Ep.8 - How Do We Respond
00:00:00.000 | All right, everyone, welcome to the official, official Grace Point podcast. I'm Stephen.
00:00:11.880 | I'm Isaiah.
00:00:12.700 | And we are your co-hosts. And we have been in this series, Why the Hate? Answering the question,
00:00:18.800 | why our church gets so much hate online. We've been talking about a number of things,
00:00:23.500 | and we're kind of nearing the end of our discussion. And so for sort of the last
00:00:26.900 | segment or episode in this series, we want to talk about how to respond, how to respond.
00:00:33.360 | Like, what do you do with all this online criticism?
00:00:36.540 | Yeah, so I want to get a little personal and just talk about, like, I don't know if this
00:00:40.060 | is necessarily, like, prescriptive for everybody, but at least for us, like, how have we responded?
00:00:44.020 | And I think we've responded in pretty different ways.
00:00:45.580 | Yeah, but before we get into that, I mean, I just want to point out that this is not just
00:00:49.680 | like a question or issue that, like, we face as a church. Because I think this is just a question
00:00:55.200 | that, like, a bunch of pastors are facing. You know, I think it's pretty clear that pastors have
00:01:01.500 | had it pretty rough. And I mean, it's not just pastors, but companies, like, everyone seems to have
00:01:07.760 | their share of online criticism. Yeah, there was that recent Barna survey about how 39% of pastors
00:01:12.820 | are considering quitting ministry. And number, like, I think four reason or something was, I think
00:01:17.280 | number three reason was increased criticism. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, I recently watched this
00:01:22.880 | podcast between Rick Warren and Kerry Newhoff. You know, he's retired from Saddleback. And one of
00:01:27.440 | the big questions is, like, you got a lot of online criticism. How did you handle that? And he had a
00:01:30.880 | really great answer. And we can link that in the show notes. But yeah, there's a little bit out there
00:01:35.440 | about how to respond. But I think that is a big question mark.
00:01:38.760 | Wait, what did he say? We're going to be curious.
00:01:41.100 | Oh, I mean, just in a nutshell. Oh, yeah. In a nutshell, he says, basically, like, he has this,
00:01:46.460 | like, what he says is, oh, that guy said that about me? Well, I have nothing but respect for that.
00:01:51.760 | For him. Yeah, for him. Yeah, yeah. And it's like this very, you know, it's this amazing thing
00:01:55.940 | that he does. Very gracious.
00:01:59.660 | Yeah. So it's a question that everyone's facing. It's a question that, like, a lot of us have. And
00:02:05.260 | then I think it's a question a lot of people have about grace pointers, like people in grace, like,
00:02:09.100 | how are you guys responding? You know, like, do you guys even know? And yes, we do know, right? I hope
00:02:13.720 | you can, you know, that's clear. And so, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of within that context
00:02:21.120 | that we're answering. But yeah, I think we can share how we personally have been responding to
00:02:25.860 | start there. Yes, I can, I can start. Yeah, you can jump in. Yeah, we have very different responses.
00:02:32.020 | Very different. I mean, for me, I first kind of stumbled across this, I think, as a senior in high
00:02:38.640 | school. And back then, as is the case now, but most of it was about my parents, very personal.
