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 Mochler Young. And today we have two guests, Beth Silvers and Sarah Stewart Holland, hosts of Pantsuit Politics, a podcast where they take a different approach to the news. Now, if you don't typically listen to podcasts about news or politics, please don't worry. We're going to focus more on navigating relationships when we don't see eye to eye with people. Sarah and Beth had so much good to say that. I'm actually going to break this conversation into two episodes. So there will be a bonus episode for you next Sunday where we'll talk a little bit more about politics, policy, how they decide who to vote for, why one of them changed her party registration and changed it back again. Make sure you're following the show so it'll automatically download right into your podcast app next week. For now, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Beth Silvers and Sarah Stewart Holland.
All right, this is the first time on the becoming church podcast. I think that we have had three people actually. That's a big fat lie. I'm going to start that over. I'm not going to start that over. Who knows?
But I am here today with Sarah Stuart Holland and Beth Silvers of the Pantsuit politics podcast. Good morning, ladies. How are y'all today?
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Good morning.
[00:01:37] Speaker C: Hi, Kristen.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: I'm great. My children went to school today.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Yes. Yes, Sarah, I know your kids went to school today for the first time.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Both of our kids.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: Tomorrow.
[00:01:46] Speaker C: No, mine are tomorrow.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Oh, I thought yours were today.
[00:01:50] Speaker C: Nope. We got one more day. One more day. We're in the homestretch.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: We can feel it.
[00:01:54] Speaker C: We can touch it. Promise. Here.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: It's coming. It's coming. I know. We are rounding out summer, going into the fall, all of the transitions, all the seasons. Right? Well, I would like to get our listeners to help to get to know your voices a little bit. So I'm going to do, we're going to do a quick q and a, and I will direct questions to y'all just to make it a little bit easier. So, Beth, why don't you go first, tell us, first off, where you're living right now.
[00:02:19] Speaker C: I live in Union, Kentucky, which is the northern tip of Kentucky, right across the river from Cincinnati.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Okay. And, Sarah, where are you?
[00:02:28] Speaker B: I live in Paducah, Kentucky. It's far western Kentucky. I'm about 15 minutes from Illinois.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: Oh, okay. It's so funny that Kentucky can be like.
I mean, think of words like up to the midwest.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: You know, it's Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri. I mean, we touch a lot of states.
[00:02:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I can drive to Canada faster than to Sarah's house.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: What? Yeah, it's a long state.
[00:02:58] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: Is that true, Beth?
[00:03:00] Speaker C: That can't be. It's true. Listen, I'm going to Toronto in November, and we did the math, but I've.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Driven to Canada from. Well, we don't have to get into this because it's like Cleveland.
[00:03:11] Speaker C: No, I can get to Canada faster than to your house.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: But you live in the same state. That is bananas.
[00:03:19] Speaker C: It's a long and beautiful state.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Yeah, paducah is a great place and a fun place name. There's also a paducah, Texas. It's our sister city. It's much younger than us.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: Okay, we were fish. Just more reason that we get to say paducah and do a microphone, which is super fun.
All right, so we're going to do a quick, quick fire. Beth, you go first. What is your road trip snack if.
[00:03:43] Speaker C: You had to grab one? I like honey nut chex mix, like the sweet and salty combo.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Okay, Sarah, how about you?
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Peanut m and Ms. Ooh. My mom ate bags and bags of peanut m and Ms when she was pregnant with me, so I just consider it a genetic feature.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: You're just carrying it on. All right, how about a pet peeve? Beth, what you got? What's a pet peeve of yours?
[00:04:04] Speaker C: I don't like being interrupted. I am very intense about anything I do. If it's listening to something, working on something, cooking, I just. I like to keep my focus in one place. And interruptions, you know, it's. It's the day before my kids start school, so this is really present in my mind, but interruptions drive me bonkers.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Well, I hope she doesn't mean conversationally. I know it interrupts her all the time on the podcast. We get itunes reviews where it's like, sarah interrupts Beth all the time.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I just added a third person to your conversation, so it's surely going to happen today. But we're so sorry. I'll hang Sarah Pepe for you.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: Um, I don't like it when people cancel my Alexa timers. We actually. We. I. This bugs me so bad. We did a. Like, a little segment of our show about Alexa etiquette. You should not cancel a timer you did not set. You should never, ever stop a timer you did not set. I feel so strongly about this.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Okay, I get. I mean, that makes sense.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: That's how things get burned, yo.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: Like, if you didn't set it, don't cancel it. You don't know what it was for, right?
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Come find me. Let me turn.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: Yeah, let it go off until the person who said it cancels it. I know that's annoying, but listen, things are at stake here. You know what I mean?
[00:05:14] Speaker A: Do you want dinner or do you not?
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: All right. You guys have been doing this podcast together for nine years, so I want to know, what is your favorite thing about the other person? Beth, what is your favorite thing about Sarah that I interrupted?
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Just kidding.
