008: Identity and Integrity After Pain and Loss with Steve Carter

What do you do when you’ve given your life to a cause and calling, to have only to find yourself walking away?

Steve Carter was named as one of two successors to Bill Hybels at Willow Creek Community Church. When the allegations against Hybels broke national news, it all changed. Ultimately, Steve sided with the women who told their stories and resigned his position in protest.

In this week’s conversation, Steve shares about that decision, and how he made choices to pursue integrity, and to allow his own grief to shape, but not define him. He also shares his personal litmus test for recognizing when he is drifting from living with integrity, and how he recognizes living as his full, whole self with integrity.

Plus, we tease his session topic on “Building a Safe and Trustworthy Church” at the upcoming Broken to Beloved Conference on September 26.

Get the full show notes here. 📄

Episode Resources and Links

• As Long As You Need by JS Park: at Bookshop.org | on Amazon
• Broken to Beloved Podcast: Episode 1: Navigating Toxic Systems and Maintaining Agency with Dr. Alison Cook
• I Shouldn't Feel This Way by Dr. Alison Cook: at Bookshop.org | on Amazon
• Continued Conversation with Heather Gargis
• Broken to Beloved Conference info and registration
• Broken to Beloved Gathering info and registration

Guest Spotlight 

Website | Instagram | X/Twitter | Substack

Grieve, Breathe, Receive on Bookshop.org | on Amazon

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Transcript

Steve Carter  0:00  

Then he said this, but every time we have drifted from our call, from having a bad pope, a new order was created. The Jesuit Order was created out of the Borgia regime. And I thought, Man, that’s so redemptive. The Benedictine...you have all of these orders in the Catholic Church that were in response to bring them back to the original call.

And I think, Brian, what you’re doing, I think what Laura Barringer, Dr. Scot McKnight, in A Church Called Tov and Pivot like, I think there is a new order of character and health and formation that we are being invited into. It’s just, will the pastors and the structures and the systems be willing to follow that path of Christ, or will they stay trying to hold on to power at all costs?

Brian Lee  0:55  

Hey and welcome to episode number eight of the Broken to Beloved Podcast. I hope to provide practical resources through compassionate conversations, to grow in trauma awareness, set up safeguarding practices to prevent or avoid future trauma and move toward healing and wholeness. I’m your host, Brian Lee, and I’m so glad you’re here today.

We’re talking with pastor and author Steve Carter. We talk about his experience working with Bill Hybels at Willow Creek, and the process he went through to grieve in the aftermath of resigning his position in protest to everything that was happening there.

We also talk about his session at the upcoming Broken to Beloved Conference on September 26. I’ll share details after the interview, so stick around. Steve is the best selling author of The Thing Beneath the Thing and the newly released Grieve, Breathe, Receive.

Pastorally, his passion is to bring the way of Jesus into everything he does. Steve serves as teaching pastor at Forest City Church, and regularly teaches at churches, conferences and various businesses worldwide. He lives outside of Chicago, Illinois, with his wife and two kids.

And now here’s my conversation with our friend Steve Carter. Steve, welcome to the podcast.

Steve Carter  1:59  

It’s so good to be with you, Brian. How you doing today?

Brian Lee  2:01  

All right, it’s always good to see you. Congratulations on the release of your new book, Grieve, Breathe, Receive. How do you feel?

Steve Carter  2:08  

I will say it’s different than other books that I’ve written, because in the other books, like, if someone comes up to you and talks to you, it’s, you know, it’s about the thing beneath the thing. That was the most recent book, people are just talking about, oh, I have a thing, and it’s pretty comical. It’s like something that that maybe they turn to a vice, or something that they have a select struggle with. But when you write about grief, all of the conversations are like, as weighty as they come. People who had church hurt, people who have lost a loved one, and I don’t think I had, like, the spiritual musculature for that, that, like, there’s been times where I walked down I was like, one, I’m glad that the book is resonating. But two, whoo, there’s a lot of stuff people are carrying right now, within the church, people who just without, outside the church, it’s just, it’s just a heavy time right now.

Brian Lee  3:00  

Yeah, it is. I think I read your book right around the same time I was reading JS Park’s new book, As Long As You Need, so it was kind of two big punches of sitting with the grief, naming it, recognizing it, just letting it be there. And I appreciated the messages in both that just say, hey, there’s no rushing through this. You just kind of have to let it run its course.

And yet, I also think that both of them offer such a sense of hope on the other end of it, without trying to whitewash things or spiritually bypass things, or paint a smile on something that is just really difficult.

So I appreciate the sort of honesty that you take it with you kind of summarize in the introduction that grieve is, and you frame it kind of around the holy weekend, right of Good Friday through Easter Sunday, where Friday is facing this shock of loss or change or disruption, the call to breathe is the Saturday, this liminal space and time to readjust and reorient and then receive is Sunday. And I love the way that you say it’s to experience surprise or realize fresh hope. 

