We Are Lions Ministry: The Lions Den
We Are Lions Ministry: The Lions Den
Grace and Redemption for Fallen Leaders
Is grace a luxury only for those who don't lead? Today, we tackle the nuanced reality of fallen church leaders, especially those who have reached celebrity status. With figures like Carl Lentz in mind, we confront the often quick judgment that comes with leadership failures. We underscore the importance of empathy and understanding, acknowledging the personal demons leaders might wrestle with, from addiction to mental health issues. By revisiting their significant contributions, we challenge the notion that their entire legacy should be discarded due to their shortcomings, urging listeners to extend grace as they would hope to receive.
The journey of redemption isn't one-size-fits-all, and we lay bare the complex paths of restoration and accountability in ministry. Context is key, and we differentiate between various transgressions, exploring how genuine repentance can pave the way for healing. Through real-life examples, we balance truth with grace, emphasizing the need for thoughtful rehabilitation. We don't shy away from hard truths, but we focus on crafting a redemptive narrative that acknowledges failure without excusing it, offering a space for those who genuinely seek restoration.
A crucial part of preventing downfalls lies in authentic accountability. Drawing from the wisdom of the desert fathers, we highlight the dangers of placing leaders on pedestals and stress the importance of humility and community. Using cautionary tales like Carl Lentz's story, we advocate for robust support systems and spiritual formation. The conversation doesn't stop at healing; it extends to reconciliation, urging the faith community to champion leaders on their journey toward genuine transformation. Let’s foster a culture of godly sorrow and align with the gospel's mission of reconciliation, cheering on those committed to personal and spiritual growth.
Hey everyone, welcome to the we Are Lions podcast presented by Corey, adam and John, the Lion Crew. We are so thankful that you have decided to join us today, or if you've joined us in the past, thank you, thank you, thank you. Your continued support and prayers mean a lot to us. We also want you to engage with us. Please email us at wearelionsministry at gmailcom. We'd love to discuss topics or ways you can get involved with us in our ministry. We love putting this podcast out to help people grow their faith and understand how truly they are loved by a good, good father. So again, thank you, guys, for joining us. This is the start of season two, so we're so excited to get rolling with this, but I do encourage you, go check out the several episodes that we have already put out. Hey guys, again, thank you. Let's get into the episode. What's up everyone? Welcome back. It's been a huge gap, but welcome back to the we Are Lions podcast. I've got Adam, I've got Corey, I've got me.
Speaker 3:John.
Speaker 1:What's up? It has been way too long, but we're here. Our lives have been a little busy, but we've been trying to make this happen for at least two months and we're going to try to get consistent. But I'm not going to make this season three. We're going to keep adding to season two and we're so thankful if you've waited this long for another episode. All two of you out there, we're back.
Speaker 2:We're back, baby. Hey, listen, there's more than two, because I listen to it, my wife listens to it, and then we have a friend at work that listens to it Makes me feel good.
Speaker 1:But yeah, man, I'm just so excited to be with these two guys in this room doing another podcast for the we Are Lions, the Lions Den. But again, if you're listening, we really want to say thank you so much for joining us and giving us a little bit of your time. Hopefully, what we're releasing on these little microphones is encouraging. It helps you become a better follower of Christ, helps you just in your everyday life, or maybe clear some things up, or maybe it questions or it makes you mad, challenges you to think I feel like is what I want it to do.
Speaker 2:We want it to challenge your belief system, maybe, and cause you to study it for yourself 100%.
Speaker 1:So, again, thank you so much. We've got a couple things we wanted to talk about, but this episode, specifically, we're going to be talking about. What are we talking about today, corey?
Speaker 2:So I think this first episode we're going to talk about understanding and having grace for fallen leaders In the Western church, the American church. That's something that we see a lot today. We see the rise and the fall of obviously we don't have cameras so they can't see this, but the air quotes celebrity preacher. We see the rise and the fall of them and I think people are bad about trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater and they almost like to just turn away from Christianity in general or blame it on God or say that you know somebody who's fallen from a high podium that we put them on. Everything they ever did was fake.
Speaker 2:I think it's important to understand grace, how to have grace for people who maybe rose to a level of fame because they were good at what they did and then messed up. I think we want to spend a little bit of time there, and I like this topic a lot because a preacher that I followed for a long time that I liked a lot I still like him a lot and I followed him kind of through their journey was Carl Lentz. Through their journey was Carl Lentz, and I don't like to say it broke my heart, but it made me sad when he messed up and everybody almost in the Christian faith it seemed like turned their back on him in an instant. And I'm not saying that what he did was okay or right, because it wasn't.
