One point, before I turn itover to you to help us get
better at this, is when I'mpreaching about pain, suffering
and loss.
There is a spirit.
It's the comforting spirit.
It's the comforting spirit,it's the Holy Spirit, but it's a
spirit of grief that just fallsupon a certain percentage of
that room.
I've been preaching in the lastcouple of months and there have
(25:52):
been people who have been andthis is strange in a Western
context, but we are gettingbetter at just loving people who
are pretty much openly weepingin the midst of the message, as
they're just processing whateverit is a loss of a loved one, an
accident, whatever, whatever.
And the Holy Spirit knows, andit's amazing.
They come out of thoseexperiences because worship is
(26:14):
formation and they're like thatwas healing.
I needed to just release allthese things to Jesus.
And that's not the only.
Worship is obviously not theonly place, but if we're not
well informed about what it iswe're doing and setting space
for people to grieve with hope,I think we're missing it.
We're offering, like you say,mcdonald's, rather than there's
(26:36):
a new restaurant called Buck andRyder Top Cuisine, which is
people being able to heal at thefeet of the crucified Jesus.
So talk to us about how we canget better at trauma-informed
care.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
David, yeah, within the church do you want me to
speak specifically towardsreligious trauma or trauma in
general?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
No, yeah, let's go religious trauma first.
I mean that's the area you said.
This has been your kind of.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, yeah, I think well you rattle off statistics
at kind of yeah, yeah, I think Ithink well, you, you, you
rattled off statistics at kindof like a higher general level
when it comes to religioustrauma, which is when people
experience stuff that overwhelmstheir system very similarly,
but there's a faith pieceattached to it, so it could be
spiritual abuse, it could bekind of some of the teachings
(27:21):
and ways within an environment.
It has the same kind of impacton somebody, so to speak.
One of the things and you kindof alluded to it with the Job
piece one of the things that'sreally important for me is to
make sure that discussion in therealm of like small groups and
(27:44):
Bible studies, that there areparameters of kind of how that's
going to play out, that theleader protects, and that there
it is stated, sometimes beforethe discussion, sometimes
sometimes, you know, I actuallyhave a commitment that people
sign both, both the the smallgroup participants and the
(28:08):
leaders that talk about howwe're going to protect that time
.
And it's very similar to whatyou'd experience at like an AA
meeting.
Yeah, because one of the one ofthe issues that I've
experienced while I've pastoredpeople and complaints that I get
normally has to do with whensomebody opens their mouth to
give advice and it hasn't beenrequested, and so for me, that
(28:33):
is a huge practical way in whichpeople can be protected from
re-traumatization and feelsupport.
So, right off the bat, that'swhere I would go.
I think that one of the thingsthat for me, has been really
hard but needed is the balanceof language that both
(28:57):
accentuates the sovereignty ofGod but also accentuates the
ability for the human to turnthe human to choose to worship
the human, to choose to respond.
In that moment where there's somuch, if you walk through
religious trauma well, anytrauma in many ways, but
(29:22):
religious trauma in a faithspace it feels like you've been
stripped of that agency, and soone of the ways that I go about
it when I lead oftentimes is Isay, hey, you could participate,
or as much or as little as youfeel comfortable, to kind of
give the person the ability towhere I'm not going to command
(29:43):
things of them.
You know, like when I was inkind of the more modern rah-rah
Jesus, you're like you know,lift up your hands, come on,
shout it out, and you're likeyou're calling that, and what
I've learned is the invitationmodel is way more important of
like you know, hey, this iswhat's on my heart and I want to
ask, if you're there and youfeel comfortable I want to
(30:07):
invite you to respond in thisway, because agency has so been
stripped and authority, uh,sometimes authoritarianism those
sorts of things have beenexperienced by people in
religious spaces and to offsetit and say, hey, what's
happening in your heart, youknow, I want to invite you, if
(30:28):
you're there, to respond.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
So yeah, Well, power works in the short term.
And certain religious leaders,political leaders, leaders in
the secularist, wherever you cantell people what to do.
And often you know, becausethere's a small percentage of
people who are actually likeleaders of organizations.
(30:54):
You know most people are justlike, okay, I'm just a normal
guy doing my thing, you knownine to five or whatever, so
I'll go along to get along andI'll, you know, I'll come along
as long as I know you have kindof my best interest at heart.
But sometimes, sometimesleaders can declare through
edict, resolution by a committeeand that becomes that becomes
(31:20):
the norm here and it can be very, very dysfunctional and really
not in the way of Jesus.
I mean, jesus is aninvitational rabbi.
Yeah Right, come and follow.
I mean you can just come.
If you want to come, just hangout.
You know, see how I do it.
It's game on.
And he didn't think about thenight Jesus is betrayed, like
(31:40):
he's told his disciples this iswhat's going to happen Handed
over, crucified, third day,three days later, rise again,
he's told them, so they can havekind of peace.
But they obviously forget inthe midst of the chaos.
But he doesn't chide, shamethem at all.
I'm thinking of the story ofPeter, preached on the trauma of
(32:01):
Peter's denial and the shamethat could have just kind of
overwhelmed him, crippled him,and the look of Jesus.
Luke's gospel because I thinkthree out of four talk about
Peter's denial If someone faxchecks me that could be all four
but anyway in great depth.
But Luke's gospel says andJesus looked at him and then he
(32:24):
went out and he heard therooster and he went out and he
wept bitterly.
You remember that?
Oh yeah, what did Jesus look athim for?
Like, I don't think it wasanger, I don't even think it was
a look that would producenecessarily shame.
I think it was a mixture, andyou know this look, it's a
mixture of just sadness I'mdoing this for you but robust
(32:47):
love, and I think love was theoverarching look from Christ.
And then obviously, therestoration of Peter and the
mission that he sent Peter on,that Jesus actually pursued
Peter.
And one of my favorite pointsthat I drew out of John's gospel
was John tells Peter whenthey're in the boat they went
(33:09):
back to their former vocation.
Right, we don't know if thiswhole Jesus thing, this
proclamation thing, even thoughhe's alive, we don't know what
day of the resurrection of the40 days.
It is, but nonetheless theyhear him.
When you catch anything he'sthrown on the other side.
This is very reminiscent oftheir initial interaction with
Jesus.
And then John is the one thattells Peter it's the Lord.
(33:31):
If you remember that?
John tells Peter directly.
There's six of them in the boat.
John tells Peter it's the Lord.
We need more friends like Johnwhen we're walking through,
because there probably was guiltand shame in Peter's story.
At this point we say I'm justone who gets to point you to the
presence of Jesus in the midstof your guilt and shame.
And Peter doesn't cower in fearfrom Christ or shame, he jumps
(33:56):
in the water.
He can't get to Jesus quicklyenough.
So I mean the church is theliving manifestation of the
crucified and risen and reigningJesus.
We are the body of Christ andso I pray we start to emulate
not just the work and the wordbut the way of Jesus, and it's
an invitational way.
Any response to as I'm kind oftelling Peter's story there,
(34:17):
david.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Yeah, I'm what.
What I'm actually what goingthrough is.
I'm kind of blown away becausesome of the way in which you are
exegeting and pulling out isways in which I mean you had one
of the questions here I wasgoing to say is the way in which
we we see scripture, we see theelements of not only trauma but
(34:39):
also what trauma produces.
And so, right off the bat, Ijust want to say I'm loving that
you're able to see that stuffwithin the narrative as you see
it, because not everyone does,and so, right off the bat, I'm
just appreciative of that.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
So, yeah, oh yeah, thanks, man, that's kind.
So you talked about parameters.
Let's get into the details alittle bit the parameters and
the commitment.
Could you give some detailsabout what those parameters?
We got small group leaders thatare listening here, so, yeah,
let's go through those.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yeah.
So I tell people, your job isnot to teach, your job is to
facilitate.
Let the teacher teach.
And so that could be.
We have a couple of differenttypes of groups.
We have some that arecurriculum based, that go off
video.
We do have some where there isa qualified teacher that does
teach, but that person has beenput in that place and affirmed
by myself or our lead pastor.
(35:33):
But the facilitator's role is todraw up discussion, and so I
don't know if you're familiarwith Alpha, do you guys?
You're familiar with Alpha?
It's a very similar model whereour role is to get people
talking and to honor them forwhat they're saying, and we
trust that the Holy Spirit'sdoing the work in their life,
(35:53):
and the only time in which wewill correct them or bring
something to them is if they askhey, am I seeing this correctly
?
And so if you're familiar withAlpha, alpha is very much a hey,
I'm going to trust the HolySpirit here.
We want to honor anybody whoshows up in our room, in our
space, and when we ask thequestions, we're asking to draw
(36:17):
out what's happening in them andwhat they're learning from the
video, and we honor them.
We thank them for sharing, wepass the ball instead of giving
commentary on everything thateveryone says it's just hey,
what?
What did you think of that?
Oh, thank you so much forsharing.
Hey, would you, would you know,turn to the next person, would
(36:37):
you agree?
And so some of the parametersfor us are you're not the
teacher, you're the facilitator,and the facilitator's role is
to bring out conversation frompeople and not to run the
conversation.
So we tell people that ifyou're doing more than and we
say 30%, that's even a highnumber, but we say, if you're
(36:57):
doing more than 30% of thetalking in that moment, you're
talking too much.
I would actually run thatnumber down, but that was kind
of the number my team landed on.
So that's kind of the goal.
We have different people, wehave people that voted
differently, we have people thatcome from different
(37:18):
denominational backgrounds.
All those things are reallyimportant for us to be able to
honor and respect the otherperson.
People have experienced loss,people have experienced all
kinds of stuff, and so to honorthem, just being willing to open
up and share, and then notcorrecting, not shaming, not
(37:45):
giving advice unless it's beenasked, is kind of the way in
which we you know I could pullup a commitment and read it to
you, or send it to you if youwant.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
No, that's good.
That's kind of the heart of it.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Yeah, the reason I'm laughing is because this isn't
what church leaders were trainedto do generally, right, I mean,
if you go to seminary and youget ordained, you're the Bible
answer guy, you're the talkerright, you're a brain on a stick
(38:18):
, you're a personality you know,and there's a part of me that
can be this Do people really,really know who I am?
You know all parts of me and doI have spaces where, like, I
can just listen?
One of the reasons I do thepodcast is because I really like
to.
I like facilitatingconversation more than I like
telling people what to do.
Yeah, you know, but but that'ssomething that kind of the Lord
(38:42):
put in me.
But I think anything to likepastors who were like I don't,
this seems foreign to me.
I mean, cause we've been taughtand it's not.
There's nothing that I hear yousaying that's against like or
preaching.
That definitely has its place.
