[SPEAKER_02]: This episode of True's Table is brought to you by our NAACP Image Award-nominated book, True's Table, Black Women's Musings on Life, Love, and Liberation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Brothers, y'all all right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hey y'all, welcome to Truth's Table.
[SPEAKER_00]: May wise a culture for Grace and Truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a Camini and I'm Christina.
[SPEAKER_00]: This table is built by black woman and four black women.
[SPEAKER_00]: So welcome to the table.
[SPEAKER_00]: See how you're doing, girl.
[SPEAKER_02]: Doing decently today.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a hot one here in the cell.
[SPEAKER_02]: How are you doing today?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, good.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's summer.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm glad.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's the most wonderful time of the year for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love Christmas, but I love the brightness of summer time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really do.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a sun person, so that's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, my brain really needs it, so we're in full throes of a lot of sun and heat.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is really a country.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yes, yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, in today, we are joined by one of our beloved sisters in Christ, the incomparable Lisa Lee Fields.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just I'm stoked to have her with us today.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's over there at the table.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, Lisa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Say something to me here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm excited for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for inviting me.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're glad to have you for this behind the book episode for your second book when heroes fall.
[SPEAKER_00]: But before I jump before we jump into our questions let me tell you a little something Molly so she is a friend from Staples a y'all should know but yes or no, they should know who Lisa is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I realize with us always a new listener.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's a little bit about Lisa V. Fields, renowned Christian apologists, Lisa Victoria Fields, is the founder of Jew-3 Project Author of when heroes fall and when faith disappoints.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the curator behind the YouTube series, why I don't go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fields has been recognized in Christianity today for her work as an apologist in the African-American community.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is a graduate of the University of North Florida and holds a master of divinity with the focus in theology from Liberty University.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the table, Lisa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome, welcome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's back to the be back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's been a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's been a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay,
[SPEAKER_00]: She has plural, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: So we, we, we, we love, we love to see you, Hustle and do what you need to do for the glory of God and for the good of the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Lisa, I gotta ask you, what, um, well, I guess I know what it's, I haven't said, I mean, I'm your friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm gonna start to grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: I should say that outright to what inspired this book, but how did you actually land on this book topic?
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that as a writer, sometimes these ideas, sometimes we generate them, but sometimes these ideas come to us straight from, it's almost like it really feels like it's supernatural like it's a lore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm motivating us to write on a particular topic and sometimes you can be some resistance to it, to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you talk to us about how you how you decided that you were going to write this book when he wrote us fall?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was on the heels of me finishing right in my first book, and I really, I dread the writing process.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is a labor of love.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the first book wasn't even released yet, but I said from the Lord, like he just gave me the title.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the
[SPEAKER_01]: different points to speak to one day as I was praying.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it really felt like a God given function to write this, even though I don't like to write.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, say this, I don't like, yeah, I need to write this, but I don't want to.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that's real.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people think writers love to write.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some, you know, but there are others that
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like the right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in that camp system.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, writing is a true discipline, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no doubt about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can, you can, you cannot, you can't wiggle your way out of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just got to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You got to write the words.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you got to watch as they get edited and taken away and James didn't remix, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So it is a process.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, so.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's a wonderful thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: You receive confirmation even through prayer that this is this is a book for you to write I am curious so there have been times where I have felt like I was receiving confirmation and and the reason why I think the Lord had to give it to me that way is because I would not have done it for myself and I don't really like it
[SPEAKER_02]: So, how did you respond to what I think you're perceiving as something that has got, that has given you?
[SPEAKER_02]: Was there any resistance or worry or what, what were you thinking about when you were like, okay, now I got to do this journey.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I really, when I get functions, I just try to do it immediately.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just put the proposal together and send it to my book agent and then I was like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if I wait, it'll never get done.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was kind of the thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: When they said, oh yeah, we like this idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then that's when I was like, oh, now I got to write this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's when I was like, do I want to write this?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when though.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I did the initial work swiftly, but then it was like, oh, do I want to write this real?
[SPEAKER_01]: So kind of the wrestling back and forth.
