Misfit Island: a sanctuary for prodigals [S2.E3]
Amidst the laughter and candid discussions, the Misfit Preachers tackle the profound topic of community and belonging for those who often feel like outsiders. This episode paints a vivid picture of Misfit Island, a metaphorical space where individuals can come together, unguarded and authentic. The three former pastors recount personal stories of struggle and redemption, emphasizing that their experiences, while deeply personal, resonate with a collective human experience. They illuminate the universal longing for grace and acceptance, a need that transcends religious boundaries and speaks to the heart of what it means to be human.
Throughout the episode, the speakers challenge the conventional perceptions of church as a judgmental space, instead advocating for a model of community that welcomes the broken and the weary. They share anecdotes from their own lives, illustrating how they have navigated their journeys through failure and the subsequent discovery of grace. Their humor-infused dialogue highlights the absurdities and challenges of life, making their insights not only relatable but also refreshingly honest. They argue that the church should be a sanctuary for those who mess up, where honesty is embraced and vulnerability is cherished.
As they delve into the dynamics of Misfit Island, the conversation shifts to the critical role of community in healing. The Misfit Preachers emphasize that when people come together to share their struggles, they create a powerful environment for transformation. The episode resonates with listeners by affirming that everyone, regardless of their past, deserves a place to belong and be accepted. Their message is clear: grace is not reserved for the “good” but is a fundamental need for all people, especially those who feel like they do not fit in anywhere else. This episode is a call to action for creating spaces of acceptance and love, where the messy realities of life are not just tolerated but celebrated.
Takeaways:
- The notion of Misfit Island symbolizes a safe space for those who feel excluded.
- Human beings share fundamental existential issues, regardless of their religious beliefs or backgrounds.
- Grace and unconditional love are universal human longings, not limited to the church.
- Many people are surprised to find that their struggles are common and relatable.
- A church should be a recovery space for everyone, not just the 'clean' and 'good'.
- Honesty about our failures creates a deeper connection and community among people.
Transcript
Now, you could look at us and go, misfit fits these guys.
Speaker A:Like it makes.
Speaker A:Oh, that makes sense.
Speaker A:It's like a triple entendre here.
Speaker B:I've told you guys this, but almost every time I've written a book, a publisher has asked me on the front end, who are you writing this book for?
Speaker B:That question always annoyed me.
Speaker B:I always felt like I was communicating, writing to humans.
Speaker B:I think we make a.
Speaker B:We make a big mistake when we assume religious people and non religious people or church people and non church people have different deep existential issues.
Speaker C:I've been in churches where you could be screwed up.
Speaker C:You could make mistakes.
Speaker C:They'd have to be in a sufficient distance in the rearview mirror, and then you're kind of welcome back to eat at the adult table.
Speaker C:I'm not sure that I've ever been somewhere where I could have a screaming match with my wife in the parking lot, and both of us walk into church, and nobody takes sides except ours.
Speaker D:You're listening to the Misfit preachers, Talian Chavigian, Jean Larue and Byron Yan from Prodigal Pot.
Speaker D:We're plagiarizing Jesus one podcast at a time.
Speaker D:Now here are the misfits.
Speaker A:Welcome to Misfit Preachers.
Speaker A:If you're listening, we're so grateful that you're here with us in these conversations.
Speaker A:This is the Misfit Island.
Speaker A:We're going to talk a little bit about that.
Speaker A:I'm here with Jean Larue.
Speaker C:Hello.
Speaker A:And Tully and Chavigian.
Speaker A:Thank you guys for being here.
Speaker A:It's great, great journey.
Speaker A:It's a privilege even to be part of this.
Speaker A:I want to read a definition and give a little explanation of why the name is today's episode about, by the way, Misfit Island.
Speaker A:Welcome to Misfit Island.
Speaker A:All right, now, you could look at us and go, misfit fits these guys.
Speaker A:Like it makes.
Speaker A:Oh, that makes sense.
Speaker A:It's like a triple entendre here.
Speaker A:But the technical definition of a misfit is a person or thing that is not suited to a situation or is not accepted by others because of behavior, nature, circumstance, or whatever.
Speaker A:We know a lot of people feel that way, and in our personal experience, I can tell you that I never really quite fit the mold of it all when I was in ministry and pastoring.
Speaker A:It was just kind of the nature of it.
Speaker A:So the name has always really resonated.
Speaker C:Are people surprised when they find out what you do for a living?
Speaker C:When they finally surprised when they finally find out?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, almost Everybody, Everybody.
Speaker A:Yeah, I loved that effect in my own experience.
Speaker A:Same in the day.