It's just for holistic care totake place, people need to have
safe places where they can shareall of their life, journey and
(39:07):
receive and maybe we can go hereand receive the love and
prayerful presence of a brotheror sister who and there's
something mysterious here toothe power of prayer over someone
proclaiming their identity,inviting and this is one of the
main, I think invitations interms of trauma, if there is
enough safety and this isprobably better one-on-one or in
(39:29):
a group of three if somethingreally, really heavy has been
shared and it feels like Jesusis not there.
Right, jesus wasn't in that thatroom, um, and I'm thinking of
yeah, I'm thinking of a reallyhard, hard suicide story right
now in a room that just it feltreally like Jesus wasn't, wasn't
(39:49):
there.
I've had to do work that familyhas had to do, to do work to
invite Jesus in.
You know, and that's the powerof prayer, we just invite Jesus.
What is Jesus doing?
As he comes into that room ofintense grief and loss?
He's crying, just like we'recrying right now.
Anything more there, david?
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
One of the things that we kind of I could say a
tool or an acronym that we sayover and over to kind of help
people embody the way of Jesusis the acronym BLESS.
Have you ever seen somebodyutilize that as it pertains?
Speaker 2 (40:25):
I have, but let's do it.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Yeah.
So B stands with begin withprayer, and we encourage people
to pray for the people in theplaces where they live, work,
study and play, because God'salready doing something.
People in the places where theylive, work, study and play
because God's already doingsomething.
They're not going to makesomething happen, like really
the Holy Spirit is the one whodoes the work.
And so you begin with prayer.
The L stands for listen, whichis, I mean, right off the bat,
(40:48):
your goal is, as you engage withpeople where you live, work,
study and play, you listen.
You don't start by talking, youlisten, and sometimes listening
involves asking questions, andso you're, you're drawing things
out.
My buddy, jr briggs he has abook, uh, I think, coming out.
He has another one he wrotethat was a little unofficial,
but he's brilliant question asklike, and so the the better
(41:13):
questions we learn to ask, themore we can draw things out of
people.
But listen.
The E stands for eat because, aswe see, jesus hosts meals and
it breaks down barriers.
But it also says that we allshare in the same human needs,
and so eat and then serve.
Well, you don't serve somebodybased on what you think they
(41:34):
need.
You serve based on what you'veheard, by listening and spending
time with them, and then thevery last S is to share your
story and God's story and noticeit's the very last thing.
And so you know, sometimes wefeel like that should be the
very first thing or the secondthing.
But begin with prayer, listen,eat, serve and then, as the Holy
(41:57):
Spirit leads, and only if heleads you, share.
So that's kind of how we toolour people to think through
living out kind of the way ofJesus in their, their places and
their context.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
So yeah, I love it as we're coming down the last
little bit here.
Can you give some examples oftypes of ministries?
And I don't know if it'sparachurch necessarily, but in
our context we have CG Cares,classes for people walking
through various strugglesdivorce, grief, finance, et
(42:29):
cetera.
So that's kind of our.
We have Celebrate Recovery,we're starting all these types
of ministries.
So there's some examples.
But do you know of someministries that you've been
around that are specificallytoward this topic of trauma?
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Yeah, so we've been actually very just like you guys
, very intentional to kind ofhave this in mind as we do
ministry and what I'm thankfulfor.
Not every church congregation,leadership, denomination, is
open to these conversations, andso I've been very thankful that
our, our congregation, ourleadership as a whole has been
(43:04):
so, with that, some of thethings that I would say has been
an act of God, allowing us tosee what he's doing and put in
place.
We haven't, like, forced any ofthis stuff to happen.
Um, we have actually have acounseling center that utilizes
our space, and so it's kind of acool thing that happened.
I had a situation with a familymember who attempted suicide
(43:27):
because of how he was in highschool, because of how the
school trained the staff and thestudents and made this a usual
conversation within their worldat a public school.
Somebody saw the way he saidgoodbye to them that day, called
the police and it saved hislife.
(43:50):
But the trauma that led to thatmoment happened within a
Christian school that didn'tknow how to handle him.
And so in me, you'll find I'mnot a cynical person when I get
angry.
In like a justice way, I wantto build better things as
(44:13):
opposed to tear things down, youknow.
And so with that it was kind ofa driving force for me to have
more partnerships with ourfamilies in our church.
And in that period of time Ihad a volunteer for Alpha the
previous year who committedsuicide year, who committed
(44:45):
suicide and I had sorry I had.
It was literally I had somebodycall me and say, you know, for
her husband, do you know of anycounselors?
I'm like, well, bethany Bibleis probably now now Phoenix
Bible, I believe, is nowprobably the closest thing that
I know on this end of the Valley, cause I'm everything I know is
like East Valley from spendingyears there.
And it was literally like thatweek, uh, dan Capel, who was
(45:07):
running the counselingdepartment for the rescue
mission in town, knocked on mydoor at the church while I'm
sermon prepping.
He's introduced himself andsaid hey, would you guys be open
to a partnership?
I'm looking at starting aprivate practice and I'm looking
for space.
So we actually started with arelationship with him where we
said you could use our space forfree as you build your, your,
(45:31):
your, you know counseling centerin return for us having deals
for our members to go.
And then our board opened up acertain amount of money to also
kind of pay for people thatcouldn't pay for themselves even
with that discount.
So that's one of the thingsthat we did.
Another thing in that, again,because we wanted to partner
(45:54):
more with the families and somesome of the families in our
church were going through somegnarly stuff.
Uh, we started what was called.
We did our first ever lastspring mental health, mental
health summit where weapproached the topics of grief.
We approached, um, I talkedabout Jesus's anxiety, uh and uh
(46:16):
.
And then we had, uh, theytalked about trauma and then
they talked about we brought inAmen clinic to talk about brain
development, so good.
And so we, we hosted that whichstarted us into where we're
doing two to four times a yearmicro events.
So we'll bring in a speaker.
We had one on social media.
(46:38):
Now we, we have one, uh, I don'tknow if you know chris morris
is.
He might be good guy for you toconnect with.
He's on this end of the valley.
I didn't know.
He lived here, he was an author.
I followed talking about mentalhealth and he's like hey, can I
send you your my book?
And I gave him my address.
He's like you're in arizona,I'm in arizona we like 15
minutes away, so we've hung outa few times but bringing him in
(46:59):
to talk about his story and he'sa mental health advocate,
seminary trained, really coolguy, but we're bringing him in.
And so we have these littlemicro events where we not only
invite our church but we invite.
We have a partnership with apublic elementary that allows us
to invite people to our events.
(47:21):
That's awesome.
Yeah, it's crazy.
And then all the Christianschools in the area.
I think and I'll say this onhere that my experience because
I graduated from Christianschool, I went to two and then I
worked for two years at aChristian school I think there's
a lot of misinformation,misunderstanding within those
(47:44):
circles that I've found aroundmental health, and so we try and
hit the Christian schools uphere.
And then we have trauma-informedtraining for our youth leaders
and we do it once a year in thesummer right before camp.
We've had kids that discloserape, that disclose abuse, that
(48:09):
disclose all kinds of things,and so we sit down for about an
hour, hour and a half with allof the leaders there's normally
about 20 of us that sit aroundthe table and we do it in
partnership with our counselingcenter and we do trauma,
informed training and how torespond and how to know how to
respond and read thesesituations.
(48:30):
And then we have life recovery,which is like a celebrate
recovery that meets on Mondayevening.
So those are some of the if youcould hear kind of in my story
of some of the things we'vetried to purposefully put in
place that I'm thankful for.
Those are some of the thingswe're moving on within our
community.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
So grateful for you and for the church and the wider
church responding in healthyways.
And it's not a one size fitsall, if you hear like there's a
number of different ways.
We're trying to meet peoplewhere they are.
We're also looking to start acounseling ministry here.
So you mentioned a few thingsI'm interested about Christian
(49:09):
schools.
We got a lot of peoplelistening that are connected to
some of our Lutheran schools.
What were some of those waysthat were not helpful?
That we were training students,teachers, et cetera in the
school context?
Go deeper there.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Yeah, so in that story, specifically my family
member.
He was bullied at the school.
Nothing was done about it andso there wasn't a response to
bullying.
There are certain laws thatI've noticed because I'm
actually still walking with thisschool and I'm it.
There's a whole story herewhere, basically, I pushed them
(49:46):
about a year and a half ago andthey closed the door in my face
Like, basically, like didn'twant to talk about it.
We're doing fine.
Look at our ratings.
You know, you don't know whatyou're talking about.
Like it was a full, likegaslighting session and they've
reopened the door forconversation with me because
they're under new leadershipwhere I might step in and
actually help them do training,um, but, but, but what I found
(50:10):
is them and some of the ones uparound here, because some of the
students, they're not quite inline with some of the legal um I
could use the term parametersor expectations uh, with how to
handle certain types of bullying.
There was a death threat inthis situation that wasn't
reported, um, and then, and thenone of the things right now,
(50:34):
with every at least in the stateof Arizona, every school and
this includes private school isrequired to do mental health and
suicide prevention trainingonce every three years.
This is one of those thingswhere you know, I think that for
(50:55):
a lot of times they're like, oh, we'll leave that up to you,
the, the guidance counselor orthe spiritual director.
But it's like, no, everyteacher like, yes, have, have a
trained professional if that, ifyou have the budget to do so
within your administration.
But every teacher must atminimum be trained in
(51:19):
conversation every couple years.
Of this is what it means to betrauma informed.
This is what it looks like.
This is how, when you know whento report what this is how you
handle.
I had a student when I was there.
I had a student when I wasthere say, hey, I've attempted
suicide two times and I've.
(51:39):
I had to respond, but it wasn'tclear.
I mean, I was on staff here.
It wasn't clear how to respond.
So I went to the spiritualdirector and to the counselor.
They both told me two differentthings.
And the counselor her concernwas the school, school not
getting sued.
And I don't think after thatinitial moment I offered to call
(52:04):
the parents.
I called the parents After thatmoment.
I don't think the school didany check-ins or walk alongside
of that student's family afterthat moment.
And so there's just a lot ofthese things where I'm like why
is the public school systemdoing better?
It's like if my family memberwas at this Christian school he
(52:26):
wouldn't be with us right now,and that's just like a sobering,
sad thought.
It should be reversed.
So those are just some of thethings in there.
Know your laws, make sure thatyou know what it, that everyone
understands what mandatoryreporting means.
I think that's really important, um, know your laws.
(52:47):
And then with that, with that,um, I just, you know, and there
was, there was, there wasre-victimization, you know,
re-traumatization in in some ofmy family's attempts, the
parents attempts to push theschool a little bit, and it just
(53:08):
, you know, wasn't, wasn't good.
