- Hey friends, before we jump into this episode of Let It Shine, I need you to know that I need your help. If you click the link in the show notes, you will find a listener survey for Let It Shine that will enter you to win a summer essentials giveaway. So before I tell you what the giveaway is, I want you to know that this survey is all about you. I just wanna hear, what do you want? What do you need? What would make Let It Shine more listenable? What would make it more shareable? I wanna hear from you, all of the things. Now, if you fill out the survey and you follow me on Instagram, you will be entered to win this amazing summer essentials giveaway. First of all, the brand new, released on July 1st, Jen Welkin Bible Study Revelation. You'll also be entered to win a 24 ounce corksicle cold cup. My very favorite lipstick from Clinique called Black Honey, it is an almost lipstick. Really share, it adapts to everyone's skin color. You know what you love it. It's TikTok viral, Clinique, Black Honey, almost lipstick. Have you heard of Lumi all over body deodorant? If you haven't heard of it, you are missing out. It is a favorite and it's part of the summer essentials giveaway. And don't forget the very best belt bag of all time, the Lulu Lemon belt bag. Enter to win this summer essentials giveaway and you could win all of these things. All you've got to do is fill out that listener survey in the show notes. Okay guys, here's your episode of Let It Shine. (upbeat music) ♪ There's still a lot of mine ♪ ♪ I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine ♪ Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Let It Shine. I hope you're having a fabulous summer. We are thick into July now. And guys, if you did not hear the episode with Jen Wilkin on letting our light shine, I encourage you, please go back and listen to that. It aired last week. I have been stopped in the hallway at church. I have gotten emails on my DM in Instagram. You guys are loving that episode. And I'm gonna tell you what, I loved it too. I listened to it twice. So please, I encourage you, if that's one that you missed, you don't wanna miss it. So we are linking it in the show notes, but it was just the episode that aired last week. So make sure you go back and listen to it. So today, guys, I've got something really special for you. You know that Lisa Whittle is a friend of mine. She has been one of my illuminators for season one of Let It Shine, but she was also a guest on one of my favorite podcasts, The Glass House at Lifeway. So you know that this summer, what I'm doing is I'm introducing you to my friends. So today, if you have not met Lisa Whittle, you get to meet her, but you also get to meet my friends, Ben and Lindley Mandrel, who hosts the Glass House podcast. They interviewed Lisa on a topic that she wrote an article about years ago for Lifeway called How to Lose a Pastor in 10 Years. And I thought that this would be a very interesting conversation for you guys, because it really talks about how we put our pastors and our leaders, our spiritual leaders up on a pedestal. And what we can do as our regular old church members to keep from doing that. But it's not just about that. It's about how growing up in a pastor's house changed her. So many of you may have grown up in a pastor's house. There is so much to relate to in this episode, apart from being in full-time ministry or even growing up that way. So I knew that you guys would love this. Number one, you love Lisa. Number two, you're loving Ben and Lindley, who of course, Lindley was also an illuminator this past season. So you're just going to enjoy this all the way around. I want to encourage you to make sure, if you are a long-term listener of Let It Shine or tautology to fill out the listener survey, we are doing a huge giveaway right now as you heard about from the top of the show. So don't forget about it. Okay, friends, here is Ben and Lindley Mandrel from the Glass House podcast, interviewing our illuminator for season one, Lisa Whittle. ♪ Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine ♪ - Whether you've been the pastor's kid, the person sitting in the pew, is that you are allowed to love someone who's imperfect. There's a lot of conflict inside of our souls when someone has had a public fall. And I think the Lord really spoke to me about the fact that I didn't need to justify or explain or own my father's sin, that God could handle that portion of the story, but that my love for him was not only okay, but it was good. (upbeat music) - Today's episode we are talking about how to lose a pastor in 10 years. It was an article written by Lisa Whittle that caught our attention because it speaks to the fallen heroes. I was thinking about the Wizard of Oz the other day. - Okay. - Do you know, like the part of the story that's so relatable is they go down the yellow brick road, they can't wait to meet the Wizard of Oz. And then they find out that he's this little old man. - Little tiny guy. And it's so deflating, like I thought he was big and powerful, but it turns out he's just a normal average guy. That's the feeling when somebody who you think is a spiritual hero turns out to be a very normal guy. - Well, Steve Cuss would say they're human sized. - Right. - Just a human sized person like leading a church. - And what pastors wives know is that their husband is a very normal guy. They see him throwing his clothes in the corner of the closet. - Or worse. - Or worse. But the church only sees him elevated on the platform with the lights on him and the PowerPoint and all of the flashy stuff. Why this episode matters? I think there are a lot of people in ministry who feel like I live this double life, that there's the part that people see of me, and then there's the part that I really am, and it's hard to juggle those two. - Well, what she talks about at the end is the difference between privacy and secrecy. I love that part. - So, I mean, what you're saying here is that exactly? - We want to be private, but we also want people to not know our secrets, which isn't healthy. So