Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep990: When Leaders Fall…and Are Restored: Evan Wickham and Scott Curran

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

Evan Wickham is the co-founder and lead pastor of Park Hill Church in San Diego. Scott Curran is an administrative assistant and teacher at the church. Over a year ago, Scott confessed to Evan that he had committed sexual immorality as he was a leader/teacher at the church, and Evan and the leaders beautifully navigated what it looks like to address this situation with grace, truth, and authenticity. –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Sign up with Faithful Counseling today to save 10% off of your first month at the link:  faithfulcounseling.com/titr or use code TITR at faithfulcounseling.com –––––– Save 30% at SeminaryNow.com by using code TITR –––––– Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review. www.theologyintheraw.com

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. If you would like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw, get access to premium content, monthly blogs and podcasts and all kinds of other goodies, theologyinraw.com forward slash theology in the raw to support the show. are Evan Wickham and Scott Kieran. Evan and I go way back. Evan, for those of you who are at the Theology of Nara, Exiles in Babylon Conference, Evan Wickham, of course, led worship at the conference and he's going to lead next year and probably every other year we do an Exiles in Babylon Conference because he just rocks.

And Evan is a pastor of Park Hill Church in San Diego. He's been there for a few years. Prior to that, he was a worship leader at Bridgetown. One of the churches that John Mark Homer helped start. He's got a master's degree from Western Seminary. And I believe Scott also has a master's degree from Western Seminary. I'm having Evan and Scott on the show to talk about something really sensitive. Evan and Scott on the show to talk about something really sensitive. Over a year ago, it was found out that Scott, while preaching, he wasn't formerly a pastor, but Scott was doing leadership type stuff at the church, preaching on Sunday several times.

He ended up having a sexual relationship to somebody he wasn't married to. And I'll let him explain the details of that. But while being on leadership, he was violating the standard of living according to the church. And I remember walking with Evan through this because he came, Scott came to Evan, confessed. And Evan and I talked to over a you know, like, man, how do we navigate this in a way that's well, in a way that takes sin seriously and also takes grace and restoration and confession seriously? And how do we involve the body? On what level do we involve the body of Christ in this process? And I thought that over the last year or so, I thought they handled it extremely well. So I reached out to Evan, I think a few weeks ago and said, hey, would you and Scott be willing to come on the podcast and just talk through this both from a pastoral perspective

and the one who committed the moral, had a moral failing as a leader? And they said, yeah. So I'm super excited about this conversation. I'm extra excited that Scott's being willing to open up and being really vulnerable with how this whole process went. So I hope this podcast, this conversation will help, especially church leaders who are constantly dealing with issues like this or related to this. Like what does truth look like? What does grace look like? How do we navigate this well? So please welcome back to the show for, I think,

the third or fourth time, Evan Wickham, and for the first time, Scott Curran. All right. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in Raw. I'm here with my very good friend, Evan Wickham, and my new friend, Scott Curran. I think we may have met in passing a few years ago, Scott. Evan and I go way back. Thank you guys so much for coming on the podcast. I mean, this is a vulnerable, sensitive thing we're going to enter into. So first of all, I want to thank both of you and especially Scott for being willing to really open yourself up and talk about something that I don't know if I've ever heard of. I know I've never had a conversation like this before in the podcast. I

don't think I've come across one before, not that it doesn't exist, but I've already, you know, talked to just very briefly in the intro kind of what we're going to talk about but uh i want to hear from you guys evan what you want to start us off just start i'd love to hear you unpack the story and then i'm sure i have lots of questions about how did you you know think through the best way to navigate this yeah yeah yeah thanks preston and scott for just want to have this conversation. I—yeah, feel free to interject anytime. Preston's really good at kind of mining out. Yeah. our own church. And it's really, you know, in an age of, I don't mean to pit it, pit our church against any others. That's not my heart, but in an age of, um, a desire for increased accountability,

um, we just wanted to commit to that in this way as leaders, it's, it's easy to minimize and cover up and just keep blazing forward. When you see, when you see all the signs of a church that's healthy, you don't want to mess that up. Even when there's sin, you want to put it under the rug when it's on the team. But, like, if there's, I mean, James is pretty clear, and this verse comes right back on my own head as primary teacher at our church. Like, let not many of you become teachers. at our church, like, let not many of you become teachers, because there is just a stricter judgment built into the system for those that are claiming to have a responsibility to teach the broader body of Christ, the way and ethics of Jesus, like, what happens when our way and

our ethics are misaligned from the message that we're claiming to invite others into. Jesus has specific words for the teachers of Israel, very choice words. So, like, how do we apply those choice words to us rather than having to have, you know, exposés done by outside parties, you know? So, yeah, I mean, Scott, you could tell whatever part of your own story, but it's just been beautiful, Scott. Just just to watch you just come under the authority of Jesus and come out the other side, like fully restored. So just to start the story, I don't know if you want to start telling your own story. I don't know if you want to start telling your own story. Yeah.

