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A bonus episode of the Broadening the Narrative podcast is out now. You can listen to the episode "My Experience with Spiritual Abuse at Remedy Church with Nicki Pappas" for the Broadening the Narrative podcast by clicking on any of the hyperlinked platforms below. A transcript is included below as well.
In this episode of Broadening the Narrative, I shared about my experience with spiritual abuse at Remedy Church. From the beginning of the church until January 2019, I was part of Remedy Church, a church plant that officially launched in January 2009. Remedy is part of the Acts 29 Network and is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. If you like what you hear in the episode, share it with a friend. I really think that little by little, person by person, we can broaden the narrative. The music from this episode is “Playing Hookey” by Andre Henry.
Transcript
Intro Music
Introduction: Hello and welcome to a bonus episode of Broadening the Narrative. This is a podcast where I normally talk to people who are broadening the narrative I was taught, but today’s episode will be different. The day I planned to record this episode, I read the post “My Story of Spiritual Abuse at Renovation Church in Atlanta” by Judy Wu Dominick that my dear friend Ruth sent me when I told her I would be sharing about the spiritual abuse I experienced at Remedy Church. Reading how Judy handled sharing her story validated everything I typed up to share about my own story, and I made one change after reading Judy’s words. I decided after reading about Judy’s experience to not just name the church but to also name the person who spiritually abused me and the other pastor who was involved. I was spiritually abused by John Chambers, who also goes by Phud. I will call him Phud throughout this episode since this is how I knew him for over ten years. The other pastor who was involved is Joe Mueller. I still deeply care about and love these men, consider them brothers, and want the best for them and their families. Other people contributed to the harm, but I won’t be naming anyone else because I haven’t spoken with them prior to this recording but have spoken with and exchanged emails with Phud and Joe. The music for today’s episode is “Playing Hookey” by Andre Henry. I'm your host, Nicki Pappas. My pronouns are she/her. My favorite dessert is cheesecake, and I will devour blueberry cheesecake bars from the kitchen of Danielle Stocker all day long. Check out The Double Batch if you're in the Charlotte area! Thank you for listening to this episode. I really am so glad you're here, and I’m praying for Godde to bring healing to all your hurting parts, too, just as Godde is doing for me.
Transition Music
First Segment
On today's episode of Broadening the Narrative, I am going to be sharing about the spiritual abuse I experienced at Remedy Church. True story: my chest still tightens, and I have shortness of breath when I see the name of the church where I was spiritually abused. Those reactions in my body don't just happen for no reason. I’ve decided to vulnerably share the reasons why my body reacts as it does by opening up about what happened to me at Remedy. From the beginning, I want to say I do not desire to shame anyone. I have no use for shame. To quote bell hooks, “Shaming is one of the deepest tools of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy because shame produces trauma and trauma often produces paralysis.” I also want to be clear that the critiques I will offer as I share my story do not negate the gratitude I have for the people from Remedy and the ways we were well loved at times or by certain people. However, I will not avoid speaking out simply because there were "good times." Obviously there were plenty of times that were good. If it were only ever bad, we wouldn’t have stayed as long as we did. Further, if someone who knows Phud has not had a similar experience or only would recount positive stories, that does not negate what I went through at Remedy. Phud could have treated someone else with kindness and respect and still have spiritually abused me. Those are not mutually exclusive. There are times I could outline of being treated with kindness by Phud, so I am not wanting to paint him as only spiritually abusive. He’s not only spiritually abusive. And I'm not saying this because I'm being generous or to be kind or to be fair. I'm saying it because it's true. The internal family systems model of therapy has greatly aided me in understanding that every person is made up of parts. And this has helped me to not see people as only the negative parts of themselves that hurt others when they speak or act from wounded parts. Dr. Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller address in Boundaries for Your Soul that no one is the sum total of the most difficult parts they present of themselves. Therefore, I will refrain from assigning self-serving or narcissistic motives to Phud’s kindness and choose to just continue reflecting on the past kindness as kindness and not let it be clouded by the spiritual abuse I experienced. So again, he’s not only spiritually abusive, but the fact remains that I was spiritually abused by him. I’m also not interested in punishing anyone or damaging the reputation of any person or of Remedy. If you don’t believe this to be true about me, there is nothing I could say to convince you otherwise. I want Phud’s healing and wholeness, but those will not come at the expense of my own healing and wholeness. I’ve chosen to directly name the church and to directly name Phud and Joe because I don’t want there to be any room for ambiguity, and I’ve allowed the narrative about my departure to be controlled by someone else for too long. I will speak the truth, and the truth will set people free, will set me free. If knowing what you learn in this episode disrupts your comfortable naivete, imagine how difficult it was for me to actually go through this. I asked my friends Kari and Danielle if I should name the church, and Kari said, "You should do whatever will bring you healing." I was recently reading the book The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr, and she wrote about memoirist Kathryn Harrison on page 168, “Either she published her story or remained complicit with [her father who harmed her], which meant actually being allied with him against herself. Publishing the book was a way to reclaim” what was left of her. Telling my story on my own terms, rather than allowing someone else to control the narrative, is what I have decided to do, and that includes naming the church to help me as I have been on a journey of reclaiming the parts of myself that were broken at Remedy. I’m choosing to use this platform at this time because I followed Matthew 18:15-16, as you’ll hear later, but I wasn’t given an opportunity to bring the spiritual abuse before the church, so I am bringing it before the church as best as I can. For the most part, I will simply be retelling what happened, but I will also interject my own analyses or the analyses of others. Kari offered this insight when we were discussing Remedy recently. She brought up that we know what the ideal of a church is, or have ideas about what would be ideal, and we want to believe that we embody that ideal. So when someone’s experience clashes with the ideal, thereby revealing that we actually haven’t achieved the ideal, we panic and we protect the ideal to preserve it because it’s all we have when people’s experiences don’t match up. We can’t handle something being wrong with the ideal we’ve constructed, so there must be something wrong with the people who are “dissatisfied.” Well, this podcast episode isn’t my