[00:05:31] Speaker C: Sarah is just unabashedly enthusiastic. And I think that enthusiasm, that sounds a little bit shallow, but it wraps up a willingness to love greatly the courage to express that enthusiasm. There's a lot of risk taking an enthusiasm. It puts your heart on the line. It makes you vulnerable.
So I just think that the way that she's willing to grab on to the world and risk whatever comes of that is. Is beautiful and inspiring.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Thank you. That's very sweet.
My favorite thing about Beth is that she is very, very caring. I mean, she's an enneagram, too. I'm an enneagram one. So I really just see the world through the prism of my own experience. I'm just being honest with you.
But Beth has really shown me and taught me how to see the world through the prism of other people's experiences. Experiences. I'm a little bit better at it, but not as good as she is at it. She's very good at understanding other people's, or at least just thinking about them. I think it's always hard to completely understand someone else's perspective, but really putting the care into thinking about how this is going to hit people or how this is going to affect people. That's her gift.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: Well, I'm an Enneagram three, so look at us. We can just cover that whole.
The Enneagram there, right? Together.
Who is your favorite real or fiction? Your favorite political leader of all time? Beth?
[00:07:04] Speaker C: Right now it's Emmanuelle Macron, the president of France.
I love that. He is just like, listen, world, I am a centrist. I'm going to do what makes sense to me. He's in a little bit of trouble right now in France, but I still really like him. He did pension reform. It was very unpopular, but he felt a sense of conviction about it and explained, I'm going for it anyway. He'll talk to anyone. One of my favorite videos of all time. Now is a conversation that he's having with Vladimir Putin right before the invasion of Ukraine, and he's trying to convince him to hold off. Like, he's just, he's just willing to step into all of it because he seems to really know who he is and what he's about. And I admire that.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Okay, Sarah, how about you?
[00:07:50] Speaker B: This is really, really, really hard. I mean, I'm sitting right now under a portrait of me and Hillary Clinton. I worked for her.
She's been on our show. She is the kindest, most generous person and has been in my life for 20 years. So I have enormous admiration for her.
I'm living in a really deep place of respect for Nancy Pelosi right now. I do think there's a strong argument that she is the most consequential political leader of our time.
And I just love her story. I love that she had these five kids so close in time and then went and had this career and has been so incredibly good at her job, particularly over the last two months. I mean, I just think she's so, so impressive. So that's a battle royale going on in my head right now.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Okay. All right. And we are going to. For people that are listening and they're like, oh, my gosh, I don't understand. I don't know who these people are. I don't follow politics. We are not necessarily going to have a political conversation today. You guys can listen to Sarah and Beth on pantsuit politics, talk about this every single week, but because it is important, and that is the background, you know, the foundation of what we're going to talk about. The last quick buyer question for you is, what is it that you love about politics? Like, why are you in this work? Why do you stick with it in a world that can be really mean and complicated and difficult? Beth?
[00:09:21] Speaker C: I don't know that I do love politics, at least not in the way most people think about it. I love news. That's what drew me to this work. I grew up in a house where cable news was on as soon as it was a thing. My parents read the newspaper cover to cover every single day. And so that's just kind of in my bones. I love social studies. I love geography. I love problem solving.
I don't love the race for power. Like, the general election is kind of my least favorite thing that we get to do because it's just this versus that. And I like conversations that are a lot more spacious than this versus that. But I do fundamentally come back to loving thinking about how we live together in communities, and if you think about politics that way, that's what makes me love it. What do we care about? How do we see each other? What do we want to do together?
[00:10:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: For the longest time, on the inside of my bathroom mirror, I had this quote. I think it was Ralph Waldo Emerson, and it was sort of like how to think about life. And part of the quote was always to leave it a little better than you found it. And I see politics and governance as a way to leave things a little better than you found it. It's hard. Often it's three steps forward and two steps back, and it's most certainly an exercise in the law of unintended consequences. But these are the rules that govern how we live and how we live, be it the roads we drive on or the libraries we visit or the schools we send our kids to or the countries we send our military to. Like it all is very much about how we live. And it has always seemed to me as the best vehicle to leave things a little better than you found them, especially at scale.
And it's. It's such a people focused, I don't know, business, industry, interest. You know, it's so much about people, which I find endlessly, endlessly interesting.
So some of its personality, as much as it is anything, you know, I'm intoxicated by people. Not numbers, not cells.
And that's why I love politics.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. Well, we've got three people people.
We're people people here. People persons, whatever the way is that you would say that. So I want to dig in a little bit. We're going to start with some relationship talk.
So you guys have two books, which I've read them both. They both sit on my shelf.
[00:11:48] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: They are right here.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: So I think you're wrong, but I'm listening was actually, I think, how I really first got into listening to y'all and your voices, and then now what? How to move forward when we're divided about basically everything. And that's the one that we're going to focus on today.
And in this book, you talk about family and friendships and workplace and school and nonprofits and communities and global politics, and truly, you guys cover all of it.
