Aimee Byrd on Overcoming Church Hurt and Redefining Faith

Have you ever felt disillusioned by the church, grappling with your scars in search of hope? Aimee Byrd, acclaimed author and speaker, joins us to discuss her  journey through faith, as detailed in her latest book "The Hope in Our Scars." She addresses church disillusionment, especially prevalent among youth, while confronting the dark shadows of abuse and cover-ups in religious communities. Amy's candid revelations offer encouragement to those on a quest for a genuine connection with God, amidst the struggles of growing up in the Southern Baptist Convention and coping with her parents' divorce.

The conversation takes a sharp turn into the stormy debate over traditional gender roles within Christianity, inspired by Aimee's  book "Why Can't We Be Friends?" As we explore the assumptions and implications of these views on discipleship and church relationships, Aimee's insights spark a much-needed call for balance in representing both male and female voices within the scriptures.

Aimee and I delve into the pangs of "church hurt" and the essential human need for belonging. Aimee shows us how through our spiritual trials, our scars can manifest growth, a richer understanding of divine love, and an unwavering pursuit of hope.

Connect with Aimee and learn more about all of her books:
https://aimeebyrd.com/

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:26

I'd like to welcome Amy Bird to the Pivotal People podcast. I'm excited because you know I love to read, and this is Amy's seventh book that we're going to talk about today. Amy has written a beautiful book she is a beautiful writer called the Hope in Our Scars. I read the book and I think we can all relate to what Amy's talking about, and we'll really get into it today. Let me tell you about Amy.

Speaker 1: 0:52

She is an author, she's a speaker, she's a blogger, she's a podcaster and she also used to own a coffee shop. I mean, isn't that everyone's dream? We have to hear about what that was like. And she's written several books. Just here are some of her titles why Can't we Be Friends? Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. She tackles some tough subjects, but, as a fellow believer, I think she tackles some extremely important subjects that we all think about and might be afraid to talk about, and so I'm really happy that Amy's not only talking about it, but she's writing about it so that the rest of us can learn. So, amy welcome. Thank you so much for being with us. It's great to see you here on Zoom.

Speaker 2: 1:38

Oh, thank you, it's my pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 1:41

I said to Amy before we started because I've read her book. She is so wise, she is such an experienced writer, Her bibliography is so long and so detailed.

Speaker 1: 1:51

I always look at that because I want to know is this book really well-researched or is it off the top of their head? It's extremely well-researched, Very, I believe, theologically sound. So that's the talking you're going to hear from me. The rest we really want it to be from Amy. So, Amy, could you just give us a little bit of your backstory? You've written this book that I think we can all relate to in some way the Hope in Our Scars. Can you tell us a little bit what do you mean by the Hope in Our Scars and then maybe share your story as a starting point?

Speaker 2: 2:26

Yeah, sure what I mean by the hope in our scars is it's like you said, we all have wounds, and sadly, some of us have wounds from the church, and so that's where my story comes from. But not only you might not be wounded by the church, but there is a large percentage of people who are just very disillusioned by the church right now, whether it's the way that she's joining to a political party or you know a lot of the abuse that we're seeing coming out of multiple denominations, with pastors and leaders in the church horrific abuse. And even worse is the cover-up of the abuse, and I mean you've got, like one of the largest Protestant denominations, the Southern Baptist Convention, under federal investigation right now for, you know, sexual abuse cover-up by their leaders, hundreds and hundreds of them. So what do we do with all this? What do we do when maybe the way we were raised or what we thought was true you know what we thought scripture was saying turns out to be misleading? You know? Or what if thought was true, you know what we thought scripture was saying turns out to be misleading? You know? Or what if some of the leaders that we really looked up to have an affair, or you know, do some kind of abuse of their own. There's just so many different ways that the youth I see in large numbers are just kind of aging out of youth group and not coming back. You know they're saying, yep, this wasn't real to me. There's this large percentage of people called the nuns now rising in our country and these are people who just don't affiliate with any kind of faith, no confession of faith. So I think there's a lot of disillusionment with the church. What the church is, you know, is God who we thought he was. Where do we belong? What do we believe?

