What Healing From Church Hurt Actually Looks Like 202

I have this expectation of the good that church is going to provide for me but then once I get there and I get involved if it is a church where spiritual abuse is happening the opposite happens my expectations are shattered and instead of trustworthy friendships I now have worse friendships and I feel like the ones in the world were better instead of getting healed I feel like worse off than before and some of this is tied to a spiritual leader a pastor who has selfish Ambitions and is trying to build his kingdom under the name of God's kingdom and is just using people to fulfill that purpose in this episode I dive deep with my friend Aaron Daigle on the topic of church shirt this is an entire 45-minute discussion as we go into Aaron's Story how he overcame it and ultimately what his life looks like on the other side of it if you're looking for something specific I've included chapters down in the description below otherwise I hope you enjoy this conversation so Aaron how are you today man I'm good man good to see you bro what's happening with you yo man just hanging out doing the doing the coffee thing in the middle of the day and as is the trend for my life so absolutely H2O in it brother man I need to drink more water I think one of these days I'm gonna get one of those apps and actually stick to it what I'm saying like so Eric why don't you introduce yourself just real quick man just do a quick intro give our audience some context on who you are and maybe we can talk a little bit how we randomly connected I think we just became internet friends right and totally yeah I grew up around the things of God man and then got into the street life got involved in drugs real heavy particularly when a horrible incident happened my mom was raped in front of me and I was just pretty much done with God I saw left church that went to the streets I got back in around 17 and quickly was like all in man I'm going for it I want it I was like get saved get baptized only live for Jesus go to Ministry like I dove in and got back into the things of God did Church work for a long time while going to college teaching in high school pastoral Ministry youth pastor in small groups pastor and came the congregation pastor of a Spanish church and then I went through a horrible transition just some deep Church hurt some abuse some things my wife and I walked through with our lead pastor at the time and it transitioned us into what I knew I would always be doing which was traveling and speaking but that opened up the opportunity no longer being in that local church to start working on some books YouTube videos getting online podcasting things like that and so we're in that sphere and together we do work with couples as well my wife's a marriage and family therapist so I help a little bit with that but that's a bulk of marriage is her deal and then the YouTube videos and books and stuff is where I'm at and traveling speaking in the churches what's up man yeah fantastic I think we connected right because of some of our similar passion right to see people in recovery seeing people with addictions get their lives together man and it's it's awesome to see that connection's been on stay stayed active over the last couple years so YouTube right I've been following you and watching your reels man you're throwing reels up all the time like you're up there all the time which is awesome man they're encouraging and uplifting and I found my way over to you your YouTube channel where you recently published a series on Church hurt and I think it's a it seems to be a buzzword right there's a lot of conversation about church or maybe not enough but we see and we see some of these big incidents right hillsong's been in the news lately we see yeah I grew up in the day of remembering the whole Praise of the Lord Scandal and my mind thinks about all of that and thinks about all the people that are impacted by these major events what LED you to start talking about Church Road I know you shared a little bit in your intro about a rough transition what led you to start doing those YouTube videos and having that conversation man I I went through about five years the tail end of being in church I had a lead pastor and then I was the the administrative Pastor running small groups the Spanish church prayer everything under his ministry in our local church and we had a great relationship he was a father figure to me it was everything I went to him with all questions and just I adored him the last five years of that though things took a turn for the worse he had got in his head that my wife and I were on like not being loyal that we were out to sabotage his his church or his ministry but I don't know exactly but it took a very nasty turn I share a lot of the details on the YouTube videos not as much as I think I'm going to share in the book ultimately that I put out on it but man I to be honest dude I sat on it for years I have been six and a half years out of that church and I was scared bro I was scared to talk about it scared to talk about the fact that I was hurt in church because I felt like man doors are going to close pastors aren't going to invite us podcasters aren't going to want us on their show because like in the Christian world you don't talk about the fact that you were hurt in church right so finally I just felt led I got some encouragement for some friends and I shared more of the details on the videos and just been taken wherever the Lord leads us from there you don't understand bro what was the Paradigm for you that caused you to go from this point of you've been silent about it I don't want to say much it could cost me your reputation or open doors or whatever to being able to finally get to that place