00:02:47.940 | Yeah. And so, I mean, just emotionally, it was bewildering. It was, I felt a lot of things,
00:02:55.620 | anger, sadness, fear, this kind of just like a, like this physical, like churning of the stomach
00:03:01.880 | that you experience. And a lot of people say this when they're like the main character for the day on
00:03:05.360 | Twitter or whatever, like you experience this kind of like physiological kind of reaction. I just didn't
00:03:10.880 | know what to do with it. You know, I tried responding, you know, under my own name and
00:03:15.280 | people didn't believe it was me. Actually, someone thought it was someone else using me as a pseudonym,
00:03:19.160 | person. But it took me a while to process that. And I mean, I think, I think at the time, the way I dealt
00:03:29.960 | with that was, okay, like, this is, this is, I guess, the nature of the internet, maybe, or these people
00:03:41.640 | just don't understand what we're trying to do. And then I think over the years, I mean, that view has gotten
00:03:48.520 | more like nuanced and there's been kind of other things there, but what about you, Steven? Like,
00:03:54.040 | when did you first encounter it, if at all? And yeah, well, I mean, honestly, like I just to comment
00:03:58.200 | on what you just said, like, I can't imagine how I responded as a 17 year old. Like, that's just like,
00:04:04.200 | you're from the cortex, not fully developed, you know, and just like emotions and everything. So
00:04:08.280 | man, I can't imagine. But for me, I think I mentioned this earlier episode, but came across as a
00:04:14.520 | freshman. And I was like, what? Nah, like, this is not my experience. And so I just quickly like brushed
00:04:22.360 | it. And, and it was interesting, like being at Berkeley and encountering other freshmen who had read
00:04:26.920 | it and kind of getting into like debates with them, actually, just like what, you know, and, and, and really
00:04:32.040 | defending our church, you know, um, as a gung ho freshman, you know, um, over the years, just didn't
00:04:39.960 | really think much about it until like, yeah, actually pretty recently, right before we got sent out to
00:04:45.960 | Philly. And there was sort of another big wave of criticism. Yeah. And, um, you know, like it was,
00:04:54.360 | that one was, that one hit closer to home because it had been so many years and I've been like really
00:04:59.240 | invested in ministry and, and it was just, everything was just a lot more personal for me.
00:05:04.200 | And I kind of went into a little bit of a tailspin personally. I wasn't like breaking down or anything,
00:05:10.680 | but it was just sort of really disorienting because, um, yeah, I shared this in a previous episode too.
00:05:16.520 | Like I started thinking about things that I had done and said, and replaying those over and over and
00:05:21.240 | over and over in my mind. And I ended up kind of in a dark place and it's a kind of talking to you and
00:05:27.560 | following up with some of these guys, um, that I was wondering about, you know, where we were at
00:05:32.040 | in these conversations, all of them still at our church. And, and then it even took me talking to
00:05:36.360 | someone who had graduated and went home, you know, and, and I had actually, um, for that particular
00:05:42.280 | instance, like, I don't think he would mind me sharing it. Um, but it was basically like, we had had
00:05:50.120 | like a little bit of a tension conflict and it kind of got resolved, but not really. And then he,
00:05:56.520 | and then he, and then he, um, and then he, well, he went under another leader actually for a little
00:06:00.520 | bit and then he went home and he had asked to like basically meet up and just kind of clear the air
00:06:05.320 | before he went home. And I was in the middle of like something busy and I let the ball drop and he was
00:06:09.800 | really hurt by that. And, and then actually it was, um, it was, he, he didn't bring it up with me
00:06:16.680 | directly because he was understandably like really hurt. And it was, um, actually, uh, one of, it was,
00:06:23.720 | it was, uh, I don't want to name any names, but, but it was someone at our church who brought it up with
00:06:27.880 | me. Hey, I heard like this happened from like, he had heard and, and he was like, Hey, what happened
00:06:33.240 | with this? Right. And I was like, oh man, I messed up. You know, so I reached out to him. And so there
00:06:37.720 | was kind of this long process for me and, um, and I came out of it better, came out of it learning a lot
00:06:43.720 | and, and kind of, I think it did a lot of good for me, but where I'm at right now is knowing kind of how
00:06:51.400 | dark I can get and what a place I can get. I just don't read it. I just, it's, I don't, I can't.
00:06:57.640 | You know, and, um, it's not because I'm like, la, la, la, la, la, you know, I don't want to know.
00:07:03.480 | It's, it's just, yeah, I'm already a dramatic emotional guy as it is. A lot of high highs,
00:07:09.000 | a lot of low, low, a lot of low lows, you know, and it doesn't take much for me to cry or whatever.
00:07:14.920 | Yeah. So that's, that's how I handle it. Okay. Yeah. No, I mean, I think that's helpful
00:07:24.120 | because I think it illustrates like, I, I, hopefully no one takes this episode to say like,
00:07:29.800 | hey, there's just this crazy phenomenon out there. It's totally inexplicable. We've never made mistakes.
00:07:35.560 | Right. So just ignore it. Like, that's not what we're going to say. That's not, that's not going
00:07:39.240 | to be our angle. Cause I don't think that's true. Like, yeah, we make mistakes as leaders. We make
00:07:43.480 | mistakes. And I mean, I'm thankful for you sharing that and kind of bearing your soul there. But yeah,
00:07:48.600 | like for sure, we make mistakes sometimes totally unintentionally. Sometimes we look back and like,
00:07:55.400 | oh, my motivations were not right there. Right. And that's just true. We're sinners. And I don't
00:07:59.560 | think any of us would deny that. And we sin against people as leaders. So please don't take any of what
00:08:06.200 | we're about to say as like, oh, there's no such thing as hurt. And there's no such thing as mistakes.