Speaker 2: 4:12

And for me, I went through a very personal story that made me ask all those same questions. I grew up in Southern Baptist Convention but you know my family was not into all of the hyper purity culture stuff or any of those things. It's a pretty normal childhood, even though I did end up my parents divorced when I was 15, which was pretty traumatic, and then we kind of faded from the church for a while. So you know, when I was in college that I really had, I feel like, a strong conviction by the Holy Spirit that you say you're a Christian but you're not living like that and kind of important. You don't just become an adult one day and start going to church. But am I real to you? And so that's when I really had a strong desire to learn more about God.

Speaker 2: 5:00

And so, you know, I took myself to church in college, which you know is kind of a big deal as a secular university, and I'm thinking, okay, these people are going to teach me. So I only realize that I only know a couple of catchphrases here, like I, I really don't have a lot of substance. And, um, you know, I got these smiley greeting faces oh, you're from the university, that's so fabulous. And then, like, here's a jar of jelly. You know, I wasn't invited to anything, and so I think that was maybe my second disillusionment in the church. The first was when my parents divorced and no one was really there for us, and so it was easy to fade.

Speaker 2: 5:39

And so from there on it became this search of trying to find a church where I belong, a community of faith, and trying to figure out, like, what the Bible is saying about who God is and what does that mean for me. How do you do this whole Christian thing as an adult? What does that look like? How do you? Who do you marry, how do you raise your kids? What do you do when you you don't really feel like being that good Christian woman? And so I think I really embraced, you know, a lot of teachings that had some good intentions, but I didn't realize that they were movements of their own, you know. So biblical manhood and womanhood would be one of those, and there were so many books targeted towards women's ministries and men's ministries on how to be a biblical man and a biblical woman. And hey, that's what I wanted to be right Like my parents divorced. I got to be right Like my parents divorced. I got to want to do this right. And, you know, when I get married, I want to have a happy marriage and and raise my little Christian family.

Speaker 2: 6:34

I'm reading up on all of it, but I found, like you know, this hunger in church to, you know, want to be discipled, want to be invested in, want to contribute, and I just kept finding that there were a lot of invisible fences. And I realized this is because a lot of it due to just that I was a woman in some of these spaces where women weren't valued in the same way as men when it came to theological investment and leadership and things like that. I wasn't aspiring to be a leader in the church. I just wanted people to talk to about God, really to learn more. So that loneliness as a woman who's thinking about these things in the church is really what led me to write my first book. I did not have this ambition to be an author.

Speaker 2: 7:25

At the time I was running this coffee shop, I was doing a Bible study that I was with a group of wonderful thinking women, but we were all kind of young and wanting, you know, more guidance, wanting more investment. So I thought, well, if I wrote this book about women in theology and just how every person is a theologian, we think something about who God is and that's what theologian is right. The study of who God is and what we believe to be true about God really affects our everyday life. I wanted to connect those things like theology and everyday life for women and I thought, well, if I write this book, maybe it could be like a tool to get women to start thinking about these things and then I can have people to talk to. And when I wrote the book it was received very well.

Speaker 2: 8:13

And so at this time I thought maybe the problem is my denomination. My husband and I were in a Baptist church. I'm like, maybe if I moved to the Presbyterians they take theological education more seriously so maybe I can learn more there, you know. And so at the time I was in the Presbyterian Church of America, the PCA, but I was still hitting these walls. But then when I wrote this book, it was received really well in those circles. It was like oh yes, I'm so glad she's talking about how important it is for women to know God well. And next thing, you know, I'm invited to like co-host a podcast with a pastor and an academic. I'm starting to get these speaking invitations.

Speaker 2: 8:52

None of this was stuff I really thought in my own head that I wanted to do. I was rather uncomfortable with it all at first, but I just began meeting so many people and it was just such a blessing. Anywhere I would go to speak, I felt like Stephanie, I was the one being blessed by all these people. But I'm finding more and more and more women having the same struggles that I was having in the church, you know, not being invested in.

Speaker 2: 9:21

You're seeing that the women the material for the women's ministries was, like, you know, really fluffy, or you know what I was starting to find? Just full of theological error, and so that led me to write no Little Women. And that was kind of a plea to church leaders, like hey, take us seriously, please, and don't just sidearm us from the rest of the church. We want to learn, just like you guys. And with that one I still. You know, that was still received pretty well, except for I think there were some people like I don't know, I'm getting a little suspicious about what Amy is getting out of her box.

