Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to Becoming Church, the podcast where we discuss how the message and movement of Jesus is not just about becoming Christians, but about becoming the church. I'm your host, Kristin Machler Young, and my guest today is Janai Aman. I'm going to let her introduce herself to you in just a minute, but she and I are going to have a conversation on people who are othered or marginalized. Now, before your intellect tells you that you probably already know what to expect from this conversation, I would love to ask you to ask God what it is that he wants you to get from this episode, because I believe there's something in here for all of us.
Janai. Welcome to Becoming Church.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Kristen, thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Yes. I actually am excited that we're going to get to see a special side of you today because we were just chatting before I hit record and instead of having regular drip coffee. What did you do? What did you do today?
[00:01:06] Speaker B: I got like espresso latte, which is just not normal. But I feel like, I feel like a car. You're supposed to put like unleaded gasoline and I just put like the high octane gas in today. You know what I mean?
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Well, I may be to blame for this because I don't think I exactly exude like calm or chill energy. So maybe you unknowingly were trying to just come up to my level, which I appreciate.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: No, yeah, we're vibing on the same level today, so that's fine.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: It's gonna be a good time. It's gonna be a good time. Do you put a flavor in your latte?
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Oh, coconut and coconut mocha, always. If I can get coconut and mocha together, it's like Chef's kiss.
[00:01:42] Speaker A: So it's like that Girl Scout cookie, like a Samoa. Is it like that situation?
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Yes. If I could, that if I could make my whole personality about a flavor, that it would be that flavor. Coconut and chocolate.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: Okay, good to know.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: I feel like you're getting like a totally uncensored version of me today.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: That was perfect. Listen, all I'm thinking about is like, when we go, you know, I'm going to go through my kids Halloween candy and I'm going to pull out all the Almond Joys and I'm just going to send them to you because 100% no one in my house wants them.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: I will, I will. That's what I do. That's exactly what I do.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Perfect. So tell our listeners before we get into the really great message that you have for us today. Tell our listeners a little bit about you. Where are you? What's your life like? You know, whatever it is that you want to say today.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I am a born and raised Texan. I live in Houston today. But I actually grew up in a very small, small town on the Texas, Louisiana border. Usually the hurricane area of Texas. That's where that's. There's like a tractor beam or something that just pulls and compels hurricanes to come. But I'm in Houston today. I've been here for a decade plus, and I am married to my husband Tyler. Got two kids, a teenager and a preteen, which is kind of wild. And I am also Filipina American. So I am the daughter of a Filipino mom who immigrated to Texas of all places in the 80s. And she was just like, here, this is my place for whatever reason. And so I can't. I come from a very multicultural, biracial household, which I thought was normal as a kid in Texas. And I realized it wasn't very like that. Not everyone has a karaoke machine in their house. You know what I mean?
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Is that a Filipino. Is that part of the Filipino thing? Like you have to karaoke?
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Yeah, like we've had karaoke. My mom, I guarantee you right now my mom has a karaoke machine. I don't know where she is right now, but there's a karaoke machine in her car.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. In her car. Okay, the people need to know hard hitting questions here. What's your go to karaoke song? You have to have one.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Oh, what's up by the four non Blondes? Okay, now I do have a go to.
Oh, yeah. I feel like I'm giving a lot of people insight. So that's like the just the fun part of me, the kind of more serious or just the even killed part of my story is that I wasn't raised in a Christian household. Came to faith as a teenager.
About five years after coming to faith, I was in my early 20s. I joined a church planting movement that most people have probably heard of in podcasts or news, and usually not in the best light.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Now, do you want to tell us what it is or do you want us to just kind of let it run?
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Are you familiar with the Acts 29 Mark Driscoll network? So that's the network that I was a part of. This is like 2009, 2010 era. So things were really picking up for the X29 network at that time. And joined that network, helped plant a Church in Houston. I've always been a very responsible person. So I kind of went all in with leadership. When you have leadership capabilities, maybe you can speak to this. I feel like some people kind of latch onto you. They're like, we will use your gifts and we will.
And so was a leader in that trip church for as long as we were a part of it. Okay. We were a part of the church for 11 years, but only the last three years I was on staff. And that's where things kind of took a.
It went sour. It. I think it had always been sour. I think my eyes weren't opened until I was on staff and kind of saw behind the curtain.
I realized this was a church that. Or an affiliation that did believes in women leaders, but doesn't really believe in women leaders.
So in many ways, participating in that particular network meant that I needed to be a champion for my own subjugation.
And I wouldn't have said that then. I would have said, no, they value me. But when you start advocating for yourself in the workplace, when you start talking about toxic behaviors and dynamics. Yeah.
You realize your voice is not equal.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: And you were only equal so long as you played the role of being a champion for your own subjugation. And I just wouldn't do that anymore. So that's kind of how. That's. That kind of carried me into the work that I do today. I wrote a book called Othered, but I'm also in seminary. I'm also kind of researching other things and just kind of reimagining my vocation and how God's called me to bring shalom to the world now.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: I love it. What was your role when you were on staff at that church?
[00:06:37] Speaker B: Oh, it's like a. It was a six person staff. So I had a role. But like, when it's that small and I would say we were a pretty big church. We were a big church, but small staff.
You kind of do a little bit of. I did a little bit of everything. Yeah.
So I was the quote, unquote, administrative manager.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: Okay. But I was curious what their title was as a female in that I.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Did the accounting and the finances. I was a part of the financial board. I also did the communications and social media. Kind of got tagged on to my job. And I also did facilities and we had a big capital campaign. And so it was a little.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: It was.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: I literally did the job of three people. Like, normally you have an accountant.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: And then normally you have like a social media communications person. And normally you have a Different person who does the facilities. And also because we didn't have formal women pastors in the church, I functioned as a women's leader.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: So my hand was in everything.