00:08:10.760 | No. Yeah. It's like, I, I like, I think what I was doing was I was kind of mourning a little bit,
00:08:15.400 | actually. And during that emotional tailspin, I was mourning kind of like just the brokenness
00:08:20.040 | in general of the world. I was mourning like how people get spooked and, you know, people who are
00:08:24.440 | interested in Christianity get spooked and they decide not to seek anymore because of, you know,
00:08:29.080 | these criticisms that they read. I was mourning just the state of Christianity and the internet,
00:08:33.080 | all that stuff. And then I was learning. Right. And, and, and, you know, and then I kind of,
00:08:37.960 | after that, it was just sort of like, well, I'm going to keep obeying my calling to preach
00:08:41.720 | the gospel and I'm just going to trust and I'm not going to stop that. Right. So I, yeah, totally.
00:08:46.040 | Like that's hope people know that we know and we hear it. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I want to talk
00:08:51.960 | about my experience. Yeah. Yeah. Cause we're very, we're very different. I think, um, I mentioned this
00:08:56.840 | before, but yeah, Steven is a lot more confrontational than I am. Which is because I'm like on the more
00:09:01.000 | emotionals. Like, this is so weird. And you're much friendlier and nicer than me. But, um, so for me,
00:09:06.920 | when I read the, the, the stuff online, actually, my initial reaction is not like inward, like, Oh,
00:09:13.480 | have I done this? Um, it's kind of like, who did this stuff, you know? And I, and I kind of like,
00:09:19.640 | I, I, I kind of feel for the posters actually. And for the people who write stuff, like, did this happen?
00:09:24.040 | Like, what the heck, if this happened, I'm angry, you know, and I want to, and I want to get to the
00:09:27.960 | bottom of this. Yeah. Um, and I mean, not a hundred percent, some of it, some of it I read, I'm like,
00:09:33.240 | uh, that kind of sounded like it was your fault, man. And you know, so it's, it's mixed obviously,
00:09:37.240 | but there's a fair amount of stuff I read. I'm like, yo, if, if what you're saying is true,
00:09:41.160 | right? Yeah. You're owed an apology. Yeah. There are times where you've talked about this stuff.
00:09:45.160 | Yeah. And I'm like, who's sad are you? Yeah. A little bit of that. A little bit. And I mean,
00:09:49.480 | I think I, I'm kind of like that. I kind of err on that direction. I'm sort of like a, you know,
00:09:54.200 | I don't know, maybe in another life, I would have been like a social justice warrior or something,
00:09:57.320 | but I'm, I'm kind of like, I get up in arms about things. And, um, so like for me, I, I feel for the
00:10:04.440 | people who write this stuff and I do wonder, is this true? Yeah. And I, you know, I've confronted,
00:10:10.040 | you know, my dad a couple of times and just differently than like, Hey, is this true?
00:10:13.640 | And, um, I've also gone onto the Reddit actually. So I kind of took a different approach and I wanted
00:10:17.640 | to engage with people and, and I posted anonymously for a while. And most people have probably figured
00:10:22.760 | out my handle by now. Um, and it wasn't a long time. I think it was maybe like a month or two where
00:10:27.320 | I was kind of actively posting and trying to talk to people. And a couple of things that I did,
00:10:31.000 | I went on there and I said, Hey, if you want to talk, um, if you're looking for reconciliation,
00:10:36.920 | if you want an apology or you think you're owed an apology, please reach out to me. I'm a staff at
00:10:40.920 | Grace Point, you know, for my own reasons, I don't want to reveal my name right now. Um,
00:10:45.800 | but let's talk. And I would love to try and set something up and try to get to the bottom of it.
00:10:50.120 | Yeah. Um, yeah. Go through the Matthew 18.
00:10:52.520 | Yeah. And there was, it was interesting. There's a variety of reactions. You know,
00:10:55.560 | some people were like, wow, I respect that. Thank you. Um, but, um, for the most part,
00:11:01.080 | actually almost uniformly other than one person, nobody actually took me up on that for various reasons.