Speaker 2: 9:56

Yeah, exactly, and of course, a lot of lay people read the book, a lot of women read the book. But if you're a woman reading a book about this but the leaders in your church aren't, you can become very frustrated. So you know, I'm trying to bridge this gap. The interesting thing that happened with all my speaking invitations and the podcast I was doing was getting pretty popular is that I was making all these relationships with academia, different academics, and I could go upstairs and have that conversation, but really I wanted to take the conversation like a bridge and go back downstairs with it but say, hey, look people in the pews, there's all these resources for us from academia. We don't even have to go to seminary to get a hold of, we can just buy their books. You know like we can have these conversations, we can do classes and studies in church and for academia. I just felt like saying like, look you guys, like you're not learning all this just to talk to each other. Right, it's supposed to trickle down to the church. So you know, for quite a while I think I felt like I was in a good spot there to have those conversations.

Speaker 2: 11:14

But each book I wrote became like another layer of the onion, of these kind of what I call invisible fences that I was hitting as a woman in the church, like they say one thing to us but then when you try to enter into those spaces you get zapped. And one that I really got zapped with and heard from so many other women it's just kind of like some kind of version of the Billy Graham rule. So you know, I'm hearing from women in seminaries that their professors would not meet with them one-on-one, like you're supposed to get as a student, and like they would do with the male students, because they were women and the Billy Graham rule. Or I found myself in all kinds of odd situations and I ended up writing why Can't we Be Friends, which is really I call a theology of common sense, but it's really examining in scripture what our status is as brothers and sibling. Brothers and sisters, siblings in Christ, which is the way Paul speaks about us the most when he addresses the church. What does that mean? What is our great honor and responsibility as sacred siblings? And to me that was very exciting.

Speaker 2: 12:24

But the reason why I wrote it was because so many things kept happening and finally it came down to like one day I'm in Philadelphia downtown, I had to park my car in an alley several blocks from this restaurant we were all meeting at. There were people there with their spouses, but I was traveling alone, without mine, and it was nighttime by the time we were done dinner. It was raining and we were going out different doors and it just so happened I was going out the door to the one parking small parking lot which I couldn't find, a parking space with two men and two men I know well that I've called friends and one of them offered me his umbrella. Yeah, none of them offered me a ride. I found myself walking in a city down alleys at night, in the rain, by myself when.

Speaker 2: 13:17

I could have been given a ride, all because of they don't want to be seen giving a woman a ride, you know. And so that that message was just so awful. It was like you are not worth a ride, you're too much of a threat to a man's reputation. And so it was kind of the opposite of this benevolent teaching of complementarianism that the church was teaching, that this male leadership that is supposed to honor women right, and they use very chivalrous language, but when it comes down to it, the woman has to sacrifice herself. And so when I wrote why Can't we Be Friends, I got a lot of pushback. A lot of pushback and a lot of misrepresentation of what I was writing, like Amy Byrd saying that men and women can go to candlelit dinners with other people's wives and odd, odd things like that was not saying in the book by any means. And so from there I was starting to get more of an education. You know a little bit of what's really going on around here, yeah. So I started examining more the theology behind a lot of this biblical manhood and womanhood teaching, where all these invisible fences were coming from, and started digging in Like there were some major theological errors being taught, even about the Trinity, to teach that the Son of God has some kind of ontological role in his being that is submissive to the Father's authority. This is just straight up not in line with what the Nicene Creed says about the son of God. So it causes a lot of other problems too. Like, well, I thought God only had one will, so how would there have to be an authority and submission going on within the Trinity if God only has one will? So I got somebody to write about that on my blog a pastor scholar because I thought, well, no one's going to listen to me because they were using this teaching to say that therefore, women, even though they're equal to men in our role, we are submissive all the time to male authority. That was back in 2016. When I got a pastor scholar to write about that, I mean the whole internet went crazy. It was a whole. It's called the Trinity bait. You can Google it.

Speaker 2: 15:37

There were conferences and books written and the patristic scholars weighed in and said, yes, this is a very serious error, you know, but this is taught in some major systematic theology books that are, you know, the popularized ones, and they're in men's and women's resources, even in children's books. It's even influenced a translation of scripture, the ESV. So this is a pretty big deal. So then I became a little less liked by some and a little more liked by others, but I decided to really tackle this teaching head on because there was just really odd stuff in there. So there's this book that the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood wrote over 30 years ago. It's kind of like the beginning of complementarian movement and it's called Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and so it's kind of, like you know, known as the blue book of complementarianism and it has all these different contributors.

Speaker 1: 16:30

Could you define complementarianism for us, sure?

