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Staying in Church with Tracy Johnson and Emily Mills
87 Plays1 month ago
Most of us who have attended or are attending church regularly have faced questions and tensions about what it means to be a part of a body of Christian believers. Churches are spaces filled with diverse opinions and convictions about what it means to follow Jesus well and who belongs at the table of God. At their best, these diverse opinions serve to refine love for one another with gentleness and permission and growth. At their worst these convictions become weapons on power and abuse, silencing marginalized voices and those whom we demand repent or submit for what we perceive to be a God-imposed limitation or judgement on their selves. So how on earth are those of us who love Jesus to remain a part of these fraught and flawed communities? That's the question Tracy and Emily tackle together, reflecting on the various church communities they and their families have participated in over the decades. Join in their tender searching and reflections.
For more stories from brave, ordinary women, join us at Red Tent Living.
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Transcript
Introduction to Red Tent Living Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Hi, I am Tracy Johnson, and this is the Red Tent Living Podcast, where brave women host honest conversations about our beautiful and hard ordinary. Each week, we share stories with the hope of seeing one another a little better and affirming each other across different seasons and perspectives. We're excited for you to join us. Welcome to our table.
Emily Mills: Mission and Personal Journey
00:00:28
Speaker
Hello, Emily. Hi. So fun to see you. Here we are. Here we are. well I want to a minute to kind of introduce yourself and um and maybe like how we know each other anne and what you do in the world. And then we'll well talk about staying in church. So light. Love it. Okay.
00:00:53
Speaker
Well, I am Emily Mills and I am talking to you from Waco, Texas at my kitchen counter. And I for 20 years have been working with women who have been impacted by commercial sexual exploitation. And what started as a grassroots outreach 20 years ago, largely inspired by my faith in and proximity within the evangelical movement.
00:01:23
Speaker
them in 2004 has morphed into a full fledged service organization called and named Lovely Village now because we not only are a healing community for survivors of sexual trauma, um we still do outreach, but we offer job training, livable wage jobs, have launched micro businesses through microloans, and now we're building residences. So cool.
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah. And I work alongside my husband, which you know, Brett. He is a large part of the story of my faith journey and in ministry land. And ah how I know you is um through... I'm trying to think of the the very the very first time that I met you, I think you were hosting a Brave On conference in Austin But I knew of you before then, and i I don't know if it was through the Allender Center and my and intent was through Allender Center. And then you became a really important person in my life when our marriage was a little bit on the brinks. And I did this sacred interruption in the middle of a snow globe. and Where were Minneapolis? Is that where? Yeah. um
00:02:43
Speaker
And so, yeah, you became a really dear guide for me. um And now I've been to Turkey with you, and that became super formational. So you're you're stuck with me tagging along. Perfect. I want to be stuck with you. but that That is a dream. It's fantastic. When I got to room with your daughter, Allison. So I feel like if I still really, really like you after that,
00:03:11
Speaker
It's pretty good. you You got pretty good track record. Yes. Yes. I love it. it's so Perfect.
Church Experiences and Personal Reflections
00:03:18
Speaker
Yeah. oh Perfect. Yeah. So yeah, when I was thinking about who to have a conversation with about like, you know, the, the power of staying in the realm of church, the cost of staying, like you were one of the first people that came to my mind um because we've had, we've had some pretty, um,
00:03:40
Speaker
raw, honest exchanges about about that space and what it's felt like for us to to be there. um Yeah, do you wanna kinda start maybe with your story and and what do you wanna bring today around around the space of church and choosing to stay? Yeah, so and do have I have so many stories as we all do.
00:04:09
Speaker
ah about church. So I want to give maybe just a little context before I dive into where I'm at today because i just I think that's important to know a little bit about where I'm from. um I'm from an East Texas smaller town. I grew up Southern Baptist.