And that was a part of the reason why. Yeah. But, yeah, Administrative manager was like the quote unquote title that I had.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: I'm like swallowing down a laugh. And I know that some of the people who go to my church, Mosaic, are also probably laughing because we are a four person staff.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: And my title is tech now. Very different. Let me be super clear.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Very different church than the one you're talking about.
I am. I am technically, I am a pastor. I am ordained. I am recognized, all of that. But I also, like, do communications and emails and social media and oversee worship and oversee kids. And so, like, I don't. I totally get it, but I'm like, my job is just church, like whatever needs to be done. All of us, that's just.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: That's what we do.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: It's what you have to do when you're small staffed.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah. I would say maybe this is the difference between your situation and mine is that I had no say in, like, I had all. It's kind of the juxtaposition between privilege and responsibility. I had no privileges into the direction of the church or what we did or what we opted into or what new projects we did. But whenever that was kind of voted on or established by the male leaders of the church, then I had to execute whatever they said.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: I see. Yeah, that's a big difference. Yeah. I'm on our.
Well, there's only four of us right now, but even when there were more of us, there are four of us. We have like a executive level, for lack of a better term, team. And it is two males and two females. And I'm one of them. And so, yes, that's very different. I get to speak into. Yeah. The direction I get to help navigate the ship of, you know, where the church is going to go or not go. So, yeah, yeah.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: I tried to speak into it and they were like, you're abrasive and harsh. I was like, oh, you're like, hold on, wait a minute. Is that the, like 2020 way of saying I'm a witch, you know?
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Yes. Anyway, so what are you going to seminary for? Or what's the goal when you graduate? Is this just for you or is this like you have a thing before you that you want to try to achieve?
[00:09:38] Speaker B: No. Yeah. I've always got like a hope, like a loosely held Hope. So I finished writing, when I finished writing my book and I was going, I was kind of feeling the pull or being compelled in this direction when I finished my book. And you know, you have like a certain word count for a book. Right. Can't go beyond the word count.
[00:09:57] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: I hit like 59,000 words out of 60,000 words. There was no more room. And I thought, oh my gosh, there's so much more to say. I came to the end of the book and I realized marginalization in the church, abuse of power in the church, religious trauma, spiritual abuse. Any sort of like harm happening in the church is a result of spiritual malformation.
And so I thought, well, what does holistic spiritual formation look like? And what does holistic spiritual formation look like after, you know, the doctrine of discovery, which kind of influenced a lot of like the establishing of the United States. This was, you know, in the 1400s, Catholic Church, colonization and conquering nations. Like the doctrine of discovery kind of was like formative for not only our, the United States but also the American church. And I thought, well, how do you form a holy holistic spiritual, formative practices and how do you pursue holistic spiritual formation when that's your history?
[00:11:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: So I am in seminary at Northeastern Seminary. I love my seminary. If anyone wants to talk to me about my seminary, email me.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: I. And I'm in the spiritual formation program.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: There was a part of me that I still might go get, might pursue the M. Div. With a spiritual formation. It's. I want to pursue spiritual formation and studying spiritual formation.
And a part of my program is, is not only listening to, you know, dominant culture voices, but like also marginalized voices. And so that's really important for me. The ultimate hope is eventually continuing my studies and studying Christian ethics. So, you know, I would argue that harm in the church is very unfaithful. We can kind of, the church itself can kind of get into like a brouhaha battle about what it is or what isn't faithful. You know what I mean?
[00:11:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: So I want to eventually study Christian ethics. So it's actually unethical, these manipulative coercive practices. So anyway, that's kind of where I'm going. I also do, I partner with other non profits. I kind of teach on contemplative activism and spiritual formation for bipoc folks. So yeah, I, I feel like I'm exactly where I need to be. It was pretty cool.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: That's so great. That's so awesome. I especially love to hear females say that and not just because I'm a female, but because it's not been the case for so long and still isn't.
So before we get to your book, I've got it right here. It's so lovely. I have to tell people. I think it was last summer that threads became a thing. And I remember we were at. My husband and I were at the beach for a wedding, so, like, my kids weren't there, which meant I had time to be on threads for that first day, like, half of the world where we did literally nothing except, like, find new people on threads and post threads. And I think I last. I don't know, I was real in real hard for the first couple days. I lasted maybe a week, and I don't know if I've opened it twice in the last, like, year. I just.
I. It's. I need more words. That's just not my space. That's why I never did well on Twitter, because I. I can't fit into the restrictive word count. But, Janai, you were the first person, I think that was like a stranger that I met through threads. And I think you are the only person that I keep up with since making that connection. So I'm just so excited that you're here. And listen, if it was worth it for. For me to find you and your message, excellent through that. That app, however long it lasted for me.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I'm still. I mean, I. It's kind of like just the Instagram, Twitter version.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: And I. Yeah, I tap in and I tap out sometimes because I don't need to be everywhere on the Internet. But. Yeah. I'm so glad you found me and that we found each other.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: Yeah. So your book, and it really was the things that you were saying that. That drew me to. Your book is called Othered. Finding Belonging with the God who Pursues the Hurt, Harmed and Marginalized. And I. As I was reading through this, I kind of saw, like, two main themes here. You've got, like, caring for the marginalized and how we can do that with examining the abuse of power in the church. So in a. The simplest of nutshells, like, how do you see these two things connected?