Speaker 2: 16:34

Complementarianism is a belief system and it's a movement really that was kind of formed to combat what they called evangelical feminism, and so what they believe is in male authority in the church and in the home, and that women are to be submissive to that. Now, there's different levels of what that means, and so I thought, I thought that I was in a church and a denomination that, and at the time I I believed this, that okay, that the Bible says that only certain qualified men should be ordained and but everything else in discipleship, in the church, you know, is according to your giftedness. That's where I was at the time, that's what I believe. The denomination was liberal in that sense, you know of everything else, and I thought that these male leaders that were ordained had to meet up to these qualifications. In scripture it's not just like any man, but a qualified man. But when I wrote Recovering from Biblical Manhood, and.

Speaker 2: 17:39

Womanhood and called out some of that and what I really wanted to do. I wanted to critique it because I thought there were some dangerous issues in there in that teaching. I also wanted this invitation like hey, let's look at the way that male and female voice is used in scripture, let's look at what discipleship even means and you know, are we taking that seriously now as a church? And let's look at our great honor and responsibility as brothers and sisters in the church and what that would look like then. Well, what happened was, I mean, a bunch of leaders in my denomination and in some other denominations started this group, and I wasn't the only one. Only reason why they started the group, but I was kind of like their favorite enemy and I didn't realize.

Speaker 2: 18:24

I knew like there was some name calling on Twitter and social media against me and when I realized some of them were officers in the church, I just said you know, you can critique my work, but I mean, I think we should be more mature than this as church leaders.

Speaker 2: 18:38

But the name calling, the misrepresentation, just critique my actual work, which I expected that, but I didn't realize.

Speaker 2: 18:44

So they kind of turned to anonymous accounts so I couldn't see who it was anymore, who was kind of harassing me online and those kinds of things, and I just tried to ignore them. But I found out that they were in this like Facebook group of over 1100 members and talking about me all day long, all day long, like calling me a Jezebel, the great whore of Babylon. If her husband really loved her, he'd shut her up. They were making memes about me and then using them on their anonymous accounts, talking about my looks, how in my video I look butch and different things, like my femininity is withdrawn. They were calling ahead of my speaking engagements and warning the people who organized them and the churches like guard your families and your churches from this woman. She is dangerous. And so that was causing all kinds of trouble, because here are these church leaders in the same denomination telling organizers and other church leaders that, hey, this woman you invited to come speak is dangerous. Guard your families.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Okay, and so if we could pause there for a minute just to clarify your specific subject matter, your specific talk topic would have been give me a top line. What would the attendee be seeing?

Speaker 2: 20:02

Well, I'd be going like this one. I was going in to talk about no Little Women, so it wasn't even the recovering book, but my recovering book I want to be specific here. I know, Little Women talked about women, investing in women in the church, investing in them.

Speaker 1: 20:17

Investing in them to be educated disciples in whatever giftedness they had. If you are teaching Sunday school, or teaching women's Bible studies, or serving at a food pantry, whatever it is to educate women, and this would be Jezebel.

Speaker 2: 20:33

Yeah Well, and then, recovering from biblical manhood and womanhood, I was addressing discipleship. That whole book was about discipleship. It wasn't about who could lead in the church. So what I really wanted to do was to challenge both sides of this movement. There's the complementarians who I've been talking about. That's what circles that I was in and I wanted to critique from within.

Speaker 2: 20:54

But I also wanted to, like egalitarians, those who believe in full mutuality. I wanted to get into something more meaningful than what a woman can or cannot do. You know, I wanted to get into, like, the richness of discipleship and even the richness of the meaningfulness of our sexuality. So I wasn't trying to convert people one way or the other, it was about discipleship. But yeah. So when it was revealed to me, somebody who was in that group, a woman, said I really think you need to see what's being said about you in here. And she starts sending me screenshots and I'm telling you, stephanie, from like morning to night, hundreds of comments, different threads going on, and it was just like overwhelming. I just had a huge pit in my stomach from it all. I knew some of these people.

Speaker 2: 21:46

Some of them I was, like you know, had worked with before Some of them, I've been in their churches and, worst of all, one of my own elders was in that group.

Speaker 1: 21:55

So when we talk about and your book talks a lot about disillusionment and you know I think we've all you can't make it to my age without having some degree of church hurt. Church hurt is the worst hurt. You know there's the. You have a quote in your book I'm butchering it, this is paraphrasing, but you know the hurt begins when our enemies hurt us, but it's worse when a friend hurts us, but it's the very worst when the church hurts us.