I mean, so this was probably just at the end of 2020 going into 2021 in a new relationship. And with a woman, with a woman. Yeah. And and ending up having sex with someone that I'm not married to as a leader in church. Um, and going through that process, it was a lot of, um, like you go through so many things, especially I think as someone who was an embedded church planter at Park Hill, um, hoping like preaching semi-regularly and hoping to plant a church one day and so uh yeah just through all of that starting to think through like what is my responsibility and what Evan just said like the the heavy weight and responsibility that teachers carry um and I think a lot of that too with with stories of leaders leaders who had tried to cover up and things like that, just so many stories were coming out, I think, in the news.

And in one sense, it started to make me think, too, like what kind of person and what kind of follower of Jesus do I want to be? be. Um, because the temptation is it was there, like obviously to be like, okay, like, you know, this was just a, a one-time thing I could, uh, you know, I'll be better. I like, I don't need to share anything. I'll just be better and I'll keep moving on. Um, but then I just really felt like the spirit was, was actively convicting me. Um, basically just felt like the spirit was actively convicting me. Basically just felt like constantly I was hearing that, like, what kind of person do you want to be? And a lot of it was, are you willing to give up the control that you think you have in this situation, uh, to allow me to work in this. Um, and especially just with all that unknown, it was a ton of just wrestling through, like, I'm a big perception guy. So like a lot of, how is this going to be perceived? And using that

sometimes you can use it as, as an excuse. Um, and I just felt the spirit cutting through like every instinct that I normally have to be like, you need to share this with your team. You need to share this with your church. And so I ended up confessing to Evan and just basically saying like, the Spirit has convicted me of this and I'm now going to submit myself to, uh, this church and this family that I trust, uh, and allow the spirit to work between us to, to bring out whatever he wants to bring out of this situation. So that was kind of how, how the story went. So Evan, he comes to you and confesses, which, what's your, go back to that moment. Um, how did you feel? Were you in your thoughts?

what's what's your go back to that moment um how did you feel react thoughts yeah we were sitting about 15 feet away on our on my deck and and he just he just poured out his heart and said that he'd been um in a sexual relationship with a woman he's not married to um consensual we need to really add that this is 100 consensensual, right? Not even like a power dynamic or nothing. Yeah. And you're not married to her. Just to jump to the – yeah. Yeah, to jump to the end. As one of his leaders and brothers in Jesus,

I got to stand in his wedding during his year of restoration. So like he – what was that? It wasn't adultery. It wasn't somebody else's wife or something like this. No, no. I'm not trying to downplay. I just want to get clarity

on what kind of sexual sin we're talking about. Yeah, that's very important. But yeah, so he just says, hey, and he had just finished. He had just finished. We were in a First Corinthians series, and he just finished teaching on both First Corinthians 5, he taught on chapter 5, which is dealing with sexual

sin in the church, and then chapter 7, which is, and the title, I think, of your sermon was sexual faithfulness amid singleness, and so there's like this, there's like this alignment moment where we just had to, as a whole elder team, own this together. And I got counsel from you, Preston. You spoke into this a little bit and with tons of wisdom, like counseled us not to make anyone the hero other than Jesus, not to make anyone glorify, no flesh glorifying in the presence of Jesus. Because there's a way to confess that I think is wrong. And it's not really a confession. It's more like a, almost like a narcissistic vortex where you can suck people into your own pity party and kind of reaffirm the self-aggrandizing system that put you there and then block

accusations because you already said sorry or whatever. And we didn't want any of that to happen. Um, but we needed wisdom to do it. Cause I've never really seen it done. Cause I've never been leading a church before three, four or five years ago. So, so you and other guys, Dr. Brashears and, um, friend of ours, Todd Proctor, just really spiritual fathers in the faith and mothers both because it takes a whole family. And so we just kind of put together a Sunday immediately after he confessed. We're like this next Sunday, we're going to take this to the church if you're willing, Scott. And we brought in his girlfriend at the time, and we're like,

we want to protect you. This is not about platforming you. We're not going to say your name. And this is about Scott. He's in leadership. It's about all of us. It's about the whole church pursuing Jesus together. And so we invited Scott to put together a 500-word statement. It's interesting. Saying, I'm sorry, in front of a crowd can also be kind of manipulative. What do you mean? Because saying, I'm sorry, please forgive me. We were encouraged not to do that publicly because when you say, I'm sorry, please forgive me, you're putting the onus back on

the crowd, back on the church, rather than continuing to take ownership as the leader. Like, I'm wrong. I did this. and here's how I'm going to own it. I'm submitting to the leadership of this church and I'm here for the long haul and I'm not going anywhere, period. Like, please forgive me immediately shifts the onus and now it kind of elicits a response that can be premature or manufactured. Interesting. I never thought about like that. Like you're saying it's wise to give space. Like you shouldn't demand in that moment, totally caught off guard, the congregation has to immediately say,

yes, we forgive you without having space to process it. Even though, I mean, forgiveness is, if somebody's confessing and repenting from a sin, if you're a Christian, you need to forgive, right? And that's, um, correct. That's interesting. Correct. But yeah, for us at the time, it just felt like, man, you know, I don't know if you've read the book, 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, but the whole, the whole model of that book, there's a simple line drawn across the middle of the page. Are you leading from above the line or below the line? And the moment,

you know, you're leading from above the line is when you can honestly say, how do I take 100% responsibility for the situation I'm in? Even if you feel like, you know, you feel untrusted, you feel like, you know, whatever, like, no, how do I take 100 percent ownership? And for a leader who has taught. Here's the sexual ethic of Jesus and then lived opposed to the ethic they just taught. That's a moment of like, how do I take ownership in this moment. We can talk about forgiveness maybe next week, but like right now, when we introduce the leader's direct conscious choice to live in opposition to the teaching they just tried to give to the church. So in that moment, like, well, I'm not asking for forgiveness right now. I'm saying I wronged God. I wronged you.