where you're like what I've got to speak about this now hearing how many people are going through it when it all blew up I sat in my house for six weeks I didn't go anywhere I did not I didn't know I have no church no Pastor I was depressed I'm not naturally prone to depression and I just I had no Direction like my the whole world that I knew was ripped out from under me and I felt very alone but then there's no resources like where do you go who do you go talk to and I would look for help and the only thing I found which was a very solid resource was the bait of Satan but that was that's written in the context of whenever like your heart like needs to be right with God and you like it just it gave me something but it wasn't everything that I needed and I started talking with other people traveling and I'm hearing I went through this or I'm not in church anymore I hate God because of this experience and I said wow like I'm I'm not the only one there's other people dealing with this and it needs to be talked about hey real quick interrupt in the conversation station just for a moment that if you found any value out of this conversation so far please hit the like button below and that beta Satan book is fantastic but you're right it's about dealing with the personal offense but and really checking our motives right but sometimes when we are correct and there is that hurt and those leaders have impacted us it's like man how do I process that and yeah there's so many people man I think about the struggles of modern church and how we're I'm not hopeless but it seems like we're losing ground right especially in America it seems like we're going backwards and I wonder how many folks out there are struggling with church or and the reason the church is feeling like it's going backwards even though we are getting closer to Eternity how many people are out there and they've had these unspoken issues and they've just abandoned the church as a result how would you define church so say somebody's listening to this and they're like I think I've ever had some experiences but like when you say church or to Aaron what do you mean by that to answer that and let's continue exactly what you're saying is this Society is winning and getting ahead to where like this Christian Nation America the place where God if he has a place on Earth to live it's America here yeah it's and it's changed Society has been so disillusioned and from a lot of misconceptions and faulty beliefs but this hatred from the church that was always in society that has now exploded well now what we're seeing is a lot of people who were once in church following in those same Trends now and so like there's also this these massive groups of people with Christian backgrounds who are saying man I hate the church I'm done with the church like and they're disillusioned with what they've seen and most of what they have seen has been Church hurt what we're talking about so with that talking about what it is it when we go to church unless we're drug to church as kids or because we're trying to please the spouse for the most part as an adult we're gonna go with an expectation I want to be healed of something I want friends I can trust in I have this expect station of the good that church is going to provide for me but then once I get there and I get involved if it is a church where spiritual abuse is happening the opposite happens my expectations are shattered and instead of trustworthy friendships I now have worse friendships and I feel like the ones in the world were better instead of getting healed I feel like worse off than before and some of this is tied to a spiritual leader a pastor who has selfish Ambitions and is trying to build his kingdom under the name of God's kingdom and is just using people to fulfill that purpose and when people feel used like that and that they're not being lifted into the fulfilling of their calling and their Ministry but they're being used to fulfill somebody's selfish ambition because a mega church is going to give him a name now he can do the next Stephen furtick because he's got this big mega church and then people feel that and it crushes people you're bulldozing over people to accomplish this Kingdom that is said to be God's kingdom but it's not and these words and actions are just leaving Christians disillusioned and so hence the term Church hurt yeah I was listening to Jerusalem and if you follow Ruslan on YouTube at all but he's got some amazing content but he was having a conversation about the amount of pastors that have this communication gift right and in the right context they can use it but what's happened is for those of us who have a heart for Ministry the church has typically been the only alternative and so outside of modern culture you've got a bunch of people that have an incredible communication gift have a bunch of Charisma But ultimately are in a shepherding role leading churches and they really shouldn't be right and so it's not good for the leader and it's not good for the church members either because there's nothing wrong with building the platform but when you try to do that in the wrong context we start to see some of the Fallout as a result of that and so you said church right man I love that on expectation and offense right and John babier does talk about that in his book I think one of the quotes in there was the greater the expectation the greater the offense but let's let's bring that back a little bit right because there should be some expectations when we come to church like it should be a safe place and I believe that like I think church should be the safest place on the earth to struggle said that so many times before and so how do we deal with that right coming in and we we're walking into a church and we feel