And I think obviously you write it with a pastoral tone, because that’s who you are. It’s what you are. And yet it doesn’t come across to me as overly preachy or prescriptive of “hey, here’s what you should do, here are the steps you should follow,” but you really write it through the lens of your own personal journey and what worked for you, and fully admitting that you’re still walking through that process, right?

Steve Carter  4:24  

Yes, totally.

Brian Lee  4:25  

I think something that I’ve appreciated getting to talk to a lot of authors recently is like having been someone who used to just read the books without meeting anyone. You kind of get this sense that the authors have it figured out, and that’s why they wrote the book. And what I’m learning, and is so incredibly reassuring, is that everyone I’ve spoken to like, Oh no, no, this is still very much an ongoing process for me. What is grieve, breathe, receive, like for you right now?

Steve Carter  4:48  

Yeah. So one of the things I would say, first off, thanks so much for the recap of the book that’s always beautiful. In a few minutes, someone can dissect the heartbeat of the book. So thank you.

Two, I would say, whenever you write, you typically have two goals. The first goal is to hope that someone continues to turn the page. Because we all have books that we’ve bought but we haven’t finished, so you always want them to like, one more page, one more page, one more page. But also, I think you write to the person you once were, that’s good and and you wish you would have had this resource. It doesn’t mean that you’re like you said, like you have solved the problems you have, like you’ve mastered it, but when you were in that season, what do you wish you had, or what helped you through it?

And and I think then you’re writing for the people who are just entering into their good Friday moment, meaning they just received something they didn’t deserve, something that wasn’t fair, something that just was heartbreaking. Or they find themselves in that silent Saturday and whew, just like, how do I walk through the liminality and the desert season and still stay open for the surprise?

I think what’s wild is there are moments that I can go right back to Friday really quickly on Twitter, if I see, like a post, it’s just, I can’t I can. I can, like, drive by a place and have a fresh memory of both grief or even just beauty, like it, like Brian, like real talk. Like every Sunday I sit in a service, I think about something Bill Hybels taught me, and it makes me sad, yeah, because he taught me so much and and I have this like sadness because we aren’t in relationship anymore. I don’t have the chance to learn a lot of good things I learned from him.

And so, so it’s it the grief hits at different times I think about my my the loss of my father. You know, Michigan football season was always what we could connect on, and we’re a couple weeks out from the college football season starting, it’s always a fresh reminder of my dad in both good memories and hard memories, and so I think it’s for me, it really changes upon the hour and the day.

But for me, the big question is, in this present moment, which day of holy weekend do I find myself in? I feel myself open to the surprise. I feel myself just On the work front, walking through a season of uncertainty, like, oh, on the family side, Dad side, who feel back in Friday. So it differs, but I think it allows me just to name it, instead of feel like the feelings are taking over.

Brian Lee  7:33  

I know you were just recently on Dr. Cook’s podcast, and we had her on here just talking about her framework of name frame and brave, and how important that first step of just naming where we are or what we’re experiencing without shaming ourselves right in the way? She says that I shouldn’t feel this way, without saying that to ourselves, but just allowing it to take its course. Because so often when we experience that shame, or we experience that overwhelming feeling, or whatever it is, and we decide to try to shut it down or suppress or repress it, we end up getting ourselves into more trouble, right?

Steve Carter  8:05  

It’s so true. It’s so true. And I think you know, for many of us, we’re we love control. We’re really addicted to control. So when it comes to the deeper, darker, more sad and feelings, I think we struggle with naming it. We struggle with honoring what comes up when change shows up like because to do that, it almost puts us in a posture of being out of control. And I don’t know where my emotions might take me. I don’t know what I might start to feel, and I got another meeting, or I gotta, I gotta go to this thing, or as a pastor, I gotta get up on stage to preach.

And, you know, subconsciously, for like, the last 20 years, I’ve done my therapy on Mondays at 11am and it’s because that affords me the best chance to open it up and close it back up before Sunday comes. The weekend comes, and I just think I intuitively do that, but I think deep down, it’s, it’s more because I got to make sure I’m, I’m together, not fully out of control. And I what I love with Dr Alison Cook, and she’s, she’s a real one. She’s one of my favorites.

When she talks about naming it, her book was so helpful for me, because I even talk about you got to grieve. What is you got to be able to name what happened? That happened, that church abuse happened, that kind of death of a dream happened, that breakdown of a relationship happened. You got to be able to name it. If you don’t name it, how can you heal from it? How can you begin the process and the journey and so, so I deeply, deeply resonate with with what Dr Cook shares.

Brian Lee  9:49  

Yeah, and for people who want to know more about how you name things, because I know I had a really hard time with it, they can listen to the first episode of the podcast, which we’ll link here in the intro, and then I’m gonna go all the way to the end of the book too. In the intro, you write, your grief does not define you, although it does help shape you. And then at the very, very end, I don’t know if it’s in the last chapter or in the benediction, you say, you don’t just journey through grief. You journey with grief.

Man, this is so much part of my story where I allowed the grief to define me. And you also write a lot about identity, right? Because you resigned just before your 39th birthday in that window of space right before between the first and second half of life. Who am I anymore if I’m not doing this thing?

