In this episode, we chat with Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer about their new book that's making waves called A Church Called Tov. This book is extremely important and is a prophetic call to the Church to form a goodness culture that resists abuses of power and promotes healing. We chat about recent scandals of abuse and coverup in the modern church, why we've created toxic church cultures and how we can move toward more beautiful cultures of goodness (Tov) in our churches.
Also, we get some dirt on Scot from Laura about some fun and mildly embarrassing stories from growing up with a biblical scholar. Fun times!
The whiskey featured in this episode is Belle Meade Bourbon from Green Brier Distillery in Nashville, TN.
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
In this episode, we chat with Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer about their new book that's making waves called A Church Called Tov. This book is extremely important and is a prophetic call to the Church to form a goodness culture that resists abuses of power and promotes healing. We chat about recent scandals of abuse and coverup in the modern church, why we've created toxic church cultures and how we can move toward more beautiful cultures of goodness (Tov) in our churches.
Also, we get some dirt on Scot from Laura about some fun and mildly embarrassing stories from growing up with a biblical scholar. Fun times!
The whiskey featured in this episode is Belle Meade Bourbon from Green Brier Distillery in Nashville, TN.
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
Cheers!
00:00
[Music]
00:15
welcome to a pastor and a philosopher
00:17
walk into a bar
00:18
the podcast where we mix a sometimes
00:20
weird but always delicious cocktail of
00:22
theology
00:23
philosophy and spirituality
00:25
[Music]
00:29
well welcome everyone we're really
00:31
excited to have a couple special guests
00:33
on the podcast today
00:34
we'll be talking with the reverend
00:36
cannon dr scott mcknight which i just
00:38
think is the coolest
00:40
title ever i don't know what it means
00:41
but it sounds really cool to me
00:43
and his daughter laura barringer who
00:46
have authored a book together
00:47
recently called a church called tove
00:51
it's really good really interesting i
00:53
should say at the beginning that this
00:54
book contains some heavy themes in our
00:56
conversation about it also contains
00:58
some heavy themes we discuss things like
01:01
sexual abuse
01:02
and so if that's a problem for you or if
01:05
you have young children we wouldn't
01:06
recommend
01:07
this episode for them but for everyone
01:09
else
01:10
this episode is is an important one and
01:13
i think uh
01:14
if you're a pastor if you've ever
01:16
considered being a pastor
01:18
uh or if you're a parishioner at a large
01:20
church
01:21
especially mandatory this is definitely
01:24
an episode that you should listen to
01:28
well scott mcknight and laura behringer
01:30
thank you so much for joining us today
01:32
we're super excited to have you
01:33
thank you for having us it's really nice
01:35
to be with you good to be with you yeah
01:38
excellent for our listeners who might
01:40
not know
01:41
who you are and know what world you
01:43
orbit in and all that business [ __ ] you
01:45
what can you know i know that'd be crazy
01:48
that'd be crazy
01:48
but could you just in case for those
01:51
four people uh let us know who you are
01:53
all right i am scott mcknight and i am a
01:56
professor of new testament
01:58
at northern seminary in lyle
02:01
illinois which is a pretty much a
02:04
western suburb
02:05
i'm an author and i've been teaching for
02:08
almost 40 years
02:09
amazing i am scott's daughter i am laura
02:12
and
02:13
talking about world that you orbit in i
02:16
am a teacher
02:17
so this path is an unlikely one for me
02:20
that i'm sitting in this chair talking
02:21
about
02:22
abuse in the church but i am the
02:25
co-author
02:26
of a church called tove with my father
02:28
scott mcknight
02:29
so we're we're going to be talking today
02:31
about the the book that
02:33
scott and lord just wrote called a
02:35
church called tove
02:36
tov is the really really fun word that
02:38
i've had some fun with
02:40
in the past as well and scott you took
02:42
it and made it into a name on
02:43
on this book and you both just really
02:46
really took this concept of tove
02:48
this ancient hebrew word and really
02:50
turned it into something that i think
02:52
a lot of churches need to pay attention
02:54
to so can you just first of all tell us
02:56
what what in the world is this
02:57
three-letter word
02:58
all right when i uh wrote the first i
03:00
think it was the first blog post
03:02
about willow creek i i dropped the
03:06
statement
03:06
in the blog post that the church
03:10
needs uh goodness
03:13
we need more goodness culture and
03:17
i knew uh that the hebrew word behind
03:19
goodness is tov
03:21
but i had so many people ask me
03:24
questions about that word
03:27
why did i use goodness where can we
03:30
learn more about goodness
03:32
why is goodness important so i decided
03:35
to do a little bit of a study
03:37
uh this was independent of writing the
03:39
book on the meaning of tove
03:41
in the in the old testament and i got to
03:44
tell you
03:45
i i did not realize
03:49
how pervasive this term is in the hebrew
03:51
bible the old testament
03:53
and how significant is and the word that
03:56
i
03:56
the expression that i use for it now is
03:59
that it is a master
04:00
moral category it summarizes
04:04
who god is what god is like what god has
04:08
made
04:09
what god has designed and what he wants
04:11
of his people
04:12
in this world he wants them to be told
04:15
so good
04:16
soto so tov yes you do actually do you
04:19
got into my head a little bit i
04:21
found myself saying tov every once in a
04:22
while so much of this book
04:24
is formed and shaped or seems to be
04:26
formed and shaped by what happened
04:27
at willow creek community church with
04:29
bill hybels the senior pastor there
04:31
and your experience as church members
04:32
there what it seems like so
04:34
would you guys both mind sharing about
04:36
your experience prior to a little bit
04:38
but
04:38
particularly as the allegations came out
04:40
and they kept coming
04:42
and they kept coming and how the elders
04:44
responded and
04:45
as the whole church is in crisis just
04:48
bring us into the emotions and what's
04:50
going through your mind and what your
04:51
conversations were like
04:52
just bring us into that world a little
04:54
bit well the story started for us so
04:57
the story broke on i believe it was
04:59
march 23rd
05:00
2018 and i was sitting at a mexican
05:04
restaurant down the street with my
05:05
husband we can both remember exactly
05:07
where we were when the story broke for
05:09
us we had been
05:10
we were not attending willow creek at
05:13
that point we had left
05:14
about a year prior but we had met at
05:16
willow creek attended there for about 20
05:18
years
05:19
and always respected bill's leadership
05:23
now admittedly i never really knew bill
05:27
i met him one time i stood in line to
05:30
meet him
05:31
but we always respected him as a leader
05:33
and as a pastor
05:35
and so we read the headline these
05:38
allegations against bill hybels and we
05:40
were both like oh brother here we go
05:42
again we didn't we just kind of shrugged
05:44
it off didn't believe it
05:46
got in the car we're driving home and i
05:47
started reading the article out loud to
05:49
my husband
05:50
and we both looked at each other and
05:54
it was alarming because we knew the
05:55
names of the people we know the women
05:58
and we also knew the names of
05:59
betty schmidt for example was an elder
06:01
who was supporting the women
06:04
john and nancy ortberg jim and jimmy and
06:06
liam miato these were names that
06:08
these were not people that they were
06:10
they're people of character and
06:11
integrity
06:13
and so we right away we're dealing with
06:17
this
06:18
tension between the churches saying that
06:21
the allegations are false but this group
06:24
of people that we know to be
06:26
people of integrity and character are
06:29
also
06:30
are saying that it's true and somebody's
06:32
not telling the truth and either
06:34
way it's very disturbing well we called
06:37
my dad as soon as we got home
06:38
and that's really when the story started
06:41
to unfold for us as mark and i were
06:42
still not sure what to believe and
06:44
my dad told us that night that he'd seen
06:47
this hundreds of times
06:48
it's a pattern that churches followed he
06:50
really hoped it wasn't true but the
06:52
likelihood that all of these people were
06:55
lying
06:55
was very low well yeah i mean to me
07:00
we loved willow creek chris and i
07:02
attended for 10 years
07:04
and we liked a lot of the ministries
07:07
there were so many things going on that
07:09
was good
07:10
but uh i'm a seminary professor and a
07:13
lot of my students
07:14
are pastors and those who aren't pastors
07:17
most of them are very involved in
07:19
churches
07:20
bill hybels is one of the most
07:22
influential pastors in the world
07:24
and i felt betrayed because this is a
07:28
man that i had praised