this conversation, let's jump right into it. (upbeat music) Lizzo, thank you for joining us. - Oh, thanks for having me. Glad to be here. - Lillina and I were so amazed by the story that you bring to the table. And there's so many people in ministry that struggle with my people think I'm perfect, or they think I'm a superhuman being, and your story about your dad and watching him fall, and all of the things that happened in your family life, I would love for you today to just tell us a little bit about that. But tell us about yourself as we get started and just a little bit about you. - Well, let's see, what do I tell? I never know what to do. This is like-- - Where do you live? - Panic. - I freeze, right? - I know. - Which life do I tell you about, right? It seems like I've lived a lot of them. Live in Charlotte, North Carolina. Been married for almost 28 years. Have three kids. They're goodness grown. At this point, 25, 22, 20. And the youngest is at Baylor. And Mr. Terribly, two boys and a girl, and we have a new puppy. I don't even know what we were thinking after-- - You were thinking it's a good idea. - We were thinking it was a good idea. Now we feel like we are back to having a toddler. - Yeah. - And that is a whole thing. So yeah, but enjoy your life and written some books and speaking, podcasting, and run a couple of ministries. So it's a full life. - You have a new book coming out right now, Daddy. - Yeah, just released a book and I have a Bible study that'll be out in, I think, a couple of weeks. - Okay. - Yeah, God knows. - Tell us about it just real quick. - God knows when your worries and wise need more than temporary relief because we are all looking for relief. We're all in pain and we're all worried. And so just conversations people were having and my own worries and wise. And so I did a five-year study on the omniscience of God, which was an interesting-- - Five years. - Yeah, yeah, yes, really did a deep dive. And it was one of those things that I needed for my own heart to go from sort of this, the big idea of God's omniscience and does God know? And what does that mean for me? And so, yeah, I did that and that's been a journey, so. - Well, you wrote an article for Lifeway Research called "How to Lose a Pastor in 10 Years." - Yes, it's been a while and I see it. - Five years ago, you wrote that. - Yeah, yeah, it's fine. - Well, we immediately went to our "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" favorite lines, but-- - Glad you picked up on that. - Yeah, it was a great comparison. We just thought the title is very catchy because there are so many stories now of people who are one's heroes who have fallen from that heroic status. Ben Rektor has a song called "Heroes" and he talks about swapping out old heroes and I wish that they could stay. I think all of this resonate with that song. We can think about people that we once looked up to but that have really fallen from the place whether they once were. And I know that's been part of your story with your dad. And Lumi and I just kind of wanted to hear the backstory of what happened. - Yeah, well, the word "hero" resonates with me because my dad was my hero. So at a very small nutshell, my father had started a side business even as a mega church pastor, what was a mega church pastor in the '80s, a little bit different than today, but still pastoring a large church, juggling all that comes with that and the responsibilities there. And I was trying to pay for kids college and so he was also really interested in deer hunting. He'd always been interested in that. And so he had started this side business where he would buy and sell deer antlers. It's kind of an obscure business to some people but it's like rare art. And so he would do that and he actually had bought a set of deer antlers in another state. And when he crossed over state lines, he broke a federal law and didn't know the law but actually if he had bought and done the deal properly, it would have been fine, but he didn't buy the proper tag. And so that started an investigation with the Wildlife Commission, I don't remember the formal name, but it started an investigation of him and I remember as a young woman coming home, and I talk about this in a book, but I came home and I saw my father and my mother and an agent in wearing all khaki sitting at our dinner table. And I didn't understand it, but I remember seeing my father's face. And my father was usually a man who had great command over people and situations and his face was fallen. And I knew at that moment that our life would change in this very instinctual, intuitive way. And I think that's what happens to pastors' kids, you sense things very early. And I knew something was going on, I didn't know what it was. And that created a lot of sort of chaos in our family, crisis in our family, that I took on in some ways in my life and in my spirit. And then after a series of events, they actually involved the IRS who then began investigating my father and eventually he was found guilty for understating his taxes and it created a great media circus in our city. And he was all over the local news and eventually had to resign the church. And it was painful on a very great level. Yeah. (upbeat music) - Then when she was talking about how this began with her dad, I had a heart for him because probably what he was thinking is I'm a family man, I have three kids, they have to go to college, they need cars, all these things. And so oftentimes pastors don't make much money, but yeah, they work full time. I mean, constantly. What are your thoughts on this? - Well, he obviously was looking for a way to make some extra money, probably to help the family. I think his heart was probably pure in that moment. - That's where I feel like it started pure. - Yeah. And he, you know, did an end around and didn't fill out all the paperwork, which honestly, how many of us do that? You know, we find out we're gonna do a home project. Well, are we gonna turn it into the HOA? - I feel like- - Come on. - Speaking personally. - We all have these moments