Why Is The Church Viewed As Unsafe?

So, I mean, we've already touched on this a little bit, but I think there is this. This Persona, if you will, of the church that it's not a safe place. I think I've experienced, you know, as a millennial, I've experienced that from people both inside the church and outside the church, that the church is not a safe place. Especially talk about topics like addiction, politics, social justice, you know, the things that are really tough to talk about. Why do you think that assumption is there for so many people today about the church?

You know, if you start with the leadership, it would explain, like, a lot of things happen in my house. My kids caught them from watching us. They watched how we grew in the house. And so I think a lot of times what we see resulting in the pews started in the pulpits where we, as leaders were not vulnerable. We didn't discuss our own brokenness, our own struggles, our own trouble and clashes with the Lord and our faith. I learned early on that I needed to be real because there was no other place for me to go. I didn't have a lot of training. You know, a lot of pastors were brought up in an era where they were taught not to be vulnerable and never to let anybody know they had any weaknesses, which is counter the biblical text, which is living in community, bearing one another's burdens. All of those things just sort of went out the door. And so when we began to perform for the audience, I believe the audience began, they picked up on that. And because, you know, now we live in an era where we're being much more vulnerable by force at certain points. But I think that's been a root cause. We, as leaders, didn't lead them well in that regard. And we hid from them. We hid our brokenness, we hid our questions, we hid our failings from them. And so they learned, hey, this is not a safe place to be. Not okay. We. We need to put it on every week when we come and never let anybody know that we're struggling. Which, I mean, when you think about it, after a while, you start running 50% divorces inside the church and outside the church. Addiction running rampant outside the church and inside the church. So we somehow lost the idea of being salt and light in that way because we didn't. We didn't do what we were called to do, which is to come to one another and Jesus making us this new humanity or this new household family where we actually could get in each other's lives, life on life, and help each other grow. And so now we're tasked with, I mean, whether it be divorce, addiction, politics or racism, we just are ill equipped as a group to really help our society because we haven't done it in the house yet.

I just been thinking about this quite a bit. I mean, I grew up in the church and you know, for me, having black friends who are going through this time and, and thinking about who I'm raising in my house with my two boys, thinking about this a lot. What was modeled, because you use that it's taught or modeled to you for me, was like a clean and crisp Christianity. Almost like you have to come out of every situation like your clothes are clean, you're looking good and presentable, when in reality, like, if you're going to talk about messy stuff, it's going to get messy. And I think that that's one of the biggest downfalls of the church in my lifetime is that we have, we have this perception that we have to look like we got it all together, when in reality, I think that's one of the things that is least inviting when it comes to people who are broken. Like, why would I go into a place where no one's broken if I am a mess? And so I just, I like what you're saying. And Keith, I've seen this, man. I watch you, I watch the sermons, I pay attention to your social media and you engage in this stuff and it's not clean. You're not always going to get everyone saying, 100%, I'm with you. You're going to get a lot of pushback. And I think that we have to run the risk and we got to get our hands dirty if we're going to see stuff change. Because the clean and crisp is not real. I mean, for me, whitewashed tombs is what comes to mind. Like that imagery that Jesus gives.

You cannot. I mean, honestly, when you read the Gospels, you see Jesus moving in the direction toward messy conversations. What is he doing with that woman by the well, why is this woman touching? And why. I mean, all of these instances, again and again through the Gospels, we find Jesus going out of his way to have the messy conversation and to engage people where they are in their brokenness. Because that is the good news of the gospel, that you can be set free, that you could, you could leave this place of poverty, of spirit and soul and life to find this new place to live in the kingdom of God. And I just, I think for me, man, also personally, I married a woman who just will not allow me to be a caricature. So there's no way that she's gonna allow me to get on the stage and not live this stuff. And I've found, and it was a risk years ago, but I found through experience that people are much more engaging, much more apt to follow leaders, that they can trace the journey from brokenness or continued journey. Cause we're all on a healing journey. Yep, they can trace it. It encourages them. It gives them hope that, man, I'm not as messed up as if he can. If he could do that and he's still screwed up, then maybe the Lord can use me as well along the way. And I think we missed something there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, and it seems to me like one of the things that's happened in the church is we want to put everything into the categories of right and wrong, you know, good and bad. And so we stand for what's right and we're against what's wrong. And we've just kind of put that on every issue and. Which then makes it impossible to have conversation. People aren't invited in because we already know what's right and we're against what's wrong. And so there's. There's no dialogue. But what I think is remarkable about Jesus in so many of those messy conversations, he starts with questions, he comes back with dialogue. He's like, what do you see as the greatest commandment? Like, I'm not just going to tell you right and wrong. Let's talk about this. And that. That moved people, I think, towards really considering their views and viewpoints. And so to that point.