[SPEAKER_01]: not even, the topic is one thing, but just a discipline of writing and the enormous amount of work it takes the middle space and I don't write well in the daytime.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my greatest thoughts come between midnight and six a.m. Oh wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: I write through the night.
[SPEAKER_01]: Grave your shift.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that worked for my first book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, because I shut everything down to write.
[SPEAKER_01]: This time I didn't have that luxury.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was writing through the night and worked.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just exhaust.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: I still got that spirit of a college student following fresh on you, because I'm like, what?
[SPEAKER_02]: I do want to follow up, please, because I get it like the grueling nature of the actual task of writing, you knew you had to do it, you got the function, you put the proposal in.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm wondering, besides just knowing that it's going to be a sacrificial to write the book, were there any, um,
[SPEAKER_02]: their points of trepidation for you about the the topic in it of itself.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, when I look at the landscape of American Christianity, this is one of the biggest issues in the church right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: One in terms of how we define who a hero is and what we expect of people, but also when people fall and what that does to us and what it does for the reputation of the faith.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm curious about what
[SPEAKER_02]: You're as an apologist, right, as somebody who is making the case for the beauty of Jesus, while we're your thoughts about writing a book that really talks about the disappointment, someone who is supposed to be on God's team.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think the most
[SPEAKER_01]: at a womb and actually bringing healing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, just wasn't poking at a womb and actually helping people get to a place of holdeness and healing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we have a lot of material online that just kind of feeds people's anger and leads them into deeper levels of bitterness.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, we can limit and address those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have to do the work of healing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's kind of like, how am I going to communicate that in the book?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's why the book took on a very personal nature of me telling my own journey and story, like you can be very angry and upset.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's another side where you can get to to give people a hope that this is a spacehare in, and it's okay to be angry, it's okay to be frustrated.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and it's okay to do the work and it takes time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's not like a cookie cutter process.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's process looks different.
[SPEAKER_00]: thank you for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Lisa, you know, just getting into the substance really of the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think before we even launch into the actual book, I'm curious if you can locate our sisters at the table, our brothers in a standing room section, on how you would define a hero so that they can envision and their own mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they have
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, somebody that's a hero in their life, but they don't maybe know it because they don't know how to identify or that person, how would you define or how do you define a hero?
[SPEAKER_00]: So they can walk along with us in this conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think one of the easiest ways to define a hero is someone you deeply admire and seek to pattern your life after.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they have played a crucial part in your life from a distance or a close, for mine, which I named my heroes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I give him a different name in the book because actually named Bruce.
[SPEAKER_01]: First, he initially played a role in my life from a distance.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm watching his reading his books, watching his lectures, then later on, he played a role in my life of close.
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone who helped my life at really critical times in my spiritual journey and in my career.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, I am, you know, I really think and I could be wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're the apologist.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that one of the greatest doubling blocks to the gospel and to the Christian faith overall is hypocrisy.
[SPEAKER_00]: hypocrisy among Jesus' disciples, you know, us, you know, these Christians, right, but especially those who are visible, right, but also the people who know a close, right, that I think it seems to me that that is one of the greatest stumbling blocks, and there's something that people often who are not yet believers or people that have been harmed.
[SPEAKER_00]: within the body of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: They call that out, you know, in some way, they may not say on the nose hypocrisy, they may, or some of them do, or may, they may, but they may clock some incongruence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm curious from your own vantage point about the way hypocrisy,
[SPEAKER_00]: causes heroes to fall and what and how we can guard against hypocrisy as believers and leaders because we are also leaders.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I do think hypocrisy is the number one issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: I always think of it like when we hear of a product, the first thing we do, I know on Amazon, if I hear a product is good, I'm going to read the reviews.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's the first thing I do is read the reviews.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't leave the review.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that, if what is claiming to do,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually happening for people who actually purchased the product and I feel like people in the faith of the same they're like They're reading their reviews of Christianity through the lives of the people they encounter and they like This what it claims to do and what the people are living out our two different things and so it's like is this actually something that actually transforms or works
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think a lot of people aren't looking like, is this, is this gospel will you preach something that actually works?
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it works, why hasn't it worked for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is your life still, why are you still living it's sin?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are you still living in secret and private sin?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that kind of feeds that question and that frustration with people because it's like, you preach a good sermon.