it like what are some of the signs Church Road I know you did a video that describes what I think nine of them yeah signs a church shirt and nine signs that it may be happening Justin I agree with that too like it should be and it is the best place to struggle it is a healthy place it's it's that just because you get pricked by a needle doesn't mean the whole Haystack is full of spikes and so it's it's like you get into that one church that just warps your idea about it but anyways yeah of the nine signs let's talk about two three of them dance around here but one of the big ones I've seen is separating you from friends and family both before and after so I think the church is a huge component to our world but if you're only working in church you're only focus is in church like God never called you to just be inside of a bubble he called you to be infiltrating the world into changing the world not being like the world but being that influence to be that light shining on a hill and so anything that takes you away from everything to the exclusion of that alone is cultish it is called dish so what does that look like how does that play out like when you say separating from friends and family you don't have to share any personal or specific but like how would you describe that what does that look like for somebody who might wonder an extreme example like in our case when we left the church we had to tell everyone that we were that we it was our fault that we left because we hurt our pastors and we had to sell our house we had to move out of our city anybody who text us or emailed us or called us we were not allowed to respond to them so it was an extreme pace of like you are not allowed to talk to anybody in this church ever again wow under threats of like if you do I'm gonna go after your ministerial license and then on the back end was telling the people in his church or Aaron and CeCe that's my wife they were not loyal they were we later found out that he had accused us of stealing money from the church it was and just crazy stuff but like those riffs that were completely separating these friendships that we had developed for 10 years as Pastors in that church so that's more of an extreme case but anything that if 90 of your waking hours is you have to be here you cannot do any other activities you cannot be involved in any other groups then like that's that's weird and cultish yeah absolutely I saw a meme on Facebook not so long ago and it said if we don't go to the same church anymore we can still talk to each other this is church we're not in gangs yeah that's the mindset behind it right and so the separation from the friends and family so you mentioned just a few seconds ago like it was as much as the conversation was like don't even text him anymore and it was like the encouragement was like so once you're gone from the church they're black sheep right it's like we don't associate it anymore and so I would reference that back to again what you said at the beginning this mindset of the leader building his own Kingdom right instead of the greater Kingdom is that a fair assessment oh absolutely Justin yeah so what about any other signs that you're seeing that you've seen that might be helpful yeah talking to you in confidence about the other people in the church especially if you're like okay the pastor bringing you into the confidence and saying yeah I'm really concerned about so and so if someone's talking to you about other people then I guarantee you when the scenario changes they'll be talking to other people about you right and that what I found in that scenario and those experiences was that it was pitting everyone against each other in the One Source was the spiritual leader at the top just gossip really I'm yeah it's it's crazy to even verbalize it I'm hesitating as I'm saying it because I'm like this sounds crazy it's that old mindset it's like this is just between me and you right yeah when you had that conversation with six people it's not really the truth anymore yeah and I almost feel like leaders some leaders do that at times it's like if I can if I could if the leader can set the tone right across all these conversations then if something blows up it's like well I told you so I told you this was happening and it's almost like they're setting this they're building this web if you will to almost Shield themselves from any maybe accountability or responsibility on Tom Cruise I think is it not Tom Cruise it's Tom Hanks and that movie We Were Soldiers that he was into Saving Private Ryan but he made the comment one of his soldiers asked me said well why don't you ever complain to me and he said well gripes go up they don't go down right and it's that mindset and Leadership that if were complaining to the people that we should be complaining about or complaining to the people that we're supposed to be leading there's something often that dynamic in that relationship right it just becomes gossip not everything I think that's the struggle sometimes in church we my opinion is that we use the term venting or we're having private Ministry discussions as an excuse to just break the biblical command not to gossip we mask them very well give ourselves excuses and permission to do so absolutely bro that's that's exactly that's coined it all in the perfect phrase right there so yeah I appreciate it man so give me one more sign of abuse you're talking about spiritual leaders toxic leaders yeah how do they set up these systems to cover their own narcissism right because a toxic leader and maybe that's that's a whole mouthful right there maybe we can jump into that a little bit in this abuse area so as far as covering it up one thing I've seen is a smoke screen of accountability it's like hey I'm I'm the pastor you have to