Rebuilding Hope: Recovering After A Storm Destroys the Church?

0:00 that said, OK, we're in the rubble of deconstruction. It's not a bad thing. But now we have this huge task as a generation to rebuild. And thankfully, we have a blueprint for that in the word of God. Natalie Runyon, it is great to have you back here on Charisma. And it was just not too long ago that you and I talked for the first time. And that time was about your book, Raised to Stay, which was about identifying church hurt and how we don't need to necessarily run away. But we can be healing agents. And really, since then, we have seen scandal after scandal in the church. We've seen the IHOP KC issues with Mike Bickel and now recently with Robert Morris at Gateway Church and the issues that have come out.

0:43 But God prompted you ahead of time to write your latest book on the heels of Raised to Stay. And now it's the house that Jesus built. And so Natalie, I got to ask you, why did you feel such an urgency to get this book out so quickly? It was so interesting how Raised to Stay hadn't even gone to edits yet. And I was asking the Lord, just in my quiet time, if I were to put out a second book later down the road, what would that second book be? And this phrase, the house that Jesus built, just kind of was dancing around in my spirit a little bit. And so I actually looked up the story of the three little pigs. And I was like, because when you think about building houses and an enemy, you think of this nursery rhyme that we grew up hearing about all the time.

1:27 And so there is actually a moral to this story was that these three little pigs were tasked with building houses that would protect them from the enemy. But two of them wanted to go play. And so they built fast and they built with bad materials. And as a result of that, the one who built not in a hurry, the one who built with good materials with the brick is the one that actually could withstand the hot air of the enemy when that wolf came in to huff and puff and blow the house down. And I started thinking about our churches and this deconstruction movement that we've been in and thinking, you know, there have been some foundational issues where we as church people have built fast and we've built on bad foundation. And now we're seeing the enemy come in and huff and puff and blow our churches down through moral failures, sheep that are being abused, all of the things that led us to this deconstruction.

2:15 So throughout all of scripture, God allowed his people to tear things down. But there was always a blueprint to rebuild. And so I wanted to write a book that said, okay, we're in the rubble of deconstruction. It's not a bad thing. But now we have this huge task as a generation to rebuild. And thankfully we have a blueprint for that in the word of God. Yeah, you know, a couple of years ago at my parents' house, there was an issue with the foundation in part of the house. And they actually had to have somebody come in and figure out how to shore up the foundation and fix everything. And that was a big, expensive process. And it wasn't because the foundation was previously bad. It was just that it was very, very old and things had decayed.

2:57 So we need to pay attention to our foundations all the time and make sure that everything's are cleared out. But what are some of these foundational things that we really need to make sure that we are building upon? And what are some of the things that we've built upon that are crumbling? Well, in the raised estate community, which is online, we have a very robust family of about 180,000 of, you know, stayers who are very honest with me about the reasons why they have gone through a deconstruction process or why they've left their faith altogether. And a lot of it came down to being severely disappointed and hurt by people who should know better and are behaving badly through abuse, celebrity culture, not being integrists with their finances.

3:42 There are so many things that, like you said, the foundation could have started well, but over time it has become decayed due to us not taking care of it. And so when I looked at the different things that people were telling me, we really came down to spiritual abuse. It came down to an orphan spirit that a lot of our pastors and leaders have come under when they haven't reached celebrity status. We've got a lot of consumers in the kingdom now who want the church to work for them and not the other way around. And so those foundational practices I talk about in those first four chapters of like, what took us down? What is it that made us unsteady? And then in those last eight chapters, I talk about the book of Acts. And I go into Acts chapter two, which we love the second chapter of Acts as Pentecostals because we're like, man, there's like tongues of fire and they're speaking in tongues.