Speaker 1:And I think that's key is it's not right that fallen leaders have done something that has we would call the. That's why they're fallen or they've stepped outside of grace with their congregations or the world. It's not what they've done. That is right, it's it, but it's hidden in the deeper issues.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because and Carl Lentz has his own podcast now, so let me plug that for him really quick. It's called the Lights On Podcast with Carl Lentz, but him and his wife kind of talk about it and there were some deeper issues that Carl was dealing with while he was leading a congregation that he had a hard time wrestling with. He had a hard time wrestling with things like addiction to something that was prescribed to him, to depression, anxiety from childhood trauma, like all of these things that we love for the church to deal with our issues. But we don't like when preachers have these issues that they're helping us deal with, and so I think it'll be cool to just kind of chat through, talk through, like the importance of having grace, even for leaders.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because, while he messed up, that does not change the anointing that God has on his life. That doesn't change the fact that the hand of God was on his life. That doesn't change the fact that some of the sermons that I listened to that he preached absolutely wrecked me and brought me to tears. It doesn't take away any of that. Yeah, and so, understanding that while, yes, we are allowed to hold them to a higher standard, they've taken on a great call. We're allowed to hold them to a high standard. We can't throw the baby out with the bathwater and just write them off as individuals or as anointed people just because they've messed up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was studying a little bit. Just you know about my thoughts on this, because one thing God really taught me growing up just because some of my issues is learning to extend so much grace the same way you'd want to receive it. And even as a young leader, you know, I never had like bad situations. I did that I'd not be afraid to talk about on a podcast right now, because I think some of these situations were long 20, 30 year ago. You know situations for some of these leaders if we're going to be talking about fallen leaders but some of the stupid decisions I made, even as a young leader, taught me, wow, I need to be more graceful towards people, because I want that same amount of grace extended to me, because nobody knows. Everybody wants to judge you off your intentions but in reality they don't really know your heart and a lot of us, I think, like when we make our bad decisions, wherever you're at in your life, maybe you're blinded to some things and you're not realizing what's going on. And and it's not your intention to hurt people, you're just not your intention to, but you give way to things in your life you shouldn't give way to. It's the whole crucify your flesh Not to shift gears, but I was kind of studying. The latest hit for me in the evangelical world was Robert Morris and, going along with what you were saying, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater I was just looking at. I was wanting to know, like, what's the impact that Gateway Church has made on the community and the world? Think about it. The one thing we want to look at is the negative. But go back and look at what they've done. They have a little video of everything they accomplished in 2023. I had to do some Google searching and it was a little video of just how many kids they helped get into homes, you know, and of just how many kids they helped get into homes. And if you think about it, it was under his authority that all of this stuff happened and that is like. So you start thinking about it. That's my thing is.
Speaker 1:It's like some people are against the megachurch and I think we've even talked about this on one of the other podcasts. The megachurch is not the issue, because the megachurch has such influence over the communities you can't say it's all bad. There's actually things they're able to do in a capacity some of your smaller 100-member churches can't do. The only issue and again, this isn't a megachurch episode is just accountability, the things that are surrounded around those leaders, and I'm unpacking a lot that I feel like we're going to have to go on a rabbit trail to talk about, because, yes, it's not right what the leaders did.
Speaker 1:I'm not just finding that, but we also have a culture that we lift those people up. It's almost like a partnership. I hope I'm making sense on that. If our congregation just looks at these people as superheroes and we build this American culture of rock stars, part of it is our issues, because that's what we've demanded, we've wanted in our churches. So it's expectant of these people almost to be formed into that and then, when they have a door open to the enemy, they actually become that rock star. Am I making sense on?
Speaker 3:that it's their persona versus who they actually are.
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying me sitting in the congregation, it's my fault that that leader fell. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, though you create this huge bucket of ingredients, that it's like it preps the land for the fall. Now Robert Moore's situation and I don't think we ever done this trail was a lot different, because I think, as details began to come out, it wasn't a good situation. I don't really want to talk about the situation other than he said he had went through a process of restoration, but the fact was he didn't come out with the true details, Correct?
Speaker 3:He said he had an affair, correct?