So yeah, yeah, and this is aschool with high ratings where
it's like that they kind of hidebehind the ratings.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
Yeah, yeah Pull of institutional preservation is
strong.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
And and hopefully we're confessing institutions.
We don't in life, you know, Ikind of help oversee a school.
I don't run it day to day, butin my world the I, the principal
, reports to me right.
So, um, the quicker we can getto confession in those messy
situations, the better.
Like we, we ha, we didn't haveall the details.
(53:45):
We could have handled itdifferent.
Um, and we want to do whateverit takes to care for kids really
, really well.
Um, you couple a couple ofclosing.
You, you did a presentation onJesus anxiety.
That that's provocative to me.
Uh, what did you say?
Where did you locate Jesusanxiety?
Obviously the garden.
But yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (54:04):
Yeah, luke 22,.
Uh, the language in the Greek,yes, it says in agony, but it
also can translate to anxietyand uh.
And so I, I talked about whatwas happening in his body, but
my where I, what I got to was tosay to push against the idea of
(54:26):
shaming for an anxious response, to push against the idea that
if I have an anxious response ina situation, I'm struggling
with continued anxious responses, maybe it's because of trauma,
that I'm sinning or I'm not, I'mnot responding in a way that
God would like, or that my faithis in question.
(54:48):
And that was really what Iwanted to lead to.
I think that understanding, youknow Athanasius said, you know
God became who we are so wecould become who he is.
There's something about thefull new humanity that comes
because of the incarnation andthe work and faithfulness and
(55:10):
ultimately, death andresurrection of Jesus.
But with that comes things likeMatthew four, where he's it
literally says just right, there, he was hungry, like well, that
tells me that he understandswhat it means to, to, to, to
have the desires and the humanexperience that I have.
(55:32):
But with that Luke is veryclear that Jesus had a moment
there before he was going to goto a cross, which was a
torturous, traumatic event thathe walked through.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
So, yeah, I'm with you walked through.
So, yeah, no, I'm with you.
I think in other generations,when life was more volatile like
we, everybody knows they'regoing to die but we live with
this kind of you can kind of setdeath aside, right, and for
those that are not Jesusfollowers, especially if you've
got enough money, like somepeople are actually talking
(56:05):
about defeating death by living.
You know well, in a hundred 200years You've heard about a lot
of those kind of folks.
But in the early church and thenmoving into the early Middle
Ages, the monastic movement andthen Luther and some of the
reformers, there was this reallypalpable expectation and maybe
(56:27):
Luther's story is a little bitdifferent here because of the
heaviness of the law wanting toget God off his back and being
unable to do so by his one.
There's going to be suffering.
God's going to work through it.
It's going to be suffering andloss.
In the early church, mygoodness, was there a lot of
(56:53):
suffering and loss andpersecution.
You knew people who had losttheir lives because they said
Caesar's not Lord, jesus is Lord, right.
So there was more evidentsuffering in the community, but
also that there would come aseason where there's a dark
night of the soul.
Have you done much work on thedark night of the soul, david,
and how the Lord works in thatway?
(57:14):
It's not pleasant, it's not fun,but it's a very normal
experience for people as theyfollow Jesus.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
Yeah, it was at St John of the Cross and kind of
his work was kind of wherethat's coined, ross, and kind of
his work was kind of wherethat's coined.
So, yes, I think that one ofthe things that we've done and I
talk about this in many waysand I would love to get in this
conversation, maybe future downthe road, but I talk a lot about
spiritual bypassing, how wethink that God is only found in
(57:41):
what's happy and good, and so wetry and utilize Christian
practices to sit there or findthat place when in all reality
we learn that Psalm 23, eventhough we walk through the
valley of the shadow of death,he is with us.
And so I think, if we realizebecause I do, I think that our
(58:02):
Christian goods and services,our contemporary Christian music
, our Christian movies, thosesort of things kind of drive us
almost like everything has tohave this like 90s sitcom bow
tie of a resolve and that's just.
Not only is that not real life,but we can miss out on knowing
(58:22):
like experiencing Jesus.
There's been three major seasonslike Cairo seasons in my life
where God has shown himself.
The first was like unicorns andrainbows.
It was beautiful and happy.
The other two were justhorrible hell and I think that
if I would have, I could havemissed where God was
(58:46):
intersecting in my life in thosemoments.
If I thought that, no, I just Igotta be happy, I need to
bypass this and utilize fakeChristian practices, I would
totally miss out on just kind ofthe depth of the experience
(59:07):
that I had with God in thosemoments.
Speaker 2 (59:08):
So yeah, it's amazing to me how much Paul and the
apostles talk about sufferingand sometimes I think it's just
really, really, really hard.
I mean, one of my favoriteverses is Romans 5, right One,
two.
Rejoice in your suffering.
What?
Because it does something in us, knowing that suffering
(59:30):
produces perseverance and Ithink this is maybe an overlap
with the secular sciences alittle bit, because we want to
grow in our resilience.
I think a synonym forresilience is faith, trust that
God will never leave you norforsake you.
Right, rejoice in yoursuffering, knowing it produces
perseverance and perseveranceCharacter.
(59:50):
You're the type of person thatcan walk, as Luther says, one
beggar telling another beggarwhere to find food.
Like we're all just brokenmesses, we're all kind of trying
(01:00:15):
to.
If anybody says they got it alltogether and they figured it
all out or they got the answersfor whatever at any level, like
you're just lying.
All of us are just trying tomake it.
You know and do we want?
Are we emotive?
We're not brains in a stick,right, we're feeling things
first and are some of thosefeelings oriented toward things
that are very dysfunctional?
Yeah, because we're broken andwe need.
We need the love and grace andmercy of Jesus and we need the
(01:00:37):
kindness of a community ofpeople who bear our burdens and
say Jesus is right here, he'snever going to leave you, nor,
nor fors, and ultimately it's amove toward hope right In this
world.
You will have trouble.
Take heart, I've overcome theworld.
Jesus breaks into the lockedroom of our cold, hard,
faithless hearts and gives uspeace.
(01:00:58):
I'm alive.
Death is not going to win.
Death is put to death becauseI'm alive.
And this suffering, this sorrow, this trauma, there's going to
come a day when it's no more.
So we just need to be acommunity and it's not trite,
you know, I think, if people arelistening to me like you, just
talk right past the trauma.
No, no, no.
It's like sitting right here inthis office, david, yeah,
(01:01:21):
crying with people in the midstof unexpected things that have
happened, people in the midst ofunexpected things that have
happened, and not in a trite way, but at in the, in the right
way most of the time, justsaying Jesus is, jesus is here
and he he's weeping with you.
Yeah, and, and we don't, wedon't like to weep, especially
in the West right, we want tomove, we want to move right by
(01:01:48):
it.
I think too, in other culturesthey had maybe maybe closed with
cause.
Some of this maybe arestruggles culturally with
handling loss and death.
There's been some radicalshifts culturally, david, since
I became a pastor 17 years ago.
There there used to be more ofa viewing of your dead loved one
right, and there was a healingelement to that, the closing of
(01:02:13):
the casket kind of and this goesback to some kind of ancient
liturgies the pastor kind ofleading the body into the
worship space.
You have a service, but thenthe pastor kind of leads the
procession to the mortuary andto the graveside and there's a
committal service.
I remember doing all of thesethings, like it was a whole
(01:02:34):
morning or whole afternoon typeof experience to grieve with
those who grieve.
But now, man, like let's plantwo months out for Aunt Sally's
funeral and make sure everybodycan get, like there's this
elongated and then I never sawaunt sally I I don't normally
get this fired up about this, Idon't know why I am at this
moment, but anyway.
(01:02:55):
But but cremation is the normal, is the normal way right right
now, and so I think generally wewant to push grief and loss to
the side, work right by it.
But the church needs, I hope,is a place where we can cry with
those who cry Any take on theshift culturally around the
topic of death.
(01:03:15):
David.
Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
Yeah, I think that there you go to Rwanda.
Rwanda, for instance, has amuseum to remember the genocide.
(01:03:43):
We don't want to face thosethings, and so I think that that
that mentality that runs deeperand farther it maybe, is
playing itself in.
I for me, you know, as you're,as you're talking, I mean I
haven't been doing what I'vebeen doing the way I've been
doing it long, only a few years.
(01:04:03):
I do a lot of funerals up hereby Sun City.
We have a lot of retired folk.
There was one year where I didfive funerals in six weeks.
I do a lot of funerals and theyall look different and some of
them are minimal, some of themare simple celebration of life.
(01:04:25):
They all look different and Icould see what you're saying.
I think grief is not somethingthat we are comfortable allowing
ourselves to feel and that'ssomething I've had to learn
because of my upbringing.
In the last couple of years andmy grandpa passed away, I went
(01:04:48):
to his funeral out and sorry,and yeah, thanks, nebraska.
And you know just the sense oflike anytime somebody would cry
sharing a story.
There was this, but we gotta behappy.
He's in heaven now, you know.
And well, no, like we, we couldsit in this space, and that's
right, and that's good.
So, yeah, I definitely seewithin our culture we want to
(01:05:14):
shy away from the hard stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
Yeah, that's good man .
Hey, this has been a lot of fun.
You're a dear brother, justgetting to know you.
I'm grateful for the HolySpirit's work in your life,
david, through hard things, tooffer those hard things to the
healing presence of Christ andto invite others to do the same.
(01:05:37):
And that's what it means to bethe body of Christ, loving and
caring for one another andlifting our eyes up to Jesus,
who's right there with us in themidst of hard stuff.
If people want to connect withyou and your ministry and hear
more and kind of get moreinvolved in your cause, it's all
about networks, right?
Um, in your network of of careand trauma informed care, how
(01:05:58):
can they do so, david?
Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
Yeah, there's a couple of places.
I mean, if you're in thePhoenix area and want to swing
by life church, peoria, I'm upthere every Sunday for the most
part, but I'm very active onInstagram.
It's David underscore Rubelid.
My guess is you'll have my, mylast name, somewhere in the
notes listed here, so it's Davidunderscore Rubelid on Instagram
.
And then I also am a co-founderof what's called the religious
(01:06:21):
trauma network with I knowyou've had Janine McConaughey on
here, but Janine, rebeccaDrumsta, luke Renner, kind of
the four of us launched this tokind of help survivors
understand, educate, supportthem, but also help
organizations and professionalsbuild more trauma responsive
(01:06:44):
spaces for both faith and, justyou know, healing places for
people.
Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
So yeah, Dude, so good.
Thanks for the time and thiswas a blessing just to me
Personally.
This is a Tim Allman podcast.
If you could like, subscribe,comment wherever it is.
You take in hopefully Jesuscentered, hope filled but honest
conversations, like we're goingto be setting up here.
That is most appreciated.
Follow us on YouTube UniteLeadership Collective.