07:30
i had told my students he was a good man
07:33
i felt betrayed
07:34
because this is a church that
07:37
people use as a paradigm and a model
07:40
and so i thought
07:44
okay this is this is what's happened
07:46
this is going to become
07:48
a story told in seminaries
07:51
for the rest of my life not by me but
07:54
this
07:54
this will become a test case a
07:57
hypothetical case
07:59
in seminary classrooms of
08:02
what happens why it happens when
08:06
when pastors fall like this and we
08:09
discover that behind the curtains
08:11
there were things going on that should
08:13
never have been happening for a pastor
08:15
the other thing that was so hard to wrap
08:18
our minds around
08:19
was it wasn't just the pastor i mean
08:22
that was hard enough to grapple with but
08:24
it was this whole
08:25
system it was like peeling back the
08:27
layers of an onion
08:28
and just betrayal is a good word feeling
08:32
betrayed by people that we had thought
08:34
were
08:36
i i mean not that i don't believe that
08:38
they're christians but these were people
08:39
that we thought were living in truth and
08:42
to see and hear what they had been doing
08:44
to people
08:45
it just it was very disorienting
08:49
man yeah we're 99 miles north of you
08:52
guys here in chicago area we're in
08:53
milwaukee area and
08:55
i remember where i was when i read about
08:56
it because like you said scott bill
08:58
hybels is a legend
08:59
highly respected and i just remember
09:02
having the same thoughts as you guys
09:03
just i didn't know anybody personally
09:05
but
09:06
in your first chapter of this book you
09:08
guys talk a lot about culture in a
09:09
church culture and that
09:11
churches have cultures whether or not
09:13
pastors church leaders or even
09:14
congregations know it
09:16
you've got a culture that's been built
09:18
in can you explain that a little bit
09:20
this idea that a church has a culture
09:22
in what might that culture look like and
09:24
who's shaping that culture and how
09:25
intentional we might be
09:27
i think this is a really important point
09:28
that not enough people get in the church
09:31
yeah and this was uh this was a big part
09:33
of our conversation
09:35
between laura and me well but also mark
09:38
and
09:38
and my wife chris we had this
09:40
conversation a lot and i kept saying
09:42
it's a it's a culture
09:44
it is extraordinarily rare that a pastor
09:46
can get by with what bill hybels or
09:48
james mcdonald
09:50
or cj mahany or the southern baptist
09:53
pastors that were disgraced in the
09:55
houston chronicle we could go on
09:57
roman catholic priests in the curia
10:01
of of the vatican those things don't
10:04
happen
10:05
normally on their own in an
10:08
isolated fashion there is something that
10:12
there is some kind of culture that
10:14
encourages and permits
10:16
and legitimates and justifies and
10:19
protects
10:20
so that this goes on david brooks
10:23
in a book i read is called the second
10:26
mountain
10:27
said something that just stunned me when
10:29
i read it so i
10:30
i say it everywhere i go now never
10:33
underestimate the significance of the
10:35
environment in which you work
10:37
i'm summarizing that to make you the
10:39
kind of person that works in that
10:41
environment with comfort
10:43
this is this is vital and in studying
10:46
new testament studies there's a
10:47
wonderful guy
10:48
named matthew krausman who who wrote a
10:51
book on a technical phd
10:53
on on romans in which he argued
10:57
that cultures develop in this way that
11:00
there's there are behaviors at the
11:02
bottom let's just say
11:04
everybody's behaving a certain way this
11:07
keeps going to the point that it becomes
11:10
an agent
11:11
it becomes an active agent not a person
11:15
but
11:15
almost personified so that saddleback
11:19
church is an agent north point community
11:23
church with andy stanley is an
11:25
agent willow creek is an agent
11:28
elmbrook church in milwaukee is an agent
11:32
and you experience it and it impacts
11:35
people
11:35
in a sense so we impact it to create the
11:38
culture the culture then comes back
11:40
to work upon us and influences us
11:44
to be the kind of person that works in
11:46
that culture if you don't like that
11:47
culture and you
11:48
fight it you will be eliminated
11:52
if you stay you will become like that
11:56
culture
11:57
and i believe that churches every church
12:00
is a culture and we need to become
12:04
discerners of our own church's culture
12:07
so that we can see what is shaping us
12:10
and it's you know we like to think it's
12:11
just the bible or it's just
12:12
god and me and we're being shaped in so
12:15
many ways
12:17
everybody who talks today about
12:18
spiritual formation
12:20
talks about the significance of
12:22
community and group
12:24
forming us into the agents or the people
12:27
that we are
12:28
and a church is a culture and we we need
12:31
to be aware of that we participate in it
12:34
the leaders participate in it impacting
12:37
the people the
12:38
people that influence the leaders the
12:40
leaders then
12:41
uh allow the church or the church allows
12:44
the culture to become an agent that
12:45
begins to make us
12:46
all fit into this church culture in such
12:49
a way that we behave
12:51
in a way that's approving to that
12:54
culture
12:55
yeah i want to ask you here about the
12:57
interplay between the culture
13:00
and individual character or individual
13:03
intention because
13:03
you say it really strongly in the book
13:05
early in the book you put it this way
13:06
you say
13:07
a rooted culture is almost irresistible
13:11
and you italicize irresistible and then
13:13
you say if the reinforcing culture is
13:15
toxic
13:16
it becomes systemically corrupted and
13:18
corrupts the people within it
13:20
so how much room is there here for
13:21
individual character and individual
13:23
choice because i think we'd all like to
13:24
think to ourselves
13:26
if i had been at willow creek or if i
13:27
had been wherever and i had seen that
13:29
kind of thing i would have resisted you
13:30
know i would have done something
13:31
different
13:33
but it seems like you're saying we're
13:34
fooling ourselves is that right
13:37
well kyle this is this is a good
13:38
question i i do believe that humans have
13:41
individual agencies so yes
13:43
uh we can resist the culture uh but
13:47
if you are in a strong culture
13:51
now i'm starting to talk the language of
13:53
of the cultural anthropologists
13:55
if you are in a strong culture
13:58
you will be worn down by resistance
14:02
because it's too powerful to resist
14:06
and i i've had people
14:09
from some of these churches that we're
14:11
talking about not just willow creek
14:13
say the culture was so powerful
14:17
that i could do nothing about it i spoke
14:20
up
14:21
i tried to resist it was impossible
14:25
now those people all were witnesses to
14:28
the fact that they weren't corrupted by
14:30
that culture
14:31
so we can avoid the corruption
14:34
that's a little bit different and it's
14:36
possible from those who try to resist
14:39
the culture
14:40
and change it there are many people kyle
14:43
who just flowed along on and bob along
14:47
in their inner tubes on the culture and
14:50
are not recognizing it aren't resisting
14:53
it
14:54
aren't um aren't affirming it but
14:57
they're just
14:58
part of the culture and they don't know
14:59
it and and increasingly in mega churches
15:02
there's just way too many people who are
15:04
just participants
15:05
in that way they just watch they're
15:08
observers
15:10
yeah do you think that's endemic to the
15:13
mega church
15:14
system itself the smaller the church
15:18
the less you can be simply an observer
15:22
the bigger the church the more
15:24
likelihood
15:25
of the presence of observers now what i
15:28
mean by an observer is someone who just
15:30
comes
15:31
watches church and goes home without
15:34
being responsible without being called
15:37
on the spot
15:38
without asking to do anything they just
15:41
come and watch it's the way i go to a
15:45
milwaukee's brewers game i'm just
15:49
a watcher unless they're playing the
15:52
cubs
15:54
and then right now i'm not too happy
15:56
about the cubs
15:59
i did notice laura you did pop in and go
16:01
cubs in there and um
16:03
had to just let you know i still love
16:06
you
16:14
laura you you said you spent 20 years at
16:16
willow creek that's
16:18
a lot of your adult life i'm assuming
16:20
you spent
16:21
and now you're at it sounds like more of
16:23
a high church probably smaller church
16:25
can you describe those church cultures
16:27
and did you even know it would you've
16:29
known this 15 years ago
16:31
10 years ago five years ago this culture
16:34
at willow creek
16:35
no and it's a that's an interesting
16:37
question you guys were just talking
16:38
about
16:39
the observer i think that in large part
16:42
was
16:43
me i well i guess i was more than an
16:46
observer because i was involved in the
16:48
section ministry
16:49
and had a close community at willow
16:52
creek
16:53
but it took being removed from
16:57
that church and that culture to be able
16:59
to see the toxicity of it
17:02
so when i here's one example when i
17:04