I wronged my own words. Like, what is that? Confessing. And I'm submitted to whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and, and Scott just embraced, you embrace that. And you can actually go back to the podcast and listen to it from back.

Oh, it's on the pod. It's on. Oh, right. The sermon. Um, yeah, well, it's, it's, it. Oh, it's on the podcast. Oh, right. The sermon. Yeah. Well, it's on the church. Yeah. On our YouTube. Because we're.

Yeah. Because we live streamed it. Yeah. Exactly. Scott, can you. I just have to ask. When you're preparing and preaching those messages, what's going on in your heart? I mean, was it calloused over or were you just feeling miserable Sunday morning preaching that message?

Well, so the interesting thing was the relationship itself with my wife at the time, kind of it was born out of COVID. She was your girlfriend at the time. Girlfriend at the time. My girlfriend at the time. Yeah, sorry, my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time. We actually met online. I felt like this was the really conflicting thing. So when I preached those messages, I wasn't dating anyone.

I was like talking to people, open to the idea of dating and everything like that. And I was like, I know God's called me to be a husband and a father. This is one of those things that I was like, I know God's called me to be a husband and a father. This is one of those things that I just like. I love embracing my singleness and teaching people how to be faithful and single. And so that just felt like those were just an outflowing of how I was feeling and experiencing the way of Jesus. And then started to date. And I thought I was going through just like all these processes, like, oh, sexual sin is not this dominant theme in my life. It's not something that's been like this big struggle. I feel like I have worked through that like self-discipline,

and I'm just really doing well, and was also trying to figure out as a leader in a church and preaching and all that kind of stuff, like how do I navigate a dating relationship in that too? And so we met actually through Bumble, like online dating, because I thought it'd be great to meet someone that wasn't at our church listening to teachings and having, I remember very distinctly being at Western Seminary in some of my first classes, and one of the professors talking about how a lot of pastors don't recognize any kind of authority over people that go to their church, and that can be like a pathway into abuse, is when you neglect to see that difference. And so I was like, oh, I'm going to intentionally be thinking about these things

while I'm going into a dating relationship. And then with COVID, we ended up spending so much time together. And there was just an intensity to our relationship that I thought I was like, I'm better than this kind of thing. And so it was more of a, you've preached it, you think you've been living it. And in this opportunity was where I realized I'm not better than what I thought I was. Um, and I had to admit where, uh, there were areas of unfaithfulness to Jesus in my life that, um, that led to this situation and being able to, like,

it was more of a getting confronted with that. Um, like the, the, it was a humbling moment by the spirit to be like, you thought you were doing really great, but you weren't actually, um, tested in this area. And so I think that that was something that revealed deep inside of me an inconsistency that I was unaware of. And so the preaching, it brought that to light. And so, yeah, I preached before all that happened. And it was more of the spirit kind of really pressing into that and being like, you were not as faithful as you thought you were. And that Sunday morning when you confessed, was that a miserable morning for you or was it weirdly exciting and freeing? It was a slightly terrifying and also freeing experience. I think I can only obviously speak to my experience alongside the leadership

with it, not necessarily from the organizational aspect of it. But the Park Hill team, the leadership has created such a place, even just for myself, of safety. And that really bred in me the willingness to confess, to know that I had a safe team that loved me, that cared for me, that wanted the best for me. Knowing that I would still be submitting myself to what that process of restoration would look like and making sure that I wasn't dictating any terms of my process of restoration. And so this was one of those things that was brought before me and they gave me the opportunity. You can do this or you don't have to do this. And but I knew that this was part of that process, the spirit asking me to give up control.

Like, are you willing to to do this work? And so going into the confession was the terrifying aspect of like I'm putting my life on display, like the, the really ugly parts of my life, um, that I would prefer to keep hidden. I'm putting that on display in front of a good chunk of people. Um, and so that was where like nerves came in. And the mo I just remember the moment that I, that I confessed, I confessed in front of the church. There was just like a huge breath of fresh air. I felt like the pressure on my chest was completely released. And talking to people after, there was no shame of like I didn't want to go up to people or anything like that.