[00:14:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I. Well, I love that you found. Kind of latched on to those two themes because I do think that those are. I hit them pretty hard.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: But also, I almost don't see them. I don't know how they can be unconnected.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: You know, like, I. They are almost like just two sides of the same coin pointing at the same problems. I really think the ways in which we care for the marginalized, I mean that's was in Jesus entire ministry, you know, like he went to the margins to care for the people who were sick, who were poor, who like, who were weirdos, who were ostracized for whatever reason and they weren't cared for because the people in power had marginalized them. So abuse of power in the church is really, it is centering some voices and marginalizing others. Okay, so it's, it is saying these voices are important and these are not. But really what connects them is this is systemic. It's a systemic issue. I think it's Ephesians 6:12. I might be messing up that verse. I'm almost certain that's correct though. But you know, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but it's against the powers and principalities, the spiritual evil in heavenly places. I don't know what version I'm quoting, but it's spiritual evil in heavenly places. And I think so many, so often we think about like that in terms of spiritual warfare. And like, I agree it's spiritual warfare. I think spiritual warfare often manifests as systemic injustice. When you think the system that we've been a part of and are creating is actually good, but it's actually marginalizing, chewing up some people, it's a meat grinder that's like grinding people down instead of being for their wholeness. You are going to inevitably, when some people matter and some people don't, when the voice of the powerful matters at the expense of those who are less powerful, then you're going to end up marginalizing people. And if you, if marginalization is happening within the church, it's abuse of power. Because like I said, Jesus went to the margins to love and care for and show compassion to the people who weren't valued in their society.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Who for people that are listening. I know you've mentioned like bipoc people or other minorities. Who in your mind, when you think of like quote unquote, the othered, what's the definition that you're kind of working definition for that?
[00:16:44] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I would say for sure any sort of minority population in the United States that looks a very particular way.
And that's the context from which I write the book. So people can be othered for or marginalized for their race, their ethnic identity, for their income level, for their education. So this transcends racial identity too. White folks can also be marginalized. If you didn't go to the right university, if you didn't Go to a university at all for where your address.
You can be marginalized for whether or not you live on the right side of the train tracks, for your physical health or your body size or your physical ability or disability, your mental or emotional ability. Anything that has like a stigma.
We stigmatize people who have children so we can experience marginalization in so many different populations. Experience marginalization. And when you hold multiple of the. Like those multiple identities. So if you're black and infertile and unmarried and with a physical disability, the more you hold those multiple identities, the more marginalized. Like, society was not built.
Yeah. So I say anyone can be othered in othering the definition. I'm really drawing on the work of not only just a German philosopher, Heigl, but also like John Powell and the Othering and Belonging Institute. But marginalization and othering is saying it's a value statement. We are valuable and you are not. You are less valuable. And because you are less valuable, we need you out of sight, out of mind, because this is the particular system that we're building and you do not belong to this system.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: And the system would always say it's the other person's fault. You don't fit our system. But I would say the system is at fault. You didn't think of those on the margins when you built your system.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I'm glad I wasn't trying to catch you in like, the right definition there. I actually you answered exactly how I hoped you would, which is that I want people listening to be able to see anytime we look at someone else and think, oh, I would never. Or how did they get in that situation? Like, anytime that we kind of start to question someone else's lived experience and we put ourselves in like a moral hierarchy, we're othering them anytime that we go, well, we don't this or whatever.
I. It's funny. But also I on purpose wore this shirt today for our people watching on YouTube. It's from the Happy Givers and it's a love thy neighbor T shirt. And it basically says, like, love thy every marginalized group you can think of.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: Neighbor. And then at the bottom, Muslim neighbor.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: All of them? Yes.
Then the last thing it says love thy. Fill in the blank neighbor. And I love that Carlos from the Happy givers did that because it really is like, just because you go, oh, well, I. I don't other black people. I don't other singles. I don't other, you know, people with less education. I think we can all look in the mirror. We all need to look in the mirror and go, there is a people group. Maybe it's another political party. Maybe it's people who are or are upset about, you know, the current president. Like, whatever it is, there is a group that we are all drawn to other. And until we can look at that and admit it, these systems that you're talking about have no chance of changing.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: We are in our othering heyday in terms of, like, leading up to a major election in the United States. And like, it is. It is. Othering is so normalized. It's. It's just in our media, in our news, in our social media, in our pulpits, and it's everywhere. And it's just so normal. It is so normal, and I am at risk. I mean, there's sometimes where I think, like, especially if someone's attacking me, like, I also want to other them and, like, dismiss and devalue them. And some, like, I really want to. And I have to catch myself or either that or remove myself and say, I do not have to play this game as much as I want to, like, you know, throw hands or something.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: I won't.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: I won't.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: Yeah. So how. Jania, we will get more into the book in a second. Yeah, but the people that have a hard time seeing it, the people that are comfortable with the systems, they don't really feel any need for change because for better or worse, they're. They're benefiting from the way things are.
It is uncomfortable to look at, to be with unfamiliar people. It is uncomfortable to be in uncomfortable situations. Does this book help those, like, Is this only written to, like, victims of people who have been hurt in the church, or would this help people kind of have their eyes opened as well?
[00:21:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I. That's how I kind of positioned it. And speaking through it with especially, like, my publisher, like, the primary audiences for those who have been hurt and harmed and are looking for a resource. You know, so many of them leave the faith entirely. And so I thought, you know, if you do, that's like, I understand it. I get it. And also, I want you to see this as an invitation to detangle God from the harm committed in his name. So that is the primary audience, the secondary reader or audience is for those who want to understand, how do I walk with these people?