started going to an anglican church
17:06
i noticed right away there was no
17:09
there's no production
17:10
there's no screen it's not about a
17:13
person who's coming up on stage to talk
17:16
there's no standing up and cheering and
17:18
clapping for people
17:20
and i know i did not see
17:23
i i can honestly say when i was at
17:25
willow creek i did not
17:27
see it i did not see i was just part of
17:30
it everyone stood
17:31
and clapped so i stood and clapped and
17:35
i i have to own my part in
17:38
perpetuating the celebrity culture that
17:40
existed there
17:42
and it's i believe personally from my
17:45
experience that it can be really hard to
17:47
see when you're in it
17:48
and i'm thankful that i left it and so
17:51
that i'm able to see what
17:53
the toxicity was but i didn't see it at
17:56
the time
17:57
and i don't think most people do see
17:59
recognize their culture
18:01
you know i don't know the name of the
18:03
author but it's a clever title
18:05
it's the color of water this um
18:08
a culture in a church and i think you
18:11
have to have
18:12
analytical tools that you learn by way
18:15
of theory and education someone helping
18:18
you see
18:20
so that you can detect a culture in any
18:23
group in any church
18:25
and chris my wife is a psychologist
18:28
and she has helped me see over the years
18:32
the culture of institutions i've taught
18:34
in three major institutions
18:37
and i've been able the first one was
18:40
particularly i taught at trinity
18:42
was particularly difficult to discern
18:45
because i was so
18:46
young and just trying to survive you
18:48
know
18:49
but then when i went to north park i
18:52
began to
18:52
recognize a different kind of culture
18:55
and at northern we have a different
18:56
culture
18:57
but you have to have some tools you have
18:59
to have some equipment
19:01
you have to have some learning and
19:03
experience to recognize
19:05
cultures otherwise you'll just you'll
19:08
just believe
19:09
whatever is said from the platform about
19:12
what's actually going on you just think
19:13
well
19:14
that's what that's what the pastor says
19:16
that's what that's what is
19:19
scott if it's okay i'd like to dig into
19:21
some bible verses a little bit
19:22
so you you talk about in uh chapter
19:25
three
19:27
several verses that are often used uh
19:30
by ministers who are accused of
19:31
wrongdoing as kind of procedural
19:34
defenses
19:35
not defenses of their behavior but
19:36
defenses against
19:38
bringing up their behavior so this is
19:40
particularly
19:41
uh passages in matthew 18 first timothy
19:45
5
19:45
1st corinthians 6 that you talk about
19:48
and you say that the way they get used
19:50
is profoundly unbiblical can you explain
19:53
what you mean by that
19:55
okay let me let me start with one that i
19:57
think is pretty easy
19:59
in first timothy it tells us that no one
20:03
is to lay a charge or make an allegation
20:05
against an
20:06
elder apart from two or three witnesses
20:10
all right now that is that is an
20:11
interesting verse and i've heard it used
20:14
it was used at willow creek of why the
20:16
women
20:18
should not be making accusations against
20:20
bill hybels
20:24
well here is a reality kyle
20:28
most men who abuse women sexually
20:32
don't do it in public i think the
20:34
chances are less than one percent
20:37
i mean it's unless it's on video and
20:40
that they didn't realize it was on video
20:42
they do these things privately which
20:44
means you could
20:45
never a woman could never lay an
20:48
allegation
20:49
against a pastor or an elder a bishop
20:52
whatever you want to call him
20:53
unless someone else was there and saw it
20:56
matthew 18
20:58
is used that if if you have an offense
21:01
against someone
21:03
you should go to that person privately
21:06
if they don't respond
21:07
you go to two or three you bring two or
21:09
three witnesses and if that doesn't
21:10
happen you go to the whole church
21:12
that seems like an orderly process for
21:15
offenses
21:16
but what if it is a
21:20
teenage girl raped
21:23
by a leader in the church
21:27
is she to go to that person privately
21:31
and to try to redress the situation
21:35
this is profoundly foolish
21:38
re-traumatizing
21:39
re-victimizing of the woman so those
21:42
verses are important but they have to be
21:45
taken in context
21:47
i called willow creek on the spot on my
21:49
blog and said
21:50
let's go to deuteronomy where a woman
21:54
was sexually abused raped perhaps that's
21:58
what it sounds like
21:59
out in a field where no one saw it
22:03
and it's amazing the jewish law i talked
22:06
i i checked this with two different old
22:08
testament scholars
22:09
and i said the law seems to suggest
22:13
that the woman's voice was going to be
22:15
believed and trusted
22:17
over the man's and the old testament
22:19
scholar said
22:20
absolutely that's exactly what it's
22:22
saying
22:24
so that that would mean
22:27
that um matthew 18
22:31
uh first timothy uh first corinthians
22:34
six is
22:35
you know you're not to go to the public
22:37
authorities uh you're supposed to stay
22:40
inside the church churches have proven
22:42
they have no idea
22:44
how to handle sexual abuse cases how to
22:46
investigate
22:48
uh so this is outside their parameters
22:51
and
22:51
it just drives me to say we have to
22:54
listen to different verses
22:56
for the context that they're bringing
22:57
out the assumptions
22:59
and learn to use the proper text
23:03
and i think in this case deuteronomy was
23:06
the text
23:07
that was most like the situations at
23:10
willow creek
23:11
i've got plenty of stories of these
23:13
private type things too
23:15
so what i'm saying about willow creek
23:17
there applies to about
23:19
500 churches in the united states in the
23:21
last 10 years
23:22
yeah and you guys have you guys
23:24
obviously made a choice
23:26
to include people's names to name
23:28
institutions
23:29
where abuse has happened where cover-up
23:31
has happened where even i'm thinking of
23:33
the village church in
23:34
houston i think it is matt chandler's
23:36
church where you show this
23:38
example of a membership covenant where
23:39
they basically legally in a legally
23:41
binding fashion don't allow anybody to
23:43
bring any lawsuit against them for
23:45
anything it blew me away
23:47
but you guys obviously made a choice to
23:48
name names and i'm really grateful you
23:51
did but i'm sure that didn't come
23:53
lightly that decision and you talked
23:54
about that and collaborated
23:56
tell us about why you decided to name so
23:58
many names
23:59
name so many institutions in real time
24:02
it's important to the victims that the
24:04
names are named
24:05
it's important to them that their
24:07
stories are heard
24:09
and it really was never a question
24:12
for my dad and me it was just something
24:15
that
24:15
i felt sh was the right thing to do
24:18
i'm sure some others disagree but it
24:21
wasn't a decision we made
24:23
necessarily for us but it was for
24:26
those who have been victims of abuse so
24:29
that their stories are the ones
24:31
that are told now okay yeah this is um
24:35
this is critical on this one is that the
24:37
victims
24:39
when you minimize
24:42
and diminish names and protect it
24:45
under some abstraction the
24:49
the victims feel like they're protecting
24:51
the perpetrators
24:53
so that's that's important thing and
24:56
it's
24:56
it's something that uh frankly a male
24:59
white
25:00
culture of churches doesn't
25:03
have an instinct for so if you ask the
25:06
women should we have named the names
25:08
every one of them to a person said yes
25:11
interesting okay first of all
25:14
uh i would also say the stories that we
25:17
tell in the book are public
25:19
information we are not doing an expose
25:23
of information that nobody knows about
25:26
now look
25:27
we probably told some stories that we
25:29
probably told a lot of stories that
25:31
most people didn't know anything about
25:33
but it's not because
25:34
we dug up stories as investigative
25:37
journalists it's because
25:39
they didn't know about these stories
25:41
okay we did tell
25:42
the story of one young woman at willow
25:45
creek
25:46
who hadn't told her story in public like
25:48
this before
25:49
but she cleared it with us and with
25:51
lawyers
25:52
the second thing is it's real this is
25:54
the reality these are names
25:57
it also makes the stories credible if i
26:00
say
26:01
a pastor in the midwest
26:04
abused what may have been a person in
26:07
his church
26:09
and that's where i leave it it's you go
26:12
okay
26:13
what does that mean if i say james
26:16
mcdonald
26:17
cussed out so and so and give the name
26:22
you go okay that's this is real stuff
26:24
now this is what's interesting to me
26:26
i i've had just one person tell me they
26:30
didn't like that i use names
26:32
and i said the precedent for using names
26:36
is the bible look at abraham
26:40
you know he gives his wife away a couple
26:42
times stupid behavior
26:44
look at solomon look at david
26:48
look at look at the whining of david in
26:50
his prayers as well
26:52
look at peter peter gets hammered in the
26:55
gospels
26:56
he gets hammered by paul in antioch in
27:00
galatians chapter 2.