Speaker 1:He said he had an affair when it was really a young kid, and even in his 20s, 30, 40 years ago, whatever it was, it doesn't it's the idea that that could have been healed a long time ago in a different aspect, I guess. But my whole thing, though, I guess, is going back to I feel like we have a culture that props people up, that they're I don't know if it's without accountability or I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's without accountability or I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2:I don't necessarily think that it's a lack of accountability. I think where we're at is we put these people up on pedestals and we expect perfection out of them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the fall is harder. The point I was going to bring to the table was like we have to learn how to separate, and I'm not a proponent of and John will probably disagree on this oh, I love it, give me a disagreement. That's exactly what. You don't have unity until you disagree on something Right. But that's the thing, like I'm not a big proponent of have more grace If I'm saying, if I took this the wrong way, please forgive me. Like we absolutely should appreciate the good that they did, but that doesn't cancel out the negative action.
Speaker 3:Now, with that said, I personally believe we have to look at it all in context and this is not a sweep under the rug. Specifically with Morris, what's the difference in what he actually did and what he said he did? People don't go to jail for affairs like people go to jail for abusing a child, and so there is a difference in that, and so I think we need to take each situation in context. In my notes, what is the context? Is it repeated? Is it predatory? Is it against minors? And all of those things play into. What does that restoration look like? Is this something that and to bring up those two situations Carl Lentz had been living a secret life and then it all came out.
Speaker 3:And then the way that he has I don't claim to know him, just following the journey, he seems to have owned it, to have confessed it. He's not trying to get back to his pedestal, he's trying to do the next right thing, being open and honest about it and then trying to help others who are thing, being open and honest about it and then trying to help others who are in that situation. And once again, I don't claim to speak for the Holy Spirit. I don't claim to speak for, like I said, I don't have an inside track on the information, but it looks like he is letting his mess up be used by the Holy Spirit to rescue others out of the same place.
Speaker 2:But he went through a process, right, I mean correct, correct.
Speaker 3:Paul Lentz was radio silent to the world for almost three years, yes, and so just seeing how he's walked through that, compared to a lot of these other megachurch leaders or just Christian celebrities, whatever you want to call them his looks a lot more authentic and, honestly, looks a lot more healthy. There's even a couple of times where I'm like are they oversharing, you know, but that's the thing is like. I don't think he wants any skeletons in his closet, you know you're right.
Speaker 1:I threw a lot out there and I think the Robert Moore situation is. I feel like that situation is a lot different than a lot of fallen leaders. I think what you're getting with a lot of fallen leaders is sexual affairs, yeah, where his has to do with the minor, which I agree 100%. So I hope me, trying to go on several rabbit trails, didn't try to say, oh, look at all the good who cares. I promise you that's not my intention, I know you know that, but that was probably that situation I wasn't really trying to talk about fall from grace. I'm just saying it don't matter, there's going to be another fallen leader, because we're fallen people.
Speaker 1:It's going to happen in our culture. How can we teach people to like Corey you were just saying and we were just agreeing on, is that the fall becomes harder because they let me down. They let that down when really our focus shouldn't be on that individual. Now I know people are gifted, like there's certain people I don't want to listen to, compared to this person, right? Yeah, not because I don't think they have value, it's just because of, maybe, how that person speaks to me, or just the revelation, or whatever. But I definitely wanted to make that clear that I agree with you 100%, adam. Like it's there is.
Speaker 1:But I definitely wanted to make that clear that I agree with you 100%, adam. There is context. I think that's key, but I also sit on the other side of it, operating in grace and truth, right? So I'll operate in figuring out what the issue is and how can you restore them, because I feel like God is still using these men. God will still use Robert Morris, as we've talked about him, in some capacity. But is it like the Carl Lynch story? Is he willing to—and I don't know him. I don't want to act like I do know him, right, but go ahead somebody.
Speaker 3:The treatment of fallen leaders. If we treat them like they're the one that sinned, they're the one that fell, we still can't treat them in sinful ways. We can't sin against them in return. And so it's like in my notes I said we have to embrace them and invest in their restoration. Now, that does not mean say, hey, buddy, it's okay, just keep doing what you're doing. And that doesn't mean sweep it under the rug. But if one of you were to come to me and say, hey, I've sinned in this way, I'm not going to cut ties with you, I'm not going to shun you.