first time addressing what happened at Remedy, though when I addressed it before I did not name the church. On December 6th, 2019, I posted a blog post titled “Let’s Put an End to the Rumors: Why I’m Not in Church,” which you can go read on the Broadening the Narrative blog. The church I reference is Remedy, and I addressed the rumors I heard regarding my departure from the church. There were some people who, for whatever reason, had not spoken to me directly but thought they knew. And then there were those who know partial details or the full story but who somehow still walked away from our conversation without completely grasping the gravity of what I experienced. I ended the post by writing, “To paraphrase my therapist, having a voice is empowering, but not everyone has ears to hear. I must exercise wisdom to know if I can trust the people who want to know my story because no one is entitled to know. Let those with ears to hear listen and understand.” So let’s hope that if you’re listening to this episode that you have ears to hear and that you will really listen and understand. If you listened to Jordan Luken’s episode “Healing from Church Hurt” on the podcast, you’ll know that the rumors weren’t reserved just for my situation. He also heard rumors after his departure and talked about not knowing where they originated. Speaking for myself, I want to be clear that rumors hurt because Stephen and I had been up front and honest about what happened and then someone who hasn't even talked to us would say some rumor that was going around but they were unsure who first said it. As you listen to this episode, you will hear that some of the claims were true by the time we left. They just weren't the reason we left. And I’m not saying they aren't valid reasons for someone to leave a church, they just aren't the reasons we left, though looking back I would make a different decision if I could do it over again knowing that some of those reasons are perfectly fine. So why do I want to share the full story now? It started when a friend asked if I had wanted to be the face of the women at Remedy when I was still there, based on how I spoke with Phud about sexism I either experienced or witnessed at Remedy. It was in this conversation that tears streamed down my face as I thought of all the people who have been hurt at Remedy. I wept as I lamented some of the most beautiful people I know being broken by the system at Remedy. I told my friend that representing women was not what I was trying to do. Instead, my original email to those with the title of pastor was concerning racism. In that original email, I briefly mentioned that after addressing racism, if the leaders wanted to cross the bridge to discuss sexism with me, we could. The focus of the responses I received from them then centered on sexism, eventually culminating in me talking with Phud in July 2018 and being directly spiritually abused. Recently, I saw a post on Instagram for those who were spiritually abused. The person who posted wrote, “What happened is not ok.” I responded to her about what a difference it would have been if I had heard anything resembling this. Joe told me a week after we left the church, “This isn’t how anyone wanted it to go” but never a direct, “What Phud did and said was not ok.” In the aftermath, I now understand that I was sent alone to confront someone who holds power over me and there wasn't anyone willing to stand with me in front of this leader. Everyone who held any amount of power who knew the situation failed me. I don’t want anyone else to go through what I went through. So I want to share a little back story. From the beginning of the church until January 2019, I was part of Remedy Church, a church plant that officially launched in January 2009. Remedy is part of the Acts 29 Network and is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Stephen and I were dating at the time that this church was planted, and he had interned with the pastor who was a youth pastor. When the pastor left to plant Remedy, Stephen stayed behind as the interim youth pastor at the other church until they could hire someone, but I eagerly started going to Remedy, serving, and getting connected because it felt like the knowledge I was gaining and ways I was learning to study the Bible and the biblical exposition were filling in areas where I had previously been lacking. As a single woman, I felt the oppression in the mandates being put on women regarding modesty through the one-on-one and small group teaching I was receiving and in the expectation for marrying young and having children, with emphasis put publicly and privately on having a quiverfull of children, but I dismissed these as signs of my own rebellion from what God’s good design is as it was explained to me by others in the church, not seeing it as evidence of oppression. Things did begin to feel more oppressive as Stephen and I moved toward marriage. The counsel we were receiving was rooted in a complementarian interpretation of passages. I’m a 3 on the Enneagram, which I didn't know at the time. In the summer of 2018, I researched and reflected but it took some digging because my time at Remedy had changed me in so many ways to where I tested as a 2 because my world told me that being a helper as a woman is what it looked like to be successful, but getting back to who I was and all that I suppressed as a woman allowed me to realize I resonate most with the Enneagram 3. As older women at Remedy instructed me in what they taught was biblical womanhood, I slowly lost myself and was becoming a shell of the person I once was. Prior to involvement with Remedy, I was bursting with joy, and I was confident, but at Remedy, over time I became incessantly insecure and thought there was something fundamentally flawed in me because I was a woman who wanted to have a voice and use my gifts, especially my gift of teaching. But I was taught by an older woman who led a women’s Bible study that any resistance I had to being the only one who needed to submit in my marriage meant that I just wasn't content with God's good order and design for male headship and that my behavior was a manifestation of wanting to usurp the power and authority of my husband. Stephen is a 9 on the Enneagram, and he never communicated these harsh things directly to me, but he merged with Phud’s beliefs and we both internalized them and believed them. I internalized a lot of sexism, was suspicious of myself and my motives as well as of other women and their motives, but I didn't have the language for it and scoffed at feminism, just as the patriarchy taught me to do. In our premarital counseling, some of the advice we received was for Stephen to just not even talk to other women because it made me uncomfortable as I feared he would fall in love with someone else and leave me. There is obviously so much wrong with that advice and our marriage suffered for many years because the advice failed to get to the root of my insecurity and damaged Stephen’s, and my, friendships with women. There’s a reason I can count on one hand the number of married men who looked me in the eye and treated me like a human being at Remedy. Fast forward to May 2017, a few women from Remedy heard about Be the Bridge and started leading or participating in groups. I began to confront my racial biases and the ways I maintained the white supremacist system that is the foundation and driving force of this nation. This started a journey toward seeing and understanding sexism because of listening to Truth's Table and other Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian/Asian American, and Pacific Islander womxn of color who explained the connection between the lie of white supremacy and patriarchy.