I kind of had very similar situations, although very different, and I allowed the grief, and I allowed the loss, and I allowed the over identification of myself with a position or a vocation or a calling to identify who I was. And so therefore, for a period of, I want to say, 10 years, I identified myself as broken.

And that’s really where the name for this whole thing, where Broken to Beloved comes from, is like I had to learn how to let go of that and to name it and to say it doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. It doesn’t mean it’s a permanent thing. And really, my permanent, true identity is as the beloved child of God.

How did the grief shape but not define you?

Steve Carter  11:11  

Yeah, great question. You know, if I think about Romans chapter five, you know, Paul has this great line. And then he says, you know, “suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character, hope and hope will not put us to shame.” And really, what he’s saying is, hey, you’re gonna go through a Good Friday moment. You’re gonna go through suffering like we in the Western Church. 

We we don’t teach that because we’ve taught, you know, everything’s up into the right ease. You know, gross, but it’s really hard to talk about an ease and safe life when you’re also reading the text that says you’re going to carry your cross and you’re going to serve and so I think for many of us, we we weren’t prepared to to risk, to actually take on suffering and see it as something that could shape us for our better. 

I’m not saying that suffering is fair. I’m not saying suffering is like we deserve it. I’m not saying any of that. I’m just saying to be human, you will taste some form of suffering, and often, I think it’s been framed for many of us, is, what did I do wrong? I am something’s wrong with me. So then that that broken language is spot on. 

And you know, for me, one of the hardest pieces was, and I’m, I’m grateful you talked about the identity word was, I just resigned. Like, in a matter of one day, I didn’t have a congregation, I didn’t have a stage, I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have, like, a paycheck, like, I didn’t have and, and so then all of a sudden, you’re like, how do you like what, what am I? 

You know, like I was, I was a Willow Creek lead teaching pastor. I was, you know, Bill Hybels, one of Bill Hybels successors. Like, there was, there were these, like, one sentence, hooks and phrases of who I was. And then I started to be introduced to teach at churches. And people would say He is the former lead teaching pastor, as if my best days are behind me, which reinforce the broken, which reinforce the this is, you know, it used to be good, but this is where he’s at, you know. 

And so I think all of these little almost prisons that we kind of keep ourselves in, and I think going through the Holy weekend really helped me see, oh, silent Saturdays is where perseverance and character as like you just you have to learn the sacred art of trust and learning to wait well and then the hope. I mean, that’s how I love broken to beloved. I mean, there’s there’s, there’s Holy Week and language just there and and in the sense of letting it shape you. I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy. Yeah, but I will say I’m a much deeper human and Christ follower, because I let the suffering shape me, not define me.

Brian Lee  13:55  

Yeah, that’s good.

Steve Carter  13:57  

The other thing I’d say you mentioned the with the way that we talk about it, with Grieve, Breathe, Receive and holy weekend is in Friday, you’re in grief. Saturday, you almost think you can get through grief, like I can get through this. I can get through the desert really, really quickly. I can figure this out. 

But Sunday, one of the most healing moments for me reading the scriptures was when I read John 20 and Jesus returns, and kind of appears to the disciples that are in, like the room, and he breathes on them. He tells them, peace, be with you. Tells them, Receive the Holy Spirit. He says, you know, as the Father sent me, I’m sending you. And then Thomas, like comes up to him, and it’s like, Hey, can I see your hands? And he shows him the scars. 

And it’s not like he got to Sunday and everything was perfect. He still had the grief of Friday. He just was carrying it differently. He didn’t have a cross on his back, but he had the scars on his hand. Brian, like what you and I have both had to endure and walk through. We have scars, yeah, and that’s real. And people. Listening you pro you have scars, but those scars don’t have to define you, and if you go through the right process and let it shape and form you, you’ll carry it so much differently, but it will still be with you and part of your story, but it will be a part that hasn’t held your life in check, but actually unleashed you into more of who God created you to be, even in spite of all of this.

Brian Lee  15:25  

What I love about that is that it doesn’t again, try to paint a happy picture on something that’s really hard. And I think there are a lot of other churches or leaders or pastors who would take a much more triumphal list approach to the story of the resurrection, and then try to apply that on an individual level for people who are going through suffering or grief, right? Just power through. Just wait on the Lord. Whatever it is, Sundays coming, the you know, the whole deal. 

And what I often reflect on and thank you so much for saying it is that when Jesus was resurrected, He could have been resurrected in a whole body, and yet he came back with those scars. And that gives me so much hope, like you’re saying, for the scars that you and I carry and that everyone else who’s listening carries, that we’re not supposed to come back perfect. We’re not supposed to come back with all those parts restored and replaced. And you know, better than before, we will carry scars. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing either. 

It doesn’t make us less than it doesn’t make us, you know, whatever, but that through those scars and the showing and sharing of those scars, we can offer that hope to someone else. I think it’s so restorative.