This is one of those twopodcasts, and it's a beautiful
(01:07:12):
day to be alive.
In the midst of loss is myfinal word.
Now, life is loss, but life inChrist, because he's the
crucified and risen one lifedefeats in time our loss, and so
in the meantime, we care forone another, pointing one
another to Jesus.
It's a good day.
Go make it a great day by thepower of the Spirit.
Thanks so much, david.
Thank you.
The metaphor that I was sitting on was I feel like
we're feeding people McDonald'smeals as opposed to full course
meals.
If it's a formational piece forthem to go out, be formed in
the way of Jesus and live onmission, we're like here's some
cheeseburgers, you know asopposed to like stuff that's
(00:21):
going to nourish their soul andtransform them.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to the Tim Allman Podcast.
It's a great day to be alive.
I pray the joy of Jesus is yourstrength, that the love of
Christ is fueling you for a lifeof meaning and purpose
connected to your identity inJesus, and that you're buckled
up ready for a fun conversation.
Today on the Tim Allman PodcastI have David Rubelid.
Let me tell you a little bitabout him.
David has and maybe we'll starthere, david.
(00:50):
David has an extensive career inthe worship arts community
Performed, produced, mentored,artist, coached many artists.
He also has been a leader on apodcast which he just told me
right before we got going.
It's kind of on hold for aminute Evolution of Faith.
You could look it up some pastpodcasts, but we're also going
to be talking abouttrauma-informed care.
(01:10):
If you're in the ChristGreenfield community, we're
walking through a series calledNever Alone God's Presence in
the Midst of Trauma.
So that's where I think alion's share of our conversation
is going to go today.
But how are you doing, david?
Thanks for taking the time tohang out with me, man.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, I'm doing great .
Thank you so much.
I've been looking forward tothis.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, I know Right back at you.
So let's start just a littlebit of your story.
Worship arts, kind of life inthe church, Tell that story.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yeah, I was born and raised in Colorado Springs,
which is like the home and meccaof evangelical you know, is
only got focus on the family andall the ministries there.
But my story was I was raisedin a tighter niche of the
Christian community calledChristian fundamentalism.
So if you understand, like BobJones Pensacola world, that was
(01:55):
the world in which I was raisedand kind of there were two
things that I walked throughthat were kind of life altering
for me.
The first was in my church.
My parents were one of thefirst couples to go through a
divorce in like the history like150 years of our church.
My dad was on the board and sothere was all kinds of stuff
(02:16):
with that and so that shook me.
But on top of that it was avery abusive, authoritarian
environment, really unhealthyenvironment, and I was sexually
abused in that environment aswell.
So I walked through some prettygnarly stuff in you know,
formative childhood years andwhen I was in high school I
(02:41):
started getting into music.
My dad realized that the way inwhich he could connect with me
was through music.
Being raised in fundamentalismyou can't do rock and roll,
music, drums, any.
Any of that stuff is seen assinful my dad reached out to me.
We kind of connected because hehad a history of like listening
(03:01):
to old 70s bands and pulled hisrecords off the shelf I didn't
even know he had and he wastaking me to go see Bob Dylan,
the Eagles, those sort of thingsand it was really music that
took me out of that kind oftoxic church experience.
I was raised in into a differentexperience at a church known as
(03:21):
New Life Church in ColoradoSprings, where you recognize
some of the songs that came outthere.
But I kind of cut my teeth as aworship leader around 17, 18,
musician 17, 18 age range.
And it was that around thenthat I started getting hired by
different youth groups, camps,those sort of things and, uh,
(03:44):
yeah, so played musicprofessionally for a while,
tried going to bible college fora year, hated it, moved back
and played music for I playedfor I don't know if excuse me,
if you know who mark tedder is,he's, uh, ryan tedder from one
republic's uncle.
So I was in his band, he was mymentor for years, played with
(04:04):
that guy, um, and, yeah, justdid the music thing for years,
got married, had a kid and atthat moment I had to grow up and
figure things out.
So I took my first full-timesalary position, moved from
colorado to california,california, and then I zigzagged
California to Phoenix,california to Phoenix.
(04:27):
But it was that first time inPhoenix where I was serving on
worship staff there in actuallyin Chandler and at Cornerstone,
and that was where theybasically said, hey, I think you
might be called.
Where they basically said, hey,I think you might be called to
(04:48):
be a pastor, and I thought theywere crazy and so I kind of
entered into a, a kind of anordination process with them.
That took about two years andthen what happened was, uh,
after I was ordained I sensedGod was asking me to lay the
music side of what I was doingin a roll down kind of fought
him on it a little bit honestlyand then after that moved into a
(05:10):
associate pastor role inCalifornia and then came back
here where I serve up in Peoria.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So yeah, and your context right now for listeners.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Tell them about your context yeah, so, uh, I am, I'm
an associate pastor, uh overseediscipleship and outreach at a.
So here's, here's kind of thethe unique situation with me.
It's a non-denominationalchurch out of, uh, it's a church
plant with one of the pastorsout of, community church of joy,
(05:42):
which was was Lutheran up herein Peoria, and so we're
non-denominational.
I'm still connected with andhave, like I joke, dual
citizenship with the Anglicanchurches in North America and so
I am part of the Anglicanchurches in North America,
personally shared, or the bridgeat a non-denominational church
(06:05):
that still practices weeklycommunion and some of the you
know word and sacrament stuff,and so it's kind of a fun, fun
little venture.
Yeah, are you connected toKeith?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Andrews.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
No.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Okay, he's an Anglican friend of mine here on
the on the East side of Phoenix.
Anyway, thanks for sharing yourstory, man.
So many, so many things.
Going back to the role of music, you and I have a similar story
.
Like music was.
I'm not a, I'm not a artist byany stretch, I just was a singer
choirs and then early stages ofcontemporary worship, um, and
(06:39):
it really played and I had tokind of lay it down.
I say I lead worship, like Ising like once every quarter or
something like that.
Now I used to sing like twoservices or three services a
week in my different contexts,so in different seasons.
But there's something that'sextraordinary.
I mean the Bible talks aboutleft up hymns, spiritual songs
(07:01):
on the Lord, about hymns,spiritual songs unto the Lord.
You know, there's somethingabout joy and music.
I had like and I'm notcharismatic, necessarily, not
that I'm going to get againstthe gifts of the Holy Spirit by
any stretch, but being a veryconservative confessional
Lutheran denomination where wecan be, I think rightly so and
(07:21):
maybe not rightly so suspiciousof those types of gifts, but
like I'm brought to tears when Iand I don't listen to as much
contemporary music as I used to,I honestly am way more into
classical music today and as I'mreading and writing and doing
all those things.
But I was on the way to churchjust yesterday, david, and some
(07:46):
I don't know if the Holy Spiritor something said, hey, you got
to listen to King of Kings.
I'm not a Hillsong guy at all.
I don't for a variety ofreasons, but like that song and
I could list a whole number ofsongs Like when it hits and the
church of Christ was born andthe spirit lit the flame, I'm
just like a mess with Jesus andI was just so pumped to then
(08:09):
like come and speak yesterday.
So music still like touches mysoul and all different types of
and styles of music just touchesme in a unique way.
What is it about music?
Even physiologically?
Obviously there's a spiritualcomponent, but physiologically
it just changes the human heart.
David, any thoughts there?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, I think that's why the, the, the verse that you
were quoting says teach andadmonish one another in all
wisdom through him.
Uh, there's something about the, the, the, the musical portion
that is, uh, has such a strongway of of, of shaping and
(08:48):
forming us, I think.
I think, and one of the piecesI think in kind of Lutheran
world and and and Anglican worldwe might understand that I
think that I missed for years,is the formational element of
worship, Like, I think that alot of churches nowadays they
get the like, oh, the missionalelement, Like we want people
(09:09):
that are not yet followers ofJesus to be able to kind of, you
know, vibe with us and kind of,you know, a lot of
seeker-sensitive churches willutilize those means for the sake
of mission, will utilize thosemeans for the sake of mission.
But we, you know, in kind ofliturgical world, we forget the
(09:33):
formational.
We remember that.
I think that I forgot and didn'tunderstand the formational
piece, and I think it happensuniquely because of music.
I mean, I think that's whythat's mentioned there, it's
mentioned in Ephesians, the sameway as it pertains to being
filled with the Holy Spirit.
You know, be not drunk withwine in excess, it leads to
(09:53):
debauchery, but be filled withthe Holy Spirit, which leads to
singing psalms and spiritualsongs.
So something about the you know, spirit filled people are
singing people.
It's just kind of the way it is.
Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
No, I couldn't agree more.
And there is, we could go downthis trail.
Maybe we're not going to do itextensively, but that debate
between the focus of worship I'mof the mind, just to kind of
lay my cards on the table, faceup that worship is for the
formation of the believer.
We're confessing who God is andwhat he's done one to another,
(10:32):
and then we're being catalyzedthrough the forgiveness of sins
to go offer that forgiveness andlove to the world.
I view Sunday, or whenever yougather, as a catalyst for
mission rather than kind of thefocal point of mission.
Any thoughts?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
there.
Yeah, I think that's kind ofwhat I'm getting at is Sunday
morning has the focal point inso many spaces has become
mission that we don't hit theformation piece.
Do you know who Glenn Packiamis?
Speaker 2 (11:05):
No, tell me.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Glenn Packiam.
He's at Rock Harbor now inCalifornia.
He's like me where he'sAnglican but in a
non-denominational space.
He was at New Life Church aswell and kind of what wound up
happening?
He started asking differentquestions about worship.
(11:26):
But he's he's a Durham guy.
He has his PhD from Durham in,uh, in worship formation and uh,
he writes.
Check out some of his stuff.
He writes very specificallyabout there's three paradigms in
worship, uh, that we need tofocus on, and we tend to just
focus on expression and missionand forget about formation.
(11:50):
But it's always the work ofworship that brings about
formation.
If you're familiar with LexCredendi, lex Ordonde's, it's
it's the way we worship, the waywe pray, the way we worship
(12:12):
becomes what we believe, and soif we understand that, that'll
change the dynamics and the wayin which we think through
worship.
Uh, and you know, one of thethings I as a worship pastor,
before I kind of moved out ofthat space, I started asking
those questions and I kind ofthe metaphor that I was sitting
on was I feel like we're feedingpeople McDonald's meals as
opposed to full course meals Ifit's a formational piece for
(12:35):
them to go out, be formed in theway of Jesus and live on
mission.
We're like here's somecheeseburgers, you know, as
opposed to like stuff that'sgoing to nourish their soul and
transform them.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
So yeah, and in our kind of ancient traditions,
liturgical traditions, becausewe stand on the shoulders of the
Western church, roman Catholicchurch and the Eastern Orthodox
Churches as well.