00:11:05.160 | Some people, um, said, you know, like, I just don't want anything to do with Grace Point.
00:11:10.040 | I'm not interested in reconciliation anymore, um, which I get. Um, and then some people like,
00:11:14.520 | I don't trust you. Cause I don't know who you are. Some people, it's just, they didn't believe that
00:11:18.360 | this would do any good. Like, ah, like, I don't think talking to anyone will just help. I'm just
00:11:23.000 | cynical about that. And some people are just simply not interested in reconciliation. Like,
00:11:26.600 | that's not what I'm after. I'm just here to, um, you know, air my grievances and heal.
00:11:30.920 | Um, so, I mean, I, I guess in that way, I felt like, okay, I tried, I did try to talk to people.
00:11:37.800 | Um, and, and often when I, when I would read a story, I would go and try to get to the bottom of it. And,
00:11:44.600 | and, you know, as is the case with most things in life, the answers were complicated, right? It wasn't
00:11:49.640 | just like one thing. It wasn't like, oh, I uncovered this treasure trove of like dirty secrets. It
00:11:54.200 | wasn't like that. Some, sometimes when I talked to the other party involved at, you know, as best I
00:11:58.920 | can ascertain, cause most of these are anonymous, but you know, when I would talk to people about it,
00:12:02.760 | it'd be like, that never happened. I don't remember that, which, you know, I, I believe that they don't
00:12:07.560 | remember that. Um, some people would, sometimes people would say, oh yeah, you know, that time,
00:12:12.360 | you know, I was too much. Yeah. You know, I was too harsh. I really regret that,
00:12:16.280 | you know, and sometimes it was just complicated. It's like, oh, well there's truth to that,
00:12:21.960 | but there's more to that story. You know, they would give me other contexts and things. And again,
00:12:26.200 | I don't want to get into any details, but, um, I guess all that to say, like, it wasn't neat. It
00:12:31.800 | wasn't tidy. Right. Um, and I don't know. I, I feel like also, I think my experience of doing this also
00:12:42.280 | was that it was really hard to have any like nuanced discussion. Hmm. Cause I'm, I, I mean,
00:12:48.120 | I'm not going to fake it, you know, I'm not going to go on here and just say, oh man, you're totally
00:12:52.120 | right. And I'm totally in the wrong and grace point is this evil thing. And I'm sorry. Yeah. But like,
00:12:56.120 | cause I don't actually believe that I believe that every story has two sides. And when I would try to
00:12:59.720 | get into that and try to like get detail or try to present like an alternative view of the facts that
00:13:04.840 | they were talking about, I really got blasted, you know, they called me, they said I was gaslighting.
00:13:10.360 | They said I was victim blaming or victim shaming, you know? Um, and I, in essence, it just, it just felt
00:13:17.480 | like there was no, and you know, they said, you're, you're, you're refusing to listen. You should just
00:13:20.920 | apologize. Right. Like I told me that. And at the end of the day, it just felt like there was no interest
00:13:25.560 | in like actual discussing discussion. They just wanted unqualified admission that you and grace
00:13:32.760 | point are just entirely in the wrong. And again, like, I mean, I get the emotion behind that.