Speaker 1: 22:23

So when we talk about fellow Christians and you've been involved in a church and you've, you know this is where you talk a lot about people really need a sense of belonging. You know, and belonging is almost more important to people. When you look at what really gets people attracted to and connected to a church, it's belonging even more than doctrine. I mean it is. That is not. The doctrine is not important, but I think most of us it's about did someone talk to me? Did they just not invite me to anything? Do am I seen? Am I invisible? So what I'm hearing is just the sadness that, as fellow believers, those people couldn't come to you personally and discuss the topic. This is not personal, this is the topic. Let's have a healthy disagreement, if we need to, about a specific piece of doctrine, but to attack each other, no wonder people are leaving the church or not coming because they're watching us do this to each other.

Speaker 2: 23:28

This is right, I mean. And I thought, and my husband thought like okay, well, there's jerks on the internet, you know that's to be expected, but these are leaders and these definitely aren't meeting the qualifications for church office. You name calling harassment, plotting like this. They were plotting to sabotage my Amazon page and different things, so like they're going after my vacation. I didn't feel safe going to my speaking engagements. They made jokes about meeting up there themselves.

Speaker 2: 23:59

So I tried to use like the proper church channels to address this, thinking it would be so easy. Because the one thing I really thought in the Presbyterian church government is that you know you have your leaders in your church. If it needs to be, above that there is a whole regional government body and then there's for the whole country above that, you know. So I thought, well, this is stuff that you don't have to be a Christian to even think is wrong. You know, like this is just straight up, really bad behavior. I went through a process of over two years of horror. It was worse than what had happened from the beginning. I couldn't believe what I saw behind the curtains. I didn't have a voice in the whole thing. It was like male centered the whole thing and it was centered around male power and my threat to male power really is what I found out. I didn't realize how like it was. Really just about that.

Speaker 1: 24:52

Let's suppose and I don't even know the specifics, but let's just suppose that your denomination had a certain certain doctrine and perhaps a committee of leaders from your denomination. Perhaps if they really looked at what you were teaching and again I don't even know the specifics but if they really looked at it and they said you know what, amy, we respect your perspective, but that doesn't actually line up with the doctrine of this denomination. Can we be kind and can we discuss it? And perhaps this isn't the place for you to teach it? That feels like.

Speaker 2: 25:28

That would have made a lot more sense, except for the fact that I labored to write within the confessions of my denomination. So they didn't have anything to say that, oh Right.

Speaker 1: 25:40

So what I'm saying is that, even if it was completely opposite, there still was a kinder, more loving christian way yeah, this is what makes me crazy, because we've all had this church hurt thing. When it's something at church and christian and people are being jerks about that to each other within the church, it's like wait a second. A terrible witness of who Christ is I mean I can get this at Bunko. What is this yeah?

Speaker 2: 26:09

And it's a terrible witness to just the transformational nature of the Holy Spirit. You know, spiritual growth of the body of Christ. And so I was really left with, like, well, first of all, do I even want to continue writing? Like, why expose myself to this? I don't need to write to be happy, you know Right.

Speaker 2: 26:26

But you know, going back to Christ's word with these huge questions, you know this huge disillusionment and like, who does represent Christ in the church? Is it just one person, or you know the important people, or is it everyone who has a voice? You know what spaces can they speak in? Like these were some big questions I was asking as I was feeling very re-traumatized by the church, trying to seek her help. You know, in all of this that led me to, you know, maybe a strange place for your listeners to think at first, but the Song of Songs is where it led me and you know, in the early church they used to call the Song of Songs is where it led me, and you know, in the early church they used to call the Song of Songs the Holy of Holies of scripture. Like, if you want to go to God's word and find Christ in the most intimate space. Go to the Song of Songs and, interestingly, in that book, which is a picture of Christ's love for his bride, the church and the individual soul of every believer, you have this woman who represents the church. Her voice is dominant.