[SPEAKER_01]: You preach up here, you live down here.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't practice what you preach.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it's so good, why don't you actually, why don't you the first part taker?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that creates the conundrum for people is like, why would I buy you something that's not even working for the people who preach it?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think one of the things we guard against, one of the ways we guard against that is that we really have to have relationships,
[SPEAKER_01]: in our lives as leaders, with people who are not fans of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I was to look back and do some reflection on my hero, I think a lot of people that were around him were fans.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you can get people your ministry that are fans of yours and the the fan friend dynamic is totally different when you're a fan of someone.
[SPEAKER_01]: You kind of idolize them.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're looking at the hero even when things look off.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't really feel the courage to say it because you like, well, they know they're the person who is up here and I'm down here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think one of the ways heroes.
[SPEAKER_01]: fall is they don't have good friends that they are honest with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you can have friends and not tell them what's going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's not just on you having the relationships you have to be honest.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think those kind of things along with rhythms and time,
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I think for many leaders, we can get because of the pace of life and demands.
[SPEAKER_01]: And especially if you're in a season where you're on high demand, you're constantly like going going.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're going all the time, you lack reflection time and so care.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the last thing I say is dealing with childhood wounds.
[SPEAKER_01]: We really discount how much rooms, even once we become Christians, still follow us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think so many leaders think, man, I have a radical transformation, I have a radical testimony, and I stop drinking, you know, I stop things I used to do, I don't do no more.
[SPEAKER_01]: And some people say, but they never dealt with why they did those things in the first place,
[SPEAKER_01]: the traumas that led them to substance abuse that led them to sleeping around.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then so that they, oh, I stopped doing these things, but they'd never dealt with the stuff underneath and that stuff starts to resurface, often in your success or in just disappointment's administration.
[SPEAKER_01]: Super helpful.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think that humility to know the difference between or the value in having friends and not fans, you know, just the the low ego to know which one is healthier.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, and I was thinking about, I came to your question about that hypocrisy, you know, to the extent that we preach Christ and if we preach in us, what we should be preaching, we all preach higher than we are.
[SPEAKER_02]: We all preach higher than we live with.
[SPEAKER_02]: We preach Christ.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the hypocrisy comes into play when people aren't honest about that gap.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not naming the gap that they have and that they too are walking in the narrow way by God's grace.
[SPEAKER_02]: So come with me to walk in this narrow way as we walk to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that definitely creates
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, a lot of frustration with with religious figures where we get really how to call you They're great or they're awful and one of the things I think you attempt to do and we'll pause for a break But I'll let you you start unpacking this question for us.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think one of the things I feel like you're trying to do in the book is to get us to Hold the humanity of people who have deeply disappointed us
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it isn't that's really hard to do because we're very black and white as a way to protect ourselves.
[SPEAKER_02]: But holding humanity and I also think you take a risk in doing this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think about this book because there are moments where I'm like, I don't know about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but talk about talk about, talk about, that's what I think is happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: You tell me if that's what's happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: And your decision to do that knowing that you are having to thread a very, very fine needle here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so I talk about in the book The Halo and Hornefit.
[SPEAKER_01]: and the halo effect is when you go ahead of five to the encounter with someone and you see them through the lens and you assume that they're excellent or good in all the other areas and then we have a negative that's the horn, the core Larry, you see them negatively.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm trying to thread that needle which is a tight, tight needle to three and I knew no on
[SPEAKER_01]: on either side.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think that's what we're losing in society right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ability to hold two things together in tension, to see the good and to see the bad all at the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And not let either either space cancel each other out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think what happens is
[SPEAKER_01]: with social media, it's like, a bad thing happens there, they have no good or good thing happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: People that have positive experiences in the church, I've seen like, if you bring something, they'll be like, well, they help me, or, you know, they're preaching, can't get me to Christ, you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_01]: So they, they don't want to,
[SPEAKER_01]: acknowledge the negative and then you have those on the other side who don't want to acknowledge the positive.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm trying to push people into the tension of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: While at the same time, me didn't communicating good contributions doesn't deny accountability.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think when we hear love people that have done harm, we don't think that accountability is intertwined in love.