4:27 But really when Peter stands up and he begins to preach this message in the upper room, what he's doing is he's laying out a foundational surface for the very first church, which was repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness, communion, worship, the word of God. And so when we look at all of those elements, we think, wow, it's actually not having to recreate the wheel. If we as a church just went back to that second chapter of Acts and saw what was growing the church daily then, what if we were to go back to those foundational basics in our church today? And just as it says in the message translation, the people on the outside looked within the walls of the upper room and generally liked what they saw. Like, great would it be if the world looked into our churches and generally liked what they saw?

5:12 Yeah. So we focus so much on appearances in the church. There's a lot of facade. In fact, that's actually one of the biggest complaints that I believe people of the world have is that, Christians, they just wear masks all the time. They're not real. How do we show the reality or the realness, the authenticity, but still the joy of the Lord? Well, I think that's why social media is such an interesting space because there is a lot of chatter of just being honest. Like, let's just be honest for honesty sake and let's be vulnerable for vulnerability sake. And what can happen is if there's not enough healing in those spaces, it can just become a cesspool of our wounds kind of meshing together and creating this nasty abyss of just woundedness.

6:01 But when we marry honor and honesty, and we say, it's okay to be honoring to the leaders that have gone before us, honoring of those who have paved ways for us, but also honest that there have been some things that were allowed in the church at the hands of those leaders and even at our own hands that have wounded people. So how do we talk about that as the church in a way that still honors the Lord, still honors the organization that is the church, that is Jesus's idea, and then also honors those who have been wounded and who have been victims and not silence their stories, but also being honest. And in this space where we can say, we know that hurt and this should have never happened and sitting with empathy for both places, because I know a lot of shepherds right now who aren't hurting their sheep.

6:49 I know a lot of good shepherds, there's more good shepherds than bad shepherds. And they're having to kind of take on the blunt, the brutal force of a generation who's been wounded by the few. Yeah, you know, as pastors, they're sometimes guilty by association and just by being a pastor. I know that hurt people hurt people. And so if they go from one church to another, they're not necessarily healing as they should. And so they'll sometimes take their offense and put it and project it onto a pastor who's not an issue. But there are issues. I mean, we've had some major ones come out in the news recently, but those churches are still filled with people that love Jesus.

7:39 And, you know, do you throw the baby out with the bath water? Do you clean the baby? I mean, how do you deal with this whenever you have a leader that's fallen? What happens to the sheep? Well, I've noticed that there are some who are looking for a reason to completely walk away. And all it will take is one moral failure of a leader they thought was infallible to give them permission to say, well, I knew the church was crazy. I knew all the leaders were bad. They're no different than the world. I'm gonna move on. And that's a very small percentage of people, I believe, who are in that camp. What I believe is happening now is that the church has been so hungry for revival, so hungry for a move of God that isn't just encounter, but also biblical formation and understanding and seeing the great commission come to fruition in our time, that people are willing to not throw the baby out with the bath water, but they're a little bit more willing to have their foundations checked.

8:36 So as these leaders are falling, you're noticing other pastors saying, whoa, I don't want that to be my legacy. I don't want that to be my story. Because you have to remember, if the enemy can't kill us and he can't basically destroy us, he'll try to steal our legacy. And that's really the unfortunate thing of what's happening right now is men who have had legacies and ministry are losing those legacies and being known for moral failures and not all the good they did in the kingdom. So we're seeing pastors say, whoa, I don't want that to be my legacy. Come in and we're gonna hire outside groups to do a good check on us, to check on our staff, to check on our foundation so that we can be up for the next 100 years. Yeah. So what are some things that we can do to protect ourselves or to let's say, shore up that foundation ahead of time?

9:21 Because you just mentioned about people coming in and checking on things, but I'm thinking about a small church, the pastor's maybe got 150 people there. If he's doing everything he can to make sure that the widow is being taken care of, that the poor person is good, that the people that are doing well in the church are leading and growing in the Lord, they can't necessarily bring in an outside audit and stuff. But I'm thinking about those pastors as well. How can they connect to this message? Well, first of all, I think we all need to do individual foundation checks in our own life. I ask why this scripture is search my heart, oh Lord, and show me if any wicked ways in me.