27:02
look at the book of revelation naming
27:04
names
27:05
all right so names are reality
27:09
we are real people with real names and i
27:12
think it gives it a graphic reality
27:14
the other side for me is i'm a professor
27:18
when i name names my students
27:22
i'm also an author and now a podcaster
27:26
when i name names i know
27:30
that people say he could someday name my
27:34
name or they say
27:37
i don't want my name name like that and
27:40
it can
27:41
exercise a moral exhortation to them
27:45
to watch themselves i'm not looking for
27:48
people to name
27:49
but i believe that naming the names was
27:54
neither divulging of of things that
27:56
weren't known before
27:58
these are stories that are out there and
28:00
at the same time they're going to
28:02
function
28:03
as a way of warning people
28:06
that uh they're real people and what
28:09
they do
28:10
could be known they love having their
28:12
name out there when it comes to
28:13
selling books and being the best
28:16
preachers in the world but
28:18
not sure about this yeah i'm with you um
28:21
that's the other side of it and that's
28:22
the truth
28:23
is that they love a lot of these people
28:26
love the glory the glitz of
28:29
being praised for for their great
28:32
accomplishments
28:33
but they despise uh having their name
28:36
having been criticized
28:40
now i know we're talking a lot about
28:41
abuse the book isn't just a book about
28:44
abuse in the church but that's really a
28:46
big catalyst for it and
28:48
there was a shocking quote that you guys
28:49
put in the chapter about 12 churches
28:51
nurtured justice you talk about rachel
28:53
dennhollander a lot
28:55
who was abused by larry nassar at
28:57
michigan state and
28:58
has gone on to become an advocate for
29:00
abuse victims
29:01
in really beautiful potent ways she's a
29:04
believer
29:05
as well and she's quoted you guys quoted
29:08
her from christianity today in a 2018
29:10
interview where she said
29:11
church is one of the least safe places
29:13
to acknowledge abuse
29:15
and church is one of the worst places to
29:18
go for help
29:19
now i'm a church guy i love the church
29:22
i've
29:23
given my adult life to the church i'm a
29:25
jesus guy
29:27
and that right there coming from a
29:30
christian in particular but that right
29:32
there coming from an abuse
29:33
victim is shocking that the church is
29:36
one of the least safe
29:37
places to reveal abuse the church is one
29:39
of the worst places to go for help
29:41
when that's supposed to be our job
29:45
elaborate on that like is that is that
29:46
as shocking to you as it is to me
29:48
it's part of the reason why we felt
29:50
called to write the book that we did
29:52
there's too many instances of an abuse
29:55
victim coming forward
29:56
and rather than being cared for and
29:59
loved
29:59
and healed they are treated
30:02
as as if they just go into
30:06
institution protection mode and they
30:09
silence the victim discredit the victim
30:11
to save the reputation of the church
30:14
and that is exactly what happened to
30:16
rachel dunn hollander she
30:17
most people know her as the gymnast and
30:20
who spoke out against larry nassar but
30:22
she also had a horrible experience
30:25
trying to come forward as a victim of
30:27
abuse in her church
30:28
yeah in a church that is uh famous for
30:31
its claims to be
30:32
theologically rich and biblically
30:35
obedient
30:37
but the simple obedience of empathy and
30:40
grace
30:41
and love and care
30:45
for a victim a wounded person
30:48
was violated by that church and so i
30:52
i i agree with what laura said is that
30:56
and what rachel den hollander said time
30:59
and time again
31:00
we have encountered people who when they
31:03
came
31:04
forward about something going on at
31:07
church
31:08
were just pounded it's just
31:12
well think about it if you are calling
31:16
a leader a pastor in a church
31:19
on the spot for a sin that violates
31:23
let's just say his or her pledge for a
31:26
sin
31:27
that impugns that person's character
31:30
and reputation as a great christian
31:35
then they have two possible responses
31:38
this is exactly what i told lauren mark
31:40
on the first night
31:41
willow has two options it can either
31:44
seek the truth
31:45
humble themselves before the truth or
31:47
they could come out swinging
31:49
and they came out swinging and that is
31:52
the common pattern
31:53
to defend themselves how many of these
31:56
pastors
31:56
and look i told lauren mark i said if
31:59
they come out defending themselves
32:00
there's going to be some more women who
32:02
come forward and then they might try to
32:04
defend themselves again
32:05
eventually they're going to lose this
32:07
argument it's best to tell the truth
32:10
and this is the way institutions protect
32:14
themselves and it's it's sickening and
32:17
it's hideous
32:18
that we claim the gospel of truth and
32:20
then when confronted like this
32:23
uh the churches the churches and leaders
32:27
you know they deny the truth yeah
32:30
and then like telling the truth after
32:32
the fact after you've already tried to
32:34
defend yourself loses all
32:35
power i mean it really does too late at
32:38
that time you say
32:39
you say in the book that what the
32:40
leadership of a church does first
32:42
reveals its culture
32:44
that seems so true i'm reminded of ravi
32:47
zacharias who was in the news
32:49
recently he's dead now but his the
32:51
ministry he left behind is still
32:53
reeling from recent allegations yes and
32:55
their responses were to come out
32:57
you know that this lady laurie ann
32:59
thompson is lying
33:01
she's not telling the truth and signing
33:03
nda
33:04
one thing after another and uh they've
33:07
not done well
33:08
on the on here's a here's a ministry
33:10
that defends the truth
33:12
of the gospel that's what its goal is
33:16
to get people to admit the truth and
33:18
hear
33:19
they've not done so well dave ramsey is
33:22
another one
33:23
i hadn't even heard about that oh boy he
33:25
got scorched in religious news service
33:28
two two three weeks ago i can't say i'm
33:31
surprised
33:31
as i read the first half of your book
33:33
which is mainly about toxic cultures how
33:35
to identify toxic cultures what makes a
33:37
toxic culture
33:38
in a church and then you switch into the
33:40
lovely space of how to cultivate a tove
33:42
culture
33:43
and when you start talking about jesus
33:46
in the gospels and you start quoting
33:47
jesus in the gospels
33:50
the contrast to me between jesus and the
33:52
gospels
33:53
as jesus that we say is our messiah our
33:55
leader the one we follow and give
33:57
ourselves to
33:58
and we contrast that to let's just say
34:02
church leaders let's just say church
34:03
leaders the way they act the way they
34:05
talk the way they respond to people the
34:07
way they
34:08
teach even and the whole thing the
34:11
difference couldn't be starker i mean it
34:12
just
34:13
blew me away that we have a bunch of
34:14
people who say they believe in jesus and
34:16
preach jesus but they
34:17
have no idea how to live like jesus and
34:20
how to lead like jesus
34:21
and it also got me thinking i bet if
34:24
jesus was around today
34:26
pastoring a church in america i'll bet
34:29
you any money he'd be seen as a failure
34:31
as a pastor
34:32
like those methods don't work for
34:34
growing a mega church would you agree
34:36
well uh you've used the right words for
34:39
me you know
34:40
you you've uh you've hit my triggers
34:43
that i like to
34:44
i like to kind of pound the pulpit about
34:47
we measure too many churches by the word
34:50
success
34:51
when the word success means uh
34:54
how big of an audience we can gather on
34:56
a sunday morning
34:58
and i do not know where this came from
35:02
it's a distinctly american phenomenon
35:05
when churches in europe were in diocese
35:09
you know you went to your local church
35:12
you know the idea of getting a bigger
35:14
church and everybody else they would say
35:15
you've got too many for your church
35:17
we're going to have to build another
35:18
building
35:20
we we now have uh we now have this
35:23
american phenomenon
35:24
of trying to see how big of a church we
35:26
can and then we glorify
35:28
the pastors who do this jesus
35:31
measured let's use the word success for