00:04:31
Speaker
I went ah because of my mentors and Sunday school teachers who took me to Baylor University and said, we think you have potential. and i really didn't have ah I didn't have good grades and I barely passed the math test. I know now like I've got some neurodivergence at play.
00:04:52
Speaker
But they said, we think Baylor could be a great place for you and you have a heart for God and this is a Christian university. And they really made a way for me, drove me down there, set up financial planning meetings. So I end up at Baylor. I end up um really, really feeling called to ministry and particularly I was a singer. And so I had the opportunity to sing at a large group Bible study, which is where I met Brett, my husband.
00:05:21
Speaker
We began traveling around, we began singing in churches. I think the wide breadth of experience that I've had in churches of many denominations. I mean like Landmark Baptist where they, many of the women there had never heard a woman on the stage speak from a microphone and pray. And we got to go in and lead worship. And just because I was prompted by the spirit, you know, happened to do that. So that became really formational for me to recognize there's a large group of women in the church who've never heard another woman um in the pulpit. And so this is all through college. And then ah I've had charismatic experiences, um mystical experiences um for sure, ah Methodist, non-denominational, all that.
00:06:14
Speaker
And I think one of the one of the things when I graduated Baylor as a ministry guidance student, so I was scholarship through and a ministry scholarship. And when I graduated Baylor and asked my the dean of that ah program where can i where can I go? I was one of two women in my preaching class and in this cohort. And this was in the later 90s. It's pretty much female dominated now at Baylor with ministry. But um they said, well, the only positions we have for you are like children's pastors and a youth group assistant, um ah a women's director. And so I became a church secretary.
00:07:03
Speaker
for about 18 months and nearly got fired a few times for, you know, rewriting the pastor's column. I was like, this doesn't sound good. Like you need to which help this a little bit. We're gonna just do it a little bit. And he was like, what are you doing? This does not sound like me. I'm like, exactly. You're like, I know. I know. I'm just here to help. I'm here to help you. Help me help you. And they're like, no.
00:07:32
Speaker
periods and commas is all we need from you. Periods, comma, and some clip art would be great. And um so I realized, you know, this is not the place for me. And so I left with a blessing, but left and started doing ministry alongside Brett. And then we had a baby and I start reaching out to women in strip clubs and my life changed forever. And now I'm leading a nonprofit.
00:07:58
Speaker
So along the way, we still continue to go to mainstream church. We still continue to be heavily involved in a Baptist church right down the road from us who was kind of Baptist adjacent, I would say. um More of a community kind of church feel in our neighborhood. And it was a wonderful place. It it had wonderful people in it.
00:08:20
Speaker
um We stayed for 12 years leading worship on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings and they helped us birth our outreach prayer. They helped us birth the Lovely Village. um A lot, a lot of investment and buy-in. And when there was turnover and they they got a new pastor and worship leader, we committed to stay on through that transition.
Challenging Church Leadership and Departure
00:08:42
Speaker
And when we finally knew it was our time to exit is when The pastor did a sermon on Deborah and the sermon went something like this. Deborah was a leader in Israel. Deborah was used by God. Deborah was not God's first plan. Deborah even wanted the men in Israel to rise up. It says so right here in her song that the men and let the men in Israel rise up.
00:09:19
Speaker
And so we see even in Deborah, her name means sweet like a honeybee. And women, if you know godly women, they are sweet like honey. And all of this is happening while Brett is backstage getting ready to do the music. So he's not hearing what I'm hearing. And I'm in the audience a among the body. And I am like, my gut is like,
00:09:46
Speaker
uh churning like this feels very wrong like I'm about to have a panic attack wrong and at the very end of the sermon he said we're at a time in America and this is this has probably been six years ago probably yeah probably about six years ago five or six years ago we're at a time in America where men in the church need to learn how to lead women are doing far more than God ever asked them to do And we need men in this country to rise up to their God given authority over their homes and in the church. And he was preaching through judges at the time. And so, you know, this just fell in line. And and so suddenly a sermon about Deborah becomes a sermon to and rally the men. And he has all the men stand up and he gives them a blessing while we're sitting down. Why the women are all sitting.