10:03 And I'm gonna worry about the plank in my own eye before I worry about the speck in someone else's. So if my foundation as the ecclesia, as the call it out one, part of the global church is not healthy. And then I go into a church building with a bunch of unhealthy little ecclesias, then we are probably all going to end up at each other's throat for the end of this time of being a Christian on this earth. So really we all have to start on our own foundations. Am I built on Jesus? Do I offer reconciliation and forgiveness? And am I worshiping? Am I doing everything I'm demanding from the church? And then second of all, for us and any leader, the biggest thing is just, am I pointing people to Jesus? Am I doing everything in the scriptures that Jesus was doing, that he was encouraging his disciples to do?

10:47 And if I can say, yes, I'm doing all of those things, then when people come in with a critical spirit, which is different than a foundational check, but a critical spirit, we're able to show them this list of, look what we're doing in our city and look what we're doing in our Judea and our Samaria and to the ends of the earth and look how many people are coming to know the Lord. And you're just every day getting back on mission with that great commission and that great command of loving God and loving people. And that's really what I'm looking for as a lay person. When I walk into a church, are they on mission with the great commission and are they offering me the great command? And are they offering me opportunities to do the same in return? And so that's a basic start, right? Where we can just look within our own hearts, am I doing those things?

11:29 And then I'm walking into my church and I'm saying, they're doing those things. And also remember this, it's not the shepherd's job. It is not the lead pastor's job to make sure that all of the Christians are behaving. His job is to protect the sheep and to make sure that the sheep are being fed. And so we all owe it to each other to be responsible and to be our brother's keeper. Yeah. So Natalie, as you were putting together this book, the house that Jesus built and as you're working on this blueprint, tell me about the research that you've done and as you're putting everything together to help us kind of see what this needs to look like today. Well, I learned more about construction than I ever wanted to learn.

12:10 We were actually ironically building our house when I was writing this book. And what was so crazy about it is that I wanted to move in a lot sooner than we did, because we were moving states. And I was talking to our main contractor. And I said, I just want it to get done faster than it's getting done. And he looked at me and he said, ma'am, would you like this house built quickly or would you like it done safely? And I, from there on was like, I'm actually intrigued by this. And so what I started doing is looking at different terms in the construction world when you're building a house. And one of those researches that I did was on this concept of rubblization, where you take the foundation of an old entity or an old building and you actually use what's left over to create the foundation of the new thing that you're building.

12:56 And what I loved about that is that Jesus has already come in and done the work. So we're not like having to build anything new. We are literally taking what Jesus has given us and saying, okay, there's some things that we need to maybe detangle from that the world has added into this, but now we're gonna start rebuilding with Jesus. And so I just went through the whole construction process of what it looks like to lay down a floor plan, a framing and all of that, and how important spiritually that is in our own lives to have that framework in our life that is the word of God, to have the foundation of Jesus, to have a floor plan that is invitational and laid out well so that people see our hearts and they see our minds and our souls and we're not just religious people running around.

13:37 And so I did a lot of that research. And then I did a ton of research on the book of Acts and what happened when everyone in that upper room left the upper room, because thank God they left the upper room so they could take the church beyond. And all of the different people who were involved in Acts and taking this church out to a world, the different relationships that were involved from Paul and Silas and Luke and all of the women who were included in that with Lydia and John Mark's mom, Mary and even Dorcas and Aquila and Priscilla and how so many people came along to help create this framework that is now the church. Yeah, that's so cool. Cause you can look through the Bible and see how things are actually laid out in the foundation and you just have to put on those glasses of a blueprint maker and as a construction worker and see, oh, this does make sense.

14:28 And the Old Testament is so rich in it as well. I mean, you think about Nehemiah, like the builders had a hammer and a sword in their hand, one to build and one to fight. And I see that for us now is we're the ready builders with Jesus today. Like we're defending some people, we're defending some things, but we're also building and he's tasked us for both. Yeah. So you mentioned the Old Testament. I think it's super interesting that the Bible is very specific on the dimensions and the decorations for the temple and the tabernacle. As you're looking at blueprints for your house and you're looking at blueprints in the Old Testament and the New Testament, what are some other things that have surprised you that you were like, I've never seen that as a building implement or a foundational aspect before?