But for people listening, I think, you know, we all kind of live in the world that we live in before we live in the bigger world. Right? And so one of the things that a lot of our listeners, I would say, struggle with is their own families, friendships, feeling like, and we'll get into this a little bit more later, but feeling like their beliefs have changed and now they are the black sheep of the people around them. And so one of the things that you address first is the idea of family. And I think that, as I was reading through, trust seems to be one of those big issues. Like, if you have the sense that the other person doesn't want to hear from you or even cares about what you say, once you've changed your mind, it's hard to engage in conversations.
So I would say, how can we foster trust with people who either believe differently from us or maybe who don't agree with us being the ones that now think differently? Sarah, you want to start?
[00:13:19] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, this was the chapter we rewrote and rewrote and rewrote. I would add a whole new section now if we could, based on conversations we had with listeners as a part of sort of the launch of the book several years ago.
I think so many things are going on inside families. One, we have assumptions which are so dangerous and expectations inside these relationships that are, you know, based on pop culture, based on, you know, societal narratives that we're going to be best friends. Like, mothers and daughters are going to be best friends, and siblings are going to be close, and everybody's going to feel the same way about things.
And if they. If they don't feel the same way, we'll get through it, and, you know, feelings will get hurt, but they'll wrap up in 30 minutes. You know, like, we just have a lot of expectations around families, and I think we so rarely name those expectations.
We so rarely feel like we can say, you hurt my feelings.
And so then the trust just gets gradually eroded because people think, this is not a place I can share how I really feel and what I. I really care about because I'm gonna make fun of. That's how a lot of families, I think, deal with tension is. They crack jokes. That's what one side of my family does, or they don't talk about it. They change the subject and move on. That's what another side of my family does.
And so that just kind of builds these walls brick by brick. And I think what the section I really wish we could add after conversations with our listeners since the books come out is I don't think we talk enough about status inside a family, how that status is always shifting and changing. You know, if you're the parent and you're in control for years and you're making the call and you're setting the values and expectations inside the family, and then all of a sudden the child has grown up or the child has a child of their own, and then suddenly they have the status inside the family. You know, my husband's one of five. And the status shifting among the sister in laws as kids came was like, really something to behold. Because if you're like, you're the new bride, and then you kind of have the status, but then somebody has a kid and then she has the status, you know, and it's like, this is, I don't, I just don't think that's a thing we think about enough. I think we all feel it and somebody says it and everybody goes, oh, yeah. Or like, you know, the parents feel disrespected because you're like, I'm not going to raise my kid that way.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: And they think you're attacking their status as being right and wise. And so all these.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: Personally.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Yeah. They take it. Everybody takes it personally, you know. Yeah, absolutely. And so I think all these threads of expectation and status and societal norms and assumptions about each other, assumptions about how families should function, who should go where on Christmas, and that's, look, I just spent what, how many minutes, and I didn't talk about politics once. Right. Because politics then comes in on top of all this stuff, all this stuff about marriages and babies and generational conflict and who's living where and who's coming where on Christmas. And I mean, just all that, that nest that has most likely in most families, I know, really not been talked about openly. And then you walk in and you say, well, this is how I feel about abortion. Well, of course, it's a, it's an, you know, explosive situation.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: There's already a rocky foundation to begin with, even if people didn't address it. Yeah. Beth, would you have you. What do you want to add?
[00:16:50] Speaker C: This is probably just another way of saying the same thing, but I think the most sense, okay, painful feeling in loving relationships is being rejected.
And I think we're all in a lot of ways, like, wandering around in the world trying to figure out how to not be rejected. And in families, especially when you do something a new way, a different way, the opposite way, it gets read as rejection of the old way or what the family has always done or what a person believes or of the person themselves. And so I think staying in relationship with your family through those differences, whether it's, I make my muffins differently than you or I vote for different people than you, I think it just requires a lot of messaging that says, I don't reject you. I love you, I enjoy you, I have fun with you, I respect you, I like you. Your opinion matters to me. I just also have to carve out my own way in the world and this is how I see things. But it's kind of like when you give a performance review, they say, praise, suggestion, praise. You gotta layer that difference in a sandwich of, but I embrace you still. I still want this relationship well, and.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Let'S just say this too, like the person saying, I still love you, this, I'm just gonna make my own way in the world. That's a very confident posture that Beth just articulated that I don't think a lot of people feel when they make changes from their family expectations. Like, because we not only do, does that person feel rejection, but often, and I'm speaking from personal experience, you desperately want approval, you're trying something new and you want them to go. You are doing such a good job. That's right. That is the right way to do it, to raise a baby. That is the right way. You're doing the best. Like, that's what we all want to hear. We all want to hear you're doing the best job. You're trying the hardest. I'm so proud of you. And if you're doing anything different, you also have to wrap it up in I still love you, you know? And then you're resentful because I'm having to manage your expectations about rejection when I'm over here feeling, you know, insecure and tired and overwhelmed and then, so again, then it's, that's, before we ever talk about politics, we've got this like soup of stuff stewing and it's really hard.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: Well, like you said, even with the shifting status, I think it's hard too, because a lot of people who feel they are looking for approval from their parents, but then feel like they have to be the ones to come in and have those competent conversations. Right? But it's like, wait, but I'm the kid. I'm the kid, my parent. You are supposed to be giving this to me. And so, yeah, it's a weird mind shift to think we now have to be the ones to go to our parents, to go to these older people and have the conversations and start the things.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: And it's so funny. It's like the littlest things can affect it. I remember my twenties.