submit spiritual leadership be loyal to the church but then who's holding that Pastor accountable who is that pastor's pastor and if you ask they may have an answer and it's going to be like some guy who lives nine states away or it's a group of pastors who are the board of the church but they're all the only thing they know about the church is with that lead Pastor is telling them about the church so like there's no way to hold him accountable and I get it like the people where leading should not be holding us accountable but like if you have a I think at some point like that's a warp mindset like it you should have somebody around you who's close enough who can pull your coattail as they say and say bro you're wrong man you're not doing this right you need to check your motives like somebody needs to be able to confront you and when you remove all that and then here's another part of it is put people in positions who are yes men who or who are obedient and then keep constantly remove people who are voicing concerns well then you insulate yourself with this leadership team of of yes men and then people in the church they might not go to you they might go to that person that team but really they're getting the same advice from that one person because he's running the whole information input into that one team so it's just a couple ideas as far as insulating and how it's covered up being somebody that's in Ministry I connect with people all the time right and so I imagine a lot of people that have dealt with some of this stuff dealt with some of this church shirt like you did have on you stayed quiet about it for a while right and so if they did make their way back to the church for one reason or another I would imagine that individual that's been impacted by this church or has insulated themselves like I'm not gonna get hurt again how do we recognize that how every minister to somebody who has been in this type of situation that's had a toxic leader and felt hurt by the church that is a great question Justin there's there's a lot of caveats to that and when we get hurt it is very difficult to plug back in like from the perspective of the person who is hurt it's also we become very prone to being critical of the church and of the new pastor we've seen the junk we've been damaged so we go and we reconnect what you're going to experience is a an inhibition to connect to that new church to that new pastor you're going to be very Leery and possibly quite critical and just like seeing all the negatives because you're you're still you're sore you don't want to get burned again and so you're just on this hyper vigilance pastors on the other hand now you're from you're asking as a minister how do we recognize that we are going to see those lack of ability to fully commit just maybe not fully given their heart and are checking things out for an extended period of time we may not know why unless the person has been vulnerable and opened that up to us but chances are they're not I've heard I've actually tried to connect hurt people from church hurt to new churches and in the meetings I've heard the people flat out tell the pastors like I will never trust what a pastor ever tells me again so extensive hurt like that the pastor then has to assume the responsibility am I willing to love these people through this and like that is going to be hard it is going to be hard to be criticized as a leader to constantly be questioned and to love people past their hurt and not every leader is going to be equipped for that thankfully what I have seen is that churches whose pastors have been hurt and then healed tend to attract hurt people and God uses them to heal them most often God is aware God is definitely aware of the leaders give things and will send the right people to that church for healing it is challenging on both ends I cannot Overlook that for a hurt person to give a new pastor a chance is a leap of faith for that person and for a pastor to love a person and pass that hurt is it takes a lot of effort and a lot of energy and a lot of willingness just to be like Christ and say I'm going to take a lot of hurt and rejection and criticism and just show this person through consistent action that love is real that Christ's likeness is real and that genuine leadership in the church exists yeah that's really good so Aaron your story and how did you guys start that path to Healing like what was it for you that got you to this place where you recognize what had been done with you're out of the ministry at that point if I understand your story correctly how did you guys start to pick the pieces back up and heal some of those scars yeah so when we left like I said I was six weeks just in the house sitting in a chair in the dark room like I was low and my father-in-law who's a pastor kept telling me he says you need to go to your press better who would be like a bishop in the Catholic Church just a leader over a section of pastors and he says you need to go tell them what happened and I was resisting I said I'm not gone because then I have to explain what happened to my with my former Pastor I'm not going to shed him in any negative light and he was very insistent and I just refused to do it and out of sheer desperation I went to a professional therapist and to the presbyter so I went to both men the same week and I had an outline of the whole story in like a 30-minute recap to give them context and just said like what do I do what's going on the therapist helped tremendously because he pointed out off a gaslighting that had been happening because I was internalizing this it's like is it my fault what did I do wrong did I touch the Lord's anointed did I offend God that I and all that internal stuff and the things my pastor told me that I would not