15:18 I mean, you just think about like all of the different individual beams that have to be put in just for there to be stability for the other beams that are gonna be coming in. We look at a house and we say, wow, that's a beautiful house. Kind of the way we look at a church, we think that's a massive cathedral, but we forget that there are these individual single unit things like the gyms in the New, in the Old Testament, the different carpet colors, the curtains, there are things that are strategically placed within the walls that you can't even necessarily see right off the bat that are there for protection, beauty, for character, to tell a story, to provide historical context.

15:59 And so I think for the average person, they look at a church and they see four things. They see the outside structure, they see the inside decor, they see who's on the platform and they see who has the authority. And while all of those four things are absolutely important, that's not actually what's keeping the church up. What's keeping the church up is the prayers of the people. It's the intercession. It is the things that we are doing behind the scenes that nobody gets a Facebook highlight reel on, right? And so I think that's what has shocked me the most is like we ignore and potentially don't take care of the things that are hidden because it doesn't look attractive, but it's actually what's keeping us up.

16:41 Yeah, the foundations and the structure, the bones of a house is really important. And I've heard people say that house has good bones. It's got good structure, it's got strength, all the supporting walls are in the right places and doing what they're supposed to be doing. And yeah, those things don't get seen all the time. You mentioned earlier about your community, the raised to stay community, the stayers, and there's like 100,000 some people in this, which is that's amazing that that many people have connected to this message. You mentioned about deconstruction. And I think we talked about that in our previous conversation as well. And deconstruction is something that is, it's different than demolition.

17:27 A lot of times people deconstruct their faith, but really they're just demolishing it. And they're not actually doing it with the intention of building it back up again. Can you talk about what a healthy deconstruction is? Well, I've had to talk a lot of pastors off the ledge, excuse me. I've had to talk a lot of pastors off the ledge because they hear this deconstruction and they're like my parents age and they think, well, that must mean deconversion. And it's like, no, deconstruction isn't necessarily deconversion. It can just be a detangling. It's things that people have placed on us that aren't even scriptural or aren't the Lord. And so in my foreword of raised to stay, Lisa Bevere says that deconstruction without any plan to rebuild is just destruction.

18:08 And so we really have to search our own hearts when we're going through our own faith detangling to say, okay, am I doing this because there are some things that I'm carrying that God never asked me to carry like shame, guilt, things about my sins I know are forgiven that people keep putting on me, different things that we were raised in maybe as kids that actually aren't even scriptural. And then doing what you just talked about where we just demolish our faith and walk away altogether. And what's hard about having a social media presence like the one that I have is that I have all spectrums and everyone feels validated in why they did it the way that they did it. And so really that's why we need wise counsel in our lives, mentorship, discipleship, pastors, shepherds that are healthy to help us discern if we are really gonna rebuild or if we're gonna slowly walk away altogether.

19:01 Yeah, and we want people to rebuild, obviously. That's the big thing because we don't want anybody to walk away from the Lord. But one of the big reasons that people would walk away from the Lord is because of spiritual abuse or physical abuse, sexual abuse within a church by an authority figure. And the commonists that we have left here, can we talk about that? Because that has been the biggest issue in the news recently, those specific things, spiritual abuse and sexual abuse. How can we help people with that? Well, I always say that we have got to be better listeners as a church. We can sit down with somebody over coffee and think we've scratched the surface of who they are and what they are.