Steve Carter  16:40  

It is. And I think, you know, people always say, like, I want to learn, like, how to be resilient. How do you grow in resilience without having to go through a Friday and Saturday? Yeah, do you? How do you grow in conviction if you don’t go through a Friday or Saturday? How do you go how do you actually become an empath, someone who has empathy.

I think one of the gifts when you let suffering shape you. I think you and I both could say who we were pre kind of hurt and pain and abuse, and who we are post, same body, same person, but wildly deeper and different, you know? And we’re asking different questions, right? And you hold space so well? And now I’ve just be, I’ve begun to recognize, isn’t it fascinating all the people who hold space well have gone through some difficult situation. It’s it’s like to be fully present with someone, to be like heart to heart, to be someone who into me. 

You see, that’s basically kicked out of us at a young age, and until we can go through it and return to ourselves. And in that it’s like that becomes almost a sense of healing that we can hold space and give away to others. Yeah, I think for people who are like, who are like the wounded resistors, the people who have gone through church hurt and pain, I just, I always want to say, I’m sorry, and I also will say that for any of you, the ability that you have to be able to hold space, because unfortunately, this continues to happen like you will through this become even safer, even healthier, if you let it. And that’s, that’s, that’s the struggle, because it’s so hard and it’s so painful and it’s so difficult, and yet, at some point, when you do the work, the Lord almost surprises you. And just like, hey, you’re farther along than you thought you were, which is pretty cool.

Brian Lee  18:38  

It is. I appreciate “if you let it.” I think there are also plenty of people that I know of, and probably that you know of, who have been through similar experiences and have come out again, vastly different, but for whatever reason, have taken the approach of something else that doesn’t really offer hope, that wants to burn it all down. And I understand where they’re coming from, because I’ve totally been there, right? 

And so I’m looking back through my my history here, and I you are our first vocational pastor that we’re having on the podcast, right? So people will hear, I think, a lot more churchy language than they may be used to. You went through a truly horrible experience, and I and so many other pastors and church leaders and volunteers and people who are part of this community have had stories of working under or with abusive, toxic, narcissistic, whatever you want to call them leaders.

 And while it’s never really helpful to compare stories, we all can’t help but do it anyway. And I recognize that what I went through was nothing like you. You went through the whole thing on a completely national stage at one of the largest churches in America. I know how hard I found it to deal with the aftermath. The largest church I was ever a part of, I think, topped out at 1200 the one most recently services were maybe 150 we had a total attendance of, you know, three to 400 I’m currently out of vocational ministry, even though I maintain my credentials after everything you went through. True in such a public way, even, you know, dealing with things obviously, very privately. 

Why did you choose to stay. Why do you still believe? Why are you still actively pastoring? I think it might help people to kind of hear the process that you are going through, you know, and without saying that, this is what anyone else should do, just kind of, what’s your version of your story?

Steve Carter  20:17  

Yeah, so I think that the short of it is. And I love, I appreciate Brian, how you how you said, like, for people who want to burn it all down, like, I get it, I get it until we get it. And and I and again, I think what it means to be human is to be the kind of people who are Friday, Saturday, Sunday, people who can mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with with those who rejoice. It’s like the full spectrum of who we’re called to be. 

And I think when I meet people who are just bright sighting and in Easter and they don’t know how to name what happened, that scares me. And when I I see people who can just live in the pain, obviously we’ll give them as much space as JS Park taught, taught us, uh, to grieve and the permission, but my hope is that they’ll continue the journey on. I think people kept coming up to me and asking a very similar question, like, with what Willow did to you, how can you still love the church? 

And I was like, Willow didn’t hurt me. Five people did. 

Like the Willow congregation was amazing to me. They didn’t hurt me. Five people did. The Church didn’t even hurt me. Now, the five people representing the church, they hurt me. They all had names, so in Dr. Cook’s language, I can name a generalized institutional reality, which, yes, there are systems and structures at place that where abuse and toxic behavior have been almost like a petri dish, able to grow and fester and and we’ve got to dismantle that. 

But for me, my work was to forgive the five and open myself up to the heart of reconciliation, that if that day ever came, I would be ready for that, and I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, so I don’t, I don’t have a ton of, like, the Christian baggage that people had had a really good experience, because I had older mentors in my life. And I’ve, I’ve, you know, I’ve just been fortunate in that way. 

And so my whole thing has just been, you know, God didn’t let me down. Jesus didn’t let me down. Holy Spirit didn’t let me down. That concept of church didn’t let me down. Some people did. And this is the, this is the difficult part is, you know, good, I don’t believe in, like, the binary of good people and bad people. I think that there are good people who do evil and I think there are evil people who do some really beautiful good. And it’s but I think what happened was we watched some good people do evil, and then a bunch of people got left holding the bag. Y

eah, and I think that’s what ends up happening, is now, what do I do with that bag that doesn’t make me throw the baby out with the bathwater? And how can I hold and actually use this to say, Well, what should, or what does the church need to look like one. 