Speaker A:Okay, so what, what I want to do, what we want to do is I want to go around the table and look at the same target person.
Speaker C:This is our listener, like the person we hope is listening to us.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:And describe it from that angle.
Speaker A:Somebody said one time, if you put Jesus in a room and you're looking at him, you can see some, but if you put 20 people around it, you see more than you could ever see.
Speaker A:And that's, that's kind of this.
Speaker A:You game?
Speaker B:I'm ready to roll.
Speaker C:I'm in telling.
Speaker A:We'll start with you.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:What do you want me to say?
Speaker A:Anything that comes to.
Speaker A:I'll just.
Speaker A:Who are you?
Speaker A:Who are you reaching?
Speaker A:Like, who are you talking to?
Speaker B:So I've told you guys this, but almost every time I've written a book, the publisher has asked me on the front end, who are you writing this book for?
Speaker B:Religious people, non religious people, Church people, Non church people.
Speaker B:Christian people, non Christian people.
Speaker B:That question always annoyed me because I always felt like I was communicating, writing to humans.
Speaker B:I think we make a.
Speaker B:We make a big mistake when we assume that religious people and non religious people, or church people and non church people have different deep existential issues.
Speaker B:There is not a human being that has ever lived that doesn't long to be forgiven when they know they've screwed up.
Speaker B:There is not a single person that has ever lived that does not crave grace when they've done something destructive.
Speaker B:There is not a single person who has ever lived that denies or wants to deny unconditional love.
Speaker B:It is.
Speaker B:It is a natural human longing to be both fully seen and fully loved.
Speaker B:That's not a uniquely Christian or religious longing.
Speaker B:That is a human longing.
Speaker A:I love that distinction.
Speaker B:And so I think for us, in.
Speaker B:In my world, in terms of books, speaking, preaching, I don't have a church or non church person in mind.
Speaker B:I have a human.
Speaker B:In fact, I have myself in view oftentimes, which is why a deeper level of self awareness is so helpful for a communicator.
Speaker B:Because if you know yourself, increasingly all that means is you're getting to know everybody else increasingly.
Speaker B:We're not all that different.
Speaker B:We have different circumstances.
Speaker B:Things on the surface might look different, but under the surface it's almost identical for everybody.
Speaker B:And so I haven't been in the religious world for a while, which seems strange to say because I'm a pastor of a church.
Speaker B:But we as a church are way off on misfit Island.
Speaker B:Uh, I said when I told my story that the sanctuary is a recovery place masquerading as a church.
Speaker B:The kinds of people that come here, old, young, rich, poor, red, yellow, black, white, the one thing they have in common, even though they are all unique, the one thing they have in common is they have become aware of the fact that grace is what they need.
Speaker B:Grace is what they long for.
Speaker B:And so I'm.
Speaker B:I try to be very careful about not falling into old habits.
Speaker B:I was trained in college and in graduate school to preach, to teach, and the primary audience in my mind was going to be church people.
Speaker B:So you can assume a certain understanding, you can assume a certain kind of language.
Speaker B: took me a long time post fall: Speaker B:I, God has opened up a new door to a new world.
Speaker B:And quite frankly, this world over here that I had been in almost my entire life, I never, ever felt like I fit in.
Speaker B:I wasn't clean enough, I wasn't good enough, I wasn't quiet enough.
Speaker B:This world over here.
Speaker B:And it's crazy because when you're losing this world like I did, you think life is over.
Speaker B:This world is the world.
Speaker C:Correct.
Speaker B:And then you get out or you're, in my case, kicked out.
Speaker C:You voted off the island, right?
Speaker B:Voted off the island.
Speaker B:And you realize this world is a hell of a lot bigger than they told me it was.
Speaker B:And most people in this world that I'm in now, my story isn't shocking to them.
Speaker B:It's a Tuesday for these people, right?
Speaker B:I mean, seriously, when you were telling your story and, and you were talking about the attire you had to wear, right, in jail and they gave you Crocs, and I made a little smart, wise comment about they gave you Crocs, well, that's a sin in itself or that's a crime.
Speaker B:And the reason I said that is because, number one, Crocs are a crime.
Speaker B:But this, the primary reason I said that is almost, please don't sue us.
Speaker B:Not to make, not to make light of what you were going through or the situation you were in, but to almost, in a roundabout way, say this is normal.
Speaker B:Like, this is normal now.
Speaker B:The kinds of things we have done and the ways in which we have hurt people are shocking to church people who believe their leaders are supposed to be cleaner than we were.
Speaker B:But to my gym buddies, to the people in the restaurants that I frequent, to the places that I go in the world that I live in, they don't care.