Transition Music
Second Segment
In October 2017, Stephen and I were watching a football game at Phud's house with another friend there. We were asked if we had heard about the comment Cam Newton made about it being funny to hear a woman talk about routes. I had heard about it but my friend had not. Great displeasure was expressed with how Cam had been treated in light of all this with sponsors pulling their support because of “crazy feminists.” I spoke up and said that if I’d gone to school for this and it was my job, I could understand why the reporter was upset by Cam’s comment. Phud brushed off what Cam said, simply saying that he is immature, and someone else said, "I can't understand why women even want to report on football. Why can't they just report on volleyball or something?" I wanted to email Phud to unpack these views, but I never did. In December 2017, I emailed those with the title of pastor to say I thought we needed, as a church, to be taking more of a stand against racism and making some changes to not just say, "People of color are welcome here" but to create an environment where they actually would feel welcome. It was in that email that I briefly stated that if they also wanted to work through the examples of sexism I had seen or experienced, I would be up for doing that after we dealt with the racism conversation. The email I received back asked me to share the examples, so I did, which included a man who said, "We don't ask our wives where to sit, we tell them" when surrounded by other men who laughed along with him while Stephen and I were looking for a seat at a dinner at church and Stephen had asked me where I wanted to sit, a man who posted publicly on Facebook, "My wife made some blatantly ignorant comments about guns today. Lucky for her she had a loving husband to correct her," and a man who attended the church off and on who told his wife that he would listen to anyone else before he listened to her. They then emailed wanting to know the names of who said these things, so I let them know. They never followed up with me about these instances to say if they’d addressed them or if relationships were repaired, as they stated was their intent for asking for the names. Then, in June 2018, the church was asked to nominate 4 new deacons. There were already 6 deacons that were supposed to serve for another year. There had been 7 but the seventh deacon and his family left the church in December 2017. 2 of the remaining 6 deacons were women. It was this second cycle of deacon nominations that helped many women see that even though moms with young kids in the home make up a quarter of the church and were doing the work of a deacon without the title, they are not considered when it’s time to nominate, but fathers with young children in the church are. There was a sermon the first Sunday nominations were accepted where Phud affirmed that Remedy allows women to be deacons, but he never explicitly said that women should be deacons and that they need to be at the table. Those with the title of pastor also decided to take the top 5 nominated people, and they were all men. A few of us were crushed that there were no women in the top 5. Stephen emailed them to say that he would be willing to step down as lead deacon and give up his position as a deacon. The response was that if he stepped down, they would replace him with the nominee who received the next highest number of nominations and that Stephen wouldn't like that because it is a white man. I, along with at least two other people, voted no for the slate of deacons, but we were not talked to any further. In July 2018, Stephen and I met with Joe. We talked with him about our frustrations with how things were being handled. We also told him about the Cam Newton conversation at Phud’s house, and Joe agreed that what was said was not ok. He encouraged us to talk with Phud about this and about women in the church and how to better care for women. He asked if I would have more hope for Remedy if Phud wasn't the “lead elder,” and I said yes. Joe never expounded more on why he asked me this. I set up a time with Phud. When Stephen and I met with him, things started off fine. We tried to transition to talking through the examples of sexism seen, heard, and experienced in the church, but Phud was dismissive, saying things like, "You know he was only joking, right?" When Stephen tried to say that the fact that no women were in the top 5 deacon nominations is an indication of a church culture that does not value women, Phud said, "It could be an indication of that," but Stephen was adamant that it is indicative of the church not valuing women. When the conversation shifted to the example of sexism involving Cam Newton and the words Phud and the other person had spoken, Phud continued to be dismissive, first stating that he didn't even remember what I was talking about. When I expressed dismay at the words about women just needing to report on volleyball, he said that the person can think whatever they want to think. So, I had typed up a progression of questions to work through with him, and I decided to start asking the questions, beginning with, "What do you believe about women?" His response was, "What do you think I believe about women?" I smiled but was confused and said, "Well, I need you to answer the question because I have some follow-up questions for us to talk through based on how you answer." Phud then responded, with his finger pointed at me, "No, you're not going to pigeon hole me and put me in a box and label me a sexist. I'm not answering your questions." I said, "You know me. Why would you think that?" He responded, "And you know me" and refused to answer my question. I tried to hold back tears, which just led to me hyperventilating and crying. He offered a, "I'm sorry I made you cry" as I continued weeping and silently asking Godde for wisdom, but Phud didn’t ask why I was upset or seek to understand how he, in his own words, made me cry. The conversation continued after I calmed down, and I just read the questions after saying, "I don't want you to think I’m trying to pigeon hole you and put you in a box to label you a sexist, so I will ask the questions I wanted to talk through, but you don't have to answer them." Stephen had known this man for 12 years, and I had known him for 10 years, but this was how he treated me. After the initial shock, I switched to talking about race issues because he seemed softer in this area, and we met for a couple more hours. He thought everything was fine. It wasn’t until later that I learned that my dominant response to trauma, stress, and triggers is fawning, so I now understand why I went out of my way to try to make Phud feel more comfortable in the remainder of that conversation. The next day, I could not get out of bed as I felt so hopeless for the people of Remedy based on the idol that was exposed in that interaction. I talked with Joe and explained to him all that had transpired, but I didn’t know what was going to happen moving forward. The day after that, I saw Phud in a restaurant and felt so fearful, so I knew we weren't at peace with one another. Two days after that, Phud called Stephen to ask him a question about something unrelated but while on the phone, Stephen let him know that the conversation from a few days earlier had been damaging for me. His response was, "Well, it ended well, right?" This was further dismissal. In late July, I decided to email Phud myself since he had not reached out to me after Stephen told him that the conversation had been damaging for me. I asked if we could meet again to debrief that meeting while it was still fresh on our minds, but I said I wanted Joe present since he was the one who had urged me to go talk to Phud. I received a response that the dates I asked to meet wouldn't work but that a time would be coordinated. Months passed by without being contacted. In that time, Phud's mom had passed away, and we drove an hour to her funeral to show that we still loved Phud and wanted to support him. After my negative experience, I decided to reach out to people who had been around for a while or who had left the church to see if they would share their