[SPEAKER_01]: But love to love people well is to hold them accountable.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think people miss, they think that when I say, well, love your father and hero, they're like, oh, so we're not holding them accountable.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, no, a part of loving well is holding, that's when accountable.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you love your children, you hold them accountable.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you love anybody, you hold them accountable.
[SPEAKER_01]: So your accountability comes not with the accountability always has a redemptive bent.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's what we're losing in culture.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want people to be held accountable, but sometimes, and I won't say all the time, sometimes people have no redemptive goal in my for their accountability.
[SPEAKER_01]: They just want vengeance with no rehabilitation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah, you know, um, you know, when people call out or call back, you know, you're a love.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that means if we're not going to hold them accountable, you know, you can tell that's such a Western frame.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Western.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, because it's then my biblical, because God's love and wrath actually do Converge.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know people have a hard time with that, but God Jesus is both the line and the lamb But you know, we're not talking about apologetics per se today And so let's take a quick commercial break and we come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will talk more about with Lisa about when he Real's fall will be right back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to wear
[SPEAKER_02]: Our NAACP Image Award-nominated book, True Stable.
[SPEAKER_02]: Black women's musings on life love in liberation is making waves and shifting culture.
[SPEAKER_02]: I closed this book feeling like I had just partaken in a multi-course meal, filled with grace and the courage to carry on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I believe you'll finish this book feeling the same way.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and we are back at the table with our sister, Lisa Veefeels the author of When Heroes Fall.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, now we were just talking about how love does not evade accountability, and if you believe that, that's much more of a Western frame.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to decolonize, I didn't say that, but I'm saying that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, I caught him, I said, I caught him, I said, I caught him, I said, I caught him, I said, I caught him, I said, I caught him, I said, I caught him, I said, I caught him, I said, I caught him, I said, I caught him, I said, I caught him, I said, I caught him, I said, I caught him, I said, I caught him, I said, I caught him, I said, I said, I caught him, I said, I said, I caught him, I said, I said, I caught him, I said, I said, I caught him, I said, I said, I caught him, I said, I said, I said, I said, I caught him, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, Lisa, I'm not saying no, can you talk to us though about the arc and the connection between accountability and restoration?
[SPEAKER_00]: You talk about that in the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've wrestled with that, I ain't gonna lie to you, because that was an honor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it on us?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it really on us to restore?
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think about that more as God's work, but I do believe in a story of justice, so talk to me, help me.
[SPEAKER_00]: help me school me please.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think restoration like I said is a is a is a communal project, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The Bible says he who are spiritual restore one in the spirit of making this considering oneself.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it does take work the heavy the heavy your low is on the person to be honest.
[SPEAKER_01]: I find that people
[SPEAKER_01]: lack complete honesty.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: If their goal is to get back to a position and not a path.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I talk about the distinction in the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because restoration is not about you getting the position back.
[SPEAKER_01]: You may never be a leader again.
[SPEAKER_01]: You may not leadership may not be healthy.
[SPEAKER_01]: You may not have the discipline for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You may not have the temperament for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's kind of like moving people from thinking about restoration to a position.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think when people are concerned about positions, that's when they're not always completely honest.
[SPEAKER_01]: When they're concerned about getting back on the path, they're usually more repented and more transparent about what actually happened and what's actually going on because it's not like like Saul was like, make me look good in front of the people.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he wanted to be restored in front of the people by Samuel versus actually being
[SPEAKER_01]: being whole before God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think, you know, one of the ways we can engage if the person is ready for restoration is, are they being completely honest?
[SPEAKER_01]: And are they in a rush to get back to a position?
[SPEAKER_01]: To
[SPEAKER_01]: We can't always, like, it's a very, I delineate, you can only restore hero if you have proximity or authority in their life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I make that delineation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody doesn't have the, uh, proximity.
[SPEAKER_01]: That really happens in close relationships.
[SPEAKER_01]: What you can do if you see a person that's unrepentant.
[SPEAKER_01]: And.
[SPEAKER_01]: You really care deeply for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the pray for them, just like a mother who has a child that's way worth.