00:10:46
Speaker
And i wow I was going to throw up. So I texted Brett and I said, I'm headed home. I am grieved to the point where I i have got to go spend time with God. And i he got the kids from the nursery. they were They were in there and I went home to my house and I just laid out in my living room. And I just i cried and cried. It felt like I was being abused all over again. I had a very visceral... And all I kept hearing God say is, this is not my heart. This is not me. So we decided to leave and we wandered for a little bit. And I, through this journey of leaving now you know and and really
00:11:37
Speaker
asking myself like, what is the church and what is leaving and what is staying? And the thing I keep coming back to when I ask that is how do you leave something that you're from? I i am of the faith. I am i am in it. There's there's no, how do you how do you pull apart cells right and still live? I mean, how do you, you it's impossible. And so it's it's impossible for me to leave that which I'm from. I think my relationship to it, much like our relationship with our own body, feels like the the conversation that I'm constantly having with as it grows, as it changes, as it ages, as it
00:12:29
Speaker
Well, and I think as you think about, you know, what what is it even meant to be? what What is it that it is meant to be? I don't think that what we have in like our large mega buildings filled with hundreds and thousands is not what we were talking about and what I think Paul was talking about when the church, the early church was forming. And I'm not a proponent of well we just need to get back to that. ah I'm not saying that either, right? Because it's not
Spiritual Search in Turkey
00:13:08
Speaker
the first century. And so that's not what we're supposed to do either. But, but to your point, it's like, I it's in my DNA, like it
00:13:19
Speaker
It's in me. I can't leave that which is in me. And at the same time, something has profoundly shifted. and And at least for me, and I'm hearing you say it for you too, it no longer is what it once was. Right. It is what it is and it's not what it was. We say that all the time. Yeah. and And so it's like, and so now what? Yeah.
00:13:46
Speaker
Now, and I remember our journey together to therapy and part of the reason I took that with you and with Beth to to understand these lost women, because I knew very clearly that my kind of there's something about women that has always drawn me and and not just women, but like sexually violated and really repressed and oppressed groups of women that I knew early on God's Spirit was leading me to engage with. And now, of course, I know how that's tied to my own journey, right? My own story.
00:14:30
Speaker
um But I kept thinking after all of these fractures with the church, and there there were some even post-leaving that institution, in, you know, five or six years ago that have happened subsequently that I just kept feeling like, no, I don't belong here. No, this isn't it. No. And wanting and trying so hard to like, just go, nevermind. Like just I'm done. I don't even want it. I don't even, but yet I know that I am.
00:15:02
Speaker
And so how do I re-engage with this? And the Turkey trip just came at a time where I was ready to do this pilgrimage back to the origin, back to the desert, back to the earth, to where it started.
Faith, Trauma, and Church Structures
00:15:14
Speaker
And what was so profound to me that my idealistic expectation was I was going to have this like, oh, that's the way.
00:15:27
Speaker
That's it. Here is Sister Macrina. Here is Saint Macrina or here is Phoebe or here is, and that they were going to lay the law down and show me the way. And what I recognized is my goodness, even in the first century, they were just doing their best with what they had. And I really, I really believe I've been thinking about this. I haven't fleshed it all the way out, but this is just where I'm at.
00:15:58
Speaker
is I'm like, it feels as though this early church that we learned about that was partnering and began to partner with the government, with Rome, to create more growth, more structure. It feels to me like the the institutional institutionalization of faith is a trauma response because you want to survive. I think that's true. And I, I mean, that would be a whole, that, that feels like a whole nother place we could go where, um, even, even what the Jews were wanting from Jesus, right? Was for him to rule, for him to have that kind of power.
00:16:48
Speaker
that was going to somehow ensure safety and flourishing right and and authority like on the earth.