Every time my mom came to visit me, we had a fantastic visit. She'd come visit me in DC and we'd have such a good time. I'd go home and we'd fight the whole time. I'm like, what is this? This doesn't even make sense. It's like I would revert. It's like when she was on my territory, like, it went okay, and then when I came to hers, it was like conflict. And then I moved home. So you can just imagine how that went.
[00:19:58] Speaker C: But this comes up in so many contexts where you have to do that mind flip. I think, you know, if you have a parent who has health issues, especially when they're still relatively young, you start seeing, like, sometimes we switch roles, sometimes you comfort me, but sometimes I comfort you.
And if you can get out of the political context to think about those things, I think it helps you in the political context. Yes, it's annoying. I have to think through your feeling of rejection, parent, when I'm the kid, but that's going to come more and more as life goes on. And so if you can make your kind of peace with that and see that as a gift and a beautiful part of how this relation changes, then you have kids yourself and you think, well, yeah, I do want them to think about my feelings sometimes. I do want them to comfort me sometimes.
You know, you just have to slowly unearth from those hardwired expectations because it's going to happen to you anyway at some point. Yeah.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: And I guess it's just accepting the idea that, yeah, things are going to change. I think that's it too. Right? Like, in our minds, we go, this is my role. Like you were saying, sarah, this is my role in the family. This is who I am in the family. This is who I'll always be in the family. And the longer we try to hold on to that, the more challenging it is because. Yeah. Through marriage, through kids, through illness, through death, through all kinds of things, even just aging.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And if you're lucky, you'll get to that. If you're lucky, your parents will age and you'll have to deal with that. I think some of the wisest people out there who lost parents and who can see this all of this a lot more clearly because they're always observing it from the outside with a broken heart, you know, like, I think that that's sometimes the most illustrative things to listen to is someone who really had to experience a hard break with those expectations around family, either divorce or losing a spouse or losing a parent or losing a child, because then you realize how precious and fragile it all is.
[00:21:53] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think the worst part of all of this is that once you get out of, I don't know, like elementary school maybe. Assuming that life has broken your way so far, you never settle into a new normal. It's going to be in flux perpetually because of the circumstances of life changing, and that is really tough. But that's where you have to kind of backfill everything with some grace. Like, they're figuring this out, and so am I situationally. And it's evolving all the time. And often we're doing that across hundreds of miles. We're trying to sort that out through FaceTime. You know, it's tricky.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, similarly with friendships. You guys wrote a chapter on friendships, and I love the title was like, when best friends forever turn into best friends until we disagree. I was like, that is so real.
But how do we navigate? Because sometimes with family and there are boundaries and there are extenuating, extenuating circumstances where sometimes we have to break away from our family for a time, but with, it generally seems to be the case. Like, right, these are the people that we're with. But when it comes to friendships, it feels like there's a lot more room or a lot more choice in where we're going to stay and who we're going to stay with. And so as people are navigating friction in a friendship, is there a way that you can tell, like, here's how you know when to let the friction strengthen the friendship and when it might be time to let it go and cool off for a while.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: Well, I think the problem is, and I say this as an outsider, because I have a high tolerance for friction and conflict, and I see everybody else cut and run. The second there's any present, the second there's any friction or conflict, people just peace.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Yeah, they do.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: And I don't love that. And I would like to make an argument that that is not the best way to approach conflict inside adult relationships, not because every person has to be your best friend forever. I think this is another place where we have a lot of expectations, especially around female friendships.
I remember the very first time I read Marie Kondo, probably my late twenties, early thirties, whenever that book came out, and she said something about, like, well, every object can't be in your life forever. Just like every friendship. I was like, wait, what do you mean? What do you mean? I mean, I grew up with a mother and a grandmother who grew up in small towns and who still hang out with the women they went to high school with, who still see their college friends. Like, these are lifelong friendships. It was really the only sort of thing I saw. And, you know, you hear that in movies, right? You grow up watching beaches or whatever the case may be, and you see, like, oh, okay, well, we're supposed to be friends forever, and we might have some conflict, but we're like sisters, and that's it, you know? And so I think that that's another place where we have expectations at Playdead, where you absolutely have status at play that I think can really wear on people if somebody has kids and somebody doesn't, or if somebody's, you know, gotten divorced or somebody's raising kids in a different way. I've had a lot of friendship conflict around different parenting approaches a lot, and you just have to articulate it as best you can. I remember a friend of mine who I've had, for, gosh, 15 years at this point, and we had a really tough point, really, really tough time at a certain point, a lot over different parenting styles. And I remember her saying, well, I don't fight with my friends. And I said, well, then you're not really friends because you got to have some fights if you're going to have intimacy with people.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: And she's also conflict averse. We've worked on that over 15 years, too.