where we're like, do I really wanna jump through all the hoops? So it's really easy for us to throw stones at him for what happened, but the truth is we've all done that. And it really made me think too about how often I get mad at so-called celebrity, spiritual people for doing things that I do all the time, but they're not allowed to do it. So I find out that somebody's a little bit greedy, where they asked for more money for a speaking event that I thought was reasonable. How many times have I wanted a little more money? - Yeah. - When I was trying to figure out how to get just a little more money, or even at a restaurant when I thought the meal was more expensive than I thought. So you know what? I'm gonna take it off the waiters tab and save that money for me, rather than pay this person that's been working hard all night. Greed comes in many forms. - You don't do that though. - Of course not. - Well, I know, I just wanna clarify. - But I'm tempted. - You have tons of faults, but that's not it. - I'm tempted. I like to keep my own money. - Yeah. - So I'm ready to write this person off because they wanted a little more money. When I want a little more money sometimes. - Well, I just feel like beyond that, he probably was scared. I mean, sometimes we make bad decisions when we're scared and he missed, like you said, the paperwork and it was a different time and that was before there's online forms to fill out and it was just difficult. And so we assumed that everything back then would be the same level of difficulty now and it was probably much different. - Right. (gentle piano music) - So the article you wrote is really about how to avoid putting your pastor on a pedestal. - Right. - And we would love to just talk about that. Like, how do you do that? - Only when we were looking through the points yesterday, I know that we were both like, wow, these are really, really good, but also very hard to live out. - Right. - So like your first one was don't be impressed by him. Stop being impressed. - Yeah. - How do you do that? - Well, I think to remember that we are all human and I'll just be honest, Ben, it is tough. It is tough when you see someone get up and bring a word that is impactful, that is important, that is inspired often, hopefully all the time, you know? And, you know, someone that we admire deeply, it's tough not to be impressed. It's also, let's just note on a very practical level, they are in a place that is elevated, they are up. I mean, there's some psychology here. I'm a psychology student, so I see, and we see people that are in an elevated state. There's a stage involved, there are lights, there's some aesthetics there, let's just be honest about that. So it's hard not to be impressed, but I think it's really important for us to continue to remind ourselves, this is a human. Humans make mistake, there is only one sovereign, there is only one supreme. Everyone else has interpretation of scripture, everyone else has the ability to make mistakes, everyone else has problems in their marriage, everyone else is not a perfect parent. And so while we respect and honor our position, we've got humans that are preaching on Sundays, and I think that's important. - Before we go to the list and the things, you said something that I think our listeners will be, we're probably drawn to and clued into it like I did and that you were talking about how you saw his face was fallen, and you took that on yourself, like your spirit. And I have a story, my parents were not in ministry, but they were something with my family that as I've gotten older, I realized, wait, I took on something with them that I shouldn't have, it wasn't my duty to take on. So I just wondered if you could flush that out just a little bit more of like when you, I don't know how old you were at that point, but over the next few years, like what were some things that maybe you began to feel like were you responsibility or you should fix or you should pretend? Can you think of that time thing? - Yeah, absolutely. I felt very protective over my father. So immediately I began to sense that perhaps people in the church couldn't be trusted. Perhaps people outside of the church couldn't be trusted. It did develop within me this, almost a skepticism in my spirit. And that's tough for a 16, 17 year old to process. It also takes some joy from your spirit. And that's difficult. I think part of that just combined with my natural personality. And so it didn't attach to my brother and sister the same way. And it's manifested in all of us in different ways as we've grown up. They've had their own set of difficulties which aren't mine to speak of. - What's your natural personality? - My natural personality is a bit intuitive. It is, I am a deep thinker. So when you're doing that, when you are that way, and then you are also a protector by nature, you begin to think, okay, I need to protect my dad. I need to protect my mom. I think as a pastor's family, a pastor's kid, you feel that way anyway. You intuitively know that your dad is beloved but he's also not beloved. You know it. You hear it. Even I can even remember as a young girl, I would hear, it was like my hearing was heightened in some ways. I don't want to overdramatize this but I can remember whispers that I would hear in the hallway at church. You know, about my dad. I knew immediately it was about my dad. Good and bad. And it's just interesting because those burdens are tough for a pastor's kid to carry. And I think that's why a lot of pastor's kids end up going a little bit off the rails. And I think pastor's families, the pastor and the pastor's wife, 'cause I know 'cause I've spoken to my mom, carry so much responsibility of what can I do and where did I go wrong? And I think some of it is just what it is. It is just what happens. And you get Satan in there who wants to just wreak havoc and those kinds of things just are combustible. - Did any of you or your siblings go off the rails? Can you speak of that or no? - I will say that we all had difficulties in different ways. And for me, I'll speak