Speaker 3:The Bible tells us in the book of James it's James 5 specifically, where it's talking about if one is found in sin and they're brought back to the truth by another brother, that person has contributed to saving their soul is the way it says. Galatians tells us to bear one another's burdens. So what does that look like? And then, what is that restoration Like? If you look in the Orthodox Anglican Catholic world, you know, and Catholic is known for, like unfortunately, recently they've been known for their sexual abuse and all of those leaders and once again this is a blanket statement but they went through restoration, but none of them are still cardinals or bishops or any of those things and, like some of them, the church told them to go live in isolation or live out their days in a life of prayer. And so it's like A what was their sin? I'm not trying to, you know, I don't need to pry Like we know it was in sexual. That was their restoration was to get healing for themselves and then to go live out their days in a life of prayer.
Speaker 3:You know, I know in a lot like if a priest were to fall, you know, like if a priest were to get in a fist fight, they get defrocked. That doesn't mean they're not Christian, it doesn't mean they're not a part of a diocese anymore, but they're no longer a priest. They're defrocked, right. If a priest takes someone's confession and then shares with another person what that confession is, they're defrocked on the spot, instantaneously and without chance of getting that back. So it's like there are consequences to our actions and that is a different fall as compared to having an affair or abusing a minor. But still we look at restoration as we've got to get them back to that position, position, position. That's good when in all reality, that position is a privilege, but it's also. Maybe the position is what you know. A lot of these pastors, you see, fall. I'm going to sound like a super reformed Theo bro here and please understand I'm not reformed, but the thing like I've been getting that since.
Speaker 1:God, I'm scared.
Speaker 3:What happens is is we put unqualified people in leadership positions because they have charisma? I'm a youth pastor, or a former youth pastor for six years. They have what they call the Riz right, and I feel like I need to go repent for saying Riz.
Speaker 1:My God, I can't Hold on. I got a little throw up no cap.
Speaker 3:No cap on that, they can fill seats with Xboxes yeah, go ahead. Because they're a charismatic speaker or because they can move a room, they don't fit the qualifications to pastor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that goes back to our whole fivefold ministry teaching that we taught on Right. You can't put people in the wrong position.
Speaker 3:Right, and here's something else that I've noticed. I believe evangelists can be pastors, but these people who they're meant to be on, whether it's on the road, but these people who they're meant to be on whether it's on the road, but when you put somebody who they're geared towards being on the move or being outside the four walls and you try to contain them in like as a shepherd, which to a person who has a shepherd's heart, it's fulfilling, a person who has an evangelist heart, and now they're like, now you're in the day-to-day grind of being a pastor. There are two men I know that fail in that way because they don't have a pastor's heart, and it's like they got bored, you know, but anyway, no, it's good.
Speaker 2:So I like what you said and I actually want to read this verse in Galatians, because I was listening to a podcast and I'm not trying to spend a lot of time just talking about this one guy, but I've watched a lot of his podcasts and I even watched a podcast with Carl Lentz and Mike Todd just the other day, but he's relevant though, to this podcast.
Speaker 1:You keep talking about him.
Speaker 2:But Mike Todd, you know, because Carl Lentz is now serving on staff in some capacity at Transformation Church, which is in Tulsa, and Mike Todd got a lot of heat for that Transformation Church, which is in Tulsa, and Mike Todd got a lot of heat for that. But what people don't understand and I didn't even know this until I listened to the podcast is they were friends. Well, they've been friends since like 2019. And so when the whole thing happened and the crap hit the fan, mike Todd was one of the people who never left him. I love it. He called him one time out of the blue. The Holy Spirit told him to, and they had conversations about it.
Speaker 2:But Mike Todd did what you should do with somebody in that position, or like we should really do with anybody, as he brought him in and he was going to put him on staff. He said you're going to sit in this room and you're going to tell me every detail of everything that you did. That's the whole idea of confess your sins to one another, right, and he has never put Carl Lentz on blast. It's not his job. But what he said is he said this is Galatians 6.1. He said this is why I've treated you the way that I've treated you. It says, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual, should restore him in a spirit of gentleness, but keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. And then it goes into what you brought up Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Yeah, we like to immediately start throwing stones or trying to pluck logs out of people's eyes just because we've put them up on this pedestal. Correct, and I also like what you said. We don't have to restore them to the position that they were in. We don't have to expect Carl Lentz to pastor Hillsong, new York City, where he's baptizing people in bars, pools and all these crazy things, which that's a? That's an amazing story, it's an amazing testimony.