And so I think that that's part of it, too, is that, you know, one of the big things inside of a friendship where we're all expecting to, you know, be the same, feel the same, love each other, BFF's is people have differing levels of conflict aversion. Yeah. And I think that's a really hard part. If you're a person that's willing to work it out and the other person's like, I like. You can just. And some of that's like post traumatic stress, like, some of its personality, some of it something bigger. And you just can see people just like, like, like, the only thing they can articulate around conflict is, I can't. I, like, literally can't.
And so then you're. You're like the person left standing there being like, what did I do? I think that's another really hard thing with friendships is because so little goes articulated, people feel this grief that they can't even name or understand because they don't know what happened from the other person's perspective.
I think we've gotten better at talking about this and articulating the importance of friendships and these friendship journeys. And there's, like, really good books out there now talking about conflict inside friendships and dealing with that. But, I mean, I think we're sort of building the ship as we sail it. It's rough waters out there.
[00:26:42] Speaker C: Well, I agree with Sarah that conflict does not need to be friendship ending.
I have a hard time distinguishing sometimes when conflict is happening in furtherance of intimacy and when it is drama or disrespect or, you know, being used in some way. And I think that's. I think that's where a lot of people who maybe seem conflict averse struggle. So as a person who is. Who might be read as conflict averse, sometimes I struggle with, like, what is this conflict for?
And so thinking about the relationships that you want to continue to pour into versus the ones you don't, a fundamental question for me is, like, well, is there some kind of mutuality here? Because if there isn't, then I don't want to just fight my way toward that. I think there has to be some kind of mutuality. And the other question, and this especially comes up around politics, is like, has one of us turned the other into a project?
Because I don't want to be somebody's project and I don't want to make someone else mine. And if I am looking at someone and constantly thinking, well, this will work as soon as I fix you. Which we do to each other a lot. That's not a friendship anymore, you know? And so that's when I think you got to be really honest about what the dynamic is and what it isn't and make a decision about the way that you can spend your time and talk with that person about what's happening with the most. Integrity.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: Yeah. It's so complicated. I mean, family, friendships, relationships. Right. Like, being a human is so great and so hard and so complex because everybody else. Yeah. Also has all the same thoughts and feelings and things going on in their own minds.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: And then my friend Lacey told me once, yeah, people are the worst and also the best. I don't know. It's weird. And I think that's about it. I think she about got it.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: She did. We need to hang that up, too. That's. That's quote worthy.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I quote her a lot. It's a pretty. It's. It's all contained right there.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: I want to break into the middle really quick and let you know that if you are finding this episode helpful, please read. I think you're wrong, but I'm listening. And now what? How to move forward when we're divided about basically everything. These books are full of their own stories and experiences that you can relate to, but they also have so many practicals at the end of every section in now what? There's a making the connection section with things that you can say. For example, maybe to a sibling, you could say, isn't it interesting that we grew up in the same place, went to church together, know lots of the same people and still see this so differently? I wonder if there's an experience you remember having that really impacted your view on this, or like they say in the chapter on co workers and being in the office, this is going to be a tough conversation, but I want to share with you a problem that I'm having because I care enough about this relationship that I want it to work well. I mean, these are all words that I wish I had in specific situations. Each chapter also has a now what? Section? With things for you to think through on your own to figure out what's next for you and your consideration of different topics that they cover and so that you can determine what level of engagement is right for you. Add that in your TBR pile through the library, in print or on audible, but make sure you grab it. Now let's get back to my conversation with Sarah and Beth.
So then we make it even more complicated, right? The more people that we bring into the room or into the relationship. And so you guys then did go broader in chapter six of what now you talked about churches and nonprofits and schools. And so for our listeners, who some of them are like weekly church attenders, some of them listening, have not been to church in years, but they still feel a connection to God or they're trying to deconstruct and reconstruct and figure out where they're at. So there's definitely no wrong answer here, but I want them to be able to understand a little bit where you're coming from. So, Beth, what is your church background, if any, how did you grow up?
[00:31:05] Speaker C: I grew up in a southern baptist church, but a strange one, when you think about southern baptist churches in rural Kentucky in the 1980s and nineties, you probably don't think of my church. My pastor grew up in the catholic faith, so we imported a lot of catholic tradition into our services.
My vacation Bible schools were often about studying other faiths. I remember learning about Judaism and Islam. I mean, it was a very, it was a different, it was a different beast, my church, and I'm really grateful for that. But my dad was the music minister. My mom played the piano. If the doors were open, we were there making church happen.