stories. The stories were sad and revealed a pattern of concerning behavior from Phud, but only one person was willing to share their story with Joe. Their stories are not mine to divulge, so I won’t. Then, in October 2018, Stephen emailed Phud and Joe because he wanted to talk with them about people who were leaving our community group. Stephen wanted to talk with them to make sure they understood what was happening and ensure we weren't doing something they wouldn’t like or that they wouldn't support us in. They set up a meeting with him, so I emailed Phud and Joe and said I still wanted to meet, too, to debrief the July meeting. Phud emailed back that maybe we could talk after talking about community group issues. We met with Phud and Joe in early November, but we didn't get to talk about the July meeting because Phud had a migraine and Joe needed to leave. When Joe emailed Stephen after our meeting to see if everything had been addressed that Stephen wanted to be addressed, he said yes for community groups but that we still needed to talk about the things I wanted to talk about. We were told in December that after the holidays and after some things settled down, a follow-up meeting would be scheduled. I only attended two Sunday mornings in December at Remedy. One was when a visiting pastor came to preach and another was when Joe preached. For months, I had been sitting on the floor in the back of the church because it was too painful to look at Phud knowing the chasm that existed between the ideal he was preaching and his personal practices toward me and others that he was unwilling to make right. I decided not to attend in December because I felt like my presence there was communicating that I accepted his mistreatment. I did not want to give the appearance of my agreement with his behavior. I didn't want my presence to say, "It's ok for you to treat me poorly. You can talk to me however you want, and I'll still show up and faithfully serve and be loyal to you." Eventually, the follow-up meeting was scheduled for January 22nd, 2019. In that meeting, I started off by praying over our time together and then just asked Phud if he thought he did anything wrong back in July 2018 during the time he had to reflect on that meeting. He asked what I meant. I then asked if he would have done anything differently during the July meeting leading up to me hyperventilating and crying. He just responded that he never wants anyone to cry. I then explained all that happened so that we could all be on the same page and said that he was impatient when he lost it on me. Joe asked if Phud yelled at me, and I said no but that the tone was unkind, he pointed his finger at me, and I had never been spoken to in that way by a fellow believer in person, much less the person who is supposed to be my shepherd, but I said I was very nervous and admitted that as why I was not looking at Phud. I said that I loved him so all of this was really hard. The first thing he said as he adjusted his cap was that he loved me, too, but that I really backed him into a corner again because now if he remembers it differently, I either want him to admit to something he didn't do or if he tries to defend himself then he is being defensive and that isn't fair to him. He then proceeded to gaslight me by saying that if he remembers it correctly, when I asked him what he believed about women, he had responded without being impatient or unkind, without yelling and certainly not with a finger pointed at me, "If you are trying to pigeon hole me and put me in a box and label me a sexist, then I'm not answering your questions." He went on to say that I got upset because he caught me trying to do just that because I was trying to say that the way things are done at Remedy is sexist. He then put his hand to his chest as he emphasized, “And I am not a sexist.” He went on to say that when I emailed a week after the meeting in July I intentionally left something out of the email from the meeting because I was trying to cover up what I am trying to do. He also said, “I think you just really, really, really don’t like me and that is why this is happening.” After he accused me of not liking him, I was about to cry, but 2 of our kids came out of their room saying they needed to go to the bathroom, so I said I would take them so that I could get out of the living room. From the bathroom, I heard Phud say to Stephen that he was confused as to why we were having this conversation because he thought everything was fine because we stayed talking until midnight and I said I was fine back in July. When I entered the room again, I was calm until he said that he is just as nervous around me as I am around him and he doesn't know what to say around me either. He then tried to say that if he acted in any way that was impatient, unkind, or unpastorly, then he is sorry, though he made it clear that he didn't think he sinned. I knew I was about to hyperventilate again, so I looked at Stephen and said, "Why is this happening again?" Joe said that we could take a break if I needed to, so I got up, went to our room, and headed into our closet. Stephen followed me, and I said, "You see what's happening out there, right? You hear how dismissive he’s being?" Stephen said he did but he didn't want it to end this way. I told him that this is how it is ending, because we had been asking for clarity and now we had it. Stephen asked if I even wanted to go back out there, and I said, "Yes, because I am this close to freedom" as I held my pointer finger and thumb half an inch apart. I had just a few things I wanted to say, and I wanted to be the one to tell them that our time at Remedy was over. Stephen said, "Ok, I submit to you in this." When we walked back out, Joe asked if they could say something. I said yes, and Phud went first, making it all about something that hadn’t even been at the center of our conversation. He said, "You two have talked a lot about impact over intention." I didn’t see the relevance of this comment since our conversation that evening was about what he had actually said and done that night in July, not his intentions or the impact. Phud went on to say, "I've been researching it, and I just disagree. You can't say impact matters more than intention. I'm not saying impact doesn't matter, but intentions always matter more. God looks at the heart. So I don't think either of us sinned, and we can just agree to disagree. And we can still break bread together and worship alongside one another." Joe then spoke and said that he thought I was being really brave and that it was good we were having this conversation. It wasn’t until later that I scrutinized the absurdity of bravery being a prerequisite to engaging in a conversation with Phud and how I would much rather Joe note the need for pastoral accountability and for Phud to operate with more compassion than commend me for my courage. I then said, "Well, you may think this has been good, but it's been pretty bad for me, and our time at Remedy is over. I'm not going to do he said/she said and try to convince you of what happened, but it's a really sad way to live believing the worst about people. You broke trust with me back in July, and you have done little to nothing to acknowledge that and repair the broken trust. I want to believe with those who think that Godde is going to do something new here and would love to see it, but I don't trust you, so I can't submit to your leadership. And you need to figure out what is happening at Remedy or you will continue to hemorrhage members." Phud just said that if we saw each other, he still wanted to say hey and see how the kids were doing. That was it after ten years of service at Remedy. He had nothing else to say to us. Two nights later, we gathered our community group and shared a condensed version of what happened with Joe present. We said that we were leaving the church because of Phud sinning against me and not humbly admitting it and repairing the damage done. We said we weren't saying that others should leave the church, but that in light of all that happened, I didn't trust Phud so could not submit to his leadership. Stephen told everyone that he was submitting to me in