And so, yes, like, sitting with folks who have been hurt and harmed, who are grieving. I mean, just think about somebody outside of the realm of religious trauma. Someone who's grieving.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:22:32] Speaker B: And grieving for a long time.
And you Think, shouldn't they be over it by now?
Can't you get over it? You've got to pick yourself up by the bootstraps. I am anti. Pick yourself up by the bootstraps faith, because that assumes that your neighbor has boots when so many of our neighbors don't have shoes, don't have food. And so, like, they don't have equal resources. And so I do write in the book that going toward the margins, going toward those who've been hurt and harmed is discomforting. It's uncomfortable. And I kind of talk about this. I kind of weave in a little bit of, like, trauma.
Trauma information about stress and like, dysregulation. You know, what do you do when you're. If you're uncomfortable, Another word for that in your body might be that you're dysregulated. And we're often not taught what to do with dysregulation in our faith communities, except to bury those emotions. You can't trust those emotions. But sometimes you're dysregulated for a reason, whether you're unsafe or you're just uncertain of how to love the neighbor in front of you. And so I tell people, you know, enter into your pain. If you can't enter into your pain and understand your vulnerabilities, you will have a hard time entering into the pain and being a compassionate witness for others. We only ever model the love we have, have received. And so if the love we've received has. Has told us in unloving ways to bury your pain, then we will ask those who are next to us, our neighbors who are, like, weeping or just confused, we will tell them to bury their pain too. So, yes, I wrote it for both, and I love that.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I think one of the biggest things for me that change, and I'm still a work in progress, and I'm still learning, and I hope to learn every single day that I am alive on this planet. But one of the things that really kind of kicked it off for me was when I realized, know how much God actually loves me. Like, regardless of what I think, regardless of what I interpret from the people around me. And I know that there are lots of people who love me, like, who are also alive on this planet. But, you know, for whatever reason, there are times that that's just something that I struggle to believe is true. And it was when I started to really grasp the concept that God actually does love. Like, he doesn't just like me, and he doesn't just put up with me, and he doesn't just do it because he has to, but, like, that he genuinely loves me. It started to change exactly what you said. The way that I see other people as well.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: Like, he not only loves you, he looks on you and delights in you. Right. Yeah, I think. I mean, I'm a parent, so other parents may understand this. I just remember my kid, sticky hands, like, totally a total mess and just walking around with their toddler strut and how, you know, an absolute, like, mess, but how funny and how much I delighted in them. And I think it's not a perfect analogy. I think similarly, we can have sticky hands. We can be a hot mess, or I can be grieving and I can know that God delights in me. He likes watching me learn, he likes watching me grow. He's with me whenever things fall apart. Like, he truly delights in me. He's not asking me to pick myself up by my bootstraps. He's saying, I have a hand right here for you to grab. I am here with you. I'm holding your hand with you. My scarred hands are how I'm holding you. And so, yeah, the delight part has been, like, pretty pivotal for me.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Yeah. What? Reminds me of something you wrote in the book. You said our understanding of God, which is basically our theology, informs how we see other people.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: Explain what you were thinking when you wrote that.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think that. Oh, I can't remember exactly, but I think that was in context to, like, vulnerabilities and weaknesses.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: And so if my understanding of God is that God looks at me and all he sees is my sticky hands, my weaknesses, my vulnerabilities, all the ways in which I am not enough.
And that's like the primary understanding of how I, like, think of just this is how humans are. We are all at a deficit, which is true. We have human limitations. That is by default, the human experience. We have human. We're just not God. And that was true pre fall, post fall. We have human limitations. But if I think that God looks at me and only sees, like, he's a God that only sees my deficit, then if God is forming my identity and my being, like his personhood and his in him is where my identity is rooted, then I'm going to take that ideology that humans are at a deficit. And that's how I'm going to see every other human being as well. And not only that, I will name their deficits for them. Yeah, here's your sin, here's your vulnerability, here's your weakness. And that's why that, you know, don't, don't point at the splinter, the thorn, you know, and like we've got a.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: Plank in your own eye.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And so it's kind of like, if that's my theology is that humans are always at a deficit, then I will be looking for the deficit in others instead of looking for and training myself to delight in others, to draw near to others.
So now, I mean, it took a shift and it took, it, it took leaving my former church to see that, you know, we were heavy.
I would say neo Calvinist.
And now I understand in Neo Calvinism, you're always looking at the deficits. You are always not enough.
When I left that environment, I could actually see a more holistic faith that no longer looked at deficit but delight and drawing near. And so that's been so healing. So healing.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: It's like a projection. Right. If we're only sitting in this whole thing we've been talking about, if we can only sit in what's wrong with us and how sinful we are and how broken we are, then that's what we will project on other people. But once we can start to accept it for ourselves, then, yeah, we get to actually.
New idea here, reflect that same love of Jesus out into the world on other people.
[00:29:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, it's kind of like there's so often in the New Testament, Jesus says, you know, of the children, like, become like one of these or let the children come. And I think, like, my kids, you know, I've watched them go through elementary school, they're in middle school now. And I think there aren't times when they were in second grade where I thought, come on, man, figure out calculus.
You know what I mean? Like, I get to watch him figure out how to, like, multiply and divide. And they're not doing it imperfectly. And, you know, in math, you're not harming anyone.
Whereas, you know, in the church, there is actual harm happening. And we can, we have to bear and kind of mature and grow up. But I think of God is looking at me and he's watching me grow. He's watching me own my mistakes.