Speaker 2:We want to restore these people back to the heart of God is what we want to restore them to. That should be our primary purpose. Now, god may call them back to a position at some point. That's not our job, but I think that we need to carry a spirit of gentleness and look to restore people back to the heart of God, because what we don't want to do and we do it with the whole love the sinner, when it's not a leader, we're like no, you need to love them. Yeah, right, where they're at, the Holy Spirit can convict them and change them. We like to say that for our drug addicted cousins or our friends who are sleeping around before they're married, but for some reason, all of a sudden, when it's a leader, we say, oh, they're not allowed to mess up, and because they did bye, and we no longer like to have this spirit of gentleness about ourselves and I think that we need to be careful, and I think that we need to make sure that we always look to restore people back to the heart of God.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think a lot of that comes from. You said throwing stones and I feel like a lot of times we'll throw stones because it makes us feel more justified in our lesser sin. Sure.
Speaker 3:So, one of the things the early church fathers taught was that, please, if I butcher this, I'm so sorry, but sin is sin. We know that. But one of the things that they and I can't remember which one it was taught this, but basically it was like a lot of times God will not allow sin, but it's like we'll have a minor sin in our life and it keeps us from the worst sin of pride, so to speak. That's not to say that God condones sin, that God's like hey, it's okay, but it's almost like a thorn in the flesh type thing yeah, to where? If you go to confession and go and confess your sin to a priest, then what they say to you is like, after they give you the absolution or after they give you whatever it is, they'll then say pray for me, a sinner, and what it is. It's humility at work. And, coming back to that, confess your sins one to another.
Speaker 3:I can't remember if this was St Anthony, which it was one of the desert fathers. He was praying. I'm getting too confused, two stories confused, but anyway, it was a desert father. He knew that there was a young monk who was struggling with sin and he came to him and asked the older man how are you doing? And he said the older man asked him how are you doing? He said I'm doing good. He said do you ever struggle with sin? A and he's like, no, I don't. But basically he humbled himself and found a way to like basically the the older gentleman. He revealed sin in his life, whether like, whether he had it or not. He humbled himself and said well, sometimes I deal with this, sometimes I deal with that so that it could reveal it in the younger man's sin and he didn't fall in temptation.
Speaker 3:I think that's the opposite of where we try to act perfect. We see another leader fall so we throw stones at them so that we look better, whereas if we were truly brothers in the faith, we wouldn't be on islands, we'd be walking arm in arm. I could confess to you what I'm dealing with out of humility. That encourages you to confess what you'm dealing with out of humility. Yeah, that encourages you to confess what you're dealing with and before like, not that we're trying to get to celebrity status, dear God, no, but it nips those things in the bud when we walk in humility together. Sure, like going back to the very, very beginning of this. I believe this happens?
Speaker 3:John said because of lack of accountability. Corey, you said because we put them on a pedestal. But if we can walk arm in arm as brothers and sisters in the faith, these things, whether they be hidden sins or hidden agendas or egos or whatever it may be, or platforms, you fall when you're isolated. You fall when you're an island. You fall and you have no accountability. You fall when you're on the pedestal because they're never stable.
Speaker 3:So how can we walk together in the faith, how can I humble myself to be a support for you, corey, and for you, john?
Speaker 3:And how can we have those honest questions? Because I promise we all have people in mind, whether it's people in our own churches or people in maybe you're a lead pastor somewhere who's another lead pastor in your area that you can connect with Doesn't mean you gotta start sharing a tithe or you gotta start preaching to each other's churches, but how can you walk arm and arm with each other in community to be that support to where we never get on islands, right, you know, to where we never like we don't allow ourselves to be put on a pedestal, and that, even though that's not a structured accountability of like. Well, I got to make sure and send, like all my texts go through my elders' phones too, every text I get you know. Or I've got 14 filters on my phone, dude. Okay, cool, but you know, what would be even better than that Is if we have a system, as we're on our way up, as we're walking out this faith, to where we don't allow ourselves to be put on an island.
Speaker 1:And you know there's leaders out there. You know there's good ministries like that, absolutely they just obviously. You know so we said this the other day don't let one fallen story take away from the thousands of miracles.
Speaker 3:Can I throw a wrench? It's kind of a wrench, not really, but I heard somebody. He was talking about all the secret successes of mega church pastors, and it's good. It's an inspiring story. The thing where we missed the point, though, is one of the lines he uses. He's like when a plane crashes, you hear about it everywhere. He's like, but when you hear a plane land, like when a plane lands nobody crashes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm sure you all probably saw that video on social media. He's like because they're doing what they're designed to do. The thing is like when a plane crashes, every other plane of that type is grounded and they go through and search it. They find out why that one failed and then see if any of the planes have a similar problem. When we see leaders fall, we don't do that amongst ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's important right.