00:16:59
Speaker
and so like tale as old as time. i there there is There is something about that, but i think thats I think that's a really interesting and really good point, Emily. And and so often, isn't that so often? like Our response to to trauma or tragedy, let's say our response to tragedy is to create structures and rules and you know some kind of
00:17:30
Speaker
you know, container yeah that that we want to have ensure that this kind of tragedy will never happen again. And the sad thing is that I think in i think there are a lot of things that are sad about that, but but I think a huge loss in that for us is that we don't lament and we don't corporately lament. We don't know how to do that. And so instead of these things that we build,
00:17:59
Speaker
helping to ensure flourishing, what they actually do is create and foster more disconnection. Because we we may all be standing in this building together, but like what we actually understand if we were to look around at the lives and the and the traumas and the tragedies of the people in that building with us, we know so little. Because we actually don't know how to hold those.
00:18:24
Speaker
right Right. which you know is So then you're sitting there on a Sunday morning having a trauma response because this pastor has had all the men stand up. Just that.
00:18:39
Speaker
just what it is like for any woman who has known any kind of of trauma at the hands of a man to to sit in a building where the men are all up above her. And he would say he had't he wasn't thinking that at all because he wasn't. He didn't think, he didn't think, he didn't know. Like he wasn't trying to be malicious, right? he was he he And he genuinely believed that he was bringing a word from God. Yes.
00:19:08
Speaker
And how many times did I think in some of my early years of mild ridiculous? Oh, no, me too. Absolutely. I come from those people. Yeah. I come from that. I come from that ilk. I am sewn in that cloth. Me too. I get it. Threaded and woven. Yeah, totally. Totally.
00:19:32
Speaker
I think that I remember hearing Adam Young on one of his podcasts talk about trauma fragmentation and the need for certainty. for And that really helped me give kindness to my own self in those early years when I recognized that what I really was wanting the church to be for me was apparent. What was the authority that I could rely on for belonging. Well, just like as we traveled to Turkey, it feels like that that was still alive and well in you. Yeah. As you were hoping, you know, that there would be the ancient good mother. Yes. Who is going to show you the way? Yes. And there is. It's a village of them. Yeah. And they've
00:20:31
Speaker
all just like I have and will continue to do fail in my humanity. And I just, I think that is just the biggest grace over an evolving kind of sticking with it. Faith is just really accepting that, that coming home to myself and my both divinity and humanity, is it's that makes all the difference in the world. yeah It just encourages, it lets other people go, it lets perfectionism die, it let or be laughed at. I'm like, oh my gosh, here I go again. you know And I can just
00:21:27
Speaker
I can go more gently among people and among the world to just kind of recognize life is, and faith is unfolding and be curious about it and really kind, even as I'm hurting, that's kind of on the newer horizon for me is that I just realized that suffering really can create a lot of anger and a lot of just like to be kind and suffering. Man, when I look at Jesus, like to to still be gracious in persecution, in suffering is just learned. I think that's really true.
00:22:16
Speaker
I think and in order to do that, you like you have to cultivate your tolerance to be with your own suffering. You can't be present, you can't stay in the suffering of another when you can't bear it in your own body. You can't bear your own stories of suffering, so you're not going to be able to bear you know, someone else's. And so, but you know, that as I was listening to you, I was thinking like, it's the work of staying out of judgment. And judgment is such a quick and easy departure from suffering, from disappointment, from the the hard work of of what's required to um extend grace
00:23:08
Speaker
um to to repair when you can and to release when it's necessary without othering. Yes. And and that is it is hard. Yeah. does It is really, really, really hard. Yeah. So, hmm. Yeah.
Transition to Home Church
00:23:30
Speaker
it's um I'm thankful, so where I'm at today is um right right before, probably two and a half years before COVID hit, we were at a smaller church, and you know University Baptist Church in Waco, and that became a great place for our family for those couple of years too. We weren't in leadership, we just got to go.