I didn't let my kids get away with breaking something in the kitchen or whatever, you know, like, he's watching me grow and he's watching me make mistakes, and he is not using shame as a tactic to control my behavior and to control an outcome. He's using invitation into relationship to not. Not to control my behavior, but to help me grow. And I think that is a marked difference that sometimes we don't have the language to, like, make a distinction from.
Well, there's.
[00:30:21] Speaker A: I think there's a lot of distinctions that are hard, especially within the church, when you're talking about people that represent God and God or people that represent God being people. One of the ways that you defined church hurt in the book was Dr. Raquel Anderson. She said that it's an individual's subjective experience to conflict within their church. And when I read that Janai, I was like, I understand that there are a lot of Christian leaders, pastors in particular, who have contributed to or been the cause of church hurt. But when I really thought about that phrase, like a person's subjective experience to conflict within their church, I thought this could apply to anyone. Like, do you think that's true? Like, church hurt doesn't necessarily come from a pastor or even a staffer, but people could walk away with church hurt from any relationship or experience within their church.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: 100. Yeah, 100%. 100%. Because it's a subjective experience and it's happening within a system where a lot of this is normalized. And so, I mean, I have pastor friends who have experienced spiritual abuse even though they were pastors.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: And that's why I think early on in the book, I mentioned power dynamics.
And it's not just black and white. Only pastors can hurt folks. It's really like, we can hurt one another. I acknowledge. And because I liken it to. And I think about so many people, there are actually people in the church who have been hurt by. I think in my head, it's normally like male pastors, but there are women pastors who have hurt other people in the church.
[00:31:58] Speaker A: Right.
[00:31:59] Speaker B: There are bad moms who are abusing their kids. There are. There's all these different power dynamics. And so it's. And also sometimes it's a pastor who is being there. There can be powerful members of the congregation. And I'm thinking specifically of very particular money or people who throw their money around, who threatened to leave the congregation, and they know that if they leave, they take so many giving dollars with them. How that I have actually witness being done as like, a tactic of like, kind of controlling pastors. And how it's really. It's always within a power dynamic. And so you think about who has more or less power in this particular dynamic. And the dynamic shifts between. It's relational. So depending on who's in the relationship, it shifts. So, yes, it can 100% be everyone. And also there's kind of like this new movement to kind of sideline the phrase church hurt. And I agree, in many ways, the phrase church hurt doesn't adequately define a person. Sometimes it's actually abuse, and they don't. They can't reach for that word yet. You know what I mean?
So there is kind of a concerted effort for people to say, I don't like the furries church hurt. I don't love it. But also, I know that when you're in the confusion and the mess of it and you don't have any other words, church hurt is kind of the most polite way to try to tell somebody something happened to you because you don't know how they're going to receive your story. And so I kind of make space and kind of define it because I think it's important that sometimes that phrase is a stepping stone to understand, like, what happened to you.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: Well, and I think there is a difference between spiritual abuse and church hurt. I have never experienced spiritual abuse, but I have experienced church hurt. And I think to your point, like, we can redefine what that means. I have experienced church hurt as the pastor, and I'm not talking about from other pastors or people on staff. You know, you mentioned this, like, power dynamic, right. And there can be people in the congregation that have power or think they have power.
And I went through a really intense situation where somebody, I would say, tried to use the power that they thought they had to get the church to kind of navigate in a different direction.
And when we were like, no, this is not actually the direction that we're being called to by God as a church, there was a lot of church hurt that happened. There were a lot of untrue things that were said. There are a lot of untrue things that are still said. There are lies that are just, like, still making their way through our city, that every now and then I get a phone call or I get a thing, and it's like, hey, why did you guys do this? And I have to, like, unpack the story and be like, no, actually, that. That never happened. Yeah, just because you heard this thing from someone, you know, doesn't mean that it actually is true. And I think a lot of times people don't think of that as church hurt also.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: And 100% it is. I mean, in group dynamics, we would call that mutiny in terms of, like, you know what I mean? Like, yeah. And so, for instance, I. Within my former church, I led a lot of, like, our pastoral care and kind of communal care, went through these, like, small Groups or missional communities visit. Yeah, hot. Like a kind of a hot button term that we used. And so my husband and I led one for like six and a half years, almost seven or something like that. And I remember one particular.
Some people in our group were really upset that we weren't a quote unquote, Bible study every week. And. Okay, that wasn't what we were trying to do, though. And in a very mutiny situation, they tried to get every. Everybody else in the group to say, don't you want a Bible study? And I thought, that's not what we're doing. We're just trying to share a meal with one another.
We can share scripture. But also, I didn't want this person leading a Bible study because every single one of their prayers that I had experienced for them was just shame, shame, shame, shame, shame. And like, how do I tell this person, hey, you're shaming people.
That's why I don't want you leading a Bible study. And instead they were like, I will use the power of social power. I will gather more people to try to quote, unquote, cancel you from leadership. It didn't work. You know, it didn't work. But that also happens. That is also hurtful.
And those people were not a part of our group any longer. They opted out. We didn't make them leave. They had. They could, you know, choose to stay or go. But this is what we're trying to cultivate. And this is the boundaries of our, like, our humanly limitation says this is what we're doing right now. I like, I want also what you want. I also want you to find that where that's provided. And in my limitation, I can't provide that right now.
[00:36:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
As we take a step here outside of the church into power dynamics that can be found in other places, I want to give you a heads up that there will be mention of abuse, domestic violence, and grooming in this next part of the conversation. There are no details or specifics explained, but if that's something that kicks up trauma within you, I don't want you to be blindsided if you're listening and realize that you may be in a relationship that is a abusive. There are phone numbers in the show, notes that are available for you 24 hours a day for a national hotline.