It just felt like it is there. It's been brought to light. And I can receive whatever the Spirit wants to do even just in that gathering right there. It was a remarkable Sunday, Preston. We happened to, again, we were still in 1 Corinthians, and we happened to be in chapter 12. And Aaliyah, one of our pastors, she preached on, you know,

if one part of the body suffers, the whole body suffers. So, you know, yeah, I can't say to the hand, whatever. We need every single cell of the body of Christ in our life. And so she ended her sermon. She was already planning to do this, ending on, you know, weeping with those who weep, rejoicing with those who rejoice, coming around the places of pain. And I got up. So after she finished, I got up and I said, hey, church, we have an opportunity to do just this. Sometimes there's weeping and pain amongst leadership for wounds that we afflict on ourselves through inconsistency with Christ and sin. And we're processing this right now, this week, church. And I'd love to invite you all into this. And so Scott is going to come up and just share with you his journey. And he did just what he said, 500 word confession. And then

afterwards, I was encouraged to do this by you and others, other mentors. I grabbed the mic and I said three things. Number one, church, what you just experienced Scott do, total integration, confessing the truth, aligning with Christ again. What you just experienced Scott do is radically brave. Bravery. We applaud his spirit-led bravery. brave. Bravery. We applaud His Spirit-led bravery. And two, I call you, church, in the name of Jesus, not to gossip. The information you were given is all the information we need.

And not to gossip, but to be the community of Jesus that says, neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more. Be that community. Follow Jesus. And then number three, this isn't just about Scott. This is about all of us. Like, let's all follow Jesus into full integration and almost like befriending our shame and saying, Lord, you're a friend of the shameful. You're a friend of the sinners. Let's all bring our shame to Jesus, friend of the shameful. You're a friend of the sinners. Let's all bring our shame to Jesus, all bring our sin to Jesus together. And that day, Preston, we had one of our community leaders and about a dozen other people that are core parts of the church, but for sure one of them was an active leader of a community group, came forward and said, I just had sex with someone that I'm not married to last night,

you know, and I want to come under the authority of the elders. I want to be healed. I want to be cleansed. Just like Scott did, I'm here. I'm here for whatever Jesus wants with me. I resigned from my volunteer leadership, pastoral level, whatever, and I just want to heal. And it was like a floodgate, a floodgate of integration. Like the church was being integrated, united with Jesus again. And they said like 12 other people, all sexual sins or just other stuff or? We didn't interview everybody, but there was, there was a good group of people that came forward to just speak in confidentiality to pastors about things in response to that call.

And I know one of them was like a trusted leader. Jesus just really loves his church. Did you have any... And the other thing too, just that Evan made clear as well, that for our church, the confessing in front on a Sunday morning was not for everyone at the church, not even for the trusted leaders and stuff. It was for me specifically because I was teaching from the front on these things that it was my responsibility to confess that I was. So you weren't going to drag everybody up front and make.

No, no, no, no, no. You teach a whole church to live a certain way and then you live the opposite way, you should own it. Yes. Yeah. So did you, um, Evan, you and the elders wrestle with whether to do it that way or, um, yeah. How to go about the, or were you pretty clear? Like, Hey, we need to let the whole church know about this because he's a,

he's in front of the church. It was, that was that pretty much like, we know that that needs to happen on some level. We'll work out the details of what that looks like. Yeah. Yeah. That was pretty much it.

Like your, your, your realm of responsibility deserves clarity on where you shirk that responsibility. And so it's that James 3, let not many of you become teachers thing. Like this both inspires and sobers me, you know, like where I'm misaligned, that would be tragic if I was misaligned and I led a leader through alignment like this. That's ultimate hypocrisy. Woe to me, Jesus says.

So, yeah, it was unanimous amongst the elders. We had eight folks sitting around a table praying and weeping. There were tears, tears. You know, it was still kind of the tail end of the peak of COVID. People were uncertain. People were fighting, freshly fighting about politics. And, you know, the Capitol riots just and masks, no mask vaccine. That's all. And then, you know what? There's actually an issue right in the middle of our leadership team that we're going to focus on and bring the church into. And really, it was a year of restoration. Like we just celebrated like a month ago. Mission complete, Scott, like you're faithful, like you, you, you did the thing that is rarely done. I don't know how many church

planters he's going to plant a church and it's going to be amazing in a couple of years. It's going to be incredible. His story of, of righteousness and faithfulness and truth and integration and alignment, uh, is going to bode well for the health of his church and his marriage. Um, and cause this year we just, we just had him, you know, after a year of kind of laying low, we, we, we changed his title from embedded church planner to administrative kind of guy assistant to the administrators and, and, um, all his public facing responsibility was, was, was removed for that year. And that was just part of the deal. Um, and hard, like, I don't want to tell you how hard it was, but, um, from, from, from our

perspective as leaders, like he's in my community group, like we, through this whole year, we'd still like hang out with wine and games and Bible every Tuesday night still. So we didn't like push him out or away. He actually came in closer, like how are you? Are you okay? And I think that's probably the keyest, most important part. Like this wasn't like a pushing out. This was a falling in, an embrace of his then-girlfriend, then-fiance, and then-wife, like protecting her existence in our church,

always checking, hey, are you feeling emotionally safe? And she would sometimes say, you know, it's kind of a lot. Yeah, yeah. Evan, I'm curious. This is a random question, but you've got some level of theological diversity at your church. Was there anybody that said, what's the big deal? Like, all right, it was consensual, nobody else's spouse, you're in a committed relationship. Why shame him and her? Was there anybody upset at the shaming of possibly her over an act that some people wouldn't even consider wrong? Like they would be like, whatever.