35:34
him
35:36
and i and i call this the jesus creed he
35:38
measured it by people who learned to
35:40
love god
35:42
and love others as themselves and so
35:46
a genuinely formed person for jesus
35:49
is someone who loves god and loves
35:51
others
35:53
we don't measure that we don't have any
35:55
attendance
35:57
boards in our churches for the
35:59
percentage of people who are
36:01
loving versus the percentage of people
36:04
who are creeps
36:05
you know we don't do that we measure how
36:08
much money came in
36:09
we measure how many seats were filled we
36:12
measure
36:12
parking lots we measure the size of the
36:15
building
36:16
and the you know the budget
36:19
and we have yielded
36:22
surrendered the very core of what
36:25
spiritual formation is supposed to be
36:27
about
36:28
in the pages of the bible tove
36:31
is never measured by numbers yeah
36:34
guys like me are the source of a lot of
36:35
this problem senior pastor lead pastor
36:37
of a church
36:38
we get we just feel so good about
36:40
ourselves as our church is growing and
36:42
the budget's growing and
36:43
we how many baptisms we had this year we
36:46
love that stuff
36:47
but also it's a church culture like
36:50
you're talking about it's the elder
36:51
board or
36:52
whoever is the the core team who's
36:54
leading just go
36:55
and if you don't believe me just go and
36:57
look at some lead pastors senior pastor
36:59
job descriptions
37:00
and see what churches are looking for
37:02
because it's all about the numbers it's
37:04
all about the accomplishments it's all
37:06
about
37:07
uh what have you done for me lately in
37:09
the church i mean you show that willow
37:11
creek they come out of having
37:12
a narcissistic leader who lies and
37:15
abuses people
37:17
and then they go and they kind of look
37:18
for kind of the same traits
37:20
not abuse they don't ask for an abuser
37:22
but they want
37:23
the big megastar to be leading their
37:25
church that's a culture problem
37:28
that you still didn't learn after
37:30
everything fell to the wayside i mean
37:32
what are your
37:32
thoughts on that we were really
37:34
disappointed and then at the same time
37:36
not surprised when willow creek's new
37:39
job description came out
37:40
my dad actually in the book put it in a
37:42
word cloud
37:43
of willow creek's job description versus
37:46
what the bible looks for in a pastor
37:48
and it's very shall we say revealing of
37:52
the difference between
37:54
what willow was looking for and what the
37:56
bible would say a pastor is
37:58
i mean there were there were lines in
38:00
there like somebody who's well connected
38:02
and
38:03
made it in life and i thought
38:06
what are you doing have you not learned
38:09
from the mistakes of the past
38:11
but like you said just because bill
38:14
hybels is gone doesn't mean the culture
38:16
problem is gone as well and it runs a
38:18
lot deeper than
38:20
i for one realized i have a friend
38:24
who is i think you could call him a
38:27
pastor headhunter
38:29
i mean he doesn't just do it for
38:30
churches but he does it for christian
38:32
institutions
38:33
and he read the
38:37
i posted the job description as a word
38:40
cloud on my blog
38:42
and he read it and he wrote me a letter
38:45
and
38:46
he he admitted he said i'm
38:49
i'm frankly embarrassed by what we're
38:51
doing in our business now he wasn't
38:53
connected
38:54
to the job description written for
38:55
willow creek but he said i'm embarrassed
38:58
by what we're doing
38:59
and he said i i think i have good in
39:02
theological instincts and i i need to
39:05
work on this as to what
39:07
as to what i help churches think of what
39:10
they need
39:11
and to help them with terms and language
39:14
that is more consistent with what
39:15
pastors are called to do
39:18
so i'm hoping that the word clouds on
39:22
matching pages in our book
39:24
will have an impact on churches uh with
39:28
the
39:28
uh with the clear possibility that
39:31
somebody
39:32
is going to copy what i did with the job
39:35
descriptions that they post for their
39:36
churches
39:37
and put it on the internet and everybody
39:40
can see what they're looking for but
39:42
the willow creek job description to me
39:44
was
39:46
as a seminary professor and as a bible
39:48
guy it was just flat out embarrassing
39:51
they were looking for a successful
39:54
entrepreneur and i
39:58
this i don't know what that means for a
40:00
pastor
40:01
and let's be honest that's what most
40:02
mega churches are looking for if we're
40:04
just
40:04
totally honest i mean i'm i want to ask
40:07
the question should mega churches exist
40:09
at all
40:09
like i kind of want to say no i don't
40:11
think it's a very biblical model
40:13
it's not a historical model like you
40:14
pointed out scott should we
40:16
just pull the plug-in megachurches all
40:17
together you know we
40:19
as we were writing the book before it
40:22
went to production
40:23
we had a friend mike bro actually read
40:26
it and gave us really good feedback
40:28
that he felt that we were being a bit
40:30
tough on mega churches so
40:32
we did soften it a bit but the more that
40:35
i read
40:35
and researched about big churches and
40:38
small churches i
40:40
personally have become and maybe this is
40:42
something i need to work do
40:44
my own soul work on but i feel
40:47
very suspicious of mega church mega
40:50
churches and their cultures
40:52
i'm very leery of them and my dad has
40:55
said this and i
40:56
believe the same that it takes a person
40:59
of extraordinary character
41:01
to be able to pastor a mega church and
41:04
not
41:04
fall into the temptation of celebrity
41:08
and feeling more important than
41:10
everybody else and and the power that
41:12
comes with it not
41:13
absorbing that well randy
41:16
you've asked a good question and i think
41:19
i've been asked this 25 times since the
41:22
book has been written on
41:23
podcasts and i have the same answer
41:27
and i'm not wavering on it no i don't
41:30
think the problem is mega churches the
41:32
early church bragged about
41:33
the number of people who were converted
41:35
remember and it was in the thousands
41:38
so they had a little bit of number
41:39
consciousness there but
41:42
the key issue to me is the culture
41:46
and the formation of the pastor
41:49
and the leaders and what kind of culture
41:52
that they're helping
41:53
to form and how
41:57
pastoral the church actually is i can
42:00
remember
42:01
when we were attending willow creek
42:04
um i had a i have a little bit of my
42:08
family a little bit of paranoia about
42:10
every pain i get
42:11
and i wondered if i was having heart
42:13
problems and i remember
42:15
riding on the train in chicago thinking
42:18
man if i die i mean who who would run
42:21
the funeral
42:23
i've never heard this story and i
42:25
thought you know this
42:26
is uh this is an indictment of a church
42:31
because i didn't i mean bill hybels
42:33
didn't know me from
42:34
anybody i think that i would measure
42:38
a mega church's pastoral giftedness
42:42
by the percentage of people who are
42:45
known
42:46
by a pastor type person in the
42:49
congregation
42:51
so you may be in a small group and you
42:54
have a leader
42:55
let's say kyle's your leader his his
42:58
image is big on this screen right now
43:00
he's the leader i know that i can go to
43:03
kyle
43:04
if we have a death in the family or a
43:07
marriage
43:08
or something and i can go to him and say
43:10
can you help us with this
43:12
if if i say geez i gotta go stand in
43:15
line with
43:16
200 other people to find out if there's
43:19
somebody at the church
43:20
who would help my help my with my family
43:22
because my
43:23
my grandpa died i think we're in trouble
43:26
so
43:27
i want to know how pastorally networked
43:29
the church is
43:31
before i'm going to talk about numbers i
43:33
know there are small churches
43:35
that while everybody's name is known the
43:39
pastor is just as authoritarian and
43:42
maybe that's
43:43
that's all the bigger of a church he can
43:45
get because he's such a
43:47
pinhead you know he's uh he lacks
43:50
gifts and he just wants to be in charge
43:52
of things
43:53
so i i'm i'm nervous about
43:56
being too hard on mega churches but i
43:59
what laura said something is very
44:00
important to me
44:02