succeed without him the direct sabotage there just I'll tell you the story if we have time here in a minute but so the therapist says Aaron like you were in an abusive relationship and like seeing that like acknowledging that when I started to see no this was a narcissist this is a sociopath that you were in a relationship with now the results of that is what I'm dealing with like the light brought healing the flip side was talking with the presbyter and he called my Farmer pastor and then it went above my presbyter's head all the way to the superintendent which is over the whole state and after it was all said and done and investigated I was found to be in right standing with the organization and the presbyter told the other Pastor he says man leave him alone but I had committed to my pastor when we had left he said sell your house move out of the city you cannot go to a church in any of the three parishes which are counties in Louisiana I have to say the issue they gave us this list of things and I agreed to them so this the presbyter who became my pastor is now currently my pastor he told me he says man you gave your word and now you're bound by that and you feel this condemnation he says you need to call your former pastor and tell him very kindly but respectfully you're you're not going to do that you are going to honor him but that's it and so I called him on the phone and he answered and I just told him I said look I need to apologize I gave you my word that I would not tell people what really happened that I would sell my house that I would not go to a church and I was like I can't do that I'm going to live my life freely and wherever God leads me I'm gonna go but I'm not gonna bash you like and that really broke some things off of us and then we got into a church a year and a half we were there and then doors started open we started traveling and preaching that was always my call and I always knew I would travel and speak like what they call an evangelist in some circles right doors open there and then the Lord had directed me quit your job start writing books start doing videos and just it is picked up and gradually getting involved again reconnecting with healthy churches healthy pastors and over time it we found a sense of healing to where we can now talk about it without the hurt without the pain without the anger and finding our footing again amen yeah you use the word gaslighting right and I think on wasn't that Webster's most popular word in 2022 I think it was one of the ones at the top of the list but can you I think people have a good understanding of what gaslighting is it's it's a term that is very prevalent culture but can you explain gaslighting specifically in the context of church we had Saturday mornings my wife and I would meet for our marriage we would talk read a book a marriage book his needs her needs have some coffee well my pastor instituted Saturday morning prayer and we would go but we started feeling like man we this is our date time this is our once a week we both were working full-time jobs plus we were both working in the church and so I was like man I just I can't do this pastor I'm sorry like I'm not going to be able to go that became a big Fiasco but when we were discussing it it was never like acknowledging or seeing that hey like my marriage is important I'm not sure I'm I'm dedicating 30 other hours it was simply like put back on us like well you don't have a heart for this house you're not being loyal to this house where God called you and then we were also punished for that we were told we were not allowed to travel and speak out in other churches anytime a pastor invited us to speak we had to tell them that we were busy in our local church and does your District like you have to have the approval of your sending Pastor I would assume to go out and speak is that how they had that control if you will yes it's an unsaid thing within that church however thankfully about 50 percent of what we do in Ministry is inside of that organization we also we're we're spread a lot wider than just that organization but it was a personal thing there was no leverage as far as like I had to do it was simply like I felt like honoring my pastor was honoring God like so organization aside whether it was in the organization our pastors outside of the organization I always told them no because that's what my pastor had told me to do even though it was punitive like that was irrelevant yeah that's good context though for those who are listening to see your heart in the matter right it's like here I am I'm just trying to honor the man of God in front of me and yet it's constantly taken advantage of or we see these gaslighting techniques that were being used against you and it's on so what would you say if we let's just say there's somebody listening to this and they're seeing some of this in their Church the advice man do they run do they try to confront it how to how they're not at the point where they've been hurt yet right it hasn't gotten this that bad it hasn't mushroomed up but they're recognizing some of these sounds and like I feel like I could be entering into this and I see it on the horizon how do they deal with that in that particular context I would simply advise to just go somewhere is where it's healthy okay unless you feel like God has put you there to address it if but that's that's gonna be far in few between I think that's going to be for Ministry lay ministers maybe youth pastors assistant pastors guys like that who are in Ministry and are seeing the problems and you've already committed to that church and now you're seeing these red flags and in that case like you might be there to influence it and just up and packing and leaving right away might not be good if you're just