about me, for me, I had a real, real crisis of my own. I was gonna say I was gonna say I had a crisis of faith and that's not really true. I always knew in this deep place. And I want to encourage some pastor's families out there. I always knew in a very deep place that God was real. I always loved God deeply. I mean, from the time I was six years old, I developed a relationship with him that was real. It was. And so he alone was what I clung to, what I had a more difficult time with was church people and myself. I began to really not know if church people could really love me. And I also began to question if people who took the stage could be real. And I'll tell you how it really manifested for me, Linley, was it made me run from my own call for a very long time. And so I knew that God was calling me to speak and to write and to honestly preach the gospel. I knew he was, but I didn't want to do it because I was terrified. I was terrified that I was going to have the same legacy as my father. And that's hard to reconcile. And so for a long time I ran, I ran from that. So God had to really do a work in me. Because when you've watched someone fall, when you've watched someone crash and burn in front of you, you're not eager to go into a glass house. You're not wanting to do that. I mean, you really aren't. And so I had to wrestle down legacy and DNA and say where do I, where did my father start? Where do I, where did he stop and where do I start? And who he was is not exactly who I am. We have similar giftings in many ways. I have similar mannerisms as my father. I have a picture of a side-by-side. He's gripping a pulpit and I'm holding a podium. And we look very, very similar. And people would always tell me you're so much like your father. And what I heard was you're going to end up in that same spot. And I went to a lot of counseling over that. And the Lord was so good because he dealt with me a lot about those things. And I'm happy to report that the Holy Spirit can do an incredible work in your life. And what has happened instead, is that great place of grief for me became fuel. When my father went to heaven in 2017, the Lord challenged me with this. He said, "What are you going to do with what you know?" And I knew it was not a call to work more because at this point, I was already writing books. I was already running a ministry. I was already speaking and things. But I knew what it was, was a call to report from the front lines of what I had seen with a pastor who had fallen, crashed and burned in front of my eyes. And God has allowed me to use that, to be able to speak to people like on the glass house and say, "This is what I know." And if I can be of some help, I sure wanna be. - Did your parents stay together through all that? - They did, they did. And I wanna say I credit that to my mother. I really do. My mother is an incredible, godly woman. And it is true that those kinds of things require a lot of, I mean, hefty Holy Spirit help. But also, I just think a lot of heavy consideration and, you know, process, my father after that crash went to, I've called it a sabbatical, but that's not the right word. Sabbatical is something different. This was a forced resignation and forced sabbatical. We'll put it that way. He went out and lived on a gravel road in a travel trailer for about two years and wasn't well. And he moved my mother to a place, he did have the foresight to do this, I'll say. And she was willing to do it. He moved her to a place that had been a great place of ministry for them at a certain point in their life, with some really good people in Oklahoma. And she and my younger sister, who had affected greatly, went and lived there and healed. And so, you know, I think people from the outside don't really understand what this does to a family. The devastation is real. I'm very careful to weigh in on things that happen in the news to people. You know, there's podcasts and news articles and things and we all want to weigh in on what goes wrong, but I can tell you, when you have been on the other side of it and you've been the family, you're very, very slow to comment 'cause I've been the daughter and I know what happens. I was sitting in a seminary chapel one time then and I was a seminary student and the person speaking began to share a story about a pastor, well-known pastor in the Midwest who had a public fall and he began to share an illustration like so many of us do who take stages and give illustrations all the time about folks. And he was talking about, it was in the context, I believe, of losing or getting distracted from your first love. And he used the words, a well-known pastor in the Midwest and the minute he began to give that illustration, something with him, my body said, this is about your dad. That man did not know I was sitting in the seminary chapel and here's the irony of it, Lindley. This was the first and only time I had been to seminary chapel. Can I admit that? (laughing) I was a chapel skipper, but I was there that day and he began to tell my father's story. And I remember sitting there and I kept telling my shoulders, don't shake, don't shake and tears began to fall into my lap. And he told the story about my father but it was from a very clinical perspective and I was fresh off of the pain. I mean, I think my dad had only resigned six months prior and after it was over, someone had told him that I was sitting there and I got a phone call. I was in my apartment and it was a couple hours later, I got a phone call from his office asking if I would come meet with him. And I agreed to do so. I was angry. I was a little spitfire at that point. The Holy Spirit hadn't quite gotten ahold of this personality and so I was about to go give him a piece of my mind. This older professor is very disrespectful of me and I don't think so but I was angry. I was angry and hurt and I remember walking into his office and he apologized and I said, well, can I just ask you one question? And he said, okay. And I said, where did you get your information? And he said, from the newspaper. And I