19:45 But the minute that somebody tells us, I was abused by the church or I was hurt by the church, that's not just like a gloss over, like, okay, next conversation. That's an invitation for us to ask deeper questions and to find out, okay, what kind of hurt are we talking about? What kind of abuse are we talking about? So we don't let somebody just stay wounded and just keep on moving. We also have to stop defending the church. Jesus himself, he will defend his church. We have to start getting to a place where we're not so busy trying to defend pastors and people, but that we really are more interested in protecting the sheep. So I always say, if somebody comes to you and says, I've been abused, we need to take that absolutely serious the first time that it's said so that we can do some investigating.

20:27 And if it's a child, especially, if it's a teenager, because that's where the police get involved. And so I just wanna echo how serious it is because it is happening. The documentaries like Shiny Happy People, things like that that are starting to come out, those are giving people who have been victimized voices, thank God, because now they realize, oh, I'm not alone. If it happened in Texas, if it happened in Utah, if it happened in New York, it can happen to me in Montana. You know, this was something that really happened. So thankfully we're starting to give voices to our victims to be able to walk this healing thing out. The worst thing that we can do though, is to isolate the victim and to make them feel like it's their fault. And I think that what we try to do when these big names get exposed for this type of behavior is because they feel more familiar to us.

21:14 We think that doesn't sound like so-and-so. Well, we don't know so-and-so. We just know their online presence. So I always am just such an advocate for let's be good listeners. Let's be good friends. Let's be good shepherds to the sheep God's entrusted to us and then help them take the next steps towards counseling, healing, so that they won't leave the church altogether and they'll know they're safe somewhere. Yeah. Natalie, as we're wrapping up here, what encouragement can you give to people that are struggling with this, that are wrestling, I guess, is probably a better term than that. And then would you pray for people that are kind of in this need right now too?

21:55 Yeah, you know, I think you guys, first of all, you have to know you're not alone. I mean, we all, especially in our generation, in the 40s, 50s, we're really disappointed. There's just been a lot of disappointment. And guess what? We've disappointed people too. We're not completely exempt from hurting people and being disappointing for others. And so to own that and say, Father, forgive me for the way that I've hurt your sheep, for the way that I've been part of tearing things down that you didn't want torn down, or the way that I've been part of making the foundation a little bit risky, like I have to pray that prayer. And second of all, to say that there are better churches out there than what you think. I always say this, that there are more healthy churches and more healthy pastors out there than unhealthy ones.

22:37 And so to remember that it could be kind of like a year of trying different churches, and as our church says, you can date for a little bit, but eventually you gotta put a ring on it. You know, you want to get to a point where you are in community, where you can have that experience that hurt you redeemed by a community that can love you, and a shepherd who can love you. And finally, just to know that you do have family in the family of God, that you are not an orphan and you're wanted desperately by God and by the people that he's entrusted to take care of you. So don't ever give up on Jesus, number one. If you can't go back to church, don't give up on Jesus, but know that his family is pretty cool too. And would you pray for people? Yes.

23:18 God, I thank you so much, Lord, for your church. I thank you, Lord, for your bride. She is radiant and she is beautiful, and you are coming back for her. Father, you are so proud of your children. You love us so much, God. And I just pray for those who are wandering right now, who at one time was part of a good community, at one time was on a church staff and vibrant in their faith. Father, I pray that that flame would just be stirred up in them right now. God, that they would be reminded of the promises you spoke over them when they were young and that that flame would just move into a giant forest fire, God, that would put them back on mission with the great commission and loving people well. God, I just pray, Lord, for those who are wounded, Father, that you would bind up those wounds and that you would bring healing for those who have been disappointed, God, that you would bring people into their lives, Father, to give them faith again, maybe for the first time and going back into a church building.

24:10 And for those who are just tired and weary of all of the stuff they're seeing, God, that you would just put them back in your word and remind them of what you have to say because you have the final word. And I just pray, God, for peace over all of your people now. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Natalie, thank you so much for joining us today here on Charisma, and I just wanna encourage everybody, you can get her books, Raised to Stay, and the new one that's coming out, The House that Jesus Built. You can get those everywhere the books are available and definitely on Amazon as well. Put the link in the description for that as well. So Natalie, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me, John.