this decision out of reverence for Christ. Now, he knows we made the right decision as Phud has not reached out to him at all. When we met in January, Stephen asked about his various roles as a community group leader, lead deacon, bookkeeper, and outreach director. Phud said he would get back to him in a couple of days. He never contacted Stephen. Phud called or talked to everyone on staff, all the deacons, the finance team, and other people, but he never let Stephen know he was making those calls or what he was saying. But Phud had time to make the calls or talk to people to inform the staff, the deacons, the financial team, and Stephen's replacement because Stephen received a text from someone else at the church who said he would be taking over the bookkeeping and wanted to get together with Stephen to go over everything. Stephen hadn't heard about this, and he didn't know he wouldn't be able to keep doing the bookkeeping. He was willing to still work for the church since it was 20% of our necessary budgeted income, but no one ever communicated about it with him. He is the one who had to email Phud and Joe to see if he was supposed to meet with this person, and he received a short reply that he did need to meet with the other person. Stephen had been told that night in January that he would be contacted about what to do moving forward and instead he was wrongfully terminated with no correspondence about it. A few days later was Sunday, and it was the ten year celebration of the church. People noticed we weren't there and asked questions. The next day, a shaming post was shared on Facebook before Joe and his wife came over to meet with us one final time. The person who posted didn't directly call us out but said some damaging things about how being part of a church body is hard work but that we have to be patient with one another and changing the culture of a church takes time. Wednesday night, a week after our Tuesday meeting with Phud and Joe, they met with members of our former group. They talked about how when you make a covenant with a church, you don't just leave the church. They said that you are part of a family. Further spiritual manipulation was used on hurting and vulnerable people. One woman said that she felt like they had just watched a train wreck but that Phud and Joe just wanted to talk about buying a new train and wouldn't talk about us when group members pressed. I did privately bring this woman’s observation to the attention of Joe but there was no explanation or apology given. I also wrote Phud a letter detailing why we left Remedy to ensure that there was no ambiguity. A friend delivered it to him, and I gave a copy of the letter to Joe. Numerous people who have left or are thinking about leaving have shared their stories about interactions with him and ways they have been dismissed by him, so I told him that it is concerning that he is able to absolve himself so easily when he told me and Stephen that Remedy has not done anything wrong in any circumstance involving someone leaving the church, which is to say he has done everything right, which is rooted in pride. I included in the letter 3 things that would have caused us to consider staying, but we were not even asked. When a friend of ours left the church before us, Phud told us that he asked if there was anything the church could do to change this person’s mind, but the same was not asked of us. These 3 actions are not about what I want but what would be best for Phud and Remedy Church. 1) Establish an executive board. He told us he doesn’t trust himself in a certain area, so he should apply that to the temptation he has toward accumulating and misusing power, a temptation not unique to him. An executive board comprised of a mixture of people from the church could provide the necessary accountability and checks and balances that are not in place at Remedy. An insight someone provided that I found beneficial is that as a church grows, power should be distributed among more people, not concentrated with one person or a few people. Further, based on numerous examples of him saying, “We aren’t going to do fill in the blank because I don’t want to,” there is a definite need for the power to be distributed to more people who have different perspectives, personalities, and giftings than him. After all, the church is a body and each member is needed for the flourishing of the others. 2) Take a sabbatical. He needs to rest and his wife and kids need him to rest. I wrote, “If you started in May, there would be time between now and then to line up the necessary help for preaching. Please take care of yourself in this way.” 3) Schedule counseling sessions. It was difficult to write, but I told him that this isn’t about what he has done or said over the years to us or others because that list would go on and on and he would have an excuse for every word and action as evidenced by the pattern he showed us and others when he has been questioned. Instead this is about who he is that needs to be surrendered to Godde and radically transformed for his benefit and the benefit of his family and the people of Remedy. I told him that counseling can help him identify his wounds so that he can experience healing. Counseling can help him discover the defense mechanisms he put in place to protect himself early on and work through his past to be better equipped to deal with his future in a healthy way. I want to caution him to get help so he can have healthy relationships with his children now and when they’re adults. We would have considered staying at Remedy had there been genuine humility on January 22nd, acknowledgement of wrongdoing, and a commitment to changing the things that are wrong through accountability. Not only was there a lack of humility but there will not be change as long as Phud lives in denial of the problems that are obvious to others, problems he confirmed by his harmful words and accusations on January 22nd, 2019. He has been manipulative, prideful, and domineering, which have no place in the life of a believer and certainly not in the life of a pastor. I then wrote that a shepherd goes after his sheep and that he needs to think long and hard about if Godde really called him to this task of pastoring a church because he doesn’t seem to care when people leave and he certainly doesn’t go after them. By saying that he thinks the only people who will always be at Remedy are him and his wife, he has absolved himself of the hard work of a shepherd in tending sheep. I explained that shepherding is more than teaching, so that while he may have the gift of teaching, he is not acting like a shepherd. I wrote, “Don’t let this letter fuel your pride. Don’t become more and more paranoid, like Saul. Reach out and get the help and the counseling you need so you can experience abundant life and healing of all your hurt.” This is not about me backing him into a corner. If that were my desire, I would have done that before we met on January 22nd and in a more public way. I ended the letter by writing, “I pray that God would have mercy and that you repent of all you need to repent of, dear brother. With love in Christ, Nicki Pappas.” When people asked why we left, they were told it is confidential. I had been openly sharing the truth and telling people to go talk to Phud and Joe. Throughout the ten years we were at Remedy, it was like there was a revolving door, especially of people who were well connected and in places of leadership. Stephen would ask why they were leaving, but Phud wouldn't say. He would always say he had it handled. I’ve always felt like something was off, but I saw things get worse over the past decade. The revolutions of the door sped up. Stephen was the lead deacon, on staff as the outreach director, did the bookkeeping, led a community group. At one point, he was also the volunteer coordinator, so we were in deep. It required a lot of emotional labor to share the story of why we left over and over again with the women who asked or who I knew were curious but afraid to ask, especially since I realized that they weren't likely to be able to do anything with the information since they have little influence in the church as a whole.