Speaker 2: 27:26

Here we have a book in scripture with the woman's voice dominant. Over 60% of the book is the woman's voice. She opens it, she closes it and she is immodest. She is just starting off, just naming what her desires are and asking for them. She names her abuse. Even. There's two night scenes in the song where the watchmen are neglecting her and then abusing her. She names it, yet she really directs our desire to Christ. I just reading through the song, just thinking, wow, we can talk to God like this. He wants us to, he's beckoning us and there's this verse where he's calling her. It's like the springtime invitation to marriage, and he's calling her from behind the cliffs of the rock and he says let me see your face, let me hear your voice, because your face is lovely and your voice is sweet. And, man, those words were so ministering to me, you know because so the opposite of what you experienced, which?

Speaker 2: 28:32

is the opposite. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:34

So I keep going back to the original message that you were trying to communicate, which is that women deserve the same sort of teaching, biblical teaching as men. It was so basic.

Speaker 2: 28:50

Why wouldn't I mean?

Speaker 1: 28:51

I don't even know why is this the discussion?

Speaker 2: 28:53

I just don't even know why we're.

Speaker 1: 28:55

And when I was reading your book and I saw this pushback on that. Well, so my first thing would be you know, good for you for trying to influence change. I'd be so out of there. I'm like you know, my husband and I went through a church change and I'll tell you what it did. Was it brought me so much closer to God?

Speaker 1: 29:17

because then, I'm in the Bible. It's like wait, why did I think I had to go to a Bible study I wasn't even invited to to find out? I can find God without going to? There's a there's a big invisible fence. You're not included, okay? Well, you know what? I'm just going to go talk to God. That's okay. I don't know if you guys, what do you have?

Speaker 2: 29:37

a?

Speaker 1: 29:37

hotline but but. But it does take. It always takes a pioneer, it takes someone I mean, paul just didn't sit on his hands, right, I mean, if he had. It takes someone who's willing to say all these other women are missing out on this teaching and I really do believe God wants them to learn this just as much as the men. So how can I help here? And that's what I got from your book. I got from your book that, no, you didn't need to write more books. No, you didn't need the notoriety, you just didn't want to see an issue and ignore it. I think you were being obedient to God and it's unfortunate. It's really heartbreaking when you read your book, what you went through and I just think it's so sad and I actually was extremely surprised that in this day and age you did go through that and I'm sorry about that.

Speaker 2: 30:30

Yeah, but I think too it's just like I couldn't end it there at such despair and disillusionment. You know, like I wanted to point to like there is something so beautiful that Christ has in store for his church and this is the way he thinks about us and this is who he is for us. And I really realized that some of my own expectations were also an illusion, and so I framed the book with Romans 1.9, where you see John introducing himself as a disciple and he says I'm your brother and I'm your partner. I love that. That's what we are for each other as disciples, siblings and advocates for one another. But then what does he say? That he's a brother and partner in Affliction, kingdom and endurance that are in Jesus Christ. So there's three major parts of discipleship there. You know we're all going to go through affliction, but we need siblings and partners in that. We're showing each other the kingdom of God. You know we need to ignite one another's imagination for what that is and endure together as we're walking in that. And so that's really what I'm trying to aim for in the hope. In our scars is that, like we shouldn't ignore our scars. They bear a testimony and Jesus is raised with his scars. Like the first thing he does, he shows Thomas his scars and they tell a beautiful story. You know, at the end of the book I have this theme of communion, the Eucharist, throughout the book. That just comes more and more alive for me as I'm writing it with each chapter.

Speaker 2: 32:17

But then I introduced, like this, this art, this Japanese art called Kintsugi. But then I introduced, like this, this art, this Japanese art called Kintsugi I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's where you know, with broken vessels, instead of throwing them away or instead of mending them so that you can't tell that it was broken, that the mending is highlighted with like gold lacquer or some kind of metallic lacquer, and the pot is actually mended, is more valuable than it was before it was broken, because there's such a story told about what hands have used it, who it served, and you know the value of putting these pieces back together again and the power that it holds in that. And I just thought what a picture of communion. You know, christ, what here we are, coming as broken vessels to make up this one body of Christ, and what are we mended with the blood of Jesus Christ that nourishes us, that we need that for nourishment and I just think that's such a beautiful picture and you know there's some churches doing that really well and I'm so happy for that.

Speaker 2: 33:18

But for those of us who have been through, you know, really painful stuff in the church, or for those who are just kind of looking from the outside and thinking like what a bunch of hypocrites or what's going on in there, this book I'm really hoping to direct people, not a sentiment, mentalized hope, because hope is really disruptive and it does make us ask for what's real. And you know I'm one of those people who used to always be like I don't want to cause any controversy. You know I hate confrontation and this is what God throws me in. I've had to do a lot of growing up in those areas myself.