And then, as many people do, I started to drift away, really, toward the end of high school for me, I was in a car crash that had a fatality in it. And church, instead of feeling comforting to me, felt really weird. It was just a really weird time. I heard a lot of like, well, this was God's plan for you. God doesn't give you more than you can handle that kind of stuff. And so I went to college and I was like, I'm gonna be done with this for a while.
And it was a long while. And I did not go back to church until 2015.
2016 is when I really started attending church again. And I just. I felt in the wake of, you know, all the societal upheaval that we were experiencing at that time, a lot of drastic change in the country. I just wanted that sort of anchor and that community again.
And so I started looking for churches with women ministers because I thought, if we're going to. If I'm going to do this a different way, I'm going to really do it. And I found the disciples of Christchurch and have loved it. I love the focus there on questions and doubt as integral parts of faith.
And I said I was just going to attend the church and not get involved and not be that maker of church again. And now I am the vice chair of the board and an elder in the church because it happens that way.
But I love this community of faith. It is very different than the way I grew up, but it is enriching in my life for sure.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: Okay, Sarah, how about you?
[00:33:13] Speaker B: I grew up in the southern Baptist church in exactly the way you would picture in your head. I signed true love weights, cards. I did Bible drills. I sang el Shaddai as a little girl on the stage. I had a minister from Alabama who was a leader in the southern baptist church. After he left our church, we did sermon series. We had our notebooks. We highlighted our bibles. Just the whole kitten caboodle, the whole thing. I had it.
I was a little in front of the political aspect. I graduated in 1999. Now, I do remember writing a letter to Bill Clinton and asking him why he murdered people. And he sent me a signed picture back, which was very generous of him.
But there was some side classes where we watched stuff. I do not remember ever hearing about gay marriage or abortion or anything from the pulpit itself.
It was sort of like extracurricular, if you will.
But I think if I had grown up in another faith tradition, I probably would have gone into ministry. But I was the girl.
And so I got all kinds of conflicting messages about God's role in my life.
As far as you know, that I was great and chosen, but only for certain things.
And then I had sex outside of marriage, and my life didn't end. I just married the guy. It worked out fine. I was like, what else did y'all lie about?
And so then I didn't go to church for. I went to. I was pretty religious through college and then stopped attending church, probably my sophomore, right around when I met my husband. And he's gonna come back. He's not a villain in the story.
I did not go to church for, like, my entire twenties in a very self righteous, I figured this out. This is toxic, you're dumb if you go kind of way. I, like, roll my eyes at 20 year old Sarah, who would, like, not go to Christmas Eve service with my in laws? For what? Proving exactly what. What was over.
And then I got pregnant and moved back to my hometown and thought, I really want my kids to go to church. Because when I look back at that southern Baptist upbringing, overall, it was incredibly positive.
There were just a lot of adults in my life who loved me a great deal and who were proud of me and rooted for me and were there for me. And, you know, I was thinking about this when you asked this question. I always say, you know, for me, what I've watched with my, my friends is if you don't grow up in church, you don't have the language.
And I'm like, is that a problem? Like, is that exclusionary in a way that we need to unpack? And then I'm like, I don't know if it is. I mean, I think there's a cultural and ritualistic aspect of church that is really positive. It's part of why I take my kids to church. I wanted them to understand it. I wanted them to not be intimidated by it and to have that language and that comfort level with it.
And so we started going back, and I was like, beth, I was like, I'm going to take my kids, and that's it. And my husband pops back up and says, hey, I grew up episcopal, and I don't have all this baggage. Why don't we go to the episcopal church? And I'm like, oh, you're right. That's a good idea. And so we attended episcopal church. My kids have all been, you know, baptized in the episcopal church, and my 15 year old just completed confirmation. And we are big churchgoers. We go as often as I went as a southern Baptist. We don't go Sunday night, but we do go Wednesday night and Sunday. And are there a lot of the day on Sunday?
And I just really love. Our community is also a place for comfort. And I, a lot of adults who really, really love me and my kids and, you know, that's sort of our social community. And the friend, the little kids there go to church, go to school together, and I just. I love it now. I just took the whole summer off. I don't go to church. From Pentecost to the blessings of the backpacks, that's how we roll in the episcopal church. We take the summers off. Not everybody, but, like, the choir doesn't come, you know, it's pretty low key.
And it was so good to go back last week for the blessings of the backpack and be back with my church community.
[00:37:18] Speaker A: Okay, well, thank you. I think that helps our listeners, like I said, kind of know where you guys are coming from and where you're at right now. But I loved in the end of that chapter, you both talked about how you are still showing up and participating, you said, in the church, despite fighting for things that have failed and making people mad and having bad experiences. So for the people who are listening, because our. I mean, the podcast is called becoming church because obviously I'm a pastor, I am for the church. But I also want people to understand, like you were saying, it's not about just coming together on a Sunday to be here, right? Like, church is not the building, it's not the religion. It's us coming together to practice the things that we believe and to be in relationship. So for maybe the people that are listening who have also walked away, like both of you did for a time, do you have any encouraging words for them? Trying to maybe engage in a community again?