visiting a church and you're in the crowd and you're like looking around on a Sunday morning and you see like seven out of the nine signs that I talk about in the video claring at you in the face I'd be like what I'm just I'm gonna go to a different church next time this is the music yeah so for the late Minister they've got to be able to the youth pastor if I'm on staff or I'm serving in a church in the leadership role then my response is really I need to see God and make sure that I've been brought here to influence this change right before I start going down that battle but if I'm a member or I'm just I'm hitting the church up on Sunday maybe volunteering every once in a while it's a battle they probably you would advise against somebody fighting yeah Justin it's it's the Bible says engaging in a quarrel that's not your own is like a passerby who grabs a dog by the ears and I can there's a whole nother caveat to spiritual abuse which is the spirit of Jezebel and I know that a lot of people have a very limited experience with Jezebel they think it's just a promiscuous woman which is a very narrow Mind Of You Jezebel is not attached to a man or a woman it is a spirit of control and manipulation that comes into somebody's heart whenever they have been abused and have not fully healed from that abuse be it sexual physical whatever and that Spirit seeks the highest position in politics in church in business because it wants to control and transfer hurt and offense so a lot of times when we have spiritual abuse happening in a church what is happening is that lead Pastor or whoever is in that position that is hurting people is tied to a spirit of Jezebel that being said the spirit of Jezebel is highly confrontational very intimidating very demeaning and so anytime you try to address it even if it's in the right Spirit even though you have legitimate facts most likely you're going to get your head chopped off in the figuratively speaking in the situation and so if God has called you there if he's put a jehu anointing on you to confront this I don't want to tell nobody not to move forward and charge into the battle the Bible says if your brother has ought against you go to him and it says if you have something against your brother go to him so either way whoever's at fault it doesn't matter it tells you to confront the person privately and then to go and bring other people but again it also tells you in other context don't just go engage in a battle unless the Lord's sending you into it so chances are it's not going to be your fight you probably need to just leave because it's just going to get worse and blow up in your face and you'll be gaslighted and then the longer you entangle with that the more confusion and disillusionment will result but if you want to take that approach somebody needs to deal with it so right but when we sit under it though those of us in the faith I don't think we could ever imagine I used to share this with addicts people that were struggling with addiction all the time nobody woke up one day and said I'm just going to become an addict overnight there was this progression of things that happened and I think sometimes in the context of church or we could sit under this and continue to be chipped away at for years wow and then the mindset behind that is as we're being shipped away the then we end up in a position well I'm just done with the church but nobody that's serving God Faithfully thinks that they're going to be in a position where they eventually could be hurt and abused so much that they just walk away from their faith entirely and so I think it's good advice like that you just gave not my battle to fight like I've there may be a scenario in a hill that the Lord calls me to die on but when it comes to the value of church relationship and church family and I need to be in a healthy place because I'm called to serve that church but then also that place is called to help my family grow and mature and if I'm constantly fighting these battles and being chipped away at then it's not that's certainly not healthy for the individual that's in it absolutely yeah I'd say 99.9 of people that have a Plessy like there was one jehu in scripture who got you right that's it so yeah I grew up at a costal man they threw the Jezebel term around everywhere anybody that disagree with a little Jezebel spirit oh yeah and that's that because it takes away from the reality of what that spirit is and yeah but that's another that's a whole other conversation yeah so Aaron you're back you're engaged in the ministry again man the Lord's using you to travel and share stuff on the internet like and I know you did a video on three ways to serve God after and I'm going to link this whole series for Aaron down in the description but what did that look like the journey back right what would you let's say there's somebody listening that's recovering from church or and now it's like okay I think I'm ready to be vulnerable again and I'm ready to engage in the ministry what did that look like for you and what might that look like for somebody else bro the revelation of like okay it's okay to talk about this and to call it for what it actually is was the number one step because I was so afraid to say it like I felt like if I talk about church hurt I'm the problem if I say that my pastor abused me then it's it's me who was the one who caused all this and so you like to you have to reveal in order to heal like what did I go through you have to acknowledge this and that's key I know it's so simple but like in my case man I sat for too long not naming it once you ready like you asked take that how do you take that step you got to challenge yourself you have to give yourself time you just can't give yourself forever I actually was sitting