[SPEAKER_01]: They pray for them and hope, God, heart is their heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all you can do.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to incorporate fasting, you can't, but you don't have to.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's only if you feel committed to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But most of us won't be in the proximity of a hero to restore them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I want people to do, one of the reasons that was put in there, is because there are people in,
[SPEAKER_01]: I have leaders that I know, that they're leaders that sit by and just do nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have proximity and friendship and it's like, I don't want to touch that, that's, you know, that's, you know, he going through a lot or they step up there, I remember I was talking to a leader that was going through a failure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, has anybody called you?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like, no, they text me and said, I'm praying for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, what is that gonna do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, if you have proximity and relationship, you gotta get in the mud and at least ask some questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, actually pick up the phone and say, what is going on?
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't just read about it in the press and just, you know, send an on-prem for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not.
[SPEAKER_01]: helpful.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I pray it's helpful, but if you have proximity and you have relationship, you can do more and you are peer, you can do a little bit more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the person may not let you walk with them, but at least do more and I'm just seeing a lot of apathetic leaders that don't have the courage to actually at least have pick up the phone to have a conversation with someone
[SPEAKER_01]: other than sending the text.
[SPEAKER_01]: To me, that's just cowardly.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't, it doesn't demonstrate authentic relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I think that's, I think that's so helpful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that, you know, with proximity, proximity comes a particular responsibility.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, when you have that proximity, you do bear particularly responsibility and we think about restorative justice models, um, you know, it does require the naming of the harm that's like our step one in that process, you have to name the harms and they oftentimes are much more.
[SPEAKER_02]: deep and complicated, and then even that person who's done wrong can even fathom initially.
[SPEAKER_02]: So sometimes, you know, even if they are being honest, they can sometimes lack the insight as they go through a journey and start to see like, oh my gosh, yeah, that harm that young person who had just found a way to come back to church for the first time, and then they learn this about me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I have a debt to that person too, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So
[SPEAKER_02]: It gets it goes on if a person is honest, they realize how broad, you know, how long the tentacles of sin really, really are and, yeah, and I, I'm just commenting on your comments, Lisa, but the other thing I was, when I was listening to y'all, I was like, well, you know, some leaders are never going correct other leaders because when you are a person who corrects, you must be ready to be corrected.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's just facts.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you are known if you're known for the call out or if you're known for the call in, you can imagine and honestly no matter how you no matter what your skill is, if you are known as a person that will be like, hey.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes people wait to find something so they can say that to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it is, it does take a boldness, you know, it does take a courage and confidence and the lower it will keep you even as you correct other people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think that is just great, great wisdom, Lisa, reminding us of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I'm thinking about what does it mean to be able to discern that particular burden and responsibility, I say you do have proximity to someone.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you were to coach or advise the folks who were in proximity to that person that you were talking to who had a fall or had an issue and it was like ain't nobody calling and checking on that person.
[SPEAKER_02]: What would you be advising them to do?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like what would that look like based on the wisdom that you've gleaned from this book and what needs to happen because people are hurting because of the consequence of a hero falling?
[SPEAKER_02]: How would you coach a friend to go in and talk to a friend who has fall?
[SPEAKER_02]: Head of fall?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think one of the things is you, I think what we need to do in relationship just in general is make sure we have built enough equity where people feel like they're loved.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that one of the things I see about ministry relationships, particularly among men, they're very surface.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like you're,
[SPEAKER_01]: We're BFFs only when we're on each other's platforms, but there's no actual communication in the middle.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that middle is what builds space for people to divulge, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's helping people even before the fall move their relationships from transactional
[SPEAKER_01]: in relationships.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's kind of building that equity and trying to make sure you pour in.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you reach out, I think it's important to just be direct, but don't be rude.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's important to name the elephant in the room.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I need to call you
[SPEAKER_01]: and you're on the front of page of Christianity today.
[SPEAKER_01]: And say, hey, bro, hey, since how you doing today, I mean, you know, that is all over the news.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't need to just talk about the weather.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's hey, how you doing, how are you doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what is going on here?