Speaker 2:Like what happened If we just go back to it because, again, I think he's on the other side of it and I don't think that he would mind because we have nothing but good to say about it at this point but, like what happened to Carl Lentz, what was or wasn't in place that got him to the position that he was in? And he actually shares it in a podcast. He said I used to travel with somebody everywhere that I went, he said, but it got to the point that we couldn't afford to travel with someone with me. So I was like I'm just going there and back, it won't be a big deal, I'll go by myself. Well, what starts to happen there? Now you have a, now you don't have processes in place. You run into a pretty girl in a hotel lobby that throws herself at you and you're like well, I don't have a process in place for this. There used to be a process, now there's not right. So I think that's very important is to always remember the processes right.
Speaker 2:Go back, dig in what caused it to fail. How can we avoid that happening in the future? And Mike Todd says one thing that he does everywhere he goes is he travels with an elder, I think, and his elder gets a copy of his hotel room key and he comes in at any time, no questions asked. Middle of the night, middle of the day, he has access to his room, no matter what. And that's a process that he's put in place because he potentially has seen other people fail because of a lack of a process. Billy Graham, I heard somebody say one time when Billy Graham used to travel, he used to have somebody that was traveling with him go into every hotel room before him to make sure that somebody hadn't found a way to sneak into his hotel room and try to sneak a picture or whatever it may look like. So, yeah, I love that idea, right, how can we not with shame shades I just made that word up. Kids can take that and run with it, but not with trying to shame people. But how can we look at someone's issues or someone's mistakes and say this is what happened, this is why it happened, this is how we avoid that happening in the future? It's just like watching film for athletes, right? I messed up on this play. What did I do wrong? Let's not do that again.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's very important, and I love the idea of walking hand in hand with other people, other leaders, and because that's what I was going to say when you said how can we do this, I was going to say you need to find your tribe right. You need to find a tribe of people that, if you're struggling with something, you know me being a pastor now, I know that I can still come to you guys because you both served in leadership roles and you know you're seeming to move up at the church that you're at now. I can come to you guys and I could. If it was something like a little sin, big sin, whatever it is, I could come to you and be like, hey man, I've really been struggling in this area and I know that you guys aren't going to throw shade at me or excommunicate me. You'll say, okay, I appreciate that. How do we get past it? How do we stop? What is the reconciliation and the restoration? Look like?
Speaker 2:I watched a movie yesterday and it was called Break Every Chain, one of those corny Christian movies. But the pastor that was talking to the guy in the movie said something that's important. He said there are consequences to your actions and praying will not change those, right, because if you cheat on your wife. There are going to be consequences when you tell your wife that you cheated on her, and God is not going to just automatically change those consequences just because you ask him to. You have to face the consequences, but you need to have a tribe of people who will not turn their back on you and who will walk with you as you face those consequences and begin your restoration process. I think that's one thing that just hurts me is when I see these people get thrown onto an island because they messed up. I don't want to be thrown on an island.
Speaker 3:if I mess up, here's one thing that we got to think about. Here's a shameless plug for a book. It's called the Deeply Formed Life by Rich Valotis. One of the quotes in it, and I'm going to try to say it verbatim, even though I don't have it here in front of me.
Speaker 3:But he's talking about how we're so shallowly formed, and we're only formed on the surface formed, and we're only formed on the surface. And he said that in a world that is so shallowly formed, he said we live in a space of dangerous reaction. And he's talking about how, like because we're not deeply formed, we're shallowly formed. He said so we don't have deep roots and this is not verbatim, this is paraphrasing like three chapters but like because we're not deeply formed, we have shallow roots, and so we end up dangerously responding, whether that be out of fear, out of anger, or we have a shallow response to temptation. And so I think that's a widespread issue really across the West, where we go to church every Sunday. We love the worship man, we even want deep worship Sunday. We love the worship man, we even want deep worship. I want the warm and fuzzies. But where's our formation? How much are we being formed as compared to how much are we just microwaving our soul, you know, warming it back up. You know, when we're shallowly formed, we constantly go back and forth between hot and cold, hot and cold, hot and cold, whereas when we're deeply formed, doesn't matter what the temperature is, because those roots run deep. And so, once again, that's coming back to that like we need to be arm and arm, hand in hand, but what we do, the deep work in ourselves, like you were saying, how do we get past this? How do we heal from this? We have to do that deep work of spiritual formation Absolutely.