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Third Segment
I want to say that I do understand Phud’s reactions in July 2018 and January 2019 if in his mind he thinks I am out to get him, but my understanding and seeing things from his point of view does not excuse him. His behavior is inexcusable, even if I understand that it’s coming from a wounded place. I also understand that we all say things in moments that we wish we’d said differently and that many of us have been led to believe that the patterns established generations before our existence somehow have the final say, that patterns could eclipse nature, but patterns can be interrupted. Negative patterns are meant to be interrupted. Aaron Rose wrote on Instagram recently, “Humans patterns are not human nature.” Tears clouded my vision as I read that human patterns are violence, fear, uncertainty, division, seeing ourselves as inherently flawed, and acting against our best interests. But these patterns don’t have the final say. These patterns are meant to be interrupted because human nature is peace, trust, clarity, cooperation, seeing ourselves as inherently wise, and making intuitively nourishing choices. We do bear the image of Godde after all. I have nothing to fear in being honest about my own shortcomings. There has to be accountability for me. In the same way, there has to be accountability for Phud. He must acknowledge wrongdoing, and there should be consequences as a lead pastor, the same as for any other Christian. I also want to say that all three of those actions, establish an executive board, take a sabbatical, and go to counseling, were relayed to everyone we had conversations with after our departure. We told our entire community group in front of Joe, and I brought up the need for all three of these in every conversation I had with someone about why we left. And the mistreatment didn’t end when we left the church on January 22nd, 2019. In episode 51 with Kelly and Dan Matlock on the Existential podcast, Dan Matlock said, "The church too often uses belonging like a weapon." We no longer belonged when we left, and the whiplash we felt left us disoriented, distressed, and displaced. After a decade of faithful service, we as people did not matter. Between the two of us, we fulfilled every volunteer role imaginable, and Stephen worked for the church, but the church as a whole turned its back on us. There were only a handful of people who demonstrated care for us, which is ironic for a church that prides itself on community, mission, and care. I’m not even bitter saying this, really I’m not. I want to be gentle with people because Jesus is gentle with me. I’m just pointing out the irony. And I get it. I was part of the same system for a decade, and I turned my back on many people over the years who left the church. But just because I get it doesn't mean that it didn’t sting to feel forsaken by the people who I had such tender affections for. Here's what that looked [like] for us as we were cast aside. Earlier, I mentioned the Sunday after we left was the ten year celebration. People noticed we weren't there and asked questions, but only a few people even reached out to us. The next day, Monday night, was when someone posted about the ten year anniversary of the church and heaped shame on us prior to Joe and his wife coming to meet with us one final time. As I stated earlier, the one who posted didn't directly call us out but said some damaging things about how being part of a church body is hard work but that we have to be patient with one another and changing the culture of a church takes time. It felt very spiritually manipulative, especially considering who this person is and the fact that this person had not talked directly to me and Stephen about why we left. We were open with our community group, but we made sure to say that we were not telling anyone else they should leave the church. We simply wanted everyone to be equipped with the same information. The norm for people who leave Remedy is to just disappear quietly, and we disrupted that norm by simply telling our story. When I saw Phud in a restaurant on February 9th, 2019, I was in there with a woman who sang in the worship band at the time. He dropped off his child for work, and we saw his child come in one door. Then, he pulled around, and he saw us at the window. I didn't realize that he then went to park. We were getting up right after he passed the window to throw away our trash and leave when he walked in with 3 of his other kids. He then sent his kids over to us one by one to say hello to the woman I was with but to ignore me, and I had known his kids for over a decade at that point. Sadly, I wasn’t the first person treated as if I was invisible by Phud after leaving the church. Then, during the first deacon meeting after we left in February, one of our friends told us that people were asking about us but they were told it is confidential. In the summer of 2019, some of our friends who still attended Remedy were moving and having a going away party at the church. I wanted to make scrapbooks for them and coordinated with a friend still at the church. When the description was written for the event, the friend was credited with the scrapbook idea, and she reached out to remind the person who created the event that it was my idea and I would be doing the scrapbooks and asked for her name to be removed and for mine to be included. The person who created the event wouldn't even mention my name. It was changed to a generic, “We will be making scrapbooks.” I literally became someone who would not be named, joining others who had been put on that list before me. These were some of the types of punishments that were the result of us not leaving an abusive situation quietly. Having my dear friend Danielle Stocker walk with me through this was such a gift because the people still at the church were far too quick to point me to aspects of the Jesus who forgives when what I needed was the Jesus who is an advocate and arbiter of justice. They wanted to remind me of the humanity and shortcomings of Phud, of the one who spiritually abused me, in an attempt to call me to extend forgiveness and grace, what I consider to be cheap grace that isn’t rooted in reality when there has been no admission of wrongdoing from the one who has caused harm. Also, I’ve never needed help to see the humanity and shortcomings of those who abused me. I do that very well without any reminders because the patterns established early on in my life wired me to fawn and prioritize the comfort of those who abused me. Further, this tactic reinforces the narrative that the abuse was my fault, that my actions set off the one who abused me to act in ways he wouldn’t normally act. Naturally, this narrative fueled shame in me. What I needed from people was for them to commit to holding Phud accountable. Danielle also brought it to my attention how many of us who were a part of Remedy have unhealthy relationships with our own family, particularly our fathers. There was something familiar in the dynamic with Phud that felt like love because it is what we were used to being on the receiving end of all our lives. We normalized the mistreatment, the silence, the belittling, the praise followed by the withdrawal of love, the punishment in whatever form it comes, the expectation to perform for crumbs because it’s all we’ve known, it was how we understood love. As Mary Karr wrote on page 182 of The Art of Memoir, "Those of us who grew up with narcissists in the family know that they capture you not with their bullying but by somehow making you pity them in private. So you imagine you're the sole confidante of this individual's inner misery. She needs your fealty, and you give it repeatedly despite brutal evidence that doing so puts you in danger." I began attending Transformation Church and experienced the restoration of my dignity, dignity I was unaware I had lost. I also started therapy in October 2019 which has facilitated my healing. I owe so much to Beth Bareiter at Bareiter Counseling Center. She’s helped me more than I could ever adequately express. I was quiet about what happened with Phud from July 2018 until we left in January 2019 because I was afraid people wouldn't believe me. When I did speak up to people still at the church, I was often further hurt by many of the responses. It hurts that people who still go to church there couldn't understand why this pastor's actions were harmful and why I felt hopeless as these actions were the ones that accelerated my downward spiral into depression and eventually into suicidal thoughts. If I hadn’t left Remedy in January 2019, it is very likely that I would have taken my life.