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember calling somebody and be like, hey, show about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're really going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're really open.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you can glean from that conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether the person is ready to tell the truth.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: for the person I talked to.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I could tell that they weren't ready to tell the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I prayed with them at the end and say, I prayed that the truth comes out because I know they weren't really there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so glad to hear that you.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a discrepancy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I just prayed with them then the truth would come out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I felt like that was a neutral prayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the prayer that was like, if you say it's a lie,
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I can't make you say it's the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I can pray that God will bring the truth out whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's to be direct.
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't mean I'm rude.
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't mean I throw you away.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's like, OK, I can sit.
[SPEAKER_01]: That you're not ridden until the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I call you back into weeks or threes, I'm a test again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are we still in the same place?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, we gonna continue to pray that the truth will come out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like that that's the prayer that one should pray when people are not in a place of repentance and that God would work in their heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also think that when people are fully ready to divulge and tell the truth, then you can appoint them to things that they need.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can appoint them to other people
[SPEAKER_01]: People with some people need therapy.
[SPEAKER_01]: If they wrecked their marriage, they need trust rebuild if their partners willing to stay with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be a long process.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might need to help them go to HR because they might have to go to a ministry job to a regular job.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you might need to point them to a resume builder.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, they're practical things that you can do, but you can't be the beyond the end zone.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you have to ask for wisdom where is my part in this process.
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe I'm just a connector.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I'm here to help you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to one part.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I can't be everything because this is a restoration as a community project.
[SPEAKER_02]: So sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it takes a charge to raise a saint.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, yeah, 100%.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do like the accountability, though, of our responsibility based on proximity.
[SPEAKER_02]: And
[SPEAKER_02]: and what love needs to look like, if it ever was love, it doesn't just be like, okay, peace out, y'all work that out on your own.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's so much shame when someone falls.
[SPEAKER_02]: We think of shame almost like it's a contagion, and like it can get on us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things that I so many things I love about the ministry of Jesus is that Jesus is not teach us treat us as if we are contaminated.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, uh, you know, while we in our sin, Jesus goes close to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I do think that that's something that as I'm reckoning with people I know who had heroes who are fallen and shenanigans, abounds in the American church.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think about whether or not, do I, do I believe that shame is contagious?
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and, and in am I dealing with them the way that Jesus dealt with people who were
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, as he called them to send no more, you know, so I think it's going to somehow impact my reputation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I think, uh, reputational, um, that, that, that reputational idol could cost us, uh, the proper way to shepherd the influence of our proximity that you're talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's, that's good.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to be chewing on that and asking the Lord to show me what I need to do on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I remember the day of the stuff he the news for my hero and I remember watching all the people that people he had introduced me to and people that would say this is the person that led me to faith that mentor me that sacrifice on in one minute he became the villain in their story.
[SPEAKER_01]: in one post.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, man, how did you go from the greatest thing to the worst thing in a, like you didn't give yourself time to process because it was that what you're speaking to, that I don't want to be guilty by association.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you don't have to be guilty by association.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can actually process it if it's not like I realized so much of it was transactional.
[SPEAKER_01]: You helped me and you, as long as you were
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as soon as you start impacted my platform and may have some financial costs, and it's not that you have to say, I'm with you publicly, but you get like, if you love somebody, you got to take time to process what happened and even like, it's just 10 minutes went by.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I do think that part of it has to do with,
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, what the, the infraction, the thin, what is, you know, that somebody, you know, committed as well, you know, and so I would like, I know that as we're wrapping, I would love to bring survivors, you know, to the table, you know, and ask, because I think it's, it's so tricky and I think it's so difficult and it is, um, it is lamentable.
[SPEAKER_00]: that quite a few, not always, but the oftentimes the scandals, the sin that is uncovered, revealed, exposed in a host of sections within the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's Protestant, that's Catholic, that's
[SPEAKER_00]: And then whatever, among race, denomination, it is often times sexual abuse, it is often times sexual assault, it is often times not always.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's the money.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's all types of different, you know, the infractions of sins vary, but that is one that is particular that we often, you know, see.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I would want to ask you how you honor the very real offense trauma harm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don to the victims or survivors, however they choose to name themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we honor that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we serve the God of the oppressed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we know God abines himself to the widow of the orphan, the so-journer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, can you talk about how we can honor and really lift up the cause of,
[SPEAKER_00]: the victim, those who have been survivors of their abuse from, whatever the hero happens to be for, in our own narrative.