One other random story is a number of years ago, I got the chance to go to the Vatican and meet with Pope Francis. And I, well, I was crazy. I didn’t I like. I don’t know how I got that invitation. Anyways, the night before, we’re meeting with his social media director who happens to be a Catholic historian. So it’s just amazing that Pope Francis has a social media guy. But anyways, he’s like, he we’re meeting, and he says, Hey, do you have any questions about Catholicism? And nobody’s really asking a question.

And I’m dumb enough to ask one. But I was like, “Hey, you’ve had some really good popes, but you’ve also had some popes that like have literally bought the role, who have had kids who weren’t good people. How do you tell the story and not leave out your actual history?” And I’ll never forget his answer.

He said, “You’re totally right. We’ve had some beautiful, amazing popes, and we’ve had some people who have done some deep, deep harm.”

But then he said this, “But every time we have drifted from our call from having a bad Pope, a new order was created.” The Jesuit Order was created out of the Borgia regime. And I, I thought, man, that’s so redemptive. The Benedictine...you have all of these orders in the Catholic Church that were in response to bring them back to the original call.

And I think, Brian, what you’re doing, I think what Laura Barringer, Dr Scot McKnight, in A Church Called Tov and Pivot, like, I think there is a new order of character and health and formation that we are being invited into.

It’s just, will the pastors and the structures and the systems be willing to follow that path of Christ, or will they stay trying to hold on to power at all costs? And that’s that’s the invitation that’s before us.

And so I applaud the good work. I mean, the podcast, the conferences that coming up, like everything that you’re doing and putting out, and the more that you have in store to come like I this is all new language for so many of us, and now we’re thrust and having to pastor and lead people through this. And this wasn’t taught to us in seminary, yeah, Bible College. So, so it’s just like but it keeps us dependent on the way of Jesus, and actually doing it, not the way the systems and structures have taught us, but in a way that is really true to the heart of Jesus.

Brian Lee  25:35  

Thank you, friend. That’s deeply meaningful. I appreciate it. Let’s talk about integrity, because that’s what it feels like. And I hear you, I’ve heard the words power and control a lot, which for me are the two main reasons these abuses happen is because people are unwilling to relinquish or release their sense of power and control over a system, over a person, over whatever that is, and that they put too much of their identity in how much power and control they have, right?

When the New York Times article broke about Bill and about Willow, you remember this quote from your high school pastor, right? “I only care if you aim to have integrity every day. Integrity takes seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and decades to build and mere seconds to lose. So here’s the question, Steve, did you have integrity today?”

And I love the way that you weave that quote throughout the book, and especially in a relationship to your son who just says, Dad, did you have integrity today? And you just kind of like, I sure hope so kiddo, right? And in one of your hardest moments for him to just show up in the kitchen late at night, did you have integrity today? Man, how do you define integrity, and how do you intentionally make choices to live each day with it?

Steve Carter  26:47  

So my my biological grandfather is buried at West Point, and in the early 1900s, a chaplain came to West Point Academy and taught every cadet something that’s known as The Cadets Prayer. And you can Google it. It’s pretty it’s pretty powerful.

There’s some really, really great lines, but some of the lines are, “May you live above the common level of life. May you choose the harder right when the lesser wrong can be won,” like, and I, I have constantly thought of, we have to have integrity.

To have integrity is to be integrated. It is to be heart, mind, body, soul. It is to be one as the Lord is one. To have integrity is that like I say, what I mean, I mean, what I say, I follow its creed, no matter what, and and that that constantly comes at us like, what is the harder right here, because my ego wants to protect and defend, and there’s a part of me that just wants to not feel this, what’s what’s the harder? Right?

I gotta make a decision against myself and actually take a few moments and feel it, or I’ve got to speak up, or I’ve got to call this person in, or call this person up and and I think integrity is really just saying I want to be a person of character, and I want to be a person who isn’t fractured And splintered and divided, but a person who is integrated, so that I can offer up, maybe words, maybe a posture, maybe hold space, that can invite others to become integrated in a very disintegrated world.

Brian Lee  28:34  

Yeah, when I’m doing coaching work, I use the language of mile strips or mile markers and rumble strips a lot. Do you have a rumble strip for when you’re not living in integrity, some kind of sign that says, uh oh, watch out, Steve.

Steve Carter  28:50  

Um, I had these, these three words that I think I I’ve been able to kind of use as an internal litmus test. I think that for many of us, we struggle to name our desires and and I’ve been really trying to get better at naming my desires.

Not just doing what everybody else wants me to do, or desires for me like, What do? What do I feel like I want? What do I feel like the Lord’s asking me to do? So but I, but sometimes I found that I can have desires, and then all of a sudden, something begins to shift with the with the good desire to be I deserve that.

And all of a sudden, this sense of like entitlement starts to creep in, and it goes from desire to deserve. And at my most unhealthy, I demand it like. I demand it like I want it I want. I should have this. I should get this. I should and I think, I think as I’ve just, like, gone, you know, like, through kind of that transition between first half of life and second half of life, I think I’ve been. More aware of, hey, that’s a healthy desire.