00:13:39.640 | Like if you're hurt, you're hurt, you know? And I don't deny that that's the case. Cause I mean,
00:13:43.320 | obviously these emotions are real, right? You're feeling something, but at the same time, I do feel
00:13:48.520 | like, well, there has to be some nuance to this discussion. You know, we have to be able to present
00:13:53.000 | our side, have to be able to defend ourselves. And that isn't, and I mean, there's a really good,
00:13:58.600 | um, article on the gospel coalition website about this. It's called towards a better discussion about
00:14:04.680 | abuse or something like that. Yeah. Kevin DeYoung. Yeah. Kevin, we'll put the, we'll put the link in
00:14:08.280 | it and I'm not going to go into it. Cause I mean, I think he, he, he does a really good job of just
00:14:12.360 | talking about this, but, but there's kind of this overall phenomenon in our culture where let's like,
00:14:16.840 | when, whenever there's an allegation of like something wrong done to me immediately
00:14:23.000 | it's assumed that the allegation is entirely a hundred percent true. And unless you just admit
00:14:27.880 | fault and advocate or advocate for that person, depending on who you are, right. Then you're part
00:14:32.440 | of the problem. Yeah. It's kind of like a guilty until proven innocent. Yeah. Like that, that's how
00:14:36.440 | it felt. And I mean, so I came away from that period and eventually I just stopped. Cause kind of like you,
00:14:41.240 | it started to put me in a dark place and you know, my wife was saying, man, you're, you're just,
00:14:45.080 | you're getting dark because of this. I pulled out of that and I stopped. And I think my takeaway
00:14:50.600 | are like, it's just hard. Like it's, it's not, I mean, if, if, if we were, you know, face-to-face
00:14:56.760 | real people, we could just talk about it, but with Reddit, like it's anonymous. There's just so many
00:15:01.240 | complicating factors. Not everyone agrees. So it's not like there's one official list of grievances
00:15:05.480 | against grace point on there or anything. Yeah. Um, there's contradictions. Yeah. People,
00:15:10.680 | people say one thing, another, another group says another thing. There's no kind of set of shared facts
00:15:15.320 | that everyone that we can all agree on. There's no desire to really talk civilly. Um, and so again,
00:15:24.920 | like have we done wrong? Yes, for sure. Like we've made mistakes. I feel like in my experience,
00:15:32.040 | I've been treated unfairly or overly harshly by a leader. So it's not like I'm pretending that this
00:15:36.760 | never happens for sure. It's just that I personally don't see a way just given kind of the way things
00:15:44.600 | are in the online world. I don't see a way to fix that personally. Like I tried, I mean, I'm just one
00:15:53.160 | person obviously, but it just felt very like it didn't, it didn't move the needle at all. It didn't
00:15:58.360 | help. Like there was no progress towards reconciliation. And, um, I, I don't know.
00:16:06.040 | So, so, so given that like kind of experience and you're just kind of that, that was your
00:16:14.600 | takeaway meant like, where are you right now? Cause that was a little bit ago.
00:16:17.960 | Yeah. You know, so if you were to just kind of, um, I think, I think what I've concluded is like,
00:16:27.960 | I want to, I want, I want to be blameless in the sense of like, Hey, I'm going to put myself out
00:16:34.200 | here. If you want to talk, if you were interested in reconciliation, here's how to do it. You know,
00:16:38.680 | and I want to have that avenue always open. I want to keep that door always open. But I kind of do think,
00:16:45.160 | well, the ball is on the aggrieved person's court to speak up because they're the anonymous
00:16:49.960 | ones. We don't know who they are. Right. In the case of non anonymous ones, maybe a little different,
00:16:53.960 | but for the most part, they're anonymous. Right. And once that door is there and people know it's
00:16:59.080 | there, then I just have to move forward and keep serving God, you know, and I need to pray for my
00:17:03.800 | enemies. Cause that's what Jesus commands. I need to continue to love them, but I need to move forward
00:17:08.200 | and keep on serving God because life is just a lot bigger than the mistakes we've made.
00:17:12.200 | life is just a lot bigger than what's on the internet. And there's a lot of people out there
00:17:17.080 | who don't know Jesus and need me and need other Christians to go and tell them about God's love.
00:17:23.080 | And you know, I can't, I can't solve other people's problems for them. So yeah.
00:17:27.960 | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that's where I am. And I don't know if, if there was one,
00:17:33.320 | go ahead. Yeah. No, I, I mean, I was just going to say like, so between me and Isaiah, there's,
00:17:39.640 | there's a big spectrum. Right. And I'm definitely in that. Like, I'm just, I'm not, you know,
00:17:44.520 | you heard my response and Isaiah's got another response. And I think in our church there's that,
00:17:49.400 | there's everything in between and all over the place. Like, I think, I don't think there's anyone
00:17:53.960 | at our church who's like not affected by this. Oh, you know, like, I think, I think we, we collectively,
00:17:59.240 | as a body are just like bearing this right to varying degrees, but like everyone's just sort of like,
00:18:04.520 | oh man, you know, and, um, and, and yeah, it's, it's not like it's something that we're not, I guess
00:18:13.160 | what I'm trying to say is we're not some machine, you know, some institution that just sort of like
00:18:16.840 | shrugs it off and moves on. It's not a shrug off, move on kind of thing. It's just sort of like, oh,
00:18:20.840 | it's there. And we just try to walk graciously forward, you know, with it.