Speaker B:I mean, they don't Care.
Speaker B:And it's not shocking to them.
Speaker B:It's not a surprise to them.
Speaker C:It's not even a conversation.
Speaker B:It's not even a conversation.
Speaker C:Maybe we should have coffee and talk about this.
Speaker B:There was a time I was.
Speaker B:When Stacy and I were first married and living in Texas.
Speaker B:I mentioned, when I told my story, that I had two outings a day.
Speaker B:One was to go to the gym, and then the other was to get whatever shopping we needed done.
Speaker B:Done.
Speaker B:Grocery shopping, whatever.
Speaker B: o the gym every day at around: Speaker B:And I would walk in, I would sign in, put my head, you know, put my earbuds in and go do my work.
Speaker B:I was always there by myself.
Speaker B:I always kept to myself, always very nice to the people that checked me in and.
Speaker B:But was not social, didn't.
Speaker B:Didn't.
Speaker B:I don't go to the gym to be social.
Speaker B:And I wasn't.
Speaker B:Just go in there, do my work, leave.
Speaker B:And so one day, in between sets, I don't remember what I was doing, but I was in between sets.
Speaker B:And one of the guys, younger guy who worked at the gym, probably in his mid-20s, mid, late 20s, comes up to me and he says, taps me on the shoulder.
Speaker B:I take one of my earbuds out, and he says, listen, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but every day, you come in every day, and you're super nice to all of us up front, and then you come in, you do your work, and you leave.
Speaker B:You're not social.
Speaker B:Like, we're all sitting up front wondering, like, who is this guy?
Speaker B:Like, what's your story?
Speaker B:And so I took the other earbud out and I said, you want me to tell you?
Speaker C:Buckle up.
Speaker B:So I tell them my story.
Speaker B:At this point, you know, I'm maybe two years removed from everything.
Speaker B:Year and a half, two years removed.
Speaker B:So I told him my story, and he.
Speaker B:When I was finished, he looked at me and he said, see, this is the reason why I would never go to church.
Speaker B:And I said, why?
Speaker B:And he said, you're telling me that you were a preacher and then you royally screwed up and you got divorced as a result, and now you're not allowed to be a preacher anymore.
Speaker C:Net.
Speaker C:Net.
Speaker B:And I said.
Speaker B:And I said, well, it's a little bit more complicated than that, but essentially, yes.
Speaker B:And he said, that's why I would never go to church.
Speaker B:He said, the story you just told is the story of my life and the story of everybody in my family's lives.
Speaker B:My family is racked with divorce and affairs and mistresses and brokenness and all of that stuff.
Speaker B:And he said, if.
Speaker B:If a church won't accept someone like you when you screw up, they would never accept someone like me when I screw up.
Speaker B:And that episode, that 10 minutes or 15 minutes that I had speaking to that kid gave me such insight into this bigger world that I didn't even know really existed.
Speaker B:I, I knew it existed theoretically, because my graduate school professors told me it existed.
Speaker B:And plus, I had been a wild man in my younger years and knew this world existed.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But I had.
Speaker B:I had been living in a religious echo chamber for so long that I forgot people like this kid existed.
Speaker B:And it dawned on me at that moment.
Speaker B:I think the message God gave me to deliver will remain the same, but the people God has called me to deliver it to are entirely different.
Speaker B:So I'm disconnected from the world that I used to live in.
Speaker B:I don't keep up with what's going on in sort of the Christian world.
Speaker B:If it's a really big story and there's notifications or it's trending on social media, I'll.
Speaker B:I'll, you know, pay attention to it.
Speaker B:But other than that, I mean, like, I didn't, I knew nothing about your story.
Speaker B:Nothing at all.
Speaker B:I knew nothing about other than the little things that you shared with me.
Speaker B:And at the time that everything was falling apart with me, I thought, the whole world is talking about this.
Speaker C:They're waking up at breakfast, right, for the update.
Speaker B:I'm like, nobody knows who the hell I am.
Speaker B:Nobody cares.
Speaker B:I mean, my, my, my transgression, my fall hurt my ex wife, Kim, hurt my three kids, hurt my family, hurt the people that were closest to me.
Speaker B:But for the average person living in Idaho or California or New York, they don't give a rat's ass.
Speaker B:They don't know who I am.
Speaker B:They don't care who I am.
Speaker B:And so I've.
Speaker B:I've been introduced as a result of being voted off this island, I've been introduced to a much larger island.
Speaker B:And, and I really.
Speaker B:We've had lots of conversations about this in preparation for this podcast.
Speaker B:Talking about audience.