it takes enormous character good
44:05
to of character to handle that much
44:08
glory
44:09
i mean i've been on some of those
44:10
platforms i've spoken at andy stanley's
44:13
church
44:14
and rick warren's church at bill hypel's
44:17
church i've been on that platform
44:20
it's pretty cool i mean if if you want
44:23
to have influence that's
44:25
that's the platform you know but um
44:29
it takes it takes something it takes
44:32
something special
44:34
yeah laura we've never had a
44:35
father-daughter you know
44:37
guests on on the show and i know that
44:40
there's some there's a really good
44:42
embarrassing story you could tell us
44:44
about dr scott mcknight
44:46
that would you know it would just be a
44:48
gift to the world if it was out there
44:50
not just in your family well okay
44:53
i don't really have anything that about
44:56
him
44:56
but he would embarrass me when we were
45:00
growing
45:00
up dad do you remember
45:04
so our house is between the two high
45:07
school campuses
45:09
okay so as a freshman i would have to
45:12
walk back and forth between
45:14
the freshman building and the main
45:16
campus of the high school
45:18
and my dad would you know what like it
45:21
as a high schooler you're like very
45:24
self-conscious of like
45:25
i don't know your fa your parents
45:27
whatever so i would walk by and my dad
45:30
would be
45:30
in the window like holding up signs
45:33
one time you're holding up a sign like
45:35
hi laura
45:36
or like standing in the window in like
45:39
your shorts when it was super cold
45:41
outside
45:44
i remember him liking to embarrass me
45:47
yeah he also
45:48
we typically go somewhere warm every
45:51
december
45:52
and my dad never i think
45:55
in one time i can remember him getting
45:57
in the water
45:59
oh really what's this and it would be
46:02
like all of us
46:03
all we were just sitting there and all
46:04
of a sudden he was like i'm gonna go in
46:06
the water and we were like what
46:09
and we all like jumped up and took
46:10
pictures like
46:13
okay look i i'm a pretty good swimmer i
46:16
grew up swimming a lot
46:17
so it's not about water it's that
46:22
i don't have any reason to get cold and
46:24
to get wet
46:26
when we go on warm places like that i
46:28
find a
46:29
shade tree and a place that has a
46:32
straight back chair and a place to put
46:35
some books
46:36
and i and i sit there and i read
46:40
i have no interest
46:42
[Laughter]
46:45
except for the one year when he was like
46:47
i'm gonna go in the water and everybody
46:49
jumped up and took pictures yeah that's
46:52
fantastic
46:54
well thanks so much for joining us guys
46:56
this has been really fun
46:57
loved the book it's super important
46:59
everyone listening to this
47:01
should buy it immediately it should be
47:03
as randy said required reading for
47:05
all new pastors i think thank you
47:08
thank you very much i feel a little bad
47:10
because we talked mostly about the
47:11
negative stuff but most of the book is
47:13
about the good stuff
47:14
the positive stuff how to build a good
47:16
culture so
47:18
you'll just have to read and find out um
47:20
you know we've been
47:21
with a lot of interviews here and
47:24
this is a good one you guys have read
47:27
the book you have something to say
47:29
and you know i've been on radio stations
47:31
where they obviously didn't even look at
47:33
the book they just
47:34
had some canned questions and what does
47:37
tove mean
47:38
and well what's what's in the second
47:42
part of your book you know so this is
47:44
we we appreciate it that that you care
47:47
uh i think you're thoughtful and i
47:49
appreciate it very much
47:51
yeah you guys were great hopefully we
47:53
can have you on again
47:54
sometime soon but bless you guys thanks
47:57
again for joining us thank you
48:06
well super fun talking with scott
48:07
mcknight and laura behringer about a
48:09
church called tove this
48:11
really remarkable book and i'd love to
48:13
flesh it out a little bit more
48:14
between the three of us chat about it
48:17
but let's do that over a drink shall we
48:18
kyle
48:19
what are we drinking today yeah
48:21
absolutely great idea so what we've got
48:23
today
48:23
is a straight bourbon whiskey from a
48:27
place in nashville tennessee called
48:29
nelson's greenbrier
48:30
distillery so they make a label called
48:32
bell mead i don't know if
48:34
any of you have ever heard of this but
48:35
they've got several expressions now
48:37
the the distillery is only about
48:40
seven years old or so i think they
48:42
started producing in
48:43
2014 but it's a like a restart
48:47
of a much much older distillery that
48:49
went by the same name
48:51
uh from the night like late 19th century
48:54
so apparently
48:55
in the late 1800s it was like one of the
48:58
biggest
48:58
bourbon producers in the country and
49:01
then prohibition
49:02
shut it down and then the great great
49:04
great grandsons
49:06
of the original owners restarted it uh
49:09
just a few years ago
49:11
and so they're now producing whiskey
49:13
under the label bell mead
49:14
and they're making some some really
49:16
interesting stuff i think uh
49:18
just as of last year they've started uh
49:21
reproducing the original recipe of their
49:24
great great great grandfather which was
49:26
like a
49:27
four-year tennessee whiskey or something
49:29
i haven't tried that one but
49:30
so there's some history to this even
49:32
though it's it's fairly recent
49:34
i've only had i've only had this the the
49:36
straight bourbon
49:37
it comes in at 45.2 percent
49:40
and it's a high rye bourbon like really
49:43
high rides about 30 percent
49:44
rye so really spicy you have to
49:48
have to like that rye flavor but i find
49:50
them really interesting so we were
49:51
trying to do
49:52
tasting shorter and then professor
49:54
whitaker decided to take us to school
49:56
and give us an education about whatever
49:58
this distillery's name is that i don't
50:00
remember don't ask me about whiskey if
50:01
you don't want to hear the whiskey
50:03
let's taste this shall we
50:07
it's got a great nose i think yeah oh
50:10
okay
50:11
you get a little bit of orange on the
50:12
nose
50:14
yeah can you have a full bodied nose i
50:16
was going to say that it just
50:18
it smells and tastes aged it doesn't
50:20
taste young at all
50:21
it doesn't have that new mickey
50:23
sweetness to it yeah no um
50:25
no age statement obviously you know it's
50:27
at least two years old but
50:28
um but it's but yeah it doesn't taste
50:31
new at all it is spicy
50:32
like it brings that that rice spice but
50:35
it's
50:35
full bodied i love the it's dark
50:38
and you can taste it it tastes like the
50:40
barrel i like it
50:42
yeah it's been a dry january and
50:46
so far in february for me when we're
50:48
recording this so i don't know i really
50:49
like it
50:50
i don't know if it's because i haven't
50:51
had anything recently or if it's
50:52
actually that good but it's just
50:54
blowing me away fantastic yeah this is
50:56
uh this is the first thing i've had to
50:58
drink since my
50:59
wisdom tooth surgery which is several
51:01
weeks ago so
51:03
hitting me all in all the right places
51:04
too yeah this is tasty
51:06
they make some they make some
51:08
interesting cast
51:09
finish stuff too like they have a sherry
51:11
cask finish they have a madeira
51:14
finish maybe one other one too which
51:15
i've been looking out for but haven't
51:17
found them just yet
51:19
thanks for the proper pour kyle yeah i
51:21
decided to give you two answers this
51:23
time i'll try to do that again going
51:24
forward
51:25
that's generous much appreciated cheers
51:29
bell mead straight bourbon
51:35
so randy i wanted to ask you this book
51:37
is about
51:38
church culture and you're the pastor of
51:40
a church that
51:41
has a culture and i think it's a very
51:43
obvious culture and somewhat of a unique
51:45
culture and it's
51:46
it's honestly one of the big reasons i
51:48
decided to stay at brew city when i
51:49
visited
51:50
for the first time and you've heard me
51:52
say this before but one of the things
51:53
that convinced me to stick around was in
51:55
my first few weeks there
51:56
i attended a business meeting
51:58
essentially or what you guys call a
52:00
family meeting right it's just still a
52:02
little cheesy but
52:04