said, well, sir, this might have been a story to you but this is my life. And he looked at me and he said, I just wanna tell you that I will never again use another story like this. Good for him. And so, you know, this is so, this is silly but in my kitchen, I have a flip book of things and every week we flip it and it's just, you know, things to teach your kids and this week is literally, I just pulled it up so don't share hurtful things. And then it goes on to say sharing a screenshot of an unkind text or retelling something rude. You heard about a person is not being a good friend and it goes on to talk about it but it reminds me of this. Like, it's not our story to tell. And I think that is what's so hard right now about social media and different things is we tell our version of a story that we didn't have to live. - Yeah. - And so, I mean, it's so hurtful to sit there and be told something that he really doesn't know the ins and out of, I'm sorry, man. (gentle music) (soft piano music) - I wanna stop and talk about this in newspaper thing. I was a victim of this. There was a big report that came out about things in Southern Baptist life and some things were printed about me that I thought were so one-sided. It felt like what was being reported was partially true but only one piece of the whole story. So when the sound bite was taken and printed, it sounded a certain way but if the whole story had been told, it would have cast that whole situation in a different light. And I realized right there the power of the printed word and how often it can be misunderstood. And when she was talking about how this man read this newspaper story about her dad and believed it word for word without the full story, it made me think about all the times I hear about people. And I see something in social media and I am quick to believe it. Can you believe that so-and-so did this or bought that or went there? And I'm doing the same thing that I resent other people due to me which is to believe something in print that hasn't been verified by actual sources. It just makes me wonder how often we judge people because of things we read the news. - I do think that's one thing that has been helpful as we've gotten older is to realize we've walked through so many things now that my first reaction when I hear something is to think there's gotta be another side of that story. There's always two sides. It doesn't mean they're equal sides but there's always two sides to it. And so I think that that has been one thing that has been fun as we've gotten older 'cause you used to. I mean, man, my personality, I'd get fired up. I'd been like that guy who shared the story and now when I hear something, I think there's gotta be more to that. That doesn't make sense. Nobody just all of a sudden makes such a bad decision. - Well, let's just say that somebody wants to create a story that I'm irresponsible. And they get to carry a camera around and follow me around for three or four weeks and they find every irresponsible moment in my life which is a lot of 'em. I left my keys in my car overnight outside and they catch it on camera. You can build a story that looks very credible of like look how irresponsible this guy is based on your bias. And the media often creates these stories about people that are exaggerated or they're caricatures of what really happened. - It's basically the point of the media. - And this is why people are scared to go into ministry. Am I gonna be that person, like Lisa was feeling, that one day they're gonna find out something about me and make it into a story and the rest of my life will be ruined. There really is a fear in ministry that something about my humanity will be exposed and exploited. That's tough. - It's sad. 'Cause I mean, who doesn't have their stuff? - Yeah. (gentle piano music) - So the second one was stop wanting their light. - Yeah, a mentor said to me one time, Lisa, I said we had actually started a church. We started in close to church in 13 months. It's not something I recommend at all, but it was something that happened in my experience with my husband. And I remember we were having a difficulty with the family and I remember that our mentor said to us, you know, Lisa, there are sometimes that there are people that just wanna stand in your light and I just need you to know that. And I was kind of like, that's interesting. So I processed it a little bit. And I realized it's true. There are folks that actually just wanna stand in the light that you're in when you're in leadership. And I think it's important to realize that and try to be self-aware about who we are as folks. Sometimes we just get attracted to the light that pastors stand in. And I think it's important in order not to treat pastors in a certain way that honestly they can't live up to, that is so much pressure is not wanting to stand in that light that they're in and being upset when that light is withheld from us in a certain way or we can't get into the light for whatever reason. And so I think that's a part of this whole aspect of the crash and burn. Yeah. Okay, so number three would be stop ditching them the moment they disappoint you. So tell us about that. - Yeah, this one's tender for me because I feel like we are so quick to wanna be in that light, wanna stand in the light, wanna be around the pastor that we love and we are also very quick to drop them like a hot potato when they are no longer the hot commodity, when they are now the pariah perhaps, when they are now no longer everyone's favorite. And I think it's really important as human beings, as believers in Jesus Christ, forget, forget, roll, like why are we doing this to people? And a pastor is no different, a pastor is a person, a human being, a dearly loved child of God. And so to not drop them when they are in a moment of pain is really important. Now, I wanna say there are lots of things at play here. I know sometimes pastors have great influence over folks. They have sometimes a hold on someone in some way. So I'm not talking about the toxic relationship you might have with a