It was consensual. Did you have any of that kind of concern? We had a little bit. And it was, I don't want to say surprisingly little, but it was a little. And there were a couple kind of hyper-progressive types who left the church, um, and accused, accused us of purity culture, which, uh, man, I was, I was, I was, I was in youth group in the nineties. I know what purity culture was. I'm 41. I, I, I swore off kissing until the altar with my wife, you know, like I, like we met in high school and I'm never going to kiss till the altar because I've read Josh Harris or whatever.

I'm like – Did you succeed? Did you actually not kiss your now wife? Heck no. No, I failed miserably. We made out as soon as we left high – but we did wait until we graduated high school, which was still whatever. Like, the point is, purity culture is like, never have sex until you're married. And A, God will radically bless you with the most orgasmic enlightenment. And B, you won't have to worry about giving away a piece of your soul you can never get back.

Yeah. Or whatever. Like, that is purity culture scott owned his own story yeah that's a difference yeah um and told it and and we didn't and and honestly his girlfriend at the time was new to the church so she did have a huge element of anonymity that was good. Um, yeah. Great question though. We did have, you know, some folks that were, I would say hyper-progressive to, you know, I hate, I hate labels, but yeah, they, they left. Um, and I think too, for at least on my side of things, there was some difficulty. I think that was the hard part was especially in the midst of, um a step back and during this kind of like a probationary period, basically, and working through just navigating friendships.

I mean, being on the younger side of I'm like the same age as a lot of people in my church. And so a lot of these people, too, that would listen to me teach and things like that were my age and also friends. And, um, some people who had a hard time with the way that things were handled were also friends, um, and people who left the church were people that I knew. Um, and so that, that, that was the difficult thing difficult thing to navigate, at least for me personally, was trying to understand where people are coming from. I didn't grow up in like a purity culture background. I didn't fully understand that. And so it allowed me to at least be able to hear out

a lot of friends that would maybe come and share concerns about, like, how did Park Hill handle it? And trying to navigate people's hurt based off of my story was an interesting thing. And I don't know how well I actually did in navigating that. I don't know how well I actually did in navigating that. But it is interesting when people can use something that not, it didn't happen to me. It was something that I was a part of because I was, I actively confessed. I accepted the things that the elders asked me to do. Um, and so to allow, like to hear people using me as like a victim of some church hurt that, that they feel was, was really hard to navigate and trying to understand them and hear them out, because obviously people have experienced, um, abuse in the church and wanting to hear that out,

but also very interested that people, um, were also using my story as one of the excuses for it. But yeah, that was probably one of the hardest things to navigate. Evan, I guess for both of you, but the restoration process, that's always to me a fuzzy thing. Because some people would say, leader, sexual sin, you're gone for life. Others would say six months, a year, two years. Like, a lot of it's a little bit arbitrary, right? And maybe the level of sin, if it was like an abusive situation or something that was, I don't want to say, I mean, where there's layers of sin involved, maybe. I don't know to say I mean where there's layers of sin involved maybe

I don't know the right wording even but like there's certain kinds of acts where like oh my gosh yeah this leader should probably

not be restored anytime soon maybe I don't know but even that's kind of arbitrary you know did you deal with

that kind of arbitrariness of what does restoration should restoration even have restoration to leadership even

happen why why not? How long? What does that look like? How did you guys navigate that as an elder team? Yeah, it's definitely arbitrary. When you look at the Bible, there's no prescriptive restoration process for leaders who live opposed to the teaching they call their churches to. That's the specific thing.

So we did, again, I mentioned at the beginning, we did have the benefit of Scott not being a pastor and therefore to keep in step with our own bylaws, pastors, named pastors with that specific office, have a stricter judgment when it comes to moral failure around sexuality. Which is what? In our bylaws. What's your bylaws?

Cause for immediate removal is what's written. And the word maybe cause for immediate removal is in there. But Scott was teaching semi-regularly maybe 10 times a year, but he wasn't an identified pastor. And so that was one level we could like point to that was not arbitrary, but it was in like the legal framework of our 50123 nonprofit. But yeah, I mean, if it was, you know, adultery or coercion or anything like that, it would be a far different, not far, probably yes, far, just multi-layered situation. A longer period of time. And, and I guess I'm, and maybe I'm kind of exploring this question with, with you, not at you, but like, like why? What's the, is it kind of more of,

cause it, it could feel, it's a fine line between like healthy restoration process versus punishment. Like, all right, two years, no leadership possibility. Is that a punishment? Is it a slap on the wrist? Or is it you need two years to fully be restored? And even then it's like, well, how do you, one act of adultery, one act of consensual non-adultery, what's the, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, have you ever read this book? I'm holding it up when narcissism comes to church. I've heard of it by Chuck DeGroat. I just read this last week on a quiet retreat. And for me personally, it, it was one of the more important books I've ever read. Um, and I think I need to go back to therapy now for real. No, I'm not. I'm like a hundred percent. Go back to therapy to work through some stuff.