00:23:58
Speaker
and they were a more open church. So we didn't have horns sticking out of our head when we asked certain questions, right? They were kind of just this little, you know, uh, quirky, um, body of people that definitely did not fit as mainstream as many churches here did. And so that was a very, and they also were very liturgical.
00:24:24
Speaker
which we had never been a consistent part of a liturgical Baptist church. And so that was really, really wonderful to us. When COVID hit and churches closed down, we decided to do Home Church with about six other families in our community that would practice, you know, healthy guidelines and all that. And um and it has stuck. And Home Church has stuck in a way that is so uncool.
00:24:54
Speaker
it is not ah ah it It is just not anything that we have. It's not flashy. it's andt I don't i don't fully even ah haven't wrapped my head around even how to define it, but I do remember when we were in Ephesus and standing at three-story building and looking at these homes that were probably, you know, facilitated by women who'd opened their homes up and said, yeah, the church can meet here. And it was, it's what it feels like. Yeah. It gave me confirmation that at least right now, this is this is where we're supposed to be for now. It's beautiful.
00:25:37
Speaker
Yeah. I love that. It's helped me hang onto my face. which is Which is right. What we're talking about, like how you stay is is ah um is unique.
00:25:49
Speaker
And and there I think there has to be blessing for whatever that looks like, you know? And so thank God for home church. Right. What about you?
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah, ill i'll I'll read something in a minute i'll and I'll put a little context around it too. So ah you know for anybody listening who doesn't know, ah you know i my husband's a pastor. So you know for me to talk and about what it looks like to stay at church and and to talk about that for me, it has to be held in this alongside the fact that Mark mark is a pastor. Mark's a pastor at a church here in Austin.
00:26:29
Speaker
anne And it has been, it it has been what we needed. um And it's not perfect. So, you know, Riverbend is wonderful. and And there are people that are disappointed in leading Riverbend. So, you know, the beat goes on.
00:26:46
Speaker
kind It doesn't change. But oh ah in the wake of this story I'm going to read, you know i I was just like, I was done. I was done with the church. i Like you, I could tell you countless stories of um harm and disappointment and hurt. and And a lot of it in the context of us also being on staff, which came with like an added layer because you really lose everything. You lose your job, you lose your friends, you lose your family you lose all the things.
00:27:17
Speaker
but But I felt really done. and um And we had been in sort of the nonprofit ministry world and we're at a crossroads. And I'm like trying to creatively come up with alternatives. Like what else could we do? And Mark sat down across to me and he said, like, i I need to go back to the church. Like I want a pastor again. And I can remember just thinking, you've got to be kidding me. I'm like, that's great for you. I hope that goes well for you. And I said to him, I said, okay. I said, um like and I truly, I love that about him.
00:27:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I love that about him. I i love that despite all the things, a he knows that he knows that he knows, right? That this is, this is how he is meant to live out his calling. And it's fantastic it's fantastic. And he's, so all of that to say, I looked at him and I said, okay, um, so I just need you to know, I cannot be on staff with you at a church where our son is not welcome.
00:28:25
Speaker
And I cannot be on staff at a church with you where he is only tolerated.
00:28:33
Speaker
and so And we knew we wanted to come back to Texas. And so good luck with that. Wow. I don't know how that's going to go, Mark. So for us, like Riverbend feels like it's it's part of of a story of God's miraculous provision. Wow.
00:28:54
Speaker
in a way that it shouldn't be. but So there's some context right about me and my world, but here's here's the story I wrote on a particular day.
Navigating Evangelical Rules and Inclusive Faith
00:29:04
Speaker
I have a quote at the top that says, it's not rebels that make trouble, but trouble that makes rebels. bring and sure The air is cool and damp and dewy droplets are visible on the grass.