Obviously, I'm a product ofLutheranism 500, some years ago.
Luther never wanted to becalled Lutheranism, by the way,
(13:12):
he just was returned back to thegospel.
But what he was kind offrustrated with was the move
away from all of the rites andrituals, the liturgies that had
normed us.
He was trying to pull us back.
All the sacraments aren't bad,hold it up a little bit.
And so we today have a very, Iguess, well agreed upon, and I'm
(13:38):
in a church that does both highchurch and I don't like low
church, but more modern worship.
But the form is there and theform is formative.
You make your beginning in thename of the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit.
What's that all about?
It's baptism, right.
There's going to be a time inworship where we confess how far
(13:58):
we are, on our own, away fromGod, and sometimes these are
like words that are connected toscripture, or it's just.
Someone gets up and says man,I've really made a mess of my
life in this way, tied to thetheme somehow.
So confession, and then someonemost often it's a pastor gets
up as a calling to answer theword.
I announced the forgiveness ofJesus unto you.
(14:19):
You are forgiven corporatelyand we can go a little side note
there too.
I think confession andabsolution is very, very huge,
not just corporately butindividually, and we could
explore making that kosher again, I guess.
And then we move on time andhearing of the word, obviously
the proclamation of the word,and for us in our tradition it's
law gospel.
You're always going to hear.
You're always going to hearabout Jesus the work, the word
(14:42):
and the way of you're going tohear about Jesus.
The work, the word and the wayof you're going to hear about
Jesus.
Whether the text brings them upor not, we're importing Jesus.
He's on every, every page ofscripture, right.
So a good Lutheran sermon isgoing to have have law gospel
proclamation and then we'regoing to have to spend time in
prayer.
We're going to celebrate theLord's supper.
We're going to have the Lord'sprayer, the creed, and then the
benedediction I need to gothrough and the blessing which
(15:04):
numbers chapter six normally,which is the presence of God
that goes with his people.
It's a missional sending of thepeople out in the community
with presence of God, imagebearers of the king Right.
So so that is our kind of formand I have to like walk through
that because there are some,some people in my respective
tribe and Lutheran churchMissouri synod who think because
we've uh, because we havemodern instrumentation, we have
(15:32):
no value for the formation ofthe liturgy and nothing could be
further from the truth.
So that's kind of our normalform, whether it's in a hymnal
or on a screen or whatever, inyour tradition Anglican.
What kind of resonates orwhat's different in your
experiences?
Speaker 1 (15:41):
It's really not much different actually in your
experiences.
It's really not much differentactually.
We make sure that at multipletimes, yeah, the law is
proclaimed, gospel is proclaimed, and we walk through.
We say that within our liturgythere are kind of two peaks word
and sacrament.
And so the way we think throughit is you have the ministry of
the word, the ministry of thesacrament, and in that there's
(16:04):
multiple proclamations of um,depending on what right you're
utilizing, it speaks, you know,love, lord your god, with all
your heart, soul, mind, loveyour neighbor as yourself.
And then you go into the curia,you realize that we, we've
missed the mark.
And then there's a proclamationof the gospel, same thing as
after the hearing of the word uh, normally, depending on on the
(16:26):
right and and the congregation,uh, you know, we, we affirm our
faith by uh, nicene creed at uh,baptisms it's normally apostles
creed, because that we've.
We see that as the, the baptismcreed, with the language there
Um.
After moving out of that, wehave times of prayer and then we
(16:48):
have times of confession,absolution, passing of the peace
as we move towards the table,and the table too has that
moment of its proclamation ofthe celebration of the
sacrificial lamb.
And what I love about thatmovement in so many ways,
(17:11):
compared to kind of some of theother traditions I've been a
part of, is that the focal pointis not on consumerism of so
many things that you can't, it'sthe table.
I mean you come to the tableand then you receive.
(17:34):
You know, you know it's againthe gospel proclamation receive
by faith, the grace, it's a giftoffered, and so every week in
that way the gospel isproclaimed in that way as well
(17:54):
as you leave.
But yeah, we kind of see it astwo peaks.
I don't know if you kind of seeit that way, but it's the
ministry of the word, ministryof the sacrament, but within
that you see that same rhythm ofproclaiming this love the Lord,
your God, with all your heart.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
I fall short than the gospels proclaim, but yeah, I
guess there's a nuanced debatein Lutheranism around what peak
is higher.
You know what gets primacy.
I mean, some people argue thatyou got the altar right there in
the middle.
So obviously, even in ourworship spaces and that's one of
(18:36):
the biggest critiques of maybemodern contemporary worship is
where's?
Where's the altar right?
Yeah, because you got drums.
Is that we worshiping drums?
Obviously we're not worshipingdrums.
But yeah, I really I think it'sdefinitely balanced, are we?
We have to hear the word, we'reconfessing people who are
shaped by the word, which isJesus, and then we're obviously
(18:57):
shaped by the word becomingflesh and laying his life down
for us and giving us his verybody and blood for the
forgiveness of sin.
So, yeah, I like, I like twopeaks, two peaks as well.
Well, let's get into.
I love it.
We could, we could talk worshipand those things for a while,
but the lion's share of thisconversation is going to be
around trauma, informed care.
I mean, in your story you kindof just walked quickly through
(19:18):
some things.
You're like, oh man, that'srough, that stinks, and you even
mentioned a church like NewLife.
And I remember New Life frombeing in Colorado.
I mean it was in the headlinesand for the life of me I can't
remember the pastor's name, butthere was some tough stuff.
I think that happened at NewLife.
(19:39):
So, anyway, you want to go intodeeper things there and then, as
we hedge, into religious traumain the church.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of things I kind of
glossed over.
I gave a snapshot.
I've experienced, at leastwithin ministry I've experienced
it's pretty gnarly stuff.
Yeah.
So New Life if you don't knowthe story, ted Haggard was a
founding pastor.
He was a president of theNational Association of
Evangelicals and while servingin those roles, new Life I mean
(20:11):
they were a 14,000-member church, huge their music.
I mean.
You know, you have songs likeif I just name I Am Free some
other ones, the Great I Am.
I mean all these songs, I couldjust keep naming them.
I used to work and play withDaniel Basher who wrote my God's
not dead, he's surely alive.
(20:33):
It was all kind of in the soupof new life there.
And Ted Haggard, at a certainpoint it came out in 2006, that
he had been visiting, as he wentup to Denver to write his book.
I was actually out at this timebut my wife we weren't married
yet, she was still attending NewLife and all the band members
(20:54):
were like my best friends andstuff.
And so in 2006, yeah, it cameout that Ted Haggard, as he was
going to denver for writing hisbook, on those trips he was
seeing a male prostitute anddoing meth and so, and it was
this, this, this male prostitutethat uh, outed him because he
(21:14):
saw him on an interview on thehistory channel, and so that was
, that was I say not only formyself personally but for the
entire city of Colorado Springsthat just shook them because New
Life had such a dominatingpresence in Colorado Springs and
then a reach out nationally,and so that was crazy, crazy.
(21:38):
And then, man, they brought inbrady boyd, who was the.
He became the lead pastor andshortly after there was a
shooting.
So a gunman walked in, therewas a shooting and this is what
got crazy.
I I was at this point marriedthe security guard that took
(22:00):
down the gunman there actuallyworked for my wife, whoa, and so
she actually, like ourChristmas tree that we had for
like the first 10 years of ourmarriage was a gift from her and
stuff.
So so all these things of this,what was kind of the you call
(22:21):
it, like the evangelicalVaticanatican, uh, that I was
intertwined with, there was justa lot of like pain and stuff
from these situations thathappened.
Um, I remember my buddy, davidlee, the keyboard player,
calling me like literally themoment after he left after the
shooting and, uh, and, andtalking and talking with me,
(22:41):
yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Well, so much, uh so, and thanks for thanks for
sharing that.
That was kind of ancienthistory.
I'd forgotten that story.
I was a young pastor, um, juststarting in Lakewood, colorado,
and uh, and those, thoseshootings.
What year was that shooting?
Remind me.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I think that was oh no, oh seven.
Oh, I think that was oh no, ohseven, oh eight.
Something might have been sevenor eight, yeah yeah, I think it
was.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, I started in in colorado in oh eight.
I think I was already alreadythere like 26 year old young guy
just getting going.
It was awful.
And didn't didn't the shootergo from arvada down to colorado
springs, didn't it wasn't theshooting in arvada first?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
yeah, so it was the yAM, the YWAM headquarters up
there in your area.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, yeah, it was kind of like the loss of
innocence in that decade inColorado, from Columbine to that
shooting and the whole the, theshooting in the theater.
It was very traumatic.
There in Aurora it was aroundthe same time.
So, yeah, no, there's life isreally really hard.
The message of the sermon thatI preached yesterday, david, was
(23:45):
life is loss.
And looked at the story of Joband Job's.
Everybody knows kind of Job'sfriends and they do some good
things, they sit with him, don'tsay a whole lot for, sit in
grief for a week and then theysay a lot of things.
Basically, what they said isyou're the problem, like you
(24:06):
must have done something to tickGod off.
And then obviously Job's wifecurse God and die.
He says something that youshould probably not tell your
wife Job does.
He says you're a foolish woman.
I mean you might want to bemore tactful than that.
But yeah, I mean Job's storyit's just consistent loss and
that was really the through linewas because we got to get to
(24:26):
Jesus.
Jesus is the better, perfectJob who had everything and then
lost it all, even to the pointof death on a cross, and through
his resurrection we have life,as Christ has been raised, so
will we be raised in all of ouryou say, fortunes?
I guess in this life will berestored at the return of Christ
, when we have perfection withGod, self, others and the rest
(24:47):
of creation.
That would be prettyextraordinary.
But in the meantime, we have toget better at caring for one
another.
So let's talk about the thingsthat churches do that are not
helpful in caring for those whoare dealing and you could use a
word that's in popularvernacular, I mean trigger, that
could trigger, even inreligious institutions, those
(25:08):
that have walked throughincredible trauma.
So 24 million people sufferfrom PTSD.
8% of the population these arethe two kind of stats were as we
go through this sermon 8% ofthe population has some form of
post-traumatic stress disorder,and it's wild.
So in our pews, chairs,whatever, there are people that
are deeply hurting.
(25:29):
One point, before I turn itover to you to help us get
better at this, is when I'mpreaching about pain, suffering
and loss.
There is a spirit.
It's the comforting spirit.
It's the comforting spirit,it's the Holy Spirit, but it's a
spirit of grief that just fallsupon a certain percentage of
that room.