What Scott did by turning his soul toward God and others by integrating what Chuck DeGroat calls the bad boy and the good boy befriending the bad boy with the good narcissists want to take the bad boy and deny he exists or if you're a woman the bad girl whatever um and just deny and and in shame wear a mask and just live into the good boy live into the good person i'm good i promise i'm under control i promise i can do and boom you have a narcissist wow and and and narcissism comes undone by the power of the spirit when sons and daughters of God befriend their shame, according to Chuck DeGroat, by opening up their bad boy to God and others, opening up their bad girl, and befriending the two, integrating it and realizing, oh, I'm broken. Of course I'm going to mess up. Of course, I'm going to confess. Of course, I'm not going to hide.

And in order to get there, we need to go through a crisis where we're out of control. And so, so I guess that's one way of answering the question. Like for, for, for this situation, there is no biblical pattern, but there is Holy Spirit speaking through a collective witness of elders. And we decided one year where Scott is not in control is what the Spirit seems to be doing for this moment. So you read stories about narcissistic, abusive pastors prematurely reentering ministry. Okay. And it's because they're in control. They were always in control.

They defined the terms six months ago. They defined the terms 12 years ago. They defined the terms 18 months ago with a bunch of elders that are like, okay, we agree with your plan. And because they were in control, they never actually exposed their bad boy. They never integrated their bad boy and their good boy. They still are trying to be good and denying the presence of the bad by being in control of the narrative. And this is why you have the Ravis.

He was the ultimate good boy, Ravi Zacharias, kept floating the good boy over the world. And what will it take for all of us, me included, to befriend our shame, the hard work of befriending our shame, and telling our wife when we lie, and telling our church when we lie about things we've said to the church, when we're wrong about what we taught to the church. I mean, once we're there, narcissism can't bite you anymore. And Jesus is in control. So it it's really I think it comes down to control. those questions of like if this wasn't um kind of that trying for me to process too of like if this wasn't um something that was like apparent throughout my life like what was what caused this um and to do that deep internal work of of um like what are you hiding from people what what perceptions are you holding so all of that work was happening as well over this year and giving updates with the elders on just like how I'm doing, what I'm learning,

and like the freedom that I'm finding through bringing all this unchecked stuff, even in myself that I was unaware of, to Jesus and allowing that to inform who I am as a follower of Jesus, I think was super important. And one of those questions that I was always asking myself too was, as you can see over the internet, super easy to find just example after example of leaders who either were like caught or found out in reports or anything like that. In my head, I was asking that question of, there are some people, to make clear, there are some people who have just a predatory aspect when it comes to church, and those people do exist. So then my question was, how many other leaders had similar situations where they were in my spot at a young age? Um, and something like this, that feels small, like it's consensual.

We love each other. We were talking about getting married, all that kind of stuff. Um, and to say, okay, I messed up. It's behind us now, let's move forward. And to do that unchecked with a community, can that be something that as you gain more and more influence or anything like that as a pastor, are you allowed to get away with more and more? And for me, that was just the question that I was asking myself, like,

could I be that case study just 20 years early if I go unchecked on this? And that was, I guess, for better or for worse, that was one of those things that really helped me come forward and confess that. Your now wife, how did you summarize her experience through this whole thing? Was it a good and healthy process for her or was there some really challenging times? Again, being somebody who's not new to the church, I mean, that's got to be hard. And even though she wasn't put on stage at that moment, really quickly, everybody's going to know who she is, right? I mean. Absolutely.

Yeah. really quickly everybody's gonna know who she is right i mean absolutely yeah and that that was in the moment probably one of the the hardest things like after confessing and then being like i i need to go talk to her about like what's about to happen um and just that that fear of does this mean the end of our relationship? Like, who would want to go along for the ride on this thing? And reasonable, too. Like, not even like, oh, that makes perfect sense why someone in a dating relationship would not want to continue on. She didn't sign up for this. Um, and she's probably been the primary person on what it looks like as an example of like

surrendering to Jesus and trusting people, um, in the way that like Evan had said to just, just coming into the church, pretty new, um, new, a new Christian or just new to the church? No, not a new Christian, just new, just new to the church? No, not a new Christian. Just new to Park Hill specifically. And just a willingness to trust and be vulnerable to Park Hill leadership when you're that new. Because that is such a, it's a vulnerable thing to bring forward. And she was very willing to trust Jesus to allow him to be the one in control, but then to be honest about how she felt in moments of just like, this is getting really tough and this is really hard. And she would share that with me. She'd share it with our community group. And so she, yeah,

even more than me where I felt like I had to wrestle through with like, what are my personal feelings about these things? And like, how do I navigate, uh, whether I'm feeling hurt by the leadership team or anything like that, but also not making it about, uh, like bashing the way that the organization's going about it and all that kind of stuff, because there is such a close relationship between everyone and navigating that in a healthy way. Um, I struggled really hard with that and, and navigating that in a healthy way. I struggled really hard with that and brought that to therapy many times. And she gave me such a great example of like how that trust can look. Yeah, we really, we were encouraged by, I don't know if you know, a guy named Pete Shambrook, guy named Pete Shambrook, just a brilliant pastor who is able to communicate how to restore pastors. So that's kind of his business, is a restoration ministry. And so we sought his

counsel as well, and that was his thing. You need two things if this is going to work. his counsel as well and that was his thing like you need to you need two things if this is going to work increased relationship and concrete restoration not just abstract oh he's restored he's back right he's all of a sudden back but concrete so increased relationship he we pulled in his fiancee and then wife into our community into our in the intimacy of community like tuesday nights how are you like this is crazy like and we and we would really protect it was it was helpful that she was so new to the community because her identity was kind of protected but people started to get to know her and but then the concrete restoration piece like i said like a month or two ago But like I said, like a month or two ago, Scott, you know, the first the first thing he did was Good Friday.