Speaker 3:But the thing is is we live in a microwave society. If this can't be done in six weeks, I don't want to do it Right. Or if I can't, you know, if this can't be done from watching, from listening to five podcast episodes and watching one YouTube video, then I don't want it. You know that's even going a little bit extreme, you know. But spiritual formation is a deep work, it's a long work and it's painful. It's a daily work, yes, because as we do that, we begin to like kind of take, like to be spiritually formed. We have to put the mirror in front of ourselves and look like, see our flaws face to face. But we haven't really talked about a cure to this and I don't think we have time in this episode. But find your tribe. As Corey said, the next thing is, do the deep and do the hard work of spiritual formation Be deeply formed, not shallowly formed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think doing the work is the important part, right? Like Laura Lance said, if she didn't see Carl putting in the work, she would have left him. But he did like intensive, like months and months worth of intensive rehab where he wasn't even allowed to have contact with his family and they were making him, and it's it's um the fact that he shared some of this, of what he went through in therapy. He talked about how they made him go back to his childhood trauma and at one point in therapy they made him carry around like a stuffed animal, like it was his trauma from his childhood, and basically put him back in the mindset of being that eight-year-old kid that was sexually abused, my God, and it's like, well, that's intense, but he put in the work to heal from the trauma that led him down a path of destruction that put him where he was and he continues to. He continues to work on that.
Speaker 2:And so it was months and months and months and still he, he still does therapy every week. It's a a daily thing. Paul said. I die daily. We have to be willing to put our, our flesh to death every day, and that's hard and that's not comfortable, that's not easy, but we have to be willing to do it.
Speaker 1:Now the Bible talks about the. I think we've talked about this many times. It's actually one of the things I love about the gospel is the ministry of reconciliation, that we should be cheering for reconciliation amongst all creation.
Speaker 1:So I think that's perspective, that's that whole deep roots. You know you always talk about the palm tree. The palm tree is super flexible but it's also deeply rooted and I feel like that's what we need to be as believers. But man, like I think you said it crucify our flesh. I feel like a lot of people's flesh in the Christian world, especially in the secular world, when they see the church leaders fall, they don't go to. Well, let's figure out how we can reconcile you.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of unsettled things in their flesh that's going to keep them from seeing reconciliation for that leader. You know one of the things when I look at the Carl Lentz situation, I'm going okay, and not just his situation, many situations. How many of these leaders? They're really sorry because they got caught? I think there's a book, the Maximized Abandoned Books.
Speaker 1:There's a difference between godly sorrow and human sorrow. You know human sorrow is okay, I'm sorry because I got caught. Godly sorrow is. You know this is wrong. I'm going to make things right before it even becomes public and that is what I think every single person needs to work on is you're only one bad decision away from being a headline.
Speaker 1:So it's like let's put things in perspective of we're a family number one. We're not to praise rock star pastors. So let's set that correctly that, yes, these people have influence over lives. Yes, talk about there's consequences to you falling, even as someone that has the authority of so many people in their flock right, but let's root for reconciliation in these leaders. Let's not say, yes, what they did is kind of bad. What they did is, you know, kind of bad. It doesn't matter the degree of bad from the perspective of I just want them to get the healing and to find their way, because I want to see them end well. I want them to sit at Jesus's feet and say you know good job, servant. You know how that happens. I know everybody's got their own journey, but but we should be cheerleaders right.
Speaker 2:God has given us the ministry of reconciliation, and we should make it our goal to see everyone that has fallen reconciled to the presence of God.
Speaker 1:Because the first thing and I'll cut you off first thing I go to with Carl Lynn's story because I just don't know it. I didn't follow it like you did, corey. I'm like, could we also I mean, because that's a big thing in our world now is deliverance, and I don't want to extend this because I know we're getting ready to wrap this, this episode up. But my first fleshly thought was okay. How much of it is just he's a.
Speaker 2:He's a man with hormones raging that we can automatically blame the trauma. I know we can go down that road, but he was an alcoholic. Yeah, he says it had nothing to do with hormones. He says he was an alcoholic and it was a thrill for him. He was a thrill seeker which again, listen to his podcast y'all. Let him tell you his story.
Speaker 1:But that's what I want to end with. Let's get to know people and understand the why, before we just lop them in this group of awful people that didn't, because, again, he made a difference. You can't say he didn't make a difference. I mean, I've heard stories of Carl Lentz.
Speaker 2:Dude, I can still tell you a sermon that he preached. It was called Occupy All Streets. He preached it at a Forward Conference. We took our youth one time and that was 10, 11 years ago. For a long time I could have almost preached that back to you verbatim because it had such an impact in my life.