Speaker B:And if we were simply trying to correct the pharisaical religious understanding that church people have when it comes to God, I just, I wouldn't fit around this table.
Speaker B:I mean, that matters to me, and I still deal with people like that.
Speaker B:But that's not what matters to me primarily.
Speaker B:What matters to me primarily are the people who are over here.
Speaker B:The kid in the gym.
Speaker A:By the way, the things that we've shared in private, the three of us around the table talking.
Speaker A:Some of the distinctions that you guys have made have put words to what I'm thinking, crystallized thoughts there.
Speaker A:The central point of contact of every human being being, the need for grace is an undeniable reality.
Speaker A:So thank you for that.
Speaker A:I want to hear from you.
Speaker C:I think if Misfit island had a church, it would be the sanctuary.
Speaker C:Like if you were carving out the 16 section land on Misfit Island.
Speaker C:You go, okay, we need one church here.
Speaker C:It would be this church.
Speaker C:And I.
Speaker C:I'll.
Speaker C:I'll approach your question from a little bit of a different V.
Speaker C:Why do you say that?
Speaker C:Because it's the only place that I've ever been where my sin could be live and I would still be loved.
Speaker C:I've been in churches where you could be screwed up.
Speaker C:You could make mistakes.
Speaker C:They'd have to be in a sufficient distance in the rearview mirror.
Speaker C:And then you're kind of welcome back to eat at the adult table.
Speaker C:You know, that would be it.
Speaker C:I don't.
Speaker C:I'm not sure that I've ever been somewhere where I could have a screaming match with my wife in the parking lot, and both of us walk into church, and nobody takes sides except ours.
Speaker C:And I think that's this place.
Speaker C:And so I love it for that reason.
Speaker C:But I'll answer your question from a different vantage point.
Speaker C:Instead of saying kind of, who is it that I'm speaking to?
Speaker C:I would say to them, let me tell you what this is for you.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Because there are hundreds of thousands of that guy from the gym out there.
Speaker C:And so what this is is your uncle who just got out of rehab, and you could tell him that you stole a beer from your dad's fridge.
Speaker C:This is your.
Speaker C:Your sister who used to strip for money.
Speaker C:And you tell her, I went too far with my boyfriend in the backseat of the car.
Speaker C:This is your dad who walked away from the family.
Speaker C:And you tell him you're struggling to be present for your kids.
Speaker C:The grace that is extended in those moments by those people who have been there is what this place is.
Speaker C:And you've been looking for it.
Speaker C:You didn't think it existed.
Speaker C:You knew it existed at AA meetings, at Narcotics Anonymous meetings, at CODA meetings, and in some mainline churches where it didn't matter.
Speaker C:Like, you could do anything.
Speaker C:Like, I love.
Speaker C:I'm in love with a giraffe.
Speaker C:And they're like, okay, you're accepted.
Speaker C:And you're like, it feels a little disingenuous.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I just picked Giraffe.
Speaker C:Giraffe out of it.
Speaker C:It was the same.
Speaker C:Believe me, the stuff that went through my head.
Speaker C:Giraffe.
Speaker C:We want to stay at Giraffe.
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker A:That's true.
Speaker C:And so all of a sudden, they know it exists out there.
Speaker C:When the LGBTQ community can give people a safer sense of community for whatever.
Speaker C:Whatever you walk through the door with than the church is willing to do while they sit on their high horse and burn the rainbow flag.
Speaker C:We've missed it because there is this unbelievable acceptance of people, Humanity.
Speaker C:Humanity.
Speaker C:And so that's who we are.
Speaker C:We welcome strugglers.
Speaker C:We plagiarize Jesus.
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker C:That's what we do.
Speaker C:And in that whole thing, in doing that, in welcoming struggles, in plagiarizing Jesus, we know the only way you know that it's true is if we speak plainly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Save the emails about, oh, Tullian said bullshit.
Speaker C:I mean, just save it.
Speaker A:Irony.
Speaker B:They're not our people.
Speaker C:I'm sorry.
Speaker C:Put a quarter in the swear jar for us, but we're done.
Speaker C:Yeah, like, it's.
Speaker C:We're gonna take the veneer off because the guy that changed your oil this morning on his car with ride or die tattoos on his arm is not coming to your church Sunday for communion.
Speaker C:But he will come here.
Speaker C:And we're saying, buddy, you're not welcome here.
Speaker C:You are one of us.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And we are you.
Speaker D:You've been listening to the misfit preachers.
Speaker D:Like, subscribe and share more grace centered resources@prodigalpodcasts.com that's Prodigal P R O D I G A L podcasts with an s dot com.