Beth, you want to start?
[00:38:17] Speaker C: Well, I love baseball, so can I offer a baseball metaphor, please.
Part of what I love about baseball is there's so much of it. You play so many games over a season, and so 300 is an excellent batting average.
Less than a third of the time. If you hit, you're doing amazing. And I think that's a good orientation to church.
Every sermon is not going to speak to you. Every person in the congregation is not going to be a friend.
Every program is not going to be the right program for you.
You know, my church is not good at kids and families ministry. It's not. We are exceptional at community outreach, and there are a lot of people who love my kids in the church, but we just don't have the kind of kids and families programming that most people expect from church. And so I put that in the 700 that we miss, and that's okay. Because the 300 that we hit really aligns with what's most important to me right now.
And loving my kids and knowing that my kids will be loved no matter who they turn out to be, no matter who they love, no matter what their life looks like, that's the 300 that is most important to me right now. And so if we can just release the idea that church serves me, we talk about in the book as consumerism.
We don't shop for church.
We participate, and we make a lot of room for a lot of misses because churches are just people.
So I think knowing what's really, really important to you and being willing to let a lot of other things go is. Is valuable. And even within what's important to you, 300 is excellent.
Just be willing to, like, let. Let the church bat again.
[00:40:09] Speaker A: That's good. Yeah. I told our congregation on Sunday, I said, we, you know, trying to just explain our mission and why we exist. We. We say that we want to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus because we believe that a lot of religion and just extra stuff has been layered onto just the basics. Right. Of, like, Jesus and loving people. And I told them, I said, we are not saying this because we have the right answer. We don't believe there is one right way. We're not claiming to have it. And I said, we will probably disappoint you or say something wrong and or both at some point because we are also just human people. But this is what we're trying to do, and we would love for you to be part of it. If that sounds like your 300, if this sounds like something that you're looking for.
[00:40:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I just think communities why we're here. I don't read a lot of individualism in the message of Christ. I just don't. Where it's like, control it. Make sure you. You get what you need. Make sure your feelings never get hurt. Make sure you're never mad.
That's just. I mean, this is not what I read. I could be taking something totally off, but it seems like the message is, people are the worst and also the best. I don't know. It's weird, you know, like, I just think that that's it. I don't know. I think we're here to be in relationship with each other now, for. We evolved to be in relationship to each other to survive.
And we are in a place in human history where we sort of don't need each other in that way to survive. I mean, I can get into the supply chain if you want me to, but I don't think you want me to. How we still really do depend on each other for survival, but that is, you know, not our number one priority in the way that it used to be. And I think we've told ourselves that, therefore, we don't need each other to survive in other ways. But this is not true.
Loneliness will kill you. It just will. And that sort of control of our environment that we tell ourselves will make our hat. Make us happy. It's just a lie. It's just a lie because, you know, people will piss you off.
Being alone is not the answer to that problem. And I. You know, I always say, like, I want people to go to church. I don't really care what that looks like. I don't care if that's a mosque. I don't care if that's a synagogue. I don't care if that's a crossfit. I don't care what it looks like. But you need to be in a big group of people that make you mad about half the time. I think 30%. Yeah, 30% is great.
That is a good batting average because I think 50 is probably about right. I mean, you know, it's like I tell my kids, like, I. You know, their father makes me mad. Like, they make me mad, and I love them the most in the world. Like, I went back to church because I decided I can't just sit out on the outside of an institution and be mad about it. Like, if I wanted to be different, I have to be inside of it. I'm an inside the system kind of girl.
I think there's a role for activists in this life. I'm not an activist. I'm more of an, let's change it from the inside. And that's what I try to do. And, you know, sometimes I make it and sometimes I don't. And sometimes, you know, somebody else changes it. But there is something cellular that happens to me when I walk through the doors and I'm with all these people and I see their beauty and their faults and their connection to me. It just. It feels right. I don't know any other way to say it. It feels right. It feels that. It feels like why we're here when.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: We get to create what we're looking for. Right? And so I think for the people that are listening, if they're going well, it doesn't feel right to me, or I haven't found a place that I love. Like, you can leave. You can go to another church. I tell people that all the time when we have our newcomers class, like, our church is a little bit different. Like, if you're looking for, you know, there's right extremes and left extremes, and we're neither of those. We're, like, very much. We're more in the middle of the road. And I know that we're not for everybody. And so if we're not, like, tell me what you're looking for, and I will tell you where in the city you can go find that. Because, yes, it's more important that you are connecting and you find your people that help you to know God more and understand how much he loves you than it is that, you know, we can count your butt in our chair, like every other Sunday.