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Fourth Segment
After we left Remedy, I dove headfirst into research about the Acts 29 Network and the types of troubling qualities in leaders who are attracted to being a pastor in this network. One article that I wasn’t able to find when searching in preparation for this episode explained that though Mark Driscoll was removed from the network, his DNA is still very much a part of it, as evidenced by the domineering, bullying, and/or narcissistic leaders in the network. I shared many resources with Joe after we left to help him better understand what we saw over the decade that we were a part of Remedy as power was hindering empathy and concerning tendencies were being manifested. I was adamant from the time I left Remedy that what I experienced was spiritual abuse, but listening to the episode “Naming Spiritual Abuse with KJ Ramsey” on the Church Hurts podcast helped me put words to much of what I went through at Remedy. KJ Ramsey said, “I find it incredibly important to introduce the term spiritual abuse so that we can see and name rightly what happens to our whole selves in systems that treat people more like products or objects than people...If you can name rightly the wound, then you can tend it well...Abuse in general, I believe, is any diminishment of personhood that happens in relationship...I don’t think most pastors or leaders would say that they see people as products, but what happens is that we become so fixated on growth and so locked into rhythms of rushing, hurrying, that we can’t actually as leaders be present with our people in a way that honors their humanity...Any system that doesn’t have adequate room for the practice of generous presence with one another and real shepherding, knowing your people and being known by them, is going to create a system in which abuse happens and people are diminished.” When I went to my first therapy session and told Beth all that happened, she reacted appropriately, and simply having someone react appropriately to the abuse was validating. Far too many people at Remedy who I had shared the experience with did not respond appropriately. As I examined the entirety of my time at Remedy, I was able to see more clearly the ways Stephen and I, as well as other members and volunteers, were objectified, valued simply for what we could produce and achieve for the church, rather than having a relationship with us be a priority. Leadership at Remedy couldn’t practice presence as KJ Ramsey said is necessary to prevent the objectification and abuse because so many people are stretched too thin. We were often told in sermons that we needed more margin in order to have more time for sharing the gospel but not that we should have margin in order to truly rest and be renewed, and I think it would have made such a difference if a culture was cultivated that encouraged everyone from the top down to consider their schedules and plan consistent times to practice presence with the people of the church. But none of this is relegated to just a problem in Acts 29 churches or even complementarian churches as Dr. Chuck DeGroat expressed in the video “Boundaries and Narcissism” with Dr. Allison Cook that Danielle sent to me. Dr. Chuck DeGroat opened up about his experiences with pastors in various denominations who were narcissists and drawn to positions of power as pastors. The ten characteristics of narcissism he explained were the need to be the center of all decision-making, being impatient with others and unable to really listen to others, delegating without giving others proper authority and not empowering, feeling entitled, feeling threatened and intimidated when there are other confident, competent, secure staff members and sometimes seeking to get rid of them or push them out, needing to be the best and brightest in the room, being inconsistent and impulsive, engaging in praising and withdrawing, intimidating others as they are sometimes experienced as bullies, and exhibiting fauxnerability as their vulnerability isn’t authentic and there isn’t any sense that they are able to show up authentically in the here and now. The insights provided in this video were beneficial as I’ve been processing and preparing for this podcast episode. The Pastor With No Answers podcast Mars Hill Church Speaks episodes with Jen Smidt and Trisha Wilkerson that my friend Jordan sent to me helped me not feel so alone, but they definitely messed with me because of all the similarities with these women and my own story, which makes sense considering Remedy is a part of the Acts 29 Network. I’ll link all of these resources in the show notes. I know that some people who have listened to this could still want to play devil’s advocate, and so I want to respond to some of those questions now. Question 1: What about bearing with one another? I will bear all day long with someone who is as committed to me and my growth as I am to theirs. Just ask Stephen. We’ve been bearing with one another for 10 and a half years. I don’t bail on people I love just because a relationship is difficult. With one another is key to understanding that it cannot be one-sided. I will not accept spiritual manipulation and abuse and call it bearing. I will suffer with someone, but I will not, and am not commanded to, suffer as a result of someone sinning against me and refusing to repair the relationship by admitting wrongdoing and taking steps to heal themselves. I’m worried about the spiritual manipulation that took place in the midst of our situation. There is a difference between bearing with one another and enabling the sin of another person. Yes, changing the culture of a church takes time and patience, but Godde does not expect us to suffer spiritual abuse and manipulation at the hands of the leaders of a church. Being compassionate toward someone certainly does involve suffering with them but not suffering because of their willful, unrepentant sin against you. Question 2: What about being part of a family? I was disappointed to hear about the family and covenant language being used when meeting with the people from our former community group the week after we left. We weren’t talked to about this, so it seemed like an attack on our credibility to tell a room of vulnerable people who were dealing with immense confusion and pain that they can’t just decide to leave the church, as if to say that Stephen and I did just decide to leave. I agree that when one becomes a believer, they enter a covenant with the big-c Church, the Bride of Christ. It is dangerous when leaders hold this view of covenant membership with the local church and lord it over the members of that local body. I also find it interesting that we did not say the same to people who came to Remedy from another local church in the area. I never once heard someone who changed membership from a local church to Remedy say that they were told to go back to the care of the leaders of their former church because they made a covenant with that church. Highlighting this inconsistency reveals the flaws in this reasoning. Question 3: What about unity? In “Episode Fifty (The Gift of Not Knowing)” of the Existential podcast, Corey Leak said, “As much as I’m telling you that we should be curious, that there should be peace, that we should hear each other’s stories and experiences, all of that is true, and it is also true that there are reparations and repair necessary for us to actually have the kind of healing that everyone’s in a rush to get to. You don’t get to do harm to people and then expect those people who you’ve harmed to just drop it and move on for the sake of relationship.” There are people who are more committed to upholding the image projected of a system, in my case the image projected at Remedy, than actively and intentionally caring for those harmed by and in the system. Unity is predicated on those with power and privilege divesting from it. As Lecrae sings in his song “Facts,” “You want unity? Then read a eulogy/Kill the power that exists up under you and over me.” On the Almost Heretical podcast, this is explored more in the episode “Jesus ended hierarchy.” Question 4: What about forgiveness and redemption? Absolutely, but there must be an admission of wrongdoing and forgiveness must be asked for before I can extend forgiveness and before redemption can occur. Within my theological framework, Jesus doesn’t just give a blanket statement of forgiveness to those who haven’t asked for forgiveness and who don’t think they need it. The late Rachel Held Evans would talk about the Bible being used as a weapon against people rather than bringing balm for healing. Weaponizing the Bible is what people are doing when they emphasize an obligation for me, the one sinned against, to forgive. Whether or not I have forgiven Phud is irrelevant in the church discipline process that he should be submitted to, and my forgiveness doesn’t