at the table and had some people who were hurt in church and it wasn't there was another minister at the table the person says to the hurt person and you just get involved I don't understand like just jump in and I thought to myself that's like telling someone with a broken leg oh just start jogging again if you jog like the leg will be okay that's true but it's not true right now but the person cannot sit and heal with their leg propped up for the rest of their life like there's a timing to it but at some point you have to reset that bone you have to get back up on it and do some physical therapy and it's not going to be comfortable what happened to us is not our fault but healing from it is our responsibility that's good so yeah taking that leap of saying I am going to trust Ian I am going to connect with another church I am going to re-engage those are some very basic like simple but not easy steps to take yet necessary yeah and it's okay for the person right to put some boundaries in place right to protect themselves like sometimes like I'm just gonna dive all in I don't know how to swim but I'm in the pool and I ain't got no license in the eight foot my kids do that all the time they try to they want to run a jump in the eight foot section of the pool especially the younger ones and it's like hold on hold up a little bit I don't want to have to jump in and save and you can't swim and so it's okay for them to put that life vest on have a little bit of boundaries do you have any insight into that what type of boundaries that type of person would put in place so that type of person sorry that was the wrong term to use somebody who's been hurt by church that sounded terrible yeah boundaries or are healthy and any healthy person will have boundaries Jesus had boundaries they it's it's kind and it's christ-like to be kind to people and to answer their questions and things like that but Jesus would say like they're trying to trip him up and he's like in there say well tell me how you do this or what and he says I tell you what you tell me blah and they're like oh we don't know he's like why ain't telling you either like I'm not going to play those games I'm not going to allow you to Corner me I'm not and that's a very small example but Paul also was very firm in his identity and would not let people just say anything about him without him speaking up I did read Safe People and I read boundaries both by the same author cloud and Townsend and I hired I'd say people yeah oh man safe people's fantastic and is specifically even more so than boundaries for people who are dealing with church hurt because it shows you how to deal with a narcissist or a sociopath or some somebody particularly who is very unsafe which would definitely fit the qualifications but the biggest thing we can talk about here with boundaries I'll say is to just like understand that having boundaries is good it's christ-like it's healthy that is the biggest misconception it's like if I set up boundaries like that I'm being mean or I'm being unchristian that is the furthest thing from the truth yeah boundaries are absolutely essential the reason we got hurt in the first place is because we did not have healthy boundaries in place like as far as our responsibility again it's not our fault I'm not but however as far as our responsibility had we had healthy boundaries in place we would have been protected right and so a caveat to what you go through in church Art Is to learn that okay I need to put up boundaries yeah imagine that's got to be so hard man like when you're looking at a leader and we use these terms narcissists and sociopath and like out of the people that are supposed to be our Shepherds like in that I can't even imagine that's a hard dichotomy like to swallow that when I see the way Jesus was direct but man he loved and when I think of Jesus as the shepherd and the past are supposed to be that Shepherd for me not my Jesus but my shepherd right and then I get entangled with this person who's narcissistic and has all these Tendencies that's just really gotta wreck the brain and the Heart a little bit to have that yet that relationship be so perverted if you will from what it's supposed to be absolutely bro yeah it's devastating man yeah well I man I'm grateful for you speaking out and talking about it I think that as I brought out the intro a lot of times we think churcher and we go to this extreme and we think about some of these huge scandals that have happened in the church publicly and all the people that have been hurt by those things but really Aaron what I'm getting from you is that this church shirt thing is something that happens in a much more micro level across the country it's not always these huge scandals but it's the this day-to-day on entanglement with spiritually abusive leaders would that be a fair assessment I think it says where selfish ambition exists every evil yep in James 3 16 it says where there's selfish ambition you will find every evil right and so going back to what we expect that a Shepherd that a pastor would be loving and selfless and helpful and like shepherding people but when their selfish ambition like it's somebody who is leading a church that has not dealt with that soulish arena in their lives that is like in it for my name like the Bible says every evil exists so manipulation control fear confusion perversion like all of these things are there that's a guarantee from the word right and so yeah the big things are going to catch the media attention but unfortunately there's no like you don't have to literally appear before God and say God okay I'll feel called to pastor church should I Pastor a church and he give you a sample of approval like it's the beauty of being in a Christian Nation is that NHL blow on any