Healing from Church Hurt: How Grief Recovery Transforms Communities

And I've journaled and you know, I just give it to God. You know, and so I in my mind, I'm not taking this class and she's like, okay, you know, she didn't push it. And then I was discipling all these young girls in their 20s. So and I had been discipling them for a couple years.

And do you not know every single one of those girls signed up for the class. And I was like, all my girls just signed up for this class. And so now being the mentor that I am, I said, I have to take this class because I'm going to have to undo any damage this class is going to do. This is my mom being totally honest.

I'm thinking if they if they try to un-Christianize my girls or they track the teach something that's not biblical. I got to be in that class so I can say, no, no, that's not biblical ladies. Let's go back to the scriptures. And so I took the class not for any other reason, but to protect my the girls that the Lord had entrusted to me that I was mentoring at the time.

So I get into this class. I'm like, yeah, I'll do my dad because that's what you told me to do. But by week two, Cole, I knew that there was something very different and special about this class for the first time. I when we sat in our first group and I was able to talk freely a heart with ears, no mouth, no one was going to analyze judge or criticize me or try to fix me for the first time.

I've never had that every time I've ever tried to talk or tell my story or or anything. It's always like I have to fix you. I give you advice and or I cut you off and tell you about my experience that I can relate to you. And so I just became one of those counselor mentors that was just always with a listening heart, but never felt like I could get anything off of my chest.

Never felt like I had anybody I could talk to. And so week two, having a voice for the first time, the freedom and just the healing that already began, it just already started to be like, wow, there's something different. And so obviously I walked through eight weeks. I started there thinking, okay, I need to do my dad.

That's the obvious thing he just passed away. But I realized very quickly within the first couple weeks that I needed to do my mom who was still alive. She wasn't dead. She but I had such a traumatic relationship with her.

She was so abusive as a child and was still a very abusive toxic relationship. And even though I had done a lot of forgiveness work with her, I realized she was the one that I needed to work on over those next eight weeks. And by the end of the eight weeks, being able to bring completion in a way that I had never even knew existed using those tools and giving myself a voice for the very first time with a heart with ears on the trauma and all that I had gone through with my mom and still go through the healing. It was unbelievable.

But not only did it change me in those eight weeks, I watched what it did to every single one of my girls, all the work that I had done with them, all the counsel I had given them, all the biblical work that we had done didn't it just it. They still receive a deeper freedom with this program. These tools in my opinion are divinely inspired. These tools work complimentary to our Christian walk and our Christian faith.

I knew at that point I needed to do what I had to do to get licensed and add this to my discipleship program, which is now what I do. It's the first thing I actually take women through when they come to