I've been preaching in the lastcouple of months and there have
(25:52):
been people who have been andthis is strange in a Western
context, but we are gettingbetter at just loving people who
are pretty much openly weepingin the midst of the message, as
they're just processing whateverit is a loss of a loved one, an
accident, whatever, whatever.
And the Holy Spirit knows, andit's amazing.
They come out of thoseexperiences because worship is
(26:14):
formation and they're like thatwas healing.
I needed to just release allthese things to Jesus.
And that's not the only.
Worship is obviously not theonly place, but if we're not
well informed about what it iswe're doing and setting space
for people to grieve with hope,I think we're missing it.
We're offering, like you say,mcdonald's, rather than there's
(26:36):
a new restaurant called Buck andRyder Top Cuisine, which is
people being able to heal at thefeet of the crucified Jesus.
So talk to us about how we canget better at trauma-informed
care.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
David, yeah, within the church do you want me to
speak specifically towardsreligious trauma or trauma in
general?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
No, yeah, let's go religious trauma first.
I mean that's the area you said.
This has been your kind of.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, yeah, I think well you rattle off statistics
at kind of yeah, yeah, I think Ithink well, you, you, you
rattled off statistics at kindof like a higher general level
when it comes to religioustrauma, which is when people
experience stuff that overwhelmstheir system very similarly,
but there's a faith pieceattached to it, so it could be
spiritual abuse, it could bekind of some of the teachings
(27:21):
and ways within an environment.
It has the same kind of impacton somebody, so to speak.
One of the things and you kindof alluded to it with the Job
piece one of the things that'sreally important for me is to
make sure that discussion in therealm of like small groups and
(27:44):
Bible studies, that there areparameters of kind of how that's
going to play out, that theleader protects, and that there
it is stated, sometimes beforethe discussion, sometimes
sometimes, you know, I actuallyhave a commitment that people
sign both, both the the smallgroup participants and the
(28:08):
leaders that talk about howwe're going to protect that time
.
And it's very similar to whatyou'd experience at like an AA
meeting.
Yeah, because one of the one ofthe issues that I've
experienced while I've pastoredpeople and complaints that I get
normally has to do with whensomebody opens their mouth to
give advice and it hasn't beenrequested, and so for me, that
(28:33):
is a huge practical way in whichpeople can be protected from
re-traumatization and feelsupport.
So, right off the bat, that'swhere I would go.
I think that one of the thingsthat for me, has been really
hard but needed is the balanceof language that both
(28:57):
accentuates the sovereignty ofGod but also accentuates the
ability for the human to turnthe human to choose to worship
the human, to choose to respond.
In that moment where there's somuch, if you walk through
religious trauma well, anytrauma in many ways, but
(29:22):
religious trauma in a faithspace it feels like you've been
stripped of that agency, and soone of the ways that I go about
it when I lead oftentimes is Isay, hey, you could participate,
or as much or as little as youfeel comfortable, to kind of
give the person the ability towhere I'm not going to command
(29:43):
things of them.
You know, like when I was inkind of the more modern rah-rah
Jesus, you're like you know,lift up your hands, come on,
shout it out, and you're likeyou're calling that, and what
I've learned is the invitationmodel is way more important of
like you know, hey, this iswhat's on my heart and I want to
ask, if you're there and youfeel comfortable I want to
(30:07):
invite you to respond in thisway, because agency has so been
stripped and authority, uh,sometimes authoritarianism those
sorts of things have beenexperienced by people in
religious spaces and to offsetit and say, hey, what's
happening in your heart, youknow, I want to invite you, if
(30:28):
you're there, to respond.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
So yeah, Well, power works in the short term.
And certain religious leaders,political leaders, leaders in
the secularist, wherever you cantell people what to do.
And often you know, becausethere's a small percentage of
people who are actually likeleaders of organizations.
(30:54):
You know most people are justlike, okay, I'm just a normal
guy doing my thing, you knownine to five or whatever, so
I'll go along to get along andI'll, you know, I'll come along
as long as I know you have kindof my best interest at heart.
But sometimes, sometimesleaders can declare through
edict, resolution by a committeeand that becomes that becomes
(31:20):
the norm here and it can be very, very dysfunctional and really
not in the way of Jesus.
I mean, jesus is aninvitational rabbi.
Yeah Right, come and follow.
I mean you can just come.
If you want to come, just hangout.
You know, see how I do it.
It's game on.
And he didn't think about thenight Jesus is betrayed, like
(31:40):
he's told his disciples this iswhat's going to happen Handed
over, crucified, third day,three days later, rise again,
he's told them, so they can havekind of peace.
But they obviously forget inthe midst of the chaos.
But he doesn't chide, shamethem at all.
I'm thinking of the story ofPeter, preached on the trauma of
(32:01):
Peter's denial and the shamethat could have just kind of
overwhelmed him, crippled him,and the look of Jesus.
Luke's gospel because I thinkthree out of four talk about
Peter's denial If someone faxchecks me that could be all four
but anyway in great depth.
But Luke's gospel says andJesus looked at him and then he
(32:24):
went out and he heard therooster and he went out and he
wept bitterly.
You remember that?
Oh yeah, what did Jesus look athim for?
Like, I don't think it wasanger, I don't even think it was
a look that would producenecessarily shame.
I think it was a mixture, andyou know this look, it's a
mixture of just sadness I'mdoing this for you but robust
(32:47):
love, and I think love was theoverarching look from Christ.
And then obviously, therestoration of Peter and the
mission that he sent Peter on,that Jesus actually pursued
Peter.
And one of my favorite pointsthat I drew out of John's gospel
was John tells Peter whenthey're in the boat they went
(33:09):
back to their former vocation.
Right, we don't know if thiswhole Jesus thing, this
proclamation thing, even thoughhe's alive, we don't know what
day of the resurrection of the40 days.
It is, but nonetheless theyhear him.
When you catch anything he'sthrown on the other side.
This is very reminiscent oftheir initial interaction with
Jesus.
And then John is the one thattells Peter it's the Lord.
(33:31):
If you remember that?
John tells Peter directly.
There's six of them in the boat.
John tells Peter it's the Lord.
We need more friends like Johnwhen we're walking through,
because there probably was guiltand shame in Peter's story.
At this point we say I'm justone who gets to point you to the
presence of Jesus in the midstof your guilt and shame.
And Peter doesn't cower in fearfrom Christ or shame, he jumps
(33:56):
in the water.
He can't get to Jesus quicklyenough.
So I mean the church is theliving manifestation of the
crucified and risen and reigningJesus.
We are the body of Christ andso I pray we start to emulate
not just the work and the wordbut the way of Jesus, and it's
an invitational way.
Any response to as I'm kind oftelling Peter's story there,
(34:17):
david.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
Yeah, I'm what.
What I'm actually what goingthrough is.
I'm kind of blown away becausesome of the way in which you are
exegeting and pulling out isways in which I mean you had one
of the questions here I wasgoing to say is the way in which
we we see scripture, we see theelements of not only trauma but
(34:39):
also what trauma produces.
And so, right off the bat, Ijust want to say I'm loving that
you're able to see that stuffwithin the narrative as you see
it, because not everyone does,and so, right off the bat, I'm
just appreciative of that.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
So, yeah, oh yeah, thanks, man, that's kind.
So you talked about parameters.
Let's get into the details alittle bit the parameters and
the commitment.
Could you give some detailsabout what those parameters?
We got small group leaders thatare listening here, so, yeah,
let's go through those.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yeah.
So I tell people, your job isnot to teach, your job is to
facilitate.
Let the teacher teach.
And so that could be.
We have a couple of differenttypes of groups.
We have some that arecurriculum based, that go off
video.
We do have some where there isa qualified teacher that does
teach, but that person has beenput in that place and affirmed
by myself or our lead pastor.
(35:33):
But the facilitator's role is todraw up discussion, and so I
don't know if you're familiarwith Alpha, do you guys?
You're familiar with Alpha?
It's a very similar model whereour role is to get people
talking and to honor them forwhat they're saying, and we
trust that the Holy Spirit'sdoing the work in their life,
(35:53):
and the only time in which wewill correct them or bring
something to them is if they askhey, am I seeing this correctly
?
And so if you're familiar withAlpha, alpha is very much a hey,
I'm going to trust the HolySpirit here.
We want to honor anybody whoshows up in our room, in our
space, and when we ask thequestions, we're asking to draw
(36:17):
out what's happening in them andwhat they're learning from the
video, and we honor them.
We thank them for sharing, wepass the ball instead of giving
commentary on everything thateveryone says it's just hey,
what?
What did you think of that?
Oh, thank you so much forsharing.
Hey, would you, would you know,turn to the next person, would
(36:37):
you agree?
And so some of the parametersfor us are you're not the
teacher, you're the facilitator,and the facilitator's role is
to bring out conversation frompeople and not to run the
conversation.
So we tell people that ifyou're doing more than and we
say 30%, that's even a highnumber, but we say, if you're
(36:57):
doing more than 30% of thetalking in that moment, you're
talking too much.
I would actually run thatnumber down, but that was kind
of the number my team landed on.
So that's kind of the goal.
We have different people, wehave people that voted
differently, we have people thatcome from different
(37:18):
denominational backgrounds.
All those things are reallyimportant for us to be able to
honor and respect the otherperson.
People have experienced loss,people have experienced all
kinds of stuff, and so to honorthem, just being willing to open
up and share, and then notcorrecting, not shaming, not
(37:45):
giving advice unless it's beenasked, is kind of the way in
which we you know I could pullup a commitment and read it to
you, or send it to you if youwant.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
No, that's good.
That's kind of the heart of it.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Yeah, the reason I'm laughing is because this isn't
what church leaders were trainedto do generally, right, I mean,
if you go to seminary and youget ordained, you're the Bible
answer guy, you're the talkerright, you're a brain on a stick
(38:18):
, you're a personality you know,and there's a part of me that
can be this Do people really,really know who I am?
You know all parts of me and doI have spaces where, like, I
can just listen?
One of the reasons I do thepodcast is because I really like
to.
I like facilitatingconversation more than I like
telling people what to do.
Yeah, you know, but but that'ssomething that kind of the Lord
(38:42):
put in me.
But I think anything to likepastors who were like I don't,
this seems foreign to me.
I mean, cause we've been taughtand it's not.
There's nothing that I hear yousaying that's against like or
preaching.
That definitely has its place.
It's just for holistic care totake place, people need to have
safe places where they can shareall of their life, journey and
(39:07):
receive and maybe we can go hereand receive the love and
prayerful presence of a brotheror sister who and there's
something mysterious here toothe power of prayer over someone
proclaiming their identity,inviting and this is one of the
main, I think invitations interms of trauma, if there is
enough safety and this isprobably better one-on-one or in
(39:29):
a group of three if somethingreally, really heavy has been
shared and it feels like Jesusis not there.