I think I just want. Thank you for going there with me for a minute. I think I want the listener to understand that they can also be participating in church hurt just because it's not spiritual abuse. You know, if you're. If you are gossiping about people within your church community. If you are, you know, sending text messages to your teammates about people in leadership. If you are doing anything that is not like, edifying for the other people that are in your church community, like, you are actually, whether or not you think that what you're saying or doing is even going to get back to the church leadership or to the other people in your community, you are causing church hurt with your actions. And I think we have to recognize those, those smaller definitions of it. You know, I think people a lot of times think like, a big scandal. They're like something immoral happened, something salacious. You know, there was a, a moral failure, which, let's be clear, those are spiritual abuse.
[00:38:39] Speaker B: So many.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: Yes, that is real. But what are some of the signs, Janai, of maybe like, those smaller ones that people may not recognize as church hurt?
[00:38:49] Speaker B: Well, and I also argue in the book that, like, spiritual abuse, like, the big. The biggies, you know, like sexual abuse, financial abuse, someone stealing money, something like those don't come out of nowhere, right?
They don't come like. They're just like, oh, my gosh, that by like a, like a series of.
And I'm trying to be gentle, like, gentle with my language. I know that words like sexual abuse and grooming can kind of like, be activating for people. So just take care of yourself if you are listening and you need to step away. But grooming behavior is like a series of small actions that is conditioning a person for this big, huge instance of abuse. Something similar happens with spiritual abuse. There are, I think, I think many instances of spiritual abuse precede financial abuse, sexual abuse, like, the biggies.
And some of those look like I'm trying to, like, come from the top of my head.
I would say any time that you sense something's not right, like, you know, I remember I'm trying to, like, tell a story without, like, telling too much of a story. I remember a man that I had worked with had consistently raised his voice at women, okay. And I kind of tell this story in the first part of othered, consistently raising his voice in a Bible study and then stepping back and being told, I need to have grace for this person.
I need to have grace for this person not having grace on me, right? And I thought, okay, I will do that. I will have grace, because that's what we are. We are people of grace. And I will have grace for this person not having grace on me. But repentance is actually changing your behavior such that the pattern no longer continues. But What I saw was that the pattern would continue. This person would continue to raise his voice at people and to speak back would label me abrasive and harsh instead of actually sticking up for myself, which I think I was doing. Like, you can no longer yell at me during a Bible study on Luke about Christ likeness. You know, you can't raise your voice to me and expect that this is okay and tell me to be gracious to you because you've had a hard day and that's why you're being so ungracious to me. Just you've acknowledged it. Change behavior.
And for a while, I was the only one saying anything. This person eventually left staff, but years later, he was put in charge of a small group at our church. And I thought, hey, I don't know if that's okay. He has a history of actually raising his voice. Yeah. At people. And sure enough, it's not my story to tell. I wasn't a part of that group. But sure enough, a lot of people were hurt. A lot of people left the church. A group of them came together to say, I don't think this behavior is okay. They brought that to the leadership.
Leadership kind of bungled. They didn't know what to do. This person that they put in charge of the group had a lot of power. And so a lot of people got hurt. And so signs of abuse of power that people may not recognize is whenever they've done something wrong and they've apologized, they've said that I'm sorry or not even, like, please have grace on me, but the pattern keeps continuing. That is conditioning you for a relationship that is abusive and abuse. I'm not saying that they are an abuser. They can also still do kind things. They can be kind to you on Sunday. But when. When things get confrontational and they keep persisting and showing you who they are, believe them when they show you who they are, instead of them, like, they kind of use, like that gaslighting tactic to say, but have grace on me. Right? No, like, you've repented. You should repent and no longer be this way. Turn away. Repentance is not just a quick, I'm sorry. It's a. It's an actual about face and behavior. And so, yeah, I would say it's those small instances of, like, this wasn't okay. But I also keep seeing it. And instead, most people think, oh, I'm the problem for thinking that this. Like, I'm the problem for not being able to be gracious. But no, no, no, no, no. Like, Once you kind of nip it in the bud, those bigger instances of abuse, I think we could actually stop or quell them and, you know, stifle them from happening if we kind of acknowledge the very many small, seemingly small infractions or just the pattern of behavior.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You mentioned being people being gaslit, which is basically like, you're the victim, but you're ending up taking the blame or the fault for, like, it's your fault that I did this. Well, no, actually, I think you also mentioned in the book, too, like, disassociating. If you have to disassociate from a situation or a relationship, which basically you're, like, removing yourself from your body, you know, to be able to engage with certain people or in certain experiences. That's also, I would say, a big. A big red flag.
[00:44:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And if people don't know what disassociating it, like, for instance, this is one thing that I would do whenever I would go into staff meetings and I knew it was going to be one of those staff meetings, I would think about, like, I would just go in my head, let me think about something else.
Nothing I say will matter in this meeting. There's nothing that I can do to affect change, and I have to be at this meeting, meetings. So let me think about these other things. Let me think about, you know, the grocery list. Or it could be something totally different.
[00:44:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: But, yeah, I would remove myself from the present. I would be no longer be present. I would no longer be in my body. I would be in my head.
[00:44:57] Speaker A: To protect yourself from the pain that would. Would come from having to fully experience everything that was going on.
[00:45:05] Speaker B: 100%. Yeah.
[00:45:06] Speaker A: So I think this happens not just in the church. Abuse and power dynamics can happen, and I mean in all areas of life. You know, if. In marriages or any work situation and relationships. Jania, if somebody who's listening finds themselves in one of these situations, what can they do to begin to, like, shift that power dynamic to be more healthy?