Speaker 1: 33:55

Well, that's what disruptive? Yeah, that's what difficult things do. Is they grow? Yeah, and you know, when you talk about that I don't get the pronunciation right, but I've always loved that metaphor of the broken pottery that is repaired. And, as you said, the lacquer shows the scars. So there's private scars and you know it's funny. When I was young, a young married and I'm in my women's group and we all have our newborn babies, so of course we are parenting experts.

Speaker 2: 34:27

And so we all know exactly how we're going to raise these people so they will be perfect.

Speaker 1: 34:32

And there was this. You know you're young and you're insecure and you're, you know, maybe you talk about in your book. I loved it the church face, yeah, church face. Then life happens, and then these precious people end up being their own people with their own ideas, and you still love them to death, but maybe they're on a different path. And anyway, then you come around and now, at the age of 60, I'm in a group of women who are 60. And we just all have our gold scars and we are proud of them.

Speaker 1: 34:56

And it's so great because we don't have church face anymore. We have someone in our life who has humbled us, and guess what? They've taught us a whole lot about love. It is not conditional, and there's so many things in your book that I highlighted. I actually took three pages of notes, by the way.

Speaker 1: 35:13

One of the things you said is theology without love is shameology. Wow, that one made me stop and think. But we're not going to summarize all of this in our short little podcast, so I am just going to have to tell everyone you got to buy this book. It's out on May 5th from a major, major publisher, the country's largest Christian publisher. So it's a credible book. It's well edited, it's well written and the bibliography itself is a great resource of more to read. And what I appreciate, amy is just sitting here and listening to your heart.

Speaker 2: 35:49

Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1: 35:50

And I just appreciate that you didn't give up. You did not give up.

Speaker 2: 35:55

Yeah, well, christ doesn't give up, and that's I mean. I just think it was the beginning. You know, I still don't really, I'm still unpacking a lot and processing a lot of what I've been through, but there's so much beauty to find and that's what's healing.

Speaker 1: 36:08

There is because you're talking about we're not talking about giving up on Christ, and people have asked me that when I had my church heard experience and I stopped going to this one church, someone asked me so do you believe in God anymore? And that stunned me because I was like, oh gosh, this was never about not believing in God.

Speaker 2: 36:24

Yeah, it was never oh gosh, no, no, it's.

Speaker 1: 36:27

And then you know, you look back and you say it was a new direction. I think God actually had a different plan, and it is all about growth, it's all about growth. And you're going through some real growth. I'm excited for when this book comes out, because you're going to have a lot of opportunities to talk about it.

Speaker 1: 36:45

Even within areas where the leaders of a church might disagree with what we're talking about. There are going to be women who are going to hear and they're going to feel seen. I know that term is overlooked or it's overused right now, but it's true.

Speaker 2: 37:01

They're going to feel seen.

Speaker 1: 37:03

I mean I can remember being at a women's Bible study and was all about, oh gosh, how to be the 1950s housewife. I'm like, is this it really?

Speaker 2: 37:16

I mean, it's still nice to do those things, but that's not why. Right, right, right. I do want to say too, if you go over to the hope in our scarscom and if you pre order the book and bring the receipt number over there, there are a lot of good bonus material that you can get.

Speaker 1: 37:32

Thehopeandourscarscom. Thehopeandourscarscom. And yeah, pre-ordering is super helpful. It is. It's helpful for the author. It also is helpful for the readers, because then they won't run out of books when they go on sale. But you probably have some study resources in advance. There's well.

Speaker 2: 37:53

I have. I've done, I did a whole video resource on the book. So for each chapter and you'll get two of them free if you pre-order the book the first two chapters. But I also did some interviews with some really great authors like Kristen Dume, chuck DeGroat, amy Peeler, nijay Gupta, and so there's some bonus, like you can see some of the extras from that given out in that, and then I think you can go ahead and download chapter intro and chapter one, I think, before the book comes out, you can go ahead and download that and read it. And then there's a coupon. Yeah, it's a bunch of stuff. Oh, there's a coupon.

Speaker 1: 38:31

Did you hear that there's a coupon? I think I saw there's a coupon on Amazon right now. Yeah, $3 off $ $3. You heard it here first. Okay, amy, thanks so much and I just wish you the best of luck with your book launch.

Speaker 2: 38:48

Thank you so much.