invalidate the need for accountability and for the one who has done wrong to take responsibility for the harm done. Yes, I know that Jesus spent time with all types of people, but the literal goal of that time together was for people to change, so for those who were sanctimonious to begin living in humility. There is opportunity for redemption, but that redemption won’t come through me because I can’t make anyone change, and there's no reason for me to stay in relationship with someone who doesn't think they're flawed and who can't hear from me. Further, you can’t reform something that the people in power who are benefiting don’t want changed, as Dr. Chuck DeGroat and Dr. Alison Cook unpack in the video “Boundaries and Narcissism” I referenced earlier. Question 5: Aren’t you just being a disgruntled former church member complaining because things didn’t go your way? No. This isn’t about getting my way. I was hurt, and the only reason I am telling my story is to provide an opportunity for healing and wholeness to be ushered in for all parties involved. Also, by publicly sharing my story in this way, I won't have to rehash this again and again and can finally move on with my life knowing that I did all that I could to live at peace with others, to try to be a peacemaker, but not at the expense of my own peace. The context was different, but the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” about the one “who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” I don’t want to be someone who prefers that absence of tension over the presence of justice in any area of my life. Further, I'm not wanting or expecting anything to come from this podcast episode, and I certainly do not want someone who is not Phud or Joe to contact me to apologize on behalf of Remedy. If you aren’t Phud or Joe, you don't represent Remedy to me in this situation, and you can't apologize for something that they themselves haven’t, wouldn't, or don’t think they should apologize for. It would be an empty, symbolic gesture that may soothe your guilty conscience but will do nothing to aid in my healing. I don't want anyone to feel guilt or shame. That is not the point of me opening up about what happened, and I'm not telling my story to get apologies. If you are someone I interacted with and you want to apologize for yourself, you can feel free to contact me, but you cannot apologize for the church or for Phud and Joe. Question 6: What about his family? If the church shuts down, his family won’t have income. I’m not saying to shut the church down. I don’t know a single person there who would not want Phud to take a sabbatical, get counseling, and be his best self for his family and the church. They would surely continue paying him while he prioritized his whole human health by seeing a counselor. And where was this concern for our family when we lost 20% of our needed income due to Stephen’s wrongful termination? There was no concern expressed to us about this from anyone in leadership or connected to leadership. I want to reiterate here at the end that if you're upset that I shared any of this publicly and you’re not upset about what happened, you're mad about the wrong thing and are part of the problem. Now, I want to address some different groups of people. If you've been spiritually abused by a pastor, you didn’t do anything to deserve the abuse. My invitation to you is to surround yourself with people who are committed to your flourishing and to get the help you need to remove yourself from the abusive situation. I also invite you to tell your story. You don’t have to do it on a podcast or in such a public way as I have, but there's power in vocalizing what you experienced with people who have earned your trust and who you can be authentic with about your experience. There is no condemnation. If you’ve maintained an abusive church system, forsake short-sighted self-preservation and realize that there is no playing the long game in situations like this. You know there are problems, and as a friend recently said, “You aren’t playing the long game. You’re on the bench.” Look at how many people have been broken in the name of your long game. The long game isn’t meant for you to employ in abusive situations. A trained counselor is the only one who should be playing the long game with a church leader who’s abusing church members. My invitation to you is to confess your complicity, be healed, and help others be healed. There is no condemnation. If you are a lead pastor or someone with authority who has been told that you have sinned against someone or damaged a relationship with a church member, you must realize the system isn't actually benefiting you. Not really. From a short-term perspective, it would appear like you are benefiting. People are intimidated, so they don't question you. But the system you created and/or maintain is bent on destroying you, too. This goes for any hierarchical structure. Even the language of “lead pastor” and “first among equals” regarding pastors sheds light on an unhealthy extra-biblical hierarchy. My invitation to you is to take responsibility for how you’ve harmed people, confess your wrongdoing, and do whatever the person or people harmed say is necessary for repairing the damage done. Based on my own experience, I can say that it is highly likely that the person or people you harmed do love you. There's nothing that will change that and that's only because of the ever-steady love of Jesus toward us. We want to see you live an abundant life. We are not here to condemn you. There is no condemnation. I will wrap up with this wisdom from KJ Ramsey that she shared in the Church Hurts podcast episode I referenced earlier. She said, “The Church is bigger than the church that you are a part of right now, and your loyalty is always, always to Jesus first...We swallow this half-truth that we are supposed to be loyal to our churches and to building the kingdom in the local church, and a lot of harm happens in misplaced loyalty...Our bodies often are trying to tell us that where we are and what is happening is not safe and good and we were often too wrapped up in making something work and doing good for the kingdom and living out our calling to really listen to the Spirit of God within us trying to lead us into actually what is a broad space, a spacious place of a fuller, truer, better, more real calling, and it’s often our bodies that will be the voice that finally tells us something is wrong and you need to leave...Your body’s the beloved, holy, wise dwelling place of God, and God wants to speak to you...Listen to your body, and know that, or try to trust, that God has good for you and doesn’t want you to be drowning in exhaustion and fear. So choosing, making the wildly scary choice, to leave something that is semi-secure but extremely exhausting and damaging, to be whole and healthy, that is always worth it. And I can say that having lost everything. It is worth it to step away. It is worth it, and the Lord will take care of you.”
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Closing: So, I think I covered everything that was pertinent to my experience with spiritual abuse at Remedy Church. I wanted to read this review for the podcast from Danielle Stocker. She wrote: “It’s like steak & potatoes but for your soul…This podcast is warm and full and genuine - you can tell that Nicki has spent so much time thinking through each interview. The episodes are basically mini memoirs where you happen to stumble into connections with regular humans that would never show up in your social media feeds. Grab a cup of coffee and at least one cookie, just listen, it’s so good!” Thank you, thank you, thank you for your encouraging words, Danielle. As a reminder, the music from today’s episode was “Playing Hookey” by Andre Henry, and the full song will close out the episode. You can stream, purchase, and download Andre’s music at andrehenrymusic.bandcamp.com. If you like what you heard today, share it with a friend. I really think that little by little, person by person, we can broaden the narrative. In addition, make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. Then, rate and review to help others find the show. Thank you to everyone who has rated and reviewed the podcast so far. I also want to thank Jordan Lukens for his help with editing and Danielle Bolin for creating the episode graphic. You can access the Broadening the Narrative blog and transcripts for podcast episodes as they become available by visiting broadeningthenarrative.blogspot.com. You can find Broadening the Narrative on Instagram @broadeningthenarrative and on Twitter @broadnarrative. Season 2 will launch in February with a special interview featuring Chandra Crane, author of the new book Mixed Blessing, so join me and Chandra on February 2nd for an amazing conversation. Grace and peace, friends.
Outro Music
“Playing Hookey” by Andre Henry