Right, jesus wasn't in that thatroom, um, and I'm thinking of
yeah, I'm thinking of a reallyhard, hard suicide story right
now in a room that just it feltreally like Jesus wasn't, wasn't
(39:49):
there.
I've had to do work that familyhas had to do, to do work to
invite Jesus in.
You know, and that's the powerof prayer, we just invite Jesus.
What is Jesus doing?
As he comes into that room ofintense grief and loss?
He's crying, just like we'recrying right now.
Anything more there, david?
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
One of the things that we kind of I could say a
tool or an acronym that we sayover and over to kind of help
people embody the way of Jesusis the acronym BLESS.
Have you ever seen somebodyutilize that as it pertains?
Speaker 2 (40:25):
I have, but let's do it.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Yeah.
So B stands with begin withprayer, and we encourage people
to pray for the people in theplaces where they live, work,
study and play, because God'salready doing something.
People in the places where theylive, work, study and play
because God's already doingsomething.
They're not going to makesomething happen, like really
the Holy Spirit is the one whodoes the work.
And so you begin with prayer.
The L stands for listen, whichis, I mean, right off the bat,
(40:48):
your goal is, as you engage withpeople where you live, work,
study and play, you listen.
You don't start by talking, youlisten, and sometimes listening
involves asking questions, andso you're, you're drawing things
out.
My buddy, jr briggs he has abook, uh, I think, coming out.
He has another one he wrotethat was a little unofficial,
but he's brilliant question asklike, and so the the better
(41:13):
questions we learn to ask, themore we can draw things out of
people.
But listen.
The E stands for eat because, aswe see, jesus hosts meals and
it breaks down barriers.
But it also says that we allshare in the same human needs,
and so eat and then serve.
Well, you don't serve somebodybased on what you think they
(41:34):
need.
You serve based on what you'veheard, by listening and spending
time with them, and then thevery last S is to share your
story and God's story and noticeit's the very last thing.
And so you know, sometimes wefeel like that should be the
very first thing or the secondthing.
But begin with prayer, listen,eat, serve and then, as the Holy
(41:57):
Spirit leads, and only if heleads you, share.
So that's kind of how we toolour people to think through
living out kind of the way ofJesus in their, their places and
their context.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
So yeah, I love it as we're coming down the last
little bit here.
Can you give some examples oftypes of ministries?
And I don't know if it'sparachurch necessarily, but in
our context we have CG Cares,classes for people walking
through various strugglesdivorce, grief, finance, et
(42:29):
cetera.
So that's kind of our.
We have Celebrate Recovery,we're starting all these types
of ministries.
So there's some examples.
But do you know of someministries that you've been
around that are specificallytoward this topic of trauma?
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Yeah, so we've been actually very just like you guys
, very intentional to kind ofhave this in mind as we do
ministry and what I'm thankfulfor.
Not every church congregation,leadership, denomination, is
open to these conversations, andso I've been very thankful that
our, our congregation, ourleadership as a whole has been
(43:04):
so, with that, some of thethings that I would say has been
an act of God, allowing us tosee what he's doing and put in
place.
We haven't, like, forced any ofthis stuff to happen.
Um, we have actually have acounseling center that utilizes
our space, and so it's kind of acool thing that happened.
I had a situation with a familymember who attempted suicide
(43:27):
because of how he was in highschool, because of how the
school trained the staff and thestudents and made this a usual
conversation within their worldat a public school.
Somebody saw the way he saidgoodbye to them that day, called
the police and it saved hislife.
(43:50):
But the trauma that led to thatmoment happened within a
Christian school that didn'tknow how to handle him.
And so in me, you'll find I'mnot a cynical person when I get
angry.
In like a justice way, I wantto build better things as
(44:13):
opposed to tear things down, youknow.
And so with that it was kind ofa driving force for me to have
more partnerships with ourfamilies in our church.
And in that period of time Ihad a volunteer for Alpha the
previous year who committedsuicide year, who committed
(44:45):
suicide and I had sorry I had.
It was literally I had somebodycall me and say, you know, for
her husband, do you know of anycounselors?
I'm like, well, bethany Bibleis probably now now Phoenix
Bible, I believe, is nowprobably the closest thing that
I know on this end of the Valley, cause I'm everything I know is
like East Valley from spendingyears there.
And it was literally like thatweek, uh, dan Capel, who was
(45:07):
running the counselingdepartment for the rescue
mission in town, knocked on mydoor at the church while I'm
sermon prepping.
He's introduced himself andsaid hey, would you guys be open
to a partnership?
I'm looking at starting aprivate practice and I'm looking
for space.
So we actually started with arelationship with him where we
said you could use our space forfree as you build your, your,
(45:31):
your, you know counseling centerin return for us having deals
for our members to go.
And then our board opened up acertain amount of money to also
kind of pay for people thatcouldn't pay for themselves even
with that discount.
So that's one of the thingsthat we did.
Another thing in that, again,because we wanted to partner
(45:54):
more with the families and somesome of the families in our
church were going through somegnarly stuff.
Uh, we started what was called.
We did our first ever lastspring mental health, mental
health summit where weapproached the topics of grief.
We approached, um, I talkedabout Jesus's anxiety, uh and uh
(46:16):
.
And then we had, uh, theytalked about trauma and then
they talked about we brought inAmen clinic to talk about brain
development, so good.
And so we, we hosted that whichstarted us into where we're
doing two to four times a yearmicro events.
So we'll bring in a speaker.
We had one on social media.
(46:38):
Now we, we have one, uh, I don'tknow if you know chris morris
is.
He might be good guy for you toconnect with.
He's on this end of the valley.
I didn't know.
He lived here, he was an author.
I followed talking about mentalhealth and he's like hey, can I
send you your my book?
And I gave him my address.
He's like you're in arizona,I'm in arizona we like 15
minutes away, so we've hung outa few times but bringing him in
(46:59):
to talk about his story and he'sa mental health advocate,
seminary trained, really coolguy, but we're bringing him in.
And so we have these littlemicro events where we not only
invite our church but we invite.
We have a partnership with apublic elementary that allows us
to invite people to our events.
(47:21):
That's awesome.
Yeah, it's crazy.
And then all the Christianschools in the area.
I think and I'll say this onhere that my experience because
I graduated from Christianschool, I went to two and then I
worked for two years at aChristian school I think there's
a lot of misinformation,misunderstanding within those
(47:44):
circles that I've found aroundmental health, and so we try and
hit the Christian schools uphere.
And then we have trauma-informedtraining for our youth leaders
and we do it once a year in thesummer right before camp.
We've had kids that discloserape, that disclose abuse, that
(48:09):
disclose all kinds of things,and so we sit down for about an
hour, hour and a half with allof the leaders there's normally
about 20 of us that sit aroundthe table and we do it in
partnership with our counselingcenter and we do trauma,
informed training and how torespond and how to know how to
respond and read thesesituations.
(48:30):
And then we have life recovery,which is like a celebrate
recovery that meets on Mondayevening.
So those are some of the if youcould hear kind of in my story
of some of the things we'vetried to purposefully put in
place that I'm thankful for.
Those are some of the thingswe're moving on within our
community.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
So grateful for you and for the church and the wider
church responding in healthyways.
And it's not a one size fitsall, if you hear like there's a
number of different ways.
We're trying to meet peoplewhere they are.
We're also looking to start acounseling ministry here.
So you mentioned a few thingsI'm interested about Christian
(49:09):
schools.
We got a lot of peoplelistening that are connected to
some of our Lutheran schools.
What were some of those waysthat were not helpful?
That we were training students,teachers, et cetera in the
school context?
Go deeper there.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Yeah, so in that story, specifically my family
member.
He was bullied at the school.
Nothing was done about it andso there wasn't a response to
bullying.
There are certain laws thatI've noticed because I'm
actually still walking with thisschool and I'm it.
There's a whole story herewhere, basically, I pushed them
(49:46):
about a year and a half ago andthey closed the door in my face
Like, basically, like didn'twant to talk about it.
We're doing fine.
Look at our ratings.
You know, you don't know whatyou're talking about.
Like it was a full, likegaslighting session and they've
reopened the door forconversation with me because
they're under new leadershipwhere I might step in and
actually help them do training,um, but, but, but what I found
(50:10):
is them and some of the ones uparound here, because some of the
students, they're not quite inline with some of the legal um I
could use the term parametersor expectations uh, with how to
handle certain types of bullying.
There was a death threat inthis situation that wasn't
reported, um, and then, and thenone of the things right now,
(50:34):
with every at least in the stateof Arizona, every school and
this includes private school isrequired to do mental health and
suicide prevention trainingonce every three years.
This is one of those thingswhere you know, I think that for
(50:55):
a lot of times they're like, oh, we'll leave that up to you,
the, the guidance counselor orthe spiritual director.
But it's like, no, everyteacher like, yes, have, have a
trained professional if that, ifyou have the budget to do so
within your administration.
But every teacher must atminimum be trained in
(51:19):
conversation every couple years.
Of this is what it means to betrauma informed.
This is what it looks like.
This is how, when you know whento report what this is how you
handle.
I had a student when I was there.
I had a student when I wasthere say, hey, I've attempted
suicide two times and I've.
(51:39):
I had to respond, but it wasn'tclear.
I mean, I was on staff here.
It wasn't clear how to respond.
So I went to the spiritualdirector and to the counselor.
They both told me two differentthings.
And the counselor her concernwas the school, school not
getting sued.
And I don't think after thatinitial moment I offered to call
(52:04):
the parents.
I called the parents After thatmoment.
I don't think the school didany check-ins or walk alongside
of that student's family afterthat moment.
And so there's just a lot ofthese things where I'm like why
is the public school systemdoing better?
It's like if my family memberwas at this Christian school he
(52:26):
wouldn't be with us right now,and that's just like a sobering,
sad thought.
It should be reversed.
So those are just some of thethings in there.
Know your laws, make sure thatyou know what it, that everyone
understands what mandatoryreporting means.
I think that's really important, um, know your laws.
(52:47):
And then with that, with that,um, I just, you know, and there
was, there was, there wasre-victimization, you know,
re-traumatization in in some ofmy family's attempts, the
parents attempts to push theschool a little bit, and it just
(53:08):
, you know, wasn't, wasn't good.
So yeah, yeah, and this is aschool with high ratings where
it's like that they kind of hidebehind the ratings.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
Yeah, yeah Pull of institutional preservation is
strong.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
And and hopefully we're confessing institutions.
We don't in life, you know, Ikind of help oversee a school.
I don't run it day to day, butin my world the I, the principal
, reports to me right.
So, um, the quicker we can getto confession in those messy
situations, the better.
Like we, we ha, we didn't haveall the details.
(53:45):
We could have handled itdifferent.