[00:44:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, well, I don't need you. Oh, go ahead, Beth.
[00:44:33] Speaker C: I was just gonna say, I think that's true about your level of involvement, too, that it can change. There is. I grew up with this mentality of, like, we are built to serve. If we have gifts, they are there to be used.
And so you're gonna get out of church what you put into it. And I think that there is a lot of truth in that, but I also think that there is kind of, like, with money, a point of diminishing returns, you can get so involved that you don't get much out of church. And that's okay for a season, but it's not okay for forever, because then you're going to burn out and probably leave without exploring what it would have been like to just taper off a little bit and for church to be something different to you season by season. And I think the more we can, as leaders in churches say that to people, hey, this is your season of rest.
This is your season to show up and just be loved on. And your gifts are there, and we want to use them later, but that might be later or it might be now, and then you rest later, you know, however it filters out. But just giving people that freedom within a congregation to give and take in different proportions, I think, is a growth opportunity for us.
[00:45:48] Speaker B: Well, and I just think what I was going to say is, you know, finding God to me, and going to church, like, that's like talking to somebody who's never exercised before about running a marathon, you know, like, we'll scale this way back. But what we're looking for here, you know, like, how about for a month, you just, like, wake up and watch them online, you know, like, just do that. Just wake up at a time. Make your bed. Beth and I believe in making your bed and watch some services online. Like, it does not have to be you join a church. Like that's. It's like we want that because let's be honest about this. Going to church is a habit just like anything else. It's a habit and a process that you have to build, just like anything else. Exercise, eating right, sleeping, all of it. It's the same thing. And it's tied up in some really spiritual psychological stuff. But so is exercise, you know? And so I just think, like, adjust the expectations. You're not gonna go, go every Sunday, have this beautiful experience immediately. Like, say, I just want to, you know, if you're really thinking, like, I think church. I would like to find a place for church in my life. Take it slow, you know, what do they tell you? Like, you know, you're going to exercise, just put your shoes out the night before, you know, like that's all. Just do that. Just wake up and put your shoes that you're at your running shoes on. And if that's all you do for a month, great. So it's like, I think that's some of the thing with churches. It's. It's a lot. It's a lot to start going to church if you haven't gone in a long time. And so to just take it slow, like, I just. Maybe I'll just wake up and watch a service online. Because, listen, everybody's got a service online. Good news.
Or just go to one service once a month, or just get dressed and go to breakfast and maybe don't go to church. I don't know, like, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know you better. But I think jumping off the deep and expecting a spiritual experience from something that just is a practice that you have to build over time. And that practice is. The practice is a spiritual experience over time. You know, it's not going to happen the very first time you walk through the door.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: That's really good.
[00:47:47] Speaker C: I love that. Sarah and I would just add, maybe you don't jump in with worship. That's where a lot of people's hurt is. You know, maybe you jump in with something else the church has going on. We have a food distribution program. It's super easy to volunteer. You don't ever have to come to worship to get involved with our ministries. And I think as a church, making space for people to come through any door, any door that people want to walk through, whatever that version of putting their shoes on is, making that available and enough is important, and that's a.
[00:48:22] Speaker A: Way for you to find your people. Also, I totally agree with you, Beth, that you don't have to go to Sunday morning service in order to be part of a community. Yeah, you've got. We've got all kinds of different things people can get involved in, and that helps them to go, hey, I actually like this little group of weirdos, and I do want to be part of them and I do trust them. So now I'm a little more comfortable showing up with my church on a Sunday morning in an environment that feels a little bit scary because I know I'm not alone. I know they're not going to like, do anything super, you know, there's going to be snow snakes or no, whatever. They're not going to call me out from stage and be like, you know, tell us all your sins into the microphone.
You find your people first.
[00:49:05] Speaker B: Maybe listen, as my friend Laura says, if it's not a good time, it's a good story. So even if there are snakes, you will have a great story.
[00:49:18] Speaker A: Again, I highly encourage you to grab this book. I just listened to it again for the second time as I'm going into this political season. But I want to leave you with one last thing thought from the book that really embodies the heart of this podcast. Beth and Sarah wrote, we cannot control our fellow citizens, and we certainly cannot heal their pain. However, how we deal with our shared trauma in our interactions with one another will be our legacy. Through our years of podcasting about the most difficult topics in american life, we have found a few simple rules that apply universally. There is almost always an exception. There are a always complications and fresh perspectives and opportunities to change our minds. We always try to reject easy certainty, and the one rule we never waver from is this, that we do not dehumanize.
My prayer for us in this next season is that we would allow God to open our eyes to the ways we see the people that he created and that he loves. That holy spirit would break through all of the things we think we know and that we'd be humble enough to be transformed and changed into the people who truly live out the love we profess, even when we don't agree or understand those people. Be sure to come back for our bonus episode next week when we'll hear Sarah and Beth teach us how to move forward when we're divided about basically everything. Thanks for listening and keep becoming the church to the people around.