00:29:18
Speaker
Sipping my coffee, I try to distinguish how many different birds I can hear. At least four, accompanied by some morning crickets. It's just cool enough that I grab the blanket off the back of the sofa. This three-season serum is my favorite place in the house, and its beauty and safety are what I need today. I pull out my journal and begin to write. the world The words come quickly as my fear and anger find their way onto the pages.
00:29:45
Speaker
I feel angry at God for what He has allowed to ravage my family, and particularly my son. I am furious at how the church has participated in the harm again and again. Hot tears spill from my eyes as I write my lament. And when my hand seems to have found the end of what needs to be written, I am less angry with God. And I am left with my thoughts about what I know, the rules, the evangelical law that I learned in church.
00:30:15
Speaker
The rules tell me the path forward. They're quite clear, in fact, black and white. My only choice is to pray for Stephen to repent, to refuse to accept him, to love him and hate his sin. I will need to explain to his little sisters that we don't approve of Steve or his choice to be gay. I will have to help them navigate this. I will need to find answers to their questions about what they could do that would make Jesus disappointed enough in them and cause us to refuse to accept them too. I'll have to tell my college age son that I know more about his sexuality than he does and whatever he believes and feels he's wrong. I'll have to tell him there's no hope or goodness ahead for him unless he too follows the rules. And this day, sitting on my porch, hot tears spilling, I begged Jesus to come sit with me. This day, all the years of living by the rules and ignoring my own heart are shredding me.
00:31:13
Speaker
I know this space well. Living by the rules kept me from grieving things that needed grief, naming things that needed to be named, engaging the Lord in ways He was clearly inviting me to. Because as long as I lived by the rules, I didn't really need Him. The rules were an efficient substitute for His presence, and they actually stabbed me with my feet. Weeping, I recall how I've known the presence of Jesus in scenes of my own stories and countless others.
00:31:43
Speaker
The rules have been challenged before and found to be unhelpful, but nothing quite this acute. Sexuality is an evangelical hot button that you don't touch. I remember that the Desert Fathers valued the importance of our tears. Tears were considered a baptism for your soul. Your tears will lead you home, home to your heart.
00:32:05
Speaker
That day in the cool morning air, I was crying rebel tears. Tears that spoke to the trouble with the rules I had been told to live by. Tears that felt fierce and filled with a mother's love. Tears that called forth the need for greater faith. Tears that would require forging a new path forward for myself, for Mark, and for our family. Tears that would be costly in some ways and restorative in ways I didn't even know.
00:32:33
Speaker
John 6, 36 recounts Jesus' words, all those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes, I will never drive away. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up in the last day.
00:32:54
Speaker
The Greek word for drive away includes in its meaning to send out with a notion of violence, to expel a person from society, to banish from family, to compel one to depart in stern language, to reject with contempt, to cast off or cast away. Jesus will lose none of all, and he will never drive one of his children away. Why in the world would we think we're supposed to do something other than what he would do?
00:33:23
Speaker
I've come to know that losing none of all has stretched my faith, drawn me closer to God's heart, cultivated a deeper reliance on the presence of the Spirit within me. I'm more curious and less judgmental. I'm more loving and less contemptuous. And I'm more angered by the presence of evil that leaves any anyone feeling divided, distanced, or deceived about God's love for them.
00:33:48
Speaker
I'm a rebel when it comes to black and white evangelical rules that result in any of God's children feeling they've been cast out. My table, my home, my red tent will be a place marked by the energy of Jesus. And with his help, we will lose none of all the father gives us and we'll never drive him away.
00:34:11
Speaker
boom My table, my home, my red tent, marked by the energy of Jesus. Yeah. Yes, it is. And I i just hear in that such a fierce fidelity to love. And maybe sometimes we don't even
00:34:46
Speaker
know how deeply we can love until it's threatened. I think that's so true, Emily. i I don't think we know. I don't think we know how deeply we can love until we have to.