at this business meeting you guys were
52:06
talking about stuff i didn't care about
52:08
money and things going on in the
52:10
leadership team
52:11
and there was some disagreement i don't
52:13
even remember what it was about but i
52:14
remember there was
52:15
some rather serious disagreement amongst
52:18
some people there
52:20
but it wasn't like any business meeting
52:22
i'd ever attended at a church before
52:25
because my experience at every church i
52:26
had attended before
52:28
one in particular that i had spent a
52:29
long time at immediately before coming
52:31
to brew city
52:34
like there was no room for
52:37
disagreement with the head pastor that
52:40
was viewed as
52:41
dissension or rebellion if it continued
52:44
right and that's not at all what
52:46
happened at this business meeting
52:48
there was honest open disagreement and
52:51
then like compassionate consideration in
52:53
response and it really
52:55
spoke to me pretty strongly about what i
52:57
could expect from the people in this
52:59
church
53:00
even after just a couple of weeks of
53:01
being there um so you i think
53:04
i don't know how much of it has to do
53:06
with you specifically but somehow
53:08
bruce city has been able to cultivate
53:10
what seems to me a fairly unusual
53:12
church culture so i'm curious from your
53:14
perspective as someone
53:16
who i assume has taken pains to make a
53:18
church culture that's really healthy
53:20
what was it like for you to read this
53:22
book and and was there anything in
53:23
particular that you
53:25
thought maybe could be better
53:28
about the culture that you've formed
53:29
yeah sure
53:31
it's interesting because people ask me
53:33
every once in a while would you ever
53:34
write a book
53:35
or if you would write a book what would
53:36
it be about and
53:38
scott and laura kind of stole the idea
53:40
from me i wouldn't have written a church
53:41
called
53:42
tove but i would have written or i would
53:44
write about
53:45
how to form a church culture because
53:48
i've talked to so many pastors
53:50
so many church leaders and so many
53:51
pastors kids even
53:53
who kind of give me this knowing nod
53:56
saying you got a really crappy job right
53:59
i mean you got to listen to all the
54:01
all the garbage all the bs all the mumbo
54:02
jumbo and people hate you
54:04
and they're they're you know there's
54:06
infighting and all you know all the
54:08
stuff
54:08
and it became a pattern enough to where
54:11
i was like
54:12
no that's not my experience we don't
54:14
have that
54:15
and what i quickly realized was that i
54:18
think too many pastors and church
54:19
leaders don't realize that you can try
54:22
to shape a culture
54:23
particularly if you have a leadership
54:24
team with you
54:26
alongside you that's committed to
54:28
shaping a culture of goodness like
54:30
they're talking about that's committed
54:31
to shaping
54:32
we talk about a culture of honor at our
54:34
church and so that's probably what you
54:35
heard
54:36
me say was you can bring your questions
54:38
you can bring any question
54:40
consider whether that's most appropriate
54:42
in this venue or in
54:44
a different venue but here's what we are
54:46
going to commit to one another to do
54:48
and that's to foster and build a culture
54:49
of honor where we're just honoring one
54:51
another even when we disagree with one
54:52
another
54:53
we tried to build a culture of family
54:55
over and over again and so that's
54:57
probably why you picked up that like
54:58
there's no questions
54:59
no tension that's off off limits because
55:02
that's what family does and we're going
55:03
to act like a family
55:05
so reading this book affirmed that for
55:07
me so
55:08
so much of how i think many times the
55:11
book isn't about this but many times a
55:13
pastor or church leader or the
55:14
leadership team
55:15
are kind of along for the ride of the
55:17
culture of their church
55:18
they're trying to please the culture of
55:20
their church they're trying to they
55:21
it's a culture of consumerism that
55:23
they're trying to feed now
55:25
and they are just along for the ride so
55:28
that's that's a huge part of it but as i
55:30
read this book the biggest thing that
55:32
really affected me that
55:33
made me think and has made me think i
55:36
thought about it today a number of times
55:38
is this reality of the celebrity pastor
55:40
and the narcissistic
55:42
tendencies that people in my position
55:44
can have
55:45
that honestly it's hard not to have a
55:47
narcissistic tendency with for a person
55:49
in my
55:50
my job where you're talking up front
55:52
every single week you're giving
55:54
you're giving yourself to a bunch of
55:58
people
55:58
and that's vulnerable and you either
56:00
have to like be
56:02
an attention slave and and really just
56:04
look for approval from everyone around
56:06
you or you just got to turn into a
56:07
narcissist that doesn't care about what
56:09
people think
56:09
because you know you're delivering the
56:11
goods and when especially when you're
56:13
making big decisions there's just so
56:14
much that goes into the job
56:16
that lends itself to narcissistic
56:18
tendencies
56:19
and that's what convicted me is that i
56:20
see that in myself a little bit
56:22
i know that when left of my own devices
56:25
i
56:25
i could definitely turn into a
56:27
narcissist and i would love
56:29
this culture where everybody praises me
56:31
all the time when i was on sabbatical
56:33
just gone from the church for three
56:34
months i didn't expect that to be one of
56:37
the most refreshing
56:38
things for me as a person and for my
56:40
soul is not hearing every single week
56:43
great sermon oh randy you you nailed it
56:45
this week
56:46
i like hearing that that's a fun time to
56:48
hear that
56:49
affirmation but i learned a month and a
56:51
half two months into sabbatical
56:53
that's toxic for my soul in many ways
56:56
and so is the email that says the four
57:00
points why
57:00
why what you said is theologically
57:02
incorrect that's not good for your soul
57:04
either
57:04
i apologize for that but yeah i mean
57:07
that's what hit me between the
57:09
between the eyes is i have narcissistic
57:11
tendencies and i don't mind the
57:13
celebrity church culture
57:14
that easily happens i mean i was in an
57:16
elder meeting last night where
57:18
when i speak i say things strongly
57:20
usually and especially if i care about
57:22
them a lot
57:23
last night we were talking about
57:24
something that i care a lot about and i
57:26
came through strong and one of our
57:27
elders said
57:28
you can't make decisions just because
57:30
you think that and i was like
57:31
of course i can't i'm not saying that
57:33
i'm just saying what i think but i
57:34
realize that i come off like that and if
57:36
i don't get have strong people around me
57:38
like that amazing woman
57:40
told me last night who is an elder i
57:42
would easily turn into that guy who just
57:44
steamrolls the room
57:46
and everybody says yes to and all of a
57:48
sudden we've got a culture that
57:49
just is a bunch of yes men yeah
57:52
yes men specifically right yeah
57:56
yeah it seems to me like there's this
57:58
constant cultivation that has to be
58:00
there too because as soon as you
58:02
think you've dialed in on something that
58:05
perhaps you look at the churches around
58:07
you and you see
58:08
thank goodness it's not like that here
58:12
and we've intentionally made it
58:13
different and we've we've examined their
58:15
mistakes and
58:16
and we've done something else but then
58:19
that self-righteousness starts to creep
58:20
in and it's the same thing that we
58:21
rejected in the first place
58:22
or the way that
58:26
much of the way that that the message is
58:29
conveyed
58:29
at brew city is because we have somebody
58:34
in the senior pastor role who isn't
58:36
really afraid of what people
58:37
think and that's and if we had somebody
58:39
who was afraid of what people think
58:41
then we would i don't think we would be
58:44
in as healthy a spot
58:46
but then that if that just strays a
58:48
little bit too far out of range then
58:50
then that's playing out in a way where
58:52
like you just laid out it's it's
58:54
unhealthy again and so it seems like
58:55
there's just this constant dialing and
58:57