pastor where that was something that you need to perhaps break from, have a boundary with, none of those things am I referring to. I'm just talking about on a human level, dropping someone is not what we need to be doing. Yeah. - I have a story about this. I told him, there was this preacher in my twenties that I really looked up to. He just had a command in the pulpit. He was very practical, but also very biblical. And this was back when you bought tapes. So I remember I had this fold out tape set that had like 10 different tapes of his, this whole series he did. And I listened to him all the time. And then he had a moral failure and had a relationship with his secretary. And it was just a sad, sad ending. And I ended up throwing those tapes away. And I look back on that now and I think, everything he said in those tapes is just as true today as before I discovered the information about him. And it was hard for me in that season of my life to separate the two, what is being preached from the preacher. But with time, I regret throwing those tapes out 'cause they were really good messages. - Yeah. - And that's the thing about being a preacher is that you are every Sunday delivering a perfect word even though you're coming out of such an imperfect shell. - That's right. - So it's just really healthy. I think when church is recognized that he's a very gifted teacher or preacher and we're grateful for the gifts that God's given him. But at the same time, he has all his own stuff, just like we do. - I remember my father when he had this very public fall, so many of even his pastor buddies in the city wouldn't return his calls, didn't want to have anything to do with him. And you got to remember that this was early 90s, the tone was a little bit different. It was a little more stringent as far as there weren't things like there really weren't even things like sabbaticals, there weren't really even things like networks. It wasn't the same day, right? There wasn't a lot of that. And so, you know, but a lot of these buddies, they now didn't want to have anything to do with him. And so it was double wounding, right? And one of the things that made a huge difference with my father, and I'll never forget it, he was struggling, I knew it, and he called me and said that a young pastor, and I love that it was a younger pastor, this younger pastor that had actually, my father had had this pastor, it had left there years before, and it was this younger pastor that now was the pastor of this church that my dad was a former pastor of, could called him and asked him to lunch. And it was in, he was in a completely different state, but he had driven to meet my father from three states over, I think. And asked him to go to lunch and told him that he loved him and given him a couple books to read. And the fact that this young man had reached out to my father, meant everything to my dad. And it instilled hope in him that he wasn't someone to be thrown away, he was not damaged goods. I'm telling you, it was the beginning of my father being restored. - Someone believing in him. - Someone believing in him, that's awesome. - Yeah, I love that it was a younger person. - It was a younger pastor. - Gosh, these are all so good. Okay, so let me talk about number four, it says, "Stop pretending they've never meant anything to you," which I think is so, that's kind of what you were talking about. - Yeah, it really plays into the same idea of just, you know, I can think of certain pastors and preachers that, I mean, I read everything they wrote. - Yeah. - And I still quote them. I know, occasionally I'll quote them in a sermon and I'll think, oh, I better not say who it is. - Right. - A certain preacher said, and it hurts my heart because I know if I say their name, the word that they spoke won't have credibility. - And that might be wisdom. I mean, I think to a degree been that might just be wisdom. - I think so too, 'cause it distracts people from the truth, but it's still a little bit of a funeral in that moment of like, I hate that I can't say his name because people immediately think this isn't true. And there is a grief process. - Yes. And I think what happens, honestly, it's more for, I will say this is more for the person who learned from the pastor, right? So if you have this belief system, that everything you learned from this pastor that you sat under for in some cases 20 years, right? That you now have to render that null and void, then you're gonna question your whole spiritual life for 20 years in some regards, right? And that is, that's really going to be a crazy faith journey for you to go back and wanna unravel all that. And I think Satan could even use that to say, hey, really, do you actually believe that? Did you actually learn that? Because this person over here who fell taught you that. And now I want you to question that. I think that can actually even be dangerous. I'm gonna go as far as to even say that. Those sermons, the music, we are all flawed human beings. If I have to believe that everything that I have written or the Bible studies that I've done and taught and all that, if I have to believe that it has to come from a place of perfection, I am so in trouble. No one can listen to a single piece of content I've ever put out. Well, I realized that someone falling off of pedestal, but this is why we don't need to put people on huge pedestals. Position I get, we have to be held to a higher standard. And I've talked about those things and take those things seriously. I just think that there's a difference between that and all. You know, all is reserved for the one and only. And honor is something that we have to take seriously in our position, so two different things, yeah. - Several years ago, I was talking to a staff member at LifeWay, it was getting to know her and it came up that she was divorced. And I remember that moment feeling like, not certain what to say. And I said something like, I'm really sorry that you went through that. And I'll never forget her response. She said, "We had some really great years together." Which