Speaker 2:We can't negate what people did because of mistakes that they made. I think that we need to be genuinely curious. We need to get to know people and just love people and cheer on their reconciliation. Yeah, they messed up. Even if we go back to the guy who, yeah, he's probably going to do some jail time because of and it turned out, his affair 20 years ago was with a minor whatever and I'm not saying whatever to the situation, I'm saying that we should be praying and actively seeking his reconciliation to the heart of God. That's what we should be praying for. Retaliation to the heart of God. That's what we should be praying for. We shouldn't be saying only I hope he rots in jail and then rots in hell for all eternity. We should be saying this man messed up, he sinned. Yes, there are consequences to his actions, but I pray that he is restored to the presence of God.
Speaker 1:I'm going to end this with this, and, adam, if you've got final thoughts, what if Judas would have never killed himself? Judas, judas, the disciple for anyone listening the disciple that killed himself after he betrayed Jesus. What if Judas would have never killed himself?
Speaker 2:I think there's a ministry of reconciliation.
Speaker 1:Think about how Jesus would have because Peter.
Speaker 3:I think it would have looked more like Peter. Yeah, Peter denied A hundred percent Peter denied 100%.
Speaker 1:Peter denied him too, and so it's like think of I mean, that's a thought-provoking thing, like we always want to. Oh, jews go to hell. But think about, I don't know I was thinking of deeper stuff there.
Speaker 3:But think about this Like and this is something that was taught in the early church Like that was taught in the early church, Like when Jesus, like when he vanquished hell, the first person he rescued was Judas Like that's a lot of people that'll step on some toes. There's a poem called the Judas Tree. I read it at a we Are Lions ministry thing and I can't read it without weeping because a lot of times when we try to put ourselves in scripture, we're always Jesus, we're always the hero. We scripture, we're always Jesus, we're always the hero. We're always David, never Goliath. We're always Jesus, never Judas.
Speaker 3:But the fact of the matter is is we are Judas. That is something they teach. Is, if you look at icons from the early, early church, when Jesus is trampling the gates of hell, it always has him picking up Adam and Eve by their wrists, meaning they weren't saving themselves. He was rescuing them. But then usually included in that is John the Baptist and then the prophets. But Judas is almost always included in that that he's being rescued from where he went, but anyway, we could keep going.
Speaker 2:I think this could be a long topic, but the heart of this podcast episode that we wanted you guys to hear people are going to fail, people are going to mess up. We number one need to find processes that we can put in place to help us avoid being the headline. Like Johnny said, we're one mistake away from being the headline. So find a tribe and put some processes in place to help avoid that and then be actively seeking and praying for people's reconciliation to the heart of God. That's what we need to be willing to do. People are going to mess up, they're going to let us down. That's just a fact. Romans 3.23,. We have all sinned and fall short of God's glorious standard, but we need to be praying for their reconciliation and actively seeking that in a spirit of gentleness. Johnny, you want to pray?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I will pray this out. Father, I just want to say thank you for this opportunity just to use technology to speak with multiple people and to be in a room with these two men that are leaders in their areas of life. And so, father, I just thank you again for our audience. I pray that there's a need out there. We speak life into it, I speak miracles and blessing over our individuals that listen to this.
Speaker 1:I pray that this podcast is not just a couple guys speaking, but it's revelation coming through us, not on our own doing but, lord, through you, we're saying the right things to help change lives. Not the right things so we look good, but the right things that change lives and that people can grow in their faith. But, father, thank you for these two men. I just pray you bless them, bless their families, god, I just pray that we learn the ministry of reconciliation. It just becomes the forefront of our lives that we are willing to love and forgive, not confirm and affirm the bad decisions of others, but to rid individuals of the brokenness that the enemy provides and to restore them with the grace and love and truth that you provide. So, god, again thank you for the we Are Lions ministry and the Lions Den and God, we just give you all glory in Jesus name Amen.
Speaker 3:Amen, amen, amen.
Speaker 1:Thank you guys for joining us here at the we Are Lions podcast. We're so thankful that you have spent some time with us. Hopefully you have been encouraged. Hopefully you feel like your faith has grown a little bit more. That is our heart. That is our intent is to see you get closer to Jesus and become that reflected image Again. If you want to partner with us, we'd love your financial support. Check out the bio. There will be a link for our PayPal, because we can't do this without your continued prayers and support, so please consider that. Hey, you have an incredible rest of your week and we hope to see you back here on the next episode. Bye.