And instead of acting like you deserve it and demanding it to happen, how do you just surrender? How do you trust? How do you walk the slow way not force it to happen?

And so I think that that, for me, has been a a check, you know, the fact that David was on a roof and, you know, looking out, out at his like Kingdom again, he should have been at battle, yes, but King David looks out and he sees Bathsheba, and he desires her. The desire is not bad, the desire of like, oh, it’s what he does from that moment to go, I deserve her. I demand her. That led to the abuse, the rape, the murder and the profound sin, and I think we just have to be really aware of that’s a that’s a good desire, but that’s a that’s a desire that, like came in my head. 

I cannot act out on that, or that is a desire that, you know, I got to be really careful that it doesn’t move to something I think I deserve, or start to act like I demand, but that I can just surrender and trust that God knows best.

Brian Lee  31:09  

That’s really helpful. Thank you. I think the other word I use a lot when I think of integrity, the word I try to use, we’re in the process of clarifying all of our value statements for Broken to Beloved.

We had a board retreat this summer, and kind of part of part of my homework that I’ve been working on all year is little phrases that will help guide us. And one of those phrases is the idea of wholeness, right? Kind of the tagline I use on everything is moving toward healing and wholeness. 

And for me, wholeness has that sense of integrity, right, of taking all the, like you said, the fractured pieces of me, and bringing them together, integrating them into my whole self, by naming all the different parts that are part of me, including those desires, whether they be good or bad, and the discernment to act or not act on them, but to bring my whole self to the process every time.

And I really appreciate that, and I think that’ll be helpful for people who are listening, who are also trying to figure out and discern, how do I know when I’m moving forward with integrity, because a lot of people think they have that intent, but it doesn’t quite play out that way, right? Or they’ve distorted that desire in a way that is a it turns into that demanding, right?

I think having that differentiation will be really helpful. It is helpful to me, and I hope it’ll be helpful for other people, and I think later in the I think it’s the first section of the book you talk about hope, right? And how it requires that we live with embodied body, mind, spirit, right, with our whole self, that hope requires that we live in our bodies because we can’t fracture out pieces of it, and that there’s no need to rush through it, which I really appreciate, because I think so often, or too often, in in the churches I’ve been a part of, and the people in this community that I hear from are part of want to rush us through our grief or our pains, like, Oh, are you still talking about that? Oh, are you still praying about that? You must not be praying enough or hard enough or holy enough, or whatever it is.

It’s like, no, I don’t, I don’t think this is a wound I will ever get over, and that doesn’t make me unholy or unrighteous or wrong or bad. But I appreciate that you say that. I think your counselor said slow is smooth and smooth is fast, right, talking about winding up fire hoses. And we recently spoke with Heather Gargis. I love the way she said it. She said, “The slower you go, the faster you heal.” And when we show up with our whole selves, integrated with integrity, without the need to rush through it. What does hope look like in that process?

Steve Carter  33:25  

That’s so good. So one piece I just mentioned, the three words the desire, deserve, demand, and that’s like the negative side. The positive side is to desire, then discover, and then discern.

And the Discover for me is to be able to like, that’s good, because for me, it’s, I’m very passionate about ifs internal family systems and parts work same.And so the discovery of the part, oh, that, that part, that protector part, that image management part, the judgmental part, that, you know, that firefighter part that’s coming up. Like, I don’t want to speak from it, but I am going to speak for it, and being able to speak for it, then I get to discern what is the next best right step, and that has helped me walk in it and live in integrity and wholeness.

The Hope, though, that we that I think and forgive me, if this to any of the listeners, you’re like, Oh, here’s a pastor. He’s gonna, he’s gonna start preaching, but here’s, here’s the truth. Like, the way that we talk about hope is pretty whimsical, and it’s not kind of how the biblical writers understood it.

Actually, like, back in the Roman culture, they thought that hope was a mental illness. They literally, like, if a child had hope, they would try to, like, beat it out of that kid because they wanted Caesar and reason and reality to be central to how you make decisions and not live in a fantasy of hope. 

And so we hope all the time, but often with our hope is, I hope that there’s not a long line at the TSA. I hope that I can get through Trader Joe’s as quick as possible. I hope that my favorite team makes it to the Super Bowl like but it’s all preaching uncertainty and so biblical hope is if and anyone listening right now, if you look at a situation in your life that maybe feels like a little Friday, that you’re in grief, might be a relationship, might be your church. Might be with a spouse or a child. It might be with the loss of a dream or even a medical situation. To have biblical hope, you first desire something good for that situation. And when I say that is you desire, if heaven were to invade it, what would it look like? Not your agenda, but if Heaven’s agenda, like the goodness of God’s agenda, were to come in, what would that what would he want? What would God want from that relationship? What would God want for this addiction? What would he want? No shade or shame, just good desire.

