Redemption Walk

Jane Greisen has been a regular host on the show. Hear more about her, what she's up to when she's not podcasting, some of the personal shaping experiences in her life, and the perspectives she brings to our walk together. Including her work on a master's degree in counseling, actual "redemption walking" around the lake with friends, being a missionary in Taiwan, and her journey with cancer.

Music credits: "Mountain Drive" by Sea Sheperd, courtesy of Soundstripe.

Danielle experienced deep friendships in a church community for twenty years, and then moved away into a relational wilderness where she would experience deep loneliness. Her experience of church community wasn’t just all goodness and friendship, though. It was also an “abusive church culture”, which has made it all the more challenging to build trust in new relationships. Her personal history includes devastating losses of control, from abuse and assault, to natural disaster, to chronic illness. Sometimes, she’s tempted to regain control of her life in unhealthy ways, like in her relationships with her husband or children. Danielle tells us a story of trouble after redemption—the long walk through the wilderness.

Music credits: “Mountain Drive” by Sea Sheperd, “Road” by Stephen Keech, “To realize” by Triads, “Stop Motion” by Triads, “Boxcars” by Brique a Braq, “Make it Ours” by Jonathan Roye, “Dovely” by Adrian Walther, "The Slow Train" by Finn's Fandango, all courtesy of Soundstripe.

This week, we begin a mini-series on the off weeks from our regular "Walk With" episodes: Meet the Team. First, we'll meet Daniel Teater, one of the regulars on Redemption Walk. We'll hear a bit of Daniel's story, what he cares about in life, and we'll touch on fundamentalist cults versus healthy church culture and "grace attachment".

Links:

Girl at the End of the World: http://amzn.to/2pVzI7A

High-Demand Church: http://geftakysassembly.com/

Kumare: https://www.netflix.com/title/70177446

Churches that Abuse: http://amzn.to/2p3CL8H

Abandonment has haunted Nate: from childhood to prison, with lingering effects still in his marriage and parenting.

After growing up experiencing abuse and neglect in his home, Nate clung to drugs as a companion that would not leave him. Eventually, he began stealing to support his habit. Multiple rounds of legal consequences, incarceration and rehab did not pull him out of his chosen slavery. The judge who finally sentenced Nate told him "You’ve exhausted every form of treatment we have to offer, all to no avail. You are a hopeless case." Nate lost everything and felt abandoned by everyone. Until he began to experience the simple love and acceptance of a pastor and his family at lunch on Sunday afternoons.

Pre-register for Redemption Group Immersion

Head over to our events page to pre-register for upcoming Redemption Group Immersion.

Music credits: "Mountain Drive" by Sea Sheperd, "Remember to Stay Together" by Triads, "Take a Walk With Me" by Lowercase Noises, "Mischief" by Adrian Walther, "Dovely" by Adrian Walther, "Boxcars" by Brique a Braq, "Make it Ours", by Jonathan Roye, all courtesy of Soundstripe.

The Bible doesn't talk about neurons, and yet humans don't experience sin, suffering, forgiveness, grace, or gratitude without their firing. Somehow, the various dimensions of a human psychology all overlap with one another, including the spiritual, about which the Bible has a lot to say, the biological, which can be most directly observed, and the psychosocial, which psychologists work to observe indirectly.

In our interview with Dr. Eric Johnson, we learn about his model of Christian psychology, published in his book, Foundations for Soul Care (link below). He describes three dimensions, or "orders of meaning"—biological, psychosocial, and spiritual. We discuss how these dimensions are interrelated. We see that in one sense the biological has the priority, because—at least in this age—people are brain-dependent. And yet, in another sense, the spiritual order has the priority, because people—souls and bodies—are ultimately dependent upon God. We apply some of our thinking with a case study.

As sophisticated as that might sound, Redemption Walk is designed to help us connect in everyday relationships in deeper ways. So why complicate something so simple?

We too often oversimplify complex matters by reducing them to one part, and then we exclude, oppose or dismiss the parts we don't understand. While Redemption Walk and Redemption Groups do have to do mostly with how we relate to the Redeemer through the deep troubles of life, this includes all of what it means to be human, all of the human experience that might be understood biologically or psychosocially. While we don’t practice psychology or psychotherapy when we walk with one another as friends, it is good for us to be sensitive to these complexities, and it can be harmful to dismissive them. Yet, while remaining sensitive to the complexities, we can also enjoy the freedom of knowing that we don’t have to be experts in all the complexities in order to be genuinely helpful to one another with Christ-centered, relational friendship and ministry.

Links

Eric mentioned a hero of his, Warren Kinghorn:

https://divinity.duke.edu/faculty/warren-kinghorn

Eric’s book that includes the model we discussed in this episode is Foundations for Soul Care: A Christian Psychology Proposal. This is not light reading, but very rewarding to the patient and curious:

http://amzn.to/2o1alRk

Eric’s forthcoming book, God and Soul Care: The Therapeutic Resources of the Christian Faith

http://amzn.to/2oJsVfw

Mike mentioned Eric’s edited volume: Christianity & Psychology: Five Views

http://amzn.to/2ol5giz

He also mentioned a more scholarly volume, for which he served as an Editor: Evidence-Based Practices for Christian Counseling and Psychotherapy

http://amzn.to/2okZ0HO

Eric is connected to these organizations:

The Institute for Christian Psychology:

http://icpconnect.org/

Society for Christian Psychology:

http://www.christianpsych.org/

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Music credits: “Mountain Drive” by Sea Sheperd, “Mischief” by Adrian Walther, “Dovely” by Adrian Walther, all courtesy of Soundstripe.

Sue’s story offers us a glimpse of how tragedy can impact core beliefs. She internalized messages about herself and the nature of the world through her early childhood experiences. As a result she drew conclusions about how to survive the world as she understood it to be, which would later manifest as religious addiction and over-performance.

Childhood Tragedy

Three year old Sue ran into the garage where her father was cleaning a fish and leapt toward him yelling, "Catch me!" He turned with a knife in his hand, accidentally cutting Sue's arm—almost severing it entirely. She began to form a belief that somehow she had "been bad and disobeyed, and this was the consequence of it." In the 1960s, parents were not allowed to stay with their children in the hospital and Sue was required to be left alone. Sue internalized another message: "I'd better figure out a way to be pleasing and obedient enough or I will be abandoned or left alone."

Religious Addiction

As an adult with many layers of pain, including those messages from her childhood, Sue found ways of dealing with her pain by escaping through books, fantasy, and food. Sue committed herself to a life of over-performance and constructed a "false self" of religiosity.

Sue's journey led her to a place where she was finally able to confront her perfectionistic spiritual addiction. Her journey led her to a counselor who "swore like a sailor, smoked like a chimney, and absolutely loved Jesus." She also found the right medication to address panic attacks, and carved out time for inpatient psychiatric treatment. Sue described showing up to a treatment group in her dress, a gold cross around her neck, and large King James Bible in her lap. God used this group of people to show Sue how "people with authentic pain show up and tell the truth to one another." Sue didn't know what to do with that experience, but it started a trajectory of redemption in her story.

Healing Community

Constantly performing all the time to be accepted by a community only intensifies feelings of loneliness and alienates us from community. Being part of a community that is able to see the "cracks" of our stories provides healing to shame and false beliefs we have constructed our identities upon. Yet, the very thing that would enable healing, we also push away out of fear of being exposed and seen in our weakness.

Sue was invited into a group of community of eight women and this became a catalyst for significant transformation. Sue gained "sightedness" when she was able to see herself through the eyes of a loving community. When we see our own stories through the eyes of a compassionate community it enables us to change too. We are able to see ourselves with grace and truth and this enables growth.

Links

In this episode we mentioned the following resources:

Spiritual Sobriety by Elizabeth Esther is a book about overcoming religious addiction:

http://amzn.to/2p6nYve

Addicted to Religion, a conference talk by David Powlison:

https://www.ccef.org/shop/product/addicted-to-religion

Other resources:

Toxic Faith, by Stephen Arterburn and Jack Felton:

http://amzn.to/2oxBqKT

Religious OCD, a conference talk by Mike Emlet:

https://www.ccef.org/shop/product/religious-ocd

Music credits: "Mountain Drive" by Sea Sheperd, "Road" by Stephen Keech, "To realize" by Triads, "Stop Motion" by Triads, "Mischief" by Adrian Walther, "Dovely" by Adrian Walther, all courtesy of Soundstripe.

Christian transformation is about the real you meeting the real Jesus. But what if you get Jesus wrong? Is he a life coach, or the giver of a moral checklist, or someone else entirely?

That’s a question we explore with Matt Johnson, whose book Getting Jesus Wrong was recently released by New Growth Press. This is a bonus episode, where we take time learn about something that’s helpful to our redemption walk with friends.

Matt has been a friend of Redemption Groups since the beginning, and his own theological development—which we glimpse in his book—parallels the development of some of the teaching in Redemption Groups.

We discuss the implications of “theology of glory” vs. “theology of the cross”, and some of the “false Jesuses” Matt writes about his book: Jesus as Life Coach, and Jesus as Giver of a Moral Checklist. What difference do these ideas make in how we walk with one another as friends or help one another in Redemption Groups?

Matt will impersonate Martin Luther impersonating Yoda. You’ll also hear about everyone’s favorite variety of scandinavian heavy metal, and what CD is playing in their cars. (Um, what’s a CD?)

Find Matt’s book on Amazon here:

http://amzn.to/2nTP4Fy

Connect with Matt:

Twitter: @blingfortheking

Web: https://www.therealmattjohnson.com

We talked a bit about this book, On Being a Theologian of the Cross, by Gerhard Forde:

http://amzn.to/2nB43T4

And Mike really likes Wintergatan, a Swedish folktronica music group. That has nothing to do with our show, except that Mike mentioned them (not for the last time) on the show and he’s the one typing these notes, so…

http://www.wintergatan.net/

Note: the image of body-builder Jesus breaking away from the cross isn't the actual book cover, it's one of the alternates that you can find on Matt's website. There are quite a few more brilliant ones here:

https://www.therealmattjohnson.com/blog/wwozzfqcav7768iojb64hqw2zz58ik

Music Credits: Mountain Drive by Sea Sheperd, TituS; Mischief by Adrian Walther; Dovely by Adrian Walther, all courtesy of Soundstripe.

Brett shares about how his battle to come to grips with painful losses in his own story led him to try and escape his suffering. The energy exerted trying to avoid the suffering only created a deadening effect on Brett’s heart. Brett became numb and his ability to experience delight, joy, excitement, were dampened in a grey morass of numb irritability.

Daniel and Mike are joined by special guest, Peter Sondergeld from Australia, during a Redemption Group Immersion in Ft. Worth, Texas.

Anger and Numbness

Anger is a multifaceted emotion that is commonly misunderstood. Anger is a secondary emotion that is attached to other emotions. It is common to focus on managing anger and controlling anger while missing the underlying causes of our anger.

In Brett’s story we hear how anger impacted his life. Brett expressed that he was not experiencing fullness of emotions that God designed us to have, but predominately felt anger or irritability. Anger has an explosive energy to it. To constantly utilize the emotion of anger as the primary emotional expression will eventually deplete you relationally and cause you to feel numb. Brett shared how he felt like a “shell of a person” it came out in his marriage and relationship with his kids.

Grief

Brett went through a Redemption Group experience and was invited to consider his own suffering. As Brett sat struggling to come up with ways he suffered, he heard God say, “What about the three children you lost.” Brett explained that in this moment God invited him to honestly confront the pain of the miscarriages he and his wife had suffered through.

God met Brett powerfully in his pain. Brett learned that God is not a detached from our suffering but entered into our suffering through Jesus Christ. Although Brett never received “an answer” to his “why” question, he did receive a clear sense of God’s presence of love with him in the suffering. Brett described how powerful it was to feel that God saw and knew his pain.

Honestly dealing with painful loss enabled Brett to wake up from his numbness. Other addictive habits slowly began to fade and relational patterns changed too. Brett experienced to power of God to break him out of his “shell” of self-protection. It is a reminder to all of us that God genuinely cares for us in the midst of our suffering. He desires to meet us in those places of pain and heartache.

Your Walk

Where do you feel numb? Have you considered there may be some emotional experience that you are trying to run and hid from? Would you be willing to consider taking that to your Father?

If you are struggling with anger, invite another person into your struggle. Tell them the ways your anger shows up the most in your life. Invite them to pray with you as you seek to root out the source of the anger.

Member Library Links

Here are links to some of the extra content available in our member library, mentioned in this episode:

* Daniel's Redemption teaching: Bitterness, Passover and Forgiveness

https://redemptiongroups.com/library/daniel-teater-bitterness-passover-forgiveness

* Peter's Redemption teaching: Crossing the Red Sea into a Life Free from Shame

https://redemptiongroups.com/library/peter-sondergeld-crossing-red-sea-life-free-shame

Music credits: “Mountain Drive” by Sea Sheperd, “Road” by Stephen Keech, “Were” by Triads,

“Further Up” by Joel Slabach, “Wesley Swing” by TituS, “Mischief” by Adrian Walther, “Dovely” by Adrian Walther, all courtesy of Soundstripe.

John was relentlessly teased and bullied in school. He became known as the “pink boy” and began to conclude that perhaps there really “was something about me that is eliciting this response.” He initially fought back against the bullying with hypervigilance—until he hit a “decisive choice point” that he calls the “eff its”. “I’m going to start doing whatever I want and don’t care what anyone says.”

John became the fun-loving party boy who gained notoriety and popularity as he accelerated his abuse of alcohol. When a regional newspaper ran a story about one of John’s drunken incidents, he realized that he had ruined himself, but by then he was stuck in the addiction.

Even after John walked away from alcoholism, he experienced an ongoing struggle with maintaining his image in the eyes of others—a problem he called “fear of man”.

Music credits: “Mountain Drive” by Sea Sheperd, “Road” by Stephen Keech, “To realize” by Triads, “Stop Motion” by Triads, “Living” by Patrick Copeland, “Wesley Swing” by TituS, “Mischief” by Adrian Walther, “Dovely” by Adrian Walther, all courtesy of Soundstripe.

With one parent a drug addict and the other a police officer, Erin's early life was a confusing set of shaping influences. Often being compared to her mother by her family members, it's been hard at times for Erin to maintain her own identity. Erin's husband has been an important reminder of grace in her life. She's learning to tell the truth about what really happened to her in those early years, and to let go of needing to keep everything in order in the space around her—like those piles of laundry.

Music credits: “Mountain Drive” by Sea Sheperd, “Road” by Stephen Keech, “To realize” by Triads, “Stop Motion” by Triads, “Wesley Swing” by TituS, “Mischief” by Adrian Walther, “Dovely” by Adrian Walther all courtesy of Soundstripe.