Last Good Friday. We did the seven sayings of the cross. And and Scott, he did a three minute talk on Father, forgive them for they don't know what they do. And then invited everybody to take a nail to take a nail and a piece of paper and nail their sin to a physical cross in the middle of the room. We have the chairs in a circle all around. And he led the way. He like, and everyone, the cross was just covered in papers with confessions and nails. And then that following Sunday, we had the restoration moment where Scott led the whole church in communion.

And I prefaced it by just saying, if you were here a year ago, you remember the moment where this brave soul submitted to Jesus, submitted to Jesus' shepherds of this church, the elders, his under shepherds, whatever, and Scott's here. He's been faithful. And today he's fully restored, you guys. Today he is back like and and just making a big deal about and the church cheering and applauding and uh and then him raising the bread and cup and reading this passage from hebrews that he actually has open here i don't know if he'll read it during this podcast but but him reading this and um that passage about fatherly discipline. Oh, yeah. And how Jesus partnered with the Father for the joyous form.

Did you have anybody in the congregation that thought he should not have been restored to leadership? Like any pushback with him leading communion or being back on stage, per se, or no? Zero. on stage per se or no? Zero. I mean, I would imagine most of the people in the congregation had sex before marriage. Probably many, several had maybe more a kind of sexual relationship with layers of sin involved, not a consensual relationship with their girlfriend, now wife. So I would imagine it would be really easy for people not to have a judgmental attitude.

The biggest difference obviously is leadership. But in terms of the act itself, I would guess in your kind, I know your congregation, maybe other churches, there'd be just such rank hypocrisy that people would still be able to judge, you know, but I would,

I would imagine. Yeah, there know, but I would, I would imagine there's all kinds. Yeah. I would imagine that folks in our church that would lean progressive and, um, and we hold that, we hold a historic core of Christian orthodoxy firmly. And, um, and yeah, God, God has really brought a beautiful LGBTQ community into our church as well. There's a, there's a bunch of folks. We just hired Greg Piken as one of our pastors. He's one of the re-voiced speakers. And David Bennett just spoke two Sundays ago at our church.

And he gave a shout out to the Side B community that exists within our church. And so on behalf of them, on behalf of our Side B brothers and sisters in our church, who are we if we're not going to own where we misstep as straight Bible teachers? When people ask for church models for LGBTQ Christians that are following a historic sexual ethic, you're at the top of the list now, largely because – I mean, I would have said this a couple years ago just knowing you, but I've talked to the several LGBTQ people who go to your church. And the way they describe it is what churches, I think, some are and many should be trying to strive for. That you've managed to create a culture where openly gay, lesbian, trans Christians who, again, follow a historic sexual ethic, feel extremely at home, part of the family. You have people preaching, you hired a pastor who's openly, when I say openly gay, I mean, says he's gay, following a historic sexual ethic. And that you've created a culture that that's kind of a yawner. It's like, yeah, great. You're gay. I'm straight. Let's follow Jesus together.

Can you unpack this a little more? And I'm mainly wanting for pastors listening on or leaders to say, what does it look like? Like, how do you get to a place to where, because you really do have, I mean, more than most churches I know of, if I can say flourishing or a fairly vibrant LGBT group at your church that's thriving. that's thriving. Yeah. I mean, I, I would be remiss not to, you know, maybe paint that picture in a little more realistic light where I don't overly glamorize it. Yeah, no, I mean, it sounds, actually that is the case for many in our church. There are plenty of folks that are still kind of wrestling through what they think and maybe came from more conservative backgrounds and like, what do, wait, Evan just said mixed orientation marriage from the pulpit. What does

he mean by that? And so I'll have to define terms for a lot of people, bring them on the journey slowly, um, and gently. Uh, and I would love for our church to be, to feel more welcoming for trans people who seek to follow Jesus. I can't think of a person who would self-identify as trans who's in our church at this point, but I would love to see our church. But as far as LGB, absolutely. We have a vibrant, small, growing community of gay and lesbian folks who would either call themselves gay or some call themselves same-sex attracted, and we don't really fight about words. I'm a firm believer that words don't have meanings, but meanings have words, and we fight for meanings, not words. So yeah, we'll teach on it.