[00:45:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I would. The first thing is don't do it alone.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:45:32] Speaker B: Try not to, like, like, find you're in that situation. If you're in that situation, you likely feel very unsafe. Yeah.
Even with people who.
You're so activated. I try not to use the word triggered. You're so activated, and you're so kind of in your survival instincts that everybody everywhere feels unsafe.
[00:45:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:58] Speaker B: Start to. You want to kind of work within, like, what's tolerable. How can I go back into a lot of clinicians say, and My therapist says, like, find your window of tolerance. You know, find some level of calm and start to look for the people who are safe, who have given you cues of safety.
Think of the people asking for help is hard in those circumstances. And I came to the church because I came from a background of childhood trauma with domestic violence and stuff. It's really hard to find help in those situations. And it's really hard for me personally, just as a human being, to ask for help.
And so one way that I've learned to ask for help is to find a safe person who I think will be able to see the nuance of what I'm trying to say. Sometimes people are like, no one will believe me when I say that this person is harmful because this person is beloved by so many. The public Persona is beloved by so many. But the private behavior I see behind the scenes would say, like, would be surprising to them. Yeah, find someone who's willing to hold the tension.
And I also 100% believe in agency and consent. You know, like, when you have a lot of trauma, and I've done this before, you trauma dump on people. That's a really, like, indelicate phrase. But sometimes the people that you go to, they aren't ready to hold that hard with you. And I've kind of learned the hard way, oh, I should not have shared this with you. You can't hold this with me right now. And instead of feeling shame, I can just say, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have shared this with you. So what I do now is I try to find the people to say, do you have space or capacity or margin in your life to help me hold a very hard thing?
[00:47:45] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:47:46] Speaker B: And if they don't, I, like, I have to cognitively tell myself, if they say, no, that's not a me thing. That's just a. There's other stuff going on in their life that they're trying to juggle that I may not be privy to. And so I just. You just look for someone who's willing and. And has space to help you hold a hard thing and start charting out, like, what does health look like? What does safety look like? What does healing look like?
The word holy is connected to the word whole is also connected to the word healthy or healing. So, like, you're actually doing holy work whenever you're trying to find a safe, compassionate person who will be for your healing.
And so, yeah, fine. Just. I think step one is just don't do it alone. Like, find. Find some sort of support and I know for those who are in the middle of it, that sounds like the big. It's like leaping across the Grand Canyon. Like, it seems impossible, but there are those people out there.
I believe. I maybe this is the op, like, optimistic part of me that there actually are a lot of good people out there and it's just finding the one who has space to help you hold it is really important.
[00:49:05] Speaker A: When I just feel, I don't know, led to say too maybe for just one person that's listening like you are, you are deserving of finding that person. You are deserving of help. You have more value than maybe you are being told in this person, this specific relationship or scenario. Jania I think that for a lot of us who were raised in, like, the 80s 90s maybe, you know, we were told not to trust our feelings necessarily. We were told, like, don't trust your gut.
And it can be very confusing now to figure out as people who are maybe trying to relearn our faith and what it looks like, right, to hear from God, like, what is Holy Spirit discernment and what is guilt and what is shame? Because I don't think that these are necessarily always the same thing.
But a lot of people who are of the age now that they could be in some kind of work or marriage or, you know, other really pivotal relationship may need to do some work there too. Do you think of figuring out, like, what are my feelings and what is discernment? And does that make sense?
[00:50:18] Speaker B: Yes, it 100 like. Like when you're told so long that your emotions aren't trustworthy.
[00:50:24] Speaker A: Right.
[00:50:25] Speaker B: And then. But also you are an embodied human being, like with a gut, with.
And there's these parts of our brain. There's the thinking part of your brain, the discerning part of your brain, and then there's the animalistic part of your brain, the part of the brain that we share with every other, you know, animal, the reptilian part of the brain that's like your survival brain.
And a part of healing and growing in some psychoeducation is understanding. I am thinking with my animalistic side of the brain, like, thinking, I need to get the hell out of here. You know, like, I gotta run. That's the fight, flee, fawn or freeze response. I. There's like the gut instinct of the reactive, and then there's the proactive, discerning wisdom. You're thinking part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, where you are actually kind of taking in the data and you're mindfully and slowly Trying to figure out what to do. The animalistic side is very reactive. It's very fast. It's go, go, go. The discerning part is actually slower. The problem is, like, our culture and our society is very fast. Fast food fast, fast paced, direct to customer streaming. Like, everything's instant. And so we go, like, reengaging and kind of going back with the contemplative practices of slowing down, stilling, finding silence. We also live in a very noisy society. So, like, silencing the noise and the number of voices that are influencing you is really hard. And so, yeah, I would say kind of your emotions aren't bad.
Your emotions don't have to lead you or consume you or control you, but neither does your intellect. Like, your intellect isn't any. You know, there's a lot of people who have used intellect to hurt people and to dehumanize other people.
So your emotions are not bad. In fact, I would say God is a very emotional God. The word compassion in the Bible is like to be moved. Like Jesus when he had compassion on folks, he was moved for them. He was emote like Jesus wept is the shortest scripture. And that is a huge show of emotion. Emotion is appropriate.
I think it is. If you can find someone to work like a trauma. We all have. I think we all have trauma. There's all. There's. All of us have fractures inside of us that we need to work through. And sometimes we use whatever the story of our fractures are.
It's usually a very young part of us that felt like, you know, I cannot trust anybody with. And so those scars from our past kind of rub up against our present. We kind of are in storied human beings. And so working through that and understanding this person reminds me of someone who hurt me long ago.
They are not that person. But I'm seeing some patterns.