the moment you try to leave it static
58:59
and say okay we made it
59:01
you're headed the opposite direction
59:02
again yeah yeah i mean
59:05
it's such a fine line and i think what
59:06
scott said about
59:08
what laura said about what scott said
59:10
which was
59:11
in order to pastor a mega church in
59:13
order to to lead a mega church it takes
59:16
an incredible amount of character i mean
59:19
that's just it it's
59:20
such a fine line and i don't pastor a
59:23
mega church i mean our church is 250 300
59:26
people
59:26
but that's enough to make me really
59:28
wonky really quickly
59:29
if we get too high on the celebrity
59:31
pastor culture or
59:33
if we're slamming trash and randy my
59:36
my ego is fragile my wife will tell you
59:38
that and
59:39
it's really easy to get go down a bad
59:42
dark road
59:43
really quickly and stay there and i
59:45
think that's why spiritual direction is
59:47
something that i've discovered that i
59:48
think is absolutely 100 essential
59:51
for pastors and church leaders spiritual
59:53
direction where
59:54
you have a person who's most likely done
59:56
what you've done before
59:58
and they've experienced all the things
60:00
they can resonate and relate to what
60:01
you're talking about and then you bring
60:03
the good bad and ugly of yourself
60:05
not just your pastoral self but yourself
60:07
and
60:08
let it sit there not in judgment but
60:11
in invitation and reflection being able
60:14
to
60:14
dig deep into the reasons behind what's
60:17
on the table that we just
60:18
disclosed and and and showcased that's
60:21
such
60:22
an essential practice for pastors and
60:24
church leaders to have because
60:26
we need we need to have all of our stuff
60:29
there on the table being able to look
60:30
through and look for it i will tell you
60:32
i've never been more in touch with my
60:33
own brokenness than i have in the last
60:34
year and a half since i've had a
60:36
spiritual director
60:37
and that is feels really healthy and
60:39
good
60:40
and uh for our listeners who want to
60:42
hear more about this check out our
60:43
interview with that very spiritual
60:45
director
60:46
mark werner recently released what are
60:49
your guys reflections when you hear
60:51
when you hear about or read about church
60:53
cultures and
60:54
like that quote by rachel then hollander
60:57
of the church being the
60:59
the least safest place in the world to
61:01
to reveal abuse or whatever
61:04
elliott you've worked now in a number of
61:06
churches
61:07
and been kind of pretty high up in a
61:11
number of churches and very different
61:12
churches
61:13
right can you give us some
61:16
hints and tips of what to look for in a
61:19
toxic
61:20
leader perhaps in a toxic leadership
61:22
environment
61:23
and toxic church environment because
61:24
you've been in them
61:29
yeah i have uh it's
61:33
i i think i started to
61:37
become one and that was actually when i
61:39
when i made my exit and i didn't realize
61:41
how close i was
61:43
at that point but looking back i'm so
61:45
grateful that
61:47
circumstances and and maybe some wise
61:49
counsel
61:50
steered us around that it because it
61:53
it's not that i was
61:54
going to become a senior pastor or
61:56
anything like that but
61:57
but the mindsets where i started to
62:00
realize
62:01
that there was there was a large
62:03
audience here and i knew
62:05
which buttons uh to push
62:08
literally in my roles is kind of
62:10
creative and technical but
62:12
uh but there's there's the emotional
62:13
triggers and if you can figure out the
62:15
formula and you've got the platform and
62:17
the people keep showing up because
62:19
you can you can tickle what what they're
62:22
what they're looking for
62:23
and make them feel good about themselves
62:25
that creates this massive amount of
62:27
power
62:28
and in exchange for that experience
62:30
people will offer their
62:32
their affection and appreciation um and
62:35
that is just it creates this high
62:38
and so within those organizations there
62:41
are those
62:42
uh true pastors many of them probably
62:44
won't have the pastor title
62:46
they'll just be kind of among the among
62:49
the people
62:50
they are there but the ones who are
62:52
going to tend to rise to the tops are
62:54
those that are going to be most
62:55
effective at
62:57
i don't think manipulating is too strong
62:58
a word for for what goes on in those
63:01
situations you're
63:02
creating an environment that's designed
63:05
to elicit a response from people which
63:08
in my experience that looked a lot like
63:10
big emotional praise and worship
63:13
experiences
63:15
that where everybody in the room knows
63:17
who actually gave them that experience
63:19
and is really grateful to those people
63:22
that's that's jaded and so i'm hesitant
63:24
to even
63:25
put that out there i think
63:28
what scott expressed was probably a much
63:30
more nuanced
63:32
understanding with much more experience
63:34
and seeing within the the ranks of many
63:36
more
63:37
mega churches but from my perspective he
63:40
was being incredibly generous to say
63:41
that that's a viable structure
63:44
i know there's a lot there's some church
63:47
leaders and pastors who listen to our
63:49
podcast and hopefully that number grows
63:50
and
63:51
you know there's more than i think
63:53
listening but can i just speak to
63:55
the church leaders and pastors real
63:56
quick as we end our time together
64:00
i know the tendency that we have to
64:02
idolize and put on a pedestal the
64:05
the leaders of the big churches right
64:08
whether that's the local leader
64:10
who's just growing and we want to be
64:12
like them but we
64:13
kind of hate them at the same time you
64:15
know um or if that's the
64:17
used to be mark driscoll everyone wanted
64:19
to be mark driscoll we wanted to dress
64:21
like
64:21
mark driscoll we wanted to preach like
64:23
mark driscoll we wanted the following of
64:24
mark driscoll we wanted to swear
64:26
like mark driscoll then you had matt
64:29
chandler or
64:30
rob bell or you know bill hybels or fill
64:34
in the blank
64:35
we've got these people that the church
64:38
world is telling us to emulate and to
64:40
model ourselves after because that's how
64:42
you find success
64:43
and i just want to say pastor and church
64:46
leader i've i
64:47
i know where you're coming from i feel
64:49
your pain
64:50
but can we just look to jesus
64:55
can we just do that can we put the
64:57
celebrity pastor to the side
65:00
can we repent of modeling ourselves
65:02
after a broken culture and can we just
65:05
return our gaze to jesus and lead like
65:08
jesus
65:09
and talk like jesus and make decisions
65:11
like jesus
65:13
and treat people like jesus and
65:16
watch what happens i can't guarantee
65:19
your church is going to grow
65:20
exponentially and you're going to have
65:22
400 baptisms next year
65:23
but i can guarantee that you're going to
65:26
change some lives
65:27
and you're going to have a church
65:28
culture that's beautiful and good and
65:30
you can be proud of
65:31
and it's going to affect you and change
65:33
you and shape your family
65:35
if we just looked at jesus and put away
65:38
the celebrity pastor can we do that
65:43
now we should put some manipulative slow
65:44
music behind him while he's talking
65:48
absolutely
65:53
thanks for spending this time with us we
65:54
really hope that you're enjoying these
65:56
conversations as much as we are
65:58
and if you are help us get the word out
66:00
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66:02
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66:04
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66:09
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66:10
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66:11
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66:14
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66:16
philosopher
66:17
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66:19
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66:20
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66:22
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66:23
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66:26
thanks again for listening until next
66:28
time this has been a pastor and a
66:30
philosopher
66:31
walk into a bar
66:32
[Music]