What a week!
Timothy Isaiah Cho shared this on twitter today:
“Spiritually abusive leaders will drag your name through the mud whether or not you leave loud. They will change the narrative and incentivize other people to not contact you for the truth. They will make you out to be the problem and will try to make your future miserable. If you do go public, then they will accuse you of slander and libel (what they've already been doing themselves) and if they have the power to, will use legal means to silence you. They will contact other churches, organizations, etc. in order to "warn" them ahead of time about you in order to get you blacklisted as a form of retaliation. Their henchmen/henchwomen will go to any means possible to make you out to be not trustworthy and the abusive leader out to be good as gold. They'll write public articles to accomplish both ends. Not everyone can leave loud, and no one should feel pressured to. But, at the same time, don't be fooled that leaving quietly will prevent your name from getting dragged through the mud. When someone leaves, abusive leaders need to manufacture a narrative that makes them out to be the good guys, and that means that you'll have to be the scapegoat to make that story sellable.”
I wanted to share it with you because it resonated so strongly with my experience and I suspect it will with yours, too. Please follow him here and support his work.
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Season 3- Yay!
Season 3 is off to a great start! According to the numbers, more people downloaded this episode during the first 24 hours than any other episode’s first day.
If you haven’t listened yet, I hope you will! I had a great conversation with Lauren Thoman about the value of talking about church hurt/organizational failures and we talked about the push-back from some calling podcasts like The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill “failure porn”. And don’t miss the end when Lauren shares her thoughts on the Christianity Today coverage of the spiritual abuse allegations regarding Bethlehem Baptist Church and Seminary.
Membership community members also received a bonus interview with Lauren in which she talks a little more personally about how listening to and processing these stories has impacted her.
Membership Community
Speaking of our membership community, I retooled a few things and will be working on continuing to make sure I offer things that you value. I would love to hear from you if you have any ideas. Going forward, because of the amount of time it takes to make sure the transcript is correct, that will be one of the benefits of the membership community. However, because I want my information to be accessible to those who are hard of hearing, I will always have transcripts available upon request to anyone who asks.
For all-access patrons, mark your calendars for the new date for our first livestream. It will be Tuesday, Oct 12 at 8:30pm, Central time zone.
Personal Updates
So, last week I sat for a deposition for the lawyers from Ramsey Solutions. I was honored to be there with my friend, Melissa (who was also deposed), and to have Boz Tchividjian represent me. We took our masks off for second while we took this photo:
I’m not sure what will come of it. I think Ramsey believes I have some information or involvement in this lawsuit that was brought against them. Apart from offering friendship to the woman who is suing them, I have nothing to do with this case. I’m praying that God would be honored and that truth would be revealed in all of this and I would love it if you would pray that with me.
Thanks for being the best podcast listeners! I appreciate you all so much!
Amy