The second is, if the tomb is empty, anything is possible. And I think part of part of hope is as believers, and this is Jesus dying on the cross. Didn’t change the world. Him rising three days later is what made a whole bunch of people lose their mind to go, I will do whatever, because death was defeated. And I think that what’s harder to raise a man from the dead or to actually reconcile this relationship, what’s actually harder to raise a man from a dead or help me with this addiction, what’s really harder and to raise a man from the dead or to heal me from the pain of abuse or complex trauma? And that only happens if I believe that the tomb is empty and anything is possible. And because of that, resurrection doesn’t bring uncertainty for me. I’m just speaking to myself, but resurrection brings certainty that I can anticipate that God’s goodness is on its way confidently with expectation. 

That’s the whole concept of biblical hope. You desire something good. You believe anything is possible, because resurrection brings certainty, so that you can expect and anticipate with confidence. Romans, 828, that God is working together for the good. He’s working together for your good, and that’s what we have to hold on to. Is in our Fridays, you just gotta hold on to that hope and be the full holy weekend, kind of people.

Brian Lee  37:19  

Yeah, thank you. The pastoral alliteration is strong. So if we start with desire, we can start with desire and then move towards deserve, deserve and then demand. And on the other side of that, we start with desire and move towards... 

Steve Carter  37:32  

Discover, discovering the heart and then discern, yep.

Brian Lee  37:36  

Super helpful. Super, super helpful. Thank you. Yeah, I have one last question. Then I want to talk about the Conference.

Steve Carter  37:42  

I want to talk about the Conference.

Brian Lee  37:45  

There’s this part, and I really identify it. You talk about this retreat that you’re on with, with your group of pastors and friends, right? And you say, we had been programmed to protect the institution of the church at all costs, even and especially at the expense of our well being. And I think for a lot of us who have been through this kind of hurt or abuse or trauma in the church, there is this weird, natural tendency to have this real sense of cognitive dissonance, of maybe it was just me, maybe I was crazy. It can’t be as bad as I think. And we move to defend the church or the institution of the church or a position, right? And we hear elders and deacons and board members do it all the time. Why do you think that is?

Steve Carter  38:27  

In the most simplest way? I think Christians don’t want to be tricked.

I think one of the one of the hardest realities is when you feel complicit with helping something that you thought was good actually harm people who wants to admit that, yeah, who wants to admit that about ourselves, who wants to admit that about our parents, who wants to admit that about a system?

And then, let’s just be honest, we just have time and time and time again where the people who do that, we don’t believe them. Yeah, you know, you go, you go on my Facebook page, and just look at the comments. People still are like, Steve, it’s six years. Stop talking about Willow. And I’m like, I’m not that. I have nothing wrong to say about Willow. Willow didn’t hurt me. Five people did. I’m trying to speak about something to help people who are walking in this season out, but they’re like, you’re just trying to take this thing down. You’re trying to hurt them.

And I’m like, and so what happens, and it’s so tricky, is we’re always looking for a scapegoat, instead of having to look inside and I’d rather blame somebody else, then have to recognize, oh, man, I wanted a king. I wanted someone to follow. I wanted, I wanted, man, I did that. I helped to build that. And I didn’t ask the harder questions about the structure in the system. And and I think it’s, it’s really, really sad. Yeah, you know.

And unfortunately, I think that we didn’t have language, like you were describing just a second ago. You’re describing gaslighting, right? Like, yeah, I think I’m crazy. Like, I didn’t, I didn’t know what that word meant five years ago. I don’t know what that word, you know, I mean, like, I had no concept, but I do remember the gravitational pull, and when I asked certain questions, I wasn’t invited to certain meetings after that, yep.

And then in my mind, I’m thinking, what’s wrong with me? What did I do instead of, hey, actually, you actually did the right thing. You were fighting against the structures in the system, but the gas lighting just, it just lives within us and and part of my complicity in this man was I gave too much power to the people above me and the way they thought of me. 

And I have to reckon with that within me, even though I can say, there’s a lot of ways that I feel like I said what I needed to say I did the way that I felt like God was leading me, yes, yes, yes. But man, it was easy for me to want a king and not just want a rabbi named Jesus. And that’s something I had to reckon with. I let what Bill said to me, I write about this in the book like it. What he said felt like gospel because he was the leader, not me. Like, I’m just a I’m a young kid. Like, what am I? What do I know? You know? 

And so what I had to like untangle, and this is what’s so hard about the congregations and the staff and the people have experienced any form of betrayal trauma. And people will tell us again and again that betrayal trauma is one of the worst. Yeah, you don’t know if your discernment got leveled or if it leveled up, you start to not trust yourself. How did I not see this? How did I miss this? What’s wrong with me and who wants to feel that I’d rather it that those are hard feelings to honor. 

What’s easy to feel and actually feels better in our skin, is that person’s trying to take us down. Let’s fight. Let’s like, let’s let anger take over that emotion feels like we’re alive in our body, when, as you’re sitting in to go, Oh my gosh, I did it again. Yeah, I wanted a king. I did it again. Like, I I didn’t believe people of color. I didn’t believe this woman’s experience. I did it again. I willfully or unwillfully, consciously or subconsciously participated in a structure, in the system. Yeah, that was harmful. Like to sit in that to take notes, to learn, it’s just a it’s, it’s, it’s hard to help, it’s hard.