Street caller can start a church right yeah so hey did God endorse that Pastor I don't know but I think even good men can get crossed up Solomon started out well and then he got crossed up I just oh man if the heart is not dealt with and the person goes high in Ministry then a lot of other people can get broken in the process yeah if you could hop into DeLorean I got my DeLorean over here my time machine and and go back to the beginning of all this and there's one thing that you could have done different and I know you didn't cause the abuse right and so we're that's not my intent in the question but if there was one thing that you could have done different either on that topic of boundaries or whatever what would it have been back when all this was unfolding so I was always drinking the Kool-Aid if you will and really what changed the so I told you five years the last five years was much different it was bad what changes that I got married and my wife came in as she was an outsider so she had a very objective Viewpoint she wasn't subjectively tied to the pastors the way I was so she voiced some concerns immediately and immediately when my pastor realized that my wife was seeing through the facade he turned against her and he was trying to stop her influence but the way he did that was he brought me into his confidence against my wife and I was a newly married man who really believed deep in my heart that honoring and doing whatever my pastor told me to do was to just to it's like that was honoring God and so whatever he told me even negatively about my wife I would tell her as well and so I was beating my wife verbally like you got to change you got to get your heart right like alongside of this abusive pastor and like now looking back I am as a man as a Christian I'm I'm embarrassed I feel like I was like I heard my wife I did it under like complete like just not knowing but I just I'm embarrassed I don't know I was to say it bro it's like I was a horrible husband in that moment and that and I did not stand up to this man and it's like I now see that like my marriage that is the most important relationship and nobody's allowed to come between that yeah and I allow my ignorance and so I feel it I can hear it in my voice bro but like if I could change something I would go back and instead of siding with my pastor I would definitely side with my wife and tell my pastor you're like you wouldn't you would never be allowed to speak about my wife like that to me you can bash her with your friends but you're not gonna pasture to me yeah man that's good thank you for sharing that I know that's yeah I know that we can't change the past but hearing those type of stories man and those examples are helpful for those who may find themselves in the middle of it and trying to decide okay what do I do now what do I do from this point on and man I just wanted to speak real quick to that before we wrap up but that whole thing about the pastor that thing that keeps resonating to me through this whole conversation is that Pastor bringing that person into their confidence and it's like we're we're spiritual leaders and we pastor but we're not we're wonder how many therapists do you hear talking to their other clients about their clients right there should be a level of confidentiality that a pastor is required to keep somebody comes to me for pastoral counseling I have that's between me and that person but man that sign I never even thought about it that way of that person having those side conversations and like well this is attorney-client privilege if you will it's just between us but like no the pastor has to guard against that and Aaron before we wrap up man my encouragement is any spiritual leaders that may be watching if you've heard some of these examples that you're hearing this like first and foremost like listen I'm a sinful human as a leader and a pastor and I need people in my life speaking to me to make sure that I'm guarding against becoming one of these leaders that hurts people and that's the hard conversation to have right to understand that all of us in the flesh if we're not on pursuing the Lord's ambition worse acceptable to becoming these people that hurt nope no Pastor sets out to do that either not to excuse the ones who are doing it but for the spiritual leaders out there man like you've got to guard yourself we sometimes times that the scripture talks about a man does what's right in his own eyes but the Lord established the steps and so many times we begin to make decisions that are this is right in my eyes this is the right thing to do and then on the other end of that there are people well I appreciate it man Aaron would you take a second and I know some of this stuff wasn't easy to share and I appreciate you opening up and sharing your heart not just with us here but with just out there on the internet in general man dropping this stuff out there and I know you're adding value when you go and you preach at different places man I could hear your heart for the Lord and your heart for Jesus and people and everything that you do man how can people find you and connect with you if they want to learn more yeah hang out on YouTube mostly and I'm on Instagram as well but it's pretty simple my name's Aaron like spelled like the brother of Moses Jay for James like the brother of Jesus and Daigle like the brother of Lauren Daigle unfortunately I'm not a sibling to any of the three right my books are on Amazon my videos are on YouTube and I'm on Instagram sometimes hey thanks so much for watching if you enjoyed this conversation you can grab another one here also Aaron's playlist on Church shirt is here and please don't forget to hit like And subscribe so that we can get these conversations and stories out to more people