You know, we just finished Galatians, And I think an appropriate application of Paul's problem in Galatia with the men from James who came up and tried to fight about words and circumcision. The current debate over whether people should use the word gay or like if someone who thinks they're same sex attracted should change or if God can change that whole, that whole in somewhat inane, but it's very important at the same time. I think that the Galatian problem maps on the American problem when it comes to sexuality. I think it maps pretty well where Paul's like, you know, there's one new family God is creating and these categories of straight and gay and male and female, they're an important part of our bodied existence. God does not erase them. He welcomes them all to the table to become subsumed under the primary identity of beloved children of God. So what does that look like for someone who's only been attracted to people of the same sex? It looks the same. It looks like I am a person who's attracted to the same sex and my primary identity is love child of God. And, you know, the folks

that identify as gay, like I'm gay. The folks that say I'm gay in our church and I'm following Jesus, they don't mean, none of them mean that their primary identity is gay. Right. So not policing the language has been a big way to create a culture that is hospitable and welcoming. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And from the front, using the language that they use and being sensitive and answering emails. You know, one guy who is pretty conservative, he came from the church I grew up in, older guy, super sweet, super bought into the vision.

He said, Evan, I have a lot of problems. You just hired a gay man and I don't know, like my whole world is turning upside down because of you. Please reconsider. And I'm like, let's go to coffee. And he literally had a list of 27 problems. He listed them a all the way through double a pass by Z. I don't know. He actually listed a through double a and, and I backed up and I said, Hey man, like I can't. It would probably take me all year to respond to each of these.

I think a big picture is in order. And he's like, absolutely. Give me a big picture. And I just said, the man we hired, Greg Paikin, including myself, including my wife and all the elders, we are united on Jesus's vision for marriage. Jesus stood with Moses. Marriage is this one flesh union between two sexually opposite persons, a man and a woman, and it displays Christ's love for the church and God's ultimate plan for heaven and earth, two different interlocking spheres coming together. And Greg, as a gay man, is whole bodily committed to the ethic of Jesus as a man who's primarily attracted to the same sex. That's what he means.

And then this man at the table with me, he looked at me and said, every question of mine is answered. It was all around the language. Everything stemmed on the language confusion. He just didn't know what he didn't know. He needed to be like big picture theology. Oh, marriage. Yeah, we want to get distracted on this. Are we open and affirming?

What about LGBTQ? No, it's like Jesus has a vision for marriage that is upheld by the church. Jesus stood with Moses. Everyone, gay, straight, male, female, black, white, is invited into this way of Jesus equally. Trans, cis, everyone is invited into this way. Everyone. And Greg is, I don't know him well. I've hung out with him a few times.

Just a beautiful human being. Just a gracious, godly, wise. I mean, he's like a marriage and family. He's like a council. I mean, he's like a very, I mean, it's like a marriage and family. It isn't like a council. I mean, it's like a very... Totally, yeah. I mean, yeah, that's... Would you say hiring, like bringing on staff? That does

send a really clear message. There is no glass ceiling here of anybody that's following Jesus and following the ethic that the church believes is the most faithful to Scripture. And you have, I mean, how many, you have at least like a, maybe a dozen or so same sex attracted gay and lesbian Christians in the same

boat or. Those that would, you know, go to revoice and identify as side B, you know, there's plenty of others that are like, what's side B? What does this mean? What's revoice? But you know, mixed orientation plenty of others that are like, what's Side B? What does this mean? What's Revoice? But, you know, mixed orientation marriages in our church, they wouldn't even call themselves that. They're just trying to figure out how to relate. We have that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Greg Coles, I mean, he's been down there and he says it's pretty, you know, he's in lots of different churches and obviously, you know, really knee deep in the side B community. So he kind of knows kind of a good sampling of how gay and lesbian Christians are, are, or aren't flourishing

in, in traditional churches. And, um, he says it's, it's pretty, it's pretty unique what everyone's got going on, not you, but what you're, what's going on at Park Hill. Um, it's definitely not me. I think it's, I think it's a specific one or two of the Side B gay folks that have committed to Jesus call on their lives to attend on Sundays and then host hospitable spaces for dinner a couple times a month specifically for people who are attracted to the same sex, identify as gay in whatever way. And these guys specifically have just said, this is not comfortable. And it was a couple of years of just desert for them. Oh, really?

Okay. Yeah. But God seems to be honoring their faithfulness to continue opening up hospitable spaces for LGBTQ people to just hobble in weary and eat dinner and read anything from the Bible to the Velvet Rage to whatever. say we'll see a Sunday around the bread and cup at Park Hill, which is a predominantly straight church that, you know, is blessing what we're doing. So, um, definitely, definitely not me. It's, um, yeah, but yeah, having Greg on staff is, is, it has been a gift in many ways. Yeah. That's fantastic. Well, guys, I can't thank you enough for this conversation.

My goal in having this, I should have said this up front, is to help maybe give a model of what I think has been a very healthy, Christlike, God-honoring way to navigate a tough situation that I know is churches haven't always handled well. And obviously, as we're becoming more and more aware that in the church, the leaders don't always make the best decisions. How can we be Christians about going about navigating that? So thank you both for being honest and vulnerable. Again, Scott, thank you so much for being willing to open up and talk to not just the people at Park Hill, hill but the 20 000 people listening to the podcast um thank you for that really appreciate i hope it really does help give people a model of what this could look like in a healthy way so thank you guys yeah thanks i appreciate that yeah god bless you