Brian Lee  42:38  

It is hard. Yeah, it’s hard, well, and so this is one of the reasons I’m so excited to have you at our first conference on September 26 I’ll close with the quote from the book and then ask you a question about it. You say, “Friend, let me tell you, when you get serious about overcoming a culture of fear that has kept everyone else shaking in their seats, people will try to shut you up. People close to you will try to bring you down. Why? Because if they acknowledge your willingness to risk, then they will either have to stand with you, or they will have to acknowledge their intention to resist.”

And that was incredibly powerful and validating and helpful. And at the Conference, you’re going to be talking about being a safe, consistent and trustworthy space as a church, which I love, why those three words and what do they mean to you?

Steve Carter  43:28  

Well, I believe that trust is a mathematical formula, safe plus consistent again and again, over and over on repeat, makes one worthy of trust, if you are safe but inconsistent again and again, over and over on repeat, you are unworthy of someone’s full trust. And if you are unsafe consistently, you are definitely unworthy of someone’s trust. 

And I believe that a church has to be able to be trauma informed, I believe a church has to have leaders who have done the broken to beloved journey, who have done the Friday, Saturday, Sunday walk, who have sat because they will be more empathetic. And if we can’t actually reckon with our own pain, we will subconsciously transmit and transfer that pain, yeah, onto someone else. 

And this is why what you’re doing, man, I’m telling you. It’s why. When you reached out, I was like, Oh, easy, yes. Because what this organization is about is helping churches flourish and stopping the kind of breakdowns of people’s heart, mind, body and soul, that continues to happen. And I just, I that wholeness that you are pursuing. It’s just, it’s what I long for, for the local church, and I’m just so excited to try to help people understand, how can we be the kind of church that is worthy of people’s trust again.

Brian Lee  44:58  

I love it. So, the Conference is happening Thursday, September 26. It’s for pastors and church leaders who want to grow in their understanding of trauma and how it affects those in their care. 

You talked at the beginning like seminary does not train us for this. We were not equipped to recognize trauma, to know what to do with it. So if you are one of those people who wants to know what it’s like to have experienced it. How do I help people in a helpful and not re-traumatizing way? How do I become a safe and consistent and trustworthy place so that people can come and do the work of healing and wholeness and integrity and find hope come hear Steve. You don’t want to miss it. Steve, thank you so so much for your time. Where can people find you online if they want to look for you or connect with you.

Steve Carter  45:42  

Yeah, they can find me at stevecarter.org, or Instagram, Threads, Twitter, @SteveRyanCarter. Brian, I cannot wait for September 26 in Richmond. The venue, the people that you have speaking. I think it’s just, I think it’s going to be some moment for many of us to walk into a room and just have this collective me too, yeah, of like, yes, yes, if we make it, then I make it kind of theology, and I just thanks for the brave and courageous act of you and your team for even just wanting to serve pastors.

And then, you know, the next day, Friday, with Aundi Kolber, which is going to be fire and you and to have these, these leaders that you’ve brought in for congregants who have been hurt. People have been hurt. I just think this Thursday, Friday is going to be a powerful, powerful gathering. So yeah, so thank you for having me, and grateful for you.

Brian Lee  46:39  

Looking forward to it. Everyone, go get a copy of Grieve, Breathe, Receive wherever books are sold, we’ll provide all the links that we mentioned in the show notes. Steve, thank you again.

Steve Carter  47:00  

Appreciate you friend. Thank you.

Brian Lee  47:05 

That was awesome. I really appreciated his honesty and vulnerability and his ability to sit with the tension of grief, pain and loss. If you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did be sure to follow Steve and say thanks for being on the show. You can find links and all the things in the show notes at brokentobeloved.org.

Okay, you heard us talk a lot about the upcoming conference. It’s being held Thursday, September 26 in Richmond, Virginia. It’s designed for pastors and church leaders who want resources on being more trauma informed, and for setting up safeguarding practices in their own lives and the lives of their churches to prevent future abuse from taking place.

If you’re on the other side of that and you’ve been wounded by the church, I want to invite you to the first ever broken to beloved gathering. It will be held Friday, September 27 and features Aundi Kolber, therapist and best selling author of Try Softer and Strong Like Water. It’s going to be incredible time of meeting each other, learning from Aundi and getting the tools to move toward healing and wholeness. 

You can find information and register for both events at brokentobeloved.org.

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Coming up on the show, we have Aundi Kolber, Laura Barringer, Andrew Whitehead, and many more. Next time, we’ll be talking with Geoff and Cyd Holsclaw about attachment theory, what it is, why it matters, and so much more. It’s a topic I’ve been learning about over the last two years, and I find it incredibly fascinating and helpful, and I hope you will too. Thanks so much for taking the time out of your day to listen. I hope it’s been helpful. Here’s to moving toward healing and wholeness together. I’ll see you next time.