So maybe they have the potential of harming me if I let this, like, behavior continue. But I'm just naming. They remind me of this person who broke my trust or betrayed me long ago. And so now instead of believing, you know, like, I'm trustworthy, I'm just going to wait and let them show me that I can trust them. So a lot of emotion work is. Boundary work is slowing down is.
Yeah, just letting yourself have time to kind of filter through what emotions the. These are. But we've. Yeah, the church has, in the 80s and 90s, we did so much work to bury our emotions that like almost opening that cast up and like, it's like a can of worms be like I have no idea what's gonna come out. But if you don't do that intentionally, it's going to happen. All of those emotions are going to come out. At some point, you're going to be activated. So doing that in a mindful way, like opening the wound and seeing what comes out, I think is discernment. And it grows your discernment.
And so, yeah, I think that's so pivotal and important. And people deserve to have people in their lives who help honor their story, hear their story, and hold their emotions and that they shouldn't be shamed for being emotional, because that's. Our God, is an emotional God.
[00:54:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, if nothing else, if nothing else, our emotions can tell us that there's something else going on. Our emotions tell us, like, hey, pay attention to this thing that's happening.
[00:55:09] Speaker B: Information.
[00:55:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And we can trust the Holy Spirit within us. Like, God still talks to people the same way he did in the Bible. So I think that's really all discernment in, is learning the voice of God and knowing, hey, does this sound like God? Does this sound like God's character or does it not?
[00:55:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:26] Speaker A: All right, Janai, the last question I have for you, because the podcast is called Becoming Church for the people that are listening, maybe people specifically who have not experienced church hurt, they have been the lucky ones. How can they help? How can they become the church to the people around them that maybe have been othered or marginalized?
[00:55:46] Speaker B: Yeah, well, well, and I say this in the book always, the Jesus says there are two commandments to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. I think that's Matthew 22.
Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.
How do you love yourself?
You will, I think I said this earlier, you will only ever extend the love that you've been shown.
And, and if you've been told to make yourself smaller, you may unintentionally ask other people, make yourself smaller. Get over it.
So I would say, for one, put margin in your life. We live such busy lives. That's just the nature of our culture and our society.
I think of raising kids and their schedules and how they can easily overwhelm my schedule. Being very intentional about margin in my life so that I can decompress, so that I can find stillness with God. Ultimately, what I, what I truly believe is that the church becoming the church, being the church, is to be the shalom of God to a world at war.
So my job is to. And this is where kind of contemplative practices come in. I Love myself enough to find stillness and to be present, to allow God in prayer. I'm not just asking God for, like, things or stuff or for him to fix something, but I'm asking Him to just be present with me, fill me with his presence. Let me actually feel like. Feel like viscerally the peace that surpasses all understanding.
No matter if, like, my kid has Covid or, you know, someone's gotten the flu or, you know, someone's just wrecked into my car, well, the chaos of life is going to happen no matter what. But if I can allow the shalom of God to fill me, then I can go out into a chaotic world and extend that shalom to others so that when they see, it's kind of like the shining face of Moses. This is like an imperfect metaphor. But like, when I've spent enough time with God, I hope that people come to me and see that I am a compassionate presence, that people can be, you know, running to and fro. But I will be grounded in who I am. And I can only do that when I've loved myself enough to remove myself from the noise and chaos of life to find stillness and shalom with God. So if you really want to love your neighbors who have been hurt and harmed, who don't know what to do with their faith in the church, learn what the shalom of God is within yourself and fill yourself with that so that you can extend it to another person. You may not be able to understand their story, but you can be moved. You can have compassion on them and just look, pay attention. Like, if I can invite people into doing anything, pay attention to how Jesus shows compassion. Don't look for like an exegesis. Like, don't try to like, figure out this is the Greek word for this thing. Just read the Bible as a story and pay attention to how God cares, how Jesus cares for people and just emulate that.
[00:59:08] Speaker A: Yeah, that's hard to invite people in when there's no place to invite them into, when there's no margin, there's no space, there's no. Everything's chaotic and crazy.
[00:59:18] Speaker B: Yeah, you will. Only if your life is kind of always chaos and never peace, then someone who's coming to you with their chaos is a problem and not a person.
[00:59:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, that's good.
All right. Well, Janai, thank you so much for being here. We will. I think your book is already on our resource list on Amazon, so go grab it, guys. And all of the other books that are there too. There's so many. So many, so many. Any other place that we can find you?
[00:59:45] Speaker B: Oh, I'm a human being. I'm like out in the world doing stuff so people can find me. I'm hanging out somewhere. Perfect. If you're in Houston, I'm probably at a coffee shop. If you're online, you can find me everywhere. At Janyaman, I'm usually kind of writing on substack. I'm kind of writing on Instagram. But if all else fails and you have a question, I'm a human, I answer my email. I'm actually really pretty stellar with email. So if anyone ever wants to reach out with email, you can find me janiahman.com but yeah, I'm flesh and blood. I'm just a bag of bones. So I'm here.
[01:00:23] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, thank you for being here today.
[01:00:25] Speaker B: Thank you for having me. Kristen.
[01:00:31] Speaker A: What a gut check that Janai just dropped on us. Is the person who's coming to you for help being seen as a person or a problem? Something I currently have to remind myself is that Jesus was interruptible and if we truly want to be a soft place for people to land, then we have to be too. I hope God made clear to you the thing that you were meant to take away from this conversation. If you're up for sharing it, I would love to know what it is. You can tag me in a post when you share about the podcast on social media. You can leave it in a review on Apple or you can let me know at BecomingChurch TV. Until next time, keep becoming church to the people around.