was true. They had some really great years together. She didn't go into all the stuff on how it fell apart, but I believed her. And she taught me something that day. I was reminded of, we do have seasons with people. And I think about seasons of relationships I've had. Like, you know, a great friendship that meant so much to me for so many years and then it fell apart. Well, I don't have to choose to emphasize the falling apart story. - Yeah. - I can remember the beauty of that relationship for the years where it really helped me through a hard time. So, Lenny and I have this saying that someone shared with us that whatever you focus on gets bigger. It really is true. - Yeah. - And with people, there's so many great things about every one of those leaders we're talking about before the fall that can be celebrated even though it's tragic how things turned out. - I think even in a different level, when you say stop pretending they never meant anything to you for the people listening who maybe haven't gone through a scandal or a fall, pastors move on. - Yes. - And it's hard. I mean, when you move on, I mean, even we still talk to people from Colorado and it still gets brought up almost every time like, hey, you know, there's still people that are mad at you for leaving. And we're kind of like, I wish they would remember the really good things because we were just following the call of God on our life. - Yeah. - And so it's really hard when you feel like you have these relationships and then people, you move on 'cause that's what happens in life. - Yes. - And people, they almost act like you didn't exist. - I think that's one of the hardest things, you know, when, oh, this makes me kind of emotional. When my father, you know, my father served at this church that he lost for 13 years and he sat by people's bedside when their, when their loved ones were dying and married countless people, you know, right? And was at the hospital for countless people 'cause especially in the early '90s, I mean, as a pastor, late '80s, early '90s, you were doing everything. You were on hospital visitation. You were the, you were the resident counselor, right? You were doing a lot of the jobs that now is split up into a lot of different jobs. And so he was there for so many wonderful things and hard things, and then it was like poof. - Done. - He's gone. And I think that was a great grief for my father that he was never mentioned again. You know, one of these, it's interesting 'cause I go back to the, I've gone back to the town. I've spoken in that town which is actually really hard for me. It's interesting, I've like, I've healed so much from all the things. One of the things that's hardest for me is to go back to that particular city and speak. I don't like it. And I was there recently. And my father was a great visionary, incredible visionary. And when we moved there, the church was a very small church in a neighborhood, really tiny. And he had this vision for this incredible, beautiful church in this new location. And this new location had not one thing there. Now, I mean, not one thing. It was farmland, it was crazy. And he was like, no, this is the perfect location. I'm sure people thought he was nuts. And but they, the church had vision with him. And so they began to build in this new location now. That place is insane. There's every fast food, you know, everything there. It's hustling, bustling, going, blowing place. And so, I mean, the things that were accomplished there in 13 years were incredible. And it was like, he was there one day and he was gone the next. It was also a great grief for so many people. - Right. - Because it was like he was not allowed to be mentioned. He was to be never mentioned again. And it was wiped clean. And so that was the thing that people would even say to me, even as I, you know, got to be a little bit older, it would say I was never allowed to speak of your father again. And so I think that is a very, that's a very poor way to do things. I'll be honest. And I think it's important to be honest about that. That is not the way to handle folks, not only the pastor, but anyone else. And so one of the things that's been very powerful for me personally, and I just wanna say this word to someone listening, whether you've been the pastor's kid, the pastor, the person sitting in the pew, is that you are allowed to love someone who's imperfect. And I think that might sound like a very simple principle, but there's a lot of conflict inside of our souls when someone has had a public fall. And I think the Lord really spoke to me about the fact that I didn't need to justify or explain or own my father's sin. My father's sin. That God could handle that portion of the story, but that my love for him was not only okay, but it was good, that I was to love my father. And that I was allowed to have that. And not apologize to anyone else for loving my father, though, in an imperfect person. (soft piano music) I was thinking about Galatian 6, where it says, if anyone has sin, let you who are spiritual, go and restore this person, but do so gently, lest you fall. It's the idea of when we go and approach somebody about sin in their life, we should do so very humbly, knowing that we have sin in our lives, that we should show grace to this person as much as possible because we need that same level of grace. And Lisa's story just made me think about that, about how often we want grace, but we wanna give law. - That's true. - We wanna be on the receiving side of grace, but we wanna hold people accountable to their word. - Oh, we do that with spouses and kids and parents and siblings and friends and everybody. - I mean, how many times have you and I been in a disagreement and one of us will say, "Cut me some slack." - I don't think I've ever said that. - Cut me some slack. - Or I could use some grace. You asked for grace, like, "Can I get some grace here?" - Yeah. - So there's something about us that wants to receive grace. - I mean, really, it's the benefit of the doubt or what we talk about, a charitable assumption. Like, can