00:35:09
Speaker
And here's the other thing is that, and and this has been interesting, like, you know, over the years in the, in the red tent space, which is that, and everybody at my table doesn't have to agree with me. And that's, I think that's the challenge of like, how do we stay? How do we stay and let it be okay that you You, good woman who may be sitting across from me at my table, feel fiercely devoted to homosexuality being an absolute sin and and and not having any space inside of you to consider anything other than that. And how do I meet you there with with kind energy that doesn't vacate
00:36:05
Speaker
where I am, but that allows it's okay for you to feel that way. This is why I love learning from you. This is why the work that you do and that really, really good story guides and really informed trauma therapists help us with is that to stay there,
00:36:34
Speaker
brings up so much pain within our own selves. It can feel like if you don't take this person, like if you if you can't, like if you can't accept my son, right? Then you really can't accept part of me either.
00:37:02
Speaker
And what ah what do I do to share a table with right like my enemy? And how confident am I in my own self, in my own belonging? How confident, how secure do I have to be to be able to love my enemy, to to bless those who not just curse me, but curse those whom I love.
00:37:32
Speaker
who I'm like fighting for, who I'm like championing. And i I think that's where you and and you know all the women that I've learned from in your red tent continue to to guide me toward what does it look like to be at home with God and with myself so that I can extend blessing.
00:38:00
Speaker
when I think that you put that so beautifully, and it and it makes me think as a, you know, and I'll ah kind of butcher it, but like Maya Angelou's quote, like, like i I have to belong to myself, right? I belong nowhere and I belong everywhere. and right right But but that that coming home to you, right? If I if i know,
00:38:26
Speaker
that I belong to the Lord. And if I have a greater sense of my connection to my own self than who he made me to be, then whatever is going on for you is not a threat to me.
Evolving Faith and Acceptance
00:38:39
Speaker
And your different belief system is not a threat to me because I don't need you to agree with me to for me to be at rest or at peace I just don't and and I guess the other thing Emily is like, you know, I I can tell you what I believe today at 246 central time this afternoon and I live long enough now that five years from now Whatever that is it probably will come along right right it will probably It will probably have expanded and changed. and and i will I will be thinking that you know some other something is is more important. right It's the emerging truth that I'm realizing about who God is. yeah um and I think that i think yeah ultimately yes is what lets me stay.
00:39:34
Speaker
Right? What lets me stay connected at church, what lets me stay with the church is that I i really do believe that that the word is living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword, which means that it's living and active. It too is is adaptable to the time that we're in, not because we change the truth of it. That's not what I'm saying. um I'm just saying that like,
00:40:04
Speaker
it's there is There is more creativity and more imagination um about who God is that's contained and the in his word than just the rules that feel so familiar and safe. I mean, they just give us so much of a sense of belonging. ah That is the lure of perfectionism. That's the level of idealistic thinking, the way things should be. I mean, that that is what does it. And I think for those of us who've experienced childhood trauma specifically, that swing is just always available to us to swing toward extremes. One of my favorite proverbs is, through fear of the Lord, a person avoids all extremes.
00:41:01
Speaker
I love that. I think it's like this understanding, of course, of of ah fear being you know a humble awe, a humble reverence. It leads to life so that it's like, as I'm presented with this information from someone or whatever, I take it very humbly and I go, okay, God, like what does this sound like? So that I go don't go, oh, there it is. And then I'm just off to the races with my dualistic black and whiteness. um It makes us feel a lot more comfortable. My middle daughter, Lucy said to me yesterday, we had a great conversation in the car. She was having a bit of a rough patch and she said, mom, it's so much easier just to belong to this camp or to that camp. She's really struggling right now. Cause she has friends, you know, in that young adulthood who it's like they're like all church or they're like,
00:41:59
Speaker
all buck wild partying. And she's like, I'm kind of like friends with both and in the middle. and And then she just looked at me and I said, it's really hard to be sometimes holding that tension. And she goes, it's easier to be the either or, the black or white. Which which isn't belonging, right? That's the thing is that it, it that approximates belonging.