00:18:28.200 | Yeah. So yeah. I mean, and so maybe just to conclude this, this episode and sorry,
00:18:33.480 | I know it was a little heavy, but if, if I could just speak to like the Grace Point people who are
00:18:39.400 | listening to this podcast and Steven, maybe if you want to give you two cents too, but my advice to you,
00:18:44.840 | it's a little weird, but I'm going to quote Harry Potter, you know, and episode two, book two,
00:18:52.280 | Chamber of Secrets, you know, Mr. Weasley is kind of reprimanding his daughter. Like,
00:18:58.040 | how could you do this thing and, you know, get caught up with this crazy diary and get cursed.
00:19:02.440 | And he says, "What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself
00:19:06.280 | if you can't see where it keeps its brain."
00:19:08.440 | Kind of this weird, and I thought it was weird. It's kind of a weird internet analogy if you think
00:19:13.240 | about it. But like, at the end of the day, there's flesh and blood people right in front of you.
00:19:19.400 | Yeah. And don't allow anonymous invisible people on the internet to define your reality more than
00:19:27.720 | they do. I think that would be my, I'm not saying ignore those people. I'm not saying what they have
00:19:32.280 | to say is totally invalid. Right. But there's flesh and blood people in front of you that God wants to,
00:19:39.240 | wants you to love, that God has put in your life to love you. Right. And if you got to weigh those two
00:19:45.640 | things, I mean, the flesh and blood people should win out every time. So I think that would be my word.
00:19:51.080 | You know, and we know, like anonymous people online, it's like, yeah, I feel for them. But at the same
00:19:59.240 | time, it's the source of a lot of what's wrong with our world, I think, right? Like Wreck-It Ralph too,
00:20:04.680 | you know, don't go to the comments section. Everybody knows, right? It's kind of human nature.
00:20:09.400 | Yeah. You want to see the worst of human nature, give them a mask, you know, and allow them to hide
00:20:13.800 | their identity. And it's like the purge kind of, okay, sorry. I don't mean to compare those people
00:20:18.600 | to the purge, but I'm just saying like, like anonymity brings out the worst in us. And, and
00:20:24.680 | like, if I'm going to be really straight, I'm just going to just be really straight. Like,
00:20:29.080 | here's one thing I know with a fair amount of confidence. I don't think anyone
00:20:33.640 | who really reads the Bible and who really like kind of understands the heart of God
00:20:38.440 | can say with a clear conscience, you know what, I think what these people are doing really honors
00:20:43.560 | Jesus. Like, I don't like, no matter what hurt you've gone through, no matter what hurt you've
00:20:48.680 | gone through, I don't think Jesus would anonymously attack fellow Christians on the internet.
00:20:54.280 | Face to face, maybe, you know, he called out the Pharisees for sure. Anonymously tearing
00:20:59.720 | down people on the internet. I just don't think that's what Jesus would do. Like,
00:21:02.840 | so whatever else may be true, you may be wrong. You probably were wrong for sure.
00:21:07.960 | That doesn't make what you do. Right. And I think there's a culture, there's this sort of a cultural
00:21:11.880 | trend these days where if you've been hurt, then it justifies everything you do. That's not Bible,
00:21:17.240 | right? That's not biblical. We're all sinners. We've all sinned. Right. And so I like, and again,
00:21:21.880 | I don't say this to attack those people. I'm just telling like, hey, as to the, my message to the
00:21:27.080 | fellow Grace Point people listening to this podcast, like at least take solace in that, right? These are
00:21:31.640 | not messengers from heaven, right? Like what they're doing is not honoring to God. And I can say that with
00:21:37.960 | a fair amount of confidence. So yeah, try to reconcile if possible. Apologize if you should,
00:21:44.280 | right? Try to make things right. But if you can't, right, if you can't, then move on with life and
00:21:49.400 | prioritize the flesh and blood people in front of you. That's what I would say.