you just assume the best in me versus assuming the worst? - So we want people to assume the best in us, but we assume the worst about them. - Naturally. - Yeah, that's really messed up. (laughs) (gentle piano music) Let's get to the last one, just to get us there. It says, "Stop letting them alter your beliefs about God." So, theologically, we do tend to line up our spiritual heroes with who God is. - Yeah. - And that's not a healthy connection. - No, I mean, that was big for me. It was separating church people from God, my father's behavior, from God, all of it from God, because, oh man, that's it, isn't it? I think we, in some ways, I feel like, should we not know that, right? - We should know that. - Like, even like, scripturally, the Lord makes distinctions to say, at least his paraphrase, by the way, (laughs) I'm not you, (laughs) but I do think because it's all intertwined, a lot, you know, faith and church and hurt, often, we get confused and it gets messy. - Can I say something in this? I was thinking about this the other day, about how we are the story we tell ourselves. When we look at David's life, he is heralded as the man after God's own heart. He's like the the number one MVP player in the Old Testament. And look at his life, it's such a mess. I mean, polygamy lies adultery. Like, if those things were associated with a pastor today, we would say disqualified. - Right. - Never back in a pulpit again. But with David, we see him with a harp in this innocence. And I'm realizing more and more that, like scripture never really gives us a picture of these spiritual heroes that they finally attained perfection, but instead, it's amazing that God was able to work through them in spite of their flaws. I'm finding more and more that pastors who are real about that, even from the pulpit, I think tend to breed a healthier congregation who are transparent and appropriate ways to let the congregation know that they really struggle with sin too. - I think that's it. I really, really believe that it is the secrecy culture that has to go. - Secrecy culture. - And one of the things that I talked about in God knows my latest book was the difference between privacy and secrecy because I feel like that was one of the things that led to a lot of problems with my father. He was a person that craved privacy. And I think pastors do crave that a lot because your life is so public, your life is so on display. You don't know who your friends are. You don't know who loves you for you. It's hard. I feel this in many ways in the public ministry that I do. You want real friends. You want people to love you for you. And you want some faction of a private life. You deserve that. You should have that and yet privacy can slip into secrecy before you know it. And I think that's what happens many, many times over. And so this secrecy culture is what kills us because Satan can just get in there and does get in there. And before we know it, that's all. - I know you're a person that reads a lot of theology. If you read theological books from 50 years ago, preaching books, homiletics books from 50 years ago, almost never does the writer share a personal illustration. - That's true. - It's about Winston Churchill or about some great leader or George Washington. But it's never about his or her personal failure. - Yes. - That's changed. - I think older pastors are like that. - Older pastors, there was a generation and your dad was in it. - Yes. - Where you presented a persona that gave people hope that they could one day get there. - Ben, they didn't even have access. I was even thinking about this the other day when my father would prepare for sermons, he didn't even have access to logos. That wasn't like, those things weren't accessible. So can you even imagine back then, even preparing for to preach? - Probably had one set of commentaries. - And he was preaching three to four times a week, different sermons. So I mean, it was a very, very different day. And I have a lot of grace for where he was coming from. Also, my father was very ill-equipped in many ways for what he got into. He was saved radically from the Navy. He had lived a very wildlife. What he knew was he was radically transformed by the love of Christ. And what he wanted to do was go and use this passion. And I'm talking, my dad was this incredible passionate orator. He had this wild, but raw gifting and he was good at it. But he had not been discipled. He did not know the pitfalls. He did not have a older man come alongside him and say, "Son, you are gifted, but let me tell you "some of the things that you could really get into." And so you have this kind of mix of like this raw passion and this gifting and let me go to it. And he just went for it. But I'm telling you, he just wasn't equipped. So a lot of things went wrong. - What a great conversation about authenticity. Lisa, thanks for being on the show. I know there are gonna be a lot of people out there who listen to this and think, this is so healing because I am so heartbroken after losing a hero. And I think you've given us some really good words today. So thanks for being here with us at Glass House. - Thank you, thank you. - The Glass House is brought to you by LifeWay. It is produced and edited by Angie Elkins with help from William Hall. Sound Engineering by Donnie Gordon. Artwork by Heather Brzezinski. And Photography by Rebecca McVay. - Let It Shine is a production of the LifeWay podcast. Executive produced by me, Angie Elkins. Produced by Nikki Ogden. It's recorded at the LifeWay podcast studios and engineered by Donnie Gordon. Edited by Robert Elkins. An original theme song arranged by Robert Elkins. The Maestro himself. Performed by Tiffany Casey, Abby Pierce. Ryan Walker, Jarian Felton and Shawna Felton. Art by Grace Morgan. And I'm your host, Angie Elkins. Meet me back here next week. ♪ This is the light of mine ♪ ♪ I'm gonna let it shine out ♪ ♪ This is the light of mine ♪ ♪ I'm gonna let it shine ♪ ♪ It's still a lot of mine ♪ ♪ I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine ♪ (upbeat music)