Um, and we want to do whateverit takes to care for kids really
, really well.
Um, you couple a couple ofclosing.
You, you did a presentation onJesus anxiety.
That that's provocative to me.
Uh, what did you say?
Where did you locate Jesusanxiety?
Obviously the garden.
But yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (54:04):
Yeah, luke 22,.
Uh, the language in the Greek,yes, it says in agony, but it
also can translate to anxietyand uh.
And so I, I talked about whatwas happening in his body, but
my where I, what I got to was tosay to push against the idea of
(54:26):
shaming for an anxious response, to push against the idea that
if I have an anxious response ina situation, I'm struggling
with continued anxious responses, maybe it's because of trauma,
that I'm sinning or I'm not, I'mnot responding in a way that
God would like, or that my faithis in question.
(54:48):
And that was really what Iwanted to lead to.
I think that understanding, youknow Athanasius said, you know
God became who we are so wecould become who he is.
There's something about thefull new humanity that comes
because of the incarnation andthe work and faithfulness and
(55:10):
ultimately, death andresurrection of Jesus.
But with that comes things likeMatthew four, where he's it
literally says just right, there, he was hungry, like well, that
tells me that he understandswhat it means to, to, to, to
have the desires and the humanexperience that I have.
(55:32):
But with that Luke is veryclear that Jesus had a moment
there before he was going to goto a cross, which was a
torturous, traumatic event thathe walked through.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
So, yeah, I'm with you walked through.
So, yeah, no, I'm with you.
I think in other generations,when life was more volatile like
we, everybody knows they'regoing to die but we live with
this kind of you can kind of setdeath aside, right, and for
those that are not Jesusfollowers, especially if you've
got enough money, like somepeople are actually talking
(56:05):
about defeating death by living.
You know well, in a hundred 200years You've heard about a lot
of those kind of folks.
But in the early church and thenmoving into the early Middle
Ages, the monastic movement andthen Luther and some of the
reformers, there was this reallypalpable expectation and maybe
(56:27):
Luther's story is a little bitdifferent here because of the
heaviness of the law wanting toget God off his back and being
unable to do so by his one.
There's going to be suffering.
God's going to work through it.
It's going to be suffering andloss.
In the early church, mygoodness, was there a lot of
(56:53):
suffering and loss andpersecution.
You knew people who had losttheir lives because they said
Caesar's not Lord, jesus is Lord, right.
So there was more evidentsuffering in the community, but
also that there would come aseason where there's a dark
night of the soul.
Have you done much work on thedark night of the soul, david,
and how the Lord works in thatway?
(57:14):
It's not pleasant, it's not fun,but it's a very normal
experience for people as theyfollow Jesus.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
Yeah, it was at St John of the Cross and kind of
his work was kind of wherethat's coined, ross, and kind of
his work was kind of wherethat's coined.
So, yes, I think that one ofthe things that we've done and I
talk about this in many waysand I would love to get in this
conversation, maybe future downthe road, but I talk a lot about
spiritual bypassing, how wethink that God is only found in
(57:41):
what's happy and good, and so wetry and utilize Christian
practices to sit there or findthat place when in all reality
we learn that Psalm 23, eventhough we walk through the
valley of the shadow of death,he is with us.
And so I think, if we realizebecause I do, I think that our
(58:02):
Christian goods and services,our contemporary Christian music
, our Christian movies, thosesort of things kind of drive us
almost like everything has tohave this like 90s sitcom bow
tie of a resolve and that's just.
Not only is that not real life,but we can miss out on knowing
(58:22):
like experiencing Jesus.
There's been three major seasonslike Cairo seasons in my life
where God has shown himself.
The first was like unicorns andrainbows.
It was beautiful and happy.
The other two were justhorrible hell and I think that
if I would have, I could havemissed where God was
(58:46):
intersecting in my life in thosemoments.
If I thought that, no, I just Igotta be happy, I need to
bypass this and utilize fakeChristian practices, I would
totally miss out on just kind ofthe depth of the experience
(59:07):
that I had with God in thosemoments.
Speaker 2 (59:08):
So yeah, it's amazing to me how much Paul and the
apostles talk about sufferingand sometimes I think it's just
really, really, really hard.
I mean, one of my favoriteverses is Romans 5, right One,
two.
Rejoice in your suffering.
What?
Because it does something in us, knowing that suffering
(59:30):
produces perseverance and Ithink this is maybe an overlap
with the secular sciences alittle bit, because we want to
grow in our resilience.
I think a synonym forresilience is faith, trust that
God will never leave you norforsake you.
Right, rejoice in yoursuffering, knowing it produces
perseverance and perseveranceCharacter.
(59:50):
You're the type of person thatcan walk, as Luther says, one
beggar telling another beggarwhere to find food.
Like we're all just brokenmesses, we're all kind of trying
(01:00:15):
to.
If anybody says they got it alltogether and they figured it
all out or they got the answersfor whatever at any level, like
you're just lying.
All of us are just trying tomake it.
You know and do we want?
Are we emotive?
We're not brains in a stick,right, we're feeling things
first and are some of thosefeelings oriented toward things
that are very dysfunctional?
Yeah, because we're broken andwe need.
We need the love and grace andmercy of Jesus and we need the
(01:00:37):
kindness of a community ofpeople who bear our burdens and
say Jesus is right here, he'snever going to leave you, nor,
nor fors, and ultimately it's amove toward hope right In this
world.
You will have trouble.
Take heart, I've overcome theworld.
Jesus breaks into the lockedroom of our cold, hard,
faithless hearts and gives uspeace.
(01:00:58):
I'm alive.
Death is not going to win.
Death is put to death becauseI'm alive.
And this suffering, this sorrow, this trauma, there's going to
come a day when it's no more.
So we just need to be acommunity and it's not trite,
you know, I think, if people arelistening to me like you, just
talk right past the trauma.
No, no, no.
It's like sitting right here inthis office, david, yeah,
(01:01:21):
crying with people in the midstof unexpected things that have
happened, people in the midst ofunexpected things that have
happened, and not in a trite way, but at in the, in the right
way most of the time, justsaying Jesus is, jesus is here
and he he's weeping with you.
Yeah, and, and we don't, wedon't like to weep, especially
in the West right, we want tomove, we want to move right by
(01:01:48):
it.
I think too, in other culturesthey had maybe maybe closed with
cause.
Some of this maybe arestruggles culturally with
handling loss and death.
There's been some radicalshifts culturally, david, since
I became a pastor 17 years ago.
There there used to be more ofa viewing of your dead loved one
right, and there was a healingelement to that, the closing of
(01:02:13):
the casket kind of and this goesback to some kind of ancient
liturgies the pastor kind ofleading the body into the
worship space.
You have a service, but thenthe pastor kind of leads the
procession to the mortuary andto the graveside and there's a
committal service.
I remember doing all of thesethings, like it was a whole
(01:02:34):
morning or whole afternoon typeof experience to grieve with
those who grieve.
But now, man, like let's plantwo months out for Aunt Sally's
funeral and make sure everybodycan get, like there's this
elongated and then I never sawaunt sally I I don't normally
get this fired up about this, Idon't know why I am at this
moment, but anyway.
(01:02:55):
But but cremation is the normal, is the normal way right right
now, and so I think generally wewant to push grief and loss to
the side, work right by it.
But the church needs, I hope,is a place where we can cry with
those who cry Any take on theshift culturally around the
topic of death.
(01:03:15):
David.
Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
Yeah, I think that there you go to Rwanda.
Rwanda, for instance, has amuseum to remember the genocide.
(01:03:43):
We don't want to face thosethings, and so I think that that
that mentality that runs deeperand farther it maybe, is
playing itself in.
I for me, you know, as you're,as you're talking, I mean I
haven't been doing what I'vebeen doing the way I've been
doing it long, only a few years.
(01:04:03):
I do a lot of funerals up hereby Sun City.
We have a lot of retired folk.
There was one year where I didfive funerals in six weeks.
I do a lot of funerals and theyall look different and some of
them are minimal, some of themare simple celebration of life.
(01:04:25):
They all look different and Icould see what you're saying.
I think grief is not somethingthat we are comfortable allowing
ourselves to feel and that'ssomething I've had to learn
because of my upbringing.
In the last couple of years andmy grandpa passed away, I went
(01:04:48):
to his funeral out and sorry,and yeah, thanks, nebraska.
And you know just the sense oflike anytime somebody would cry
sharing a story.
There was this, but we gotta behappy.
He's in heaven now, you know.
And well, no, like we, we couldsit in this space, and that's
right, and that's good.
So, yeah, I definitely seewithin our culture we want to
(01:05:14):
shy away from the hard stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
Yeah, that's good man .
Hey, this has been a lot of fun.
You're a dear brother, justgetting to know you.
I'm grateful for the HolySpirit's work in your life,
david, through hard things, tooffer those hard things to the
healing presence of Christ andto invite others to do the same.
(01:05:37):
And that's what it means to bethe body of Christ, loving and
caring for one another andlifting our eyes up to Jesus,
who's right there with us in themidst of hard stuff.
If people want to connect withyou and your ministry and hear
more and kind of get moreinvolved in your cause, it's all
about networks, right?
Um, in your network of of careand trauma informed care, how
(01:05:58):
can they do so, david?
Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
Yeah, there's a couple of places.
I mean, if you're in thePhoenix area and want to swing
by life church, peoria, I'm upthere every Sunday for the most
part, but I'm very active onInstagram.
It's David underscore Rubelid.
My guess is you'll have my, mylast name, somewhere in the
notes listed here, so it's Davidunderscore Rubelid on Instagram
.
And then I also am a co-founderof what's called the religious
(01:06:21):
trauma network with I knowyou've had Janine McConaughey on
here, but Janine, rebeccaDrumsta, luke Renner, kind of
the four of us launched this tokind of help survivors
understand, educate, supportthem, but also help
organizations and professionalsbuild more trauma responsive
(01:06:44):
spaces for both faith and, justyou know, healing places for
people.
Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
So yeah, Dude, so good.
Thanks for the time and thiswas a blessing just to me
Personally.
This is a Tim Allman podcast.
If you could like, subscribe,comment wherever it is.
You take in hopefully Jesuscentered, hope filled but honest
conversations, like we're goingto be setting up here.
That is most appreciated.
Follow us on YouTube UniteLeadership Collective.
This is one of those twopodcasts, and it's a beautiful
(01:07:12):
day to be alive.
In the midst of loss is myfinal word.
Now, life is loss, but life inChrist, because he's the
crucified and risen one lifedefeats in time our loss, and so
in the meantime, we care forone another, pointing one
another to Jesus.
It's a good day.
Go make it a great day by thepower of the Spirit.
Thanks so much, david.
Thank you.
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