00:42:23
Speaker
Yes, it approximates it because it it comes with this with that set of you must be doing these things or believing these things in order to know that you're one of us. And that isn't belonging.
00:42:40
Speaker
right Belonging doesn't come with with all of all of that proviso around it that says it's this or it's that. And and so again, it's like far more vulnerable and far more personal. you know When I think about like Where do I belong? Yes, I belong to myself. And very few like institutional spaces do I walk in and feel like, oh, yes, these are my people.
00:43:14
Speaker
and up And it's okay, ah you know, and I think that's been, that's been a relief too, is to know that church, whatever, and when I say that I'm talking about like the building or the location or the thing that I do that is tied to sort of worship and teaching and and community, it those don't have to all be my people.
00:43:40
Speaker
It's okay that they're not. They can just be the people of God. And I get to just be one of the people of God in that space.
Essence of Ecclesia and Personal Belonging
00:43:49
Speaker
And I, people who I call my people, the ones that are gonna bring casseroles and sit by our bedside and you know and and be there. those Those people don't have to be at that same church that I'm going to. They can be other places. And that for me, has been that has been really helpful.
00:44:11
Speaker
to relieve sort of this pressure um that that the church has to be that for me. um and And some of that's probably my own woundedness. It's like, I don't want to have to trust all of those people with all the parts of me. Yeah. Well, and as an institution, what institution in and of itself is really trustworthy?
00:44:35
Speaker
None. None. Right? None. Yeah. Also relieving to just say that. It's just. Yeah. I mean, I think I remember, I mean, even just discussing like, what is the church? Where did this What is ecclesia? What is this? Is it a 501c3 government recognized organism? Probably not. Or is it this living organism that continues to live and survive and thrive and each century gets it a little different? and i just yeah To your point of being living and active, I think of
00:45:14
Speaker
when I go back to thinking of the early church and I go back to thinking there was no Word of God, there were some letters, you know, but the Word of God was Christ. Right. Right. I mean, now it we know and it says that and in the Word that like, when we're talking about the Word of God, we're we have to be really, really careful that the fullness of that is Christ. Right. Nothing else.
00:45:42
Speaker
Nothing else. Nothing else. So i I just, people have tried. But, you know, when I think theologically about where, especially in my community in Waco, Texas, which is more conservative in their theology, some some churches, not all, but many,
00:46:02
Speaker
and And I think, so, so which iteration have you let go of, of the word and who, who's determining, oh, so now women can do this, but they couldn't back then. Okay. So you're against slavery now, but you know, your same church back then was promoting it and I mean, what are and justifying it through scripture. So what if what are we willing to let go of and what we aren't? So this whole idea of orthodoxy, where did it come from? It's a great question. And I love, Malcolm Gladwell has a section of his podcast that is that was you know stories tied to generous orthodoxy, generous orthodoxy. And that, um that i think I think there's so much goodness in that.
00:46:56
Speaker
so much that but we could all like glean from like contemplating and considering what what does it mean for us to be more generous in our orthodoxy? Because Jesus was really upending a lot of orthodoxy. Oh, all the time, right? His harshest words were for the church.
00:47:20
Speaker
the church, that for the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the rule keepers and all of that tight space. hey So again, like it's not new. We love to create tight spaces because we we think we're doing something good. yeah Well, we could keep going clearly. I love it. I'm grateful for this conversation.
00:47:45
Speaker
shares me on Me too, Emily. Thanks for coming on and talking with me. Absolutely. The Red Tent Living podcast is produced by Katie Stafford and edited by Aaron Stafford. Our cover art is designed by Libby Johnson and our guests are all part of the Red Tent Living community. You can find us all at redtentliving.com as well as on Facebook and Instagram. If you love the stories shared here, We would be thrilled if you would leave us a review. Until next week, love to you, dear ones.