00:21:51.800 | Yeah. And, and just speaking from my experience, like that, that process of like trying to seek
00:22:02.120 | reconciliation and apologize, all that, you know, I went through that and it was really good. It was
00:22:07.000 | really painful, really humbling. But I'm thankful I went through that. I hope I won't ever have to go
00:22:14.200 | through that again, but I probably will, you know, and it'll be good for me then too, because I'm a sinner,
00:22:18.600 | like you said. So, you know, I hope that through this discussion, like people got a better picture
00:22:25.240 | of our church and us and just how we're walking through this. And I want to speak for, I'm going
00:22:32.280 | to speak to our, our brothers and sisters, you know, our fellow Grace Pointers, but first I want to speak
00:22:36.440 | to just anyone who's new, who's like listening to this. Like if you're, if you're new, checking our
00:22:40.120 | church or you, or, you know, you're a student, you've been here a couple years, you know, two, three years,
00:22:44.520 | you know, and, or you're just like someone who's just like heard about this somehow, like you got
00:22:49.720 | wind of this. Yeah.
00:22:51.160 | Welcome to the show.
00:22:52.440 | Yeah. It's, it's really unsettling, right? Like to kind of like, just this whole can of worms,
00:22:59.400 | just like this whole floodgates of stuff. It's really unsettling, disorienting to kind of
00:23:03.880 | like encounter this. And so what I just hope is that through this podcast, like some of that got settled,
00:23:09.000 | at least if, if not the questions that you have, that just like, at least like your nerves and your
00:23:12.920 | emotions got settled, because it can be really profoundly disturbing. Right. And, and that, you
00:23:17.800 | know, we know, and just feel free to talk to us. Yeah. That's, it's like, we're, we're genuinely open,
00:23:27.560 | you know, and, and you've probably been over to people's homes and, and they've opened their doors
00:23:35.160 | and their lives to you and their hearts to you, you know, and like, you want to talk about transparency,
00:23:39.480 | like, you know, you came to my house and you held my kid, you know, like, like, right. And, and don't
00:23:46.440 | forget that, you know, and so just at least it'd be nice to have a conversation about it. We, we're,
00:23:52.200 | we're very well, we've made mistakes, but we're very well intentioned, you know, and, and I just hope
00:23:57.160 | that came across in this series now to, so that was to, you know, just newer people or, or, um, students
00:24:04.840 | or, you know, people just come out a couple of years or just, you know, but to, uh, just fellow
00:24:10.200 | Grace Pointers, um, I just want to encourage us to just keep praying, you know, maybe that's, that's
00:24:15.720 | just one of the good things that comes out of this, you know, that we pray, right. That this just causes
00:24:20.280 | us to just feel our own inadequacy, insufficiency, and that we just seek God's face. And that would
00:24:26.520 | be a good thing. Um, talk to one another about it. You know, if you're feeling dark, like I was feeling
00:24:32.600 | like you gotta get, like, it was me talking to you that helped a lot, you know, and like talking and
00:24:36.840 | reflecting. So talk to each other. Yeah. And I just want to read, um, a couple of verses here, just
00:24:42.200 | Romans 8:28. "We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are
00:24:48.680 | who are called according to his purpose." I want to read second Corinthians four. "Therefore, having
00:24:53.960 | this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded
00:24:59.160 | ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. But by the open statement of the truth,
00:25:04.360 | we will commit ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. For we, what we proclaim is not
00:25:08.840 | ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, to ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake." So, yeah. I, I don't
00:25:17.080 | know that as I was kind of thinking about this episode, um, the serenity prayer came to mind and
00:25:22.520 | just felt like that would be a really appropriate way to end kind of this episode and just this whole
00:25:27.800 | series. And so, um, maybe we can just do that. Yeah. Yeah. Let me just, uh, read the serenity
00:25:34.360 | prayers of famous prayer written by, I always forget to say his name, Reinald Niebuhr. Yeah. But anyway,
00:25:41.240 | um, let me just read that for us in prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot
00:25:48.360 | change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at
00:25:54.600 | a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, taking, as Jesus did,
00:26:02.120 | this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that you will make all things right if I
00:26:08.440 | surrender to your will so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with you
00:26:14.280 | forever in the next. Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, that was, um, not all our episodes are going to be like that.
00:26:21.880 | Sorry, that was a little bit of a- We're going to do a couple where we're just doing, like, having fun.
00:26:25.000 | Yeah, I don't know how to just, like, play songs or something on one of the episodes, but-
00:26:27.960 | That'll be fun. Thank you as always for joining us, for giving us a listen on the official, unofficial
00:26:34.440 | Grace Point Podcast. Smash like button. I didn't even say that right. Smash the like button.
00:26:38.600 | You slaughtered that. Wow. Click, subscribe, and we will see you guys soon.