[SPEAKER_01]: Particularly with sexual abuse, what I talk about in a book is we have I think in the church failed to just call the police.
[SPEAKER_00]: like we go to the elders and we're mandated of the porters, mandated of the porters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, leadership is.
[SPEAKER_01]: We go to leadership, leadership is a surprise.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because we don't skip church leadership and go to authorities.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I do think, you know, you can go to the church.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you see a crime happening, you need to go to the police.
[SPEAKER_01]: that because that's the only way you get a count of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the children, women, or men.
[SPEAKER_01]: The authorities need to be notified because the church may consider their reputation or try to have a conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some things need to be reported, so that people actually can be taken.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why the members, like, just call up a lease.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we don't even have it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, I've,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, a part of their restoration process could be them in prison.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, I'm saying, that's not beyond the scope of, I'm just because I report you to the authorities, doesn't me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't seek your restoration, but you do have to serve time for your harm.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I think that's one thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the police has already been called, their process already started, I think one thing we need to listen to the stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: in churches where we get so fixated on restoring a hero because we think that their position, we have this thing, well, they help more than they hurt.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, how many people did they help?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: They help thousands of the money that they bring in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the money that they bring in.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they hurt two or three people.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can brush that under the rug because they're helping more.
[SPEAKER_01]: God calls us for to to to to to also feel it as if it happened to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that that's what Hebrew writer says that I reference.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, and when something when you feel it in your own self, you do something about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, when we have discomfort and pain, we look to seek relief.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we see the pain at harm of others, we need to say, what can I offer this person?
[SPEAKER_01]: If I'm disset from this person, and the instances of my hero of many of the victims were unnamed to protect their identities, like I can offer prayers, support, lift up their stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: But don't just let their what happened to them go unnamed and them not getting justice.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if that needs financial retribution, in addition to the impacts of, in addition to their perpetrator going to prison, like all of those things, and then pray for their healing.
[SPEAKER_01]: If there's a fund, some people create funds for victims, pray for them to get the therapy they need to process the pain, the resources they need.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think one simple thing we could do, if we have proximity and we hear that their sexual abuse and if the leadership of the churches and doing anything, it's the cause of our needs.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, I think so much is so much abuses perpetrated because we have not just called 911.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, a hundred percent.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I work with the organization, I'll always tell them that you don't wait until, I mean, every policy is a person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like every policy they can create is nicknamed a person that is a reason why the policy exists.
[SPEAKER_02]: But as best you can because we have the experiences of the church throughout history and even modern history.
[SPEAKER_02]: you need protocols in place because all of us are tempted to see people through our own individual experience with them for the good or the bad of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like when you get a report, you need a system or when you are aware of something, you need a system that just falls into place.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not to assume guilt because people every person deserves a proper investigation of what has been accused or what has happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, if we wait on our own inclinations, no matter how brave we feel like we are, it can be really hard for us to do that automatically.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think the ability to, this is such a hard topic because you have to care for,
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we do both in a God-honoring way?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That helps those who are that glorify God in the way that makes the gospel attractive.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you talk about that explicitly, and if there is no, if there's no gospel for the fallen hero, then there's no gospel for none of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, and that's that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, man, man, that's a good place there, right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause I'm gonna release to say, you know, the gospel is high, you live in love, my gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, cause you guys are going high.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, and then we'll be over here in the mud.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, come on up, please.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause that was come on, y'all, come on, come on.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, good, thank you so much, Lisa.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it took a lot of courage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Took a lot of prayer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And boldness to write this book when heroes fall.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we encourage you all to get your copy because I'm sure it will help you, you know, if deal with the hero that has fallen or one who.
[SPEAKER_00]: may fall because, you know, we just keep living.
[SPEAKER_00]: People be sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: People be falling.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Lisa.
[SPEAKER_00]: For writing this book and thank you for coming to the table and of course to ask.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, anytime sister will have to have you back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, we want to thank our sisters for joining us at the table.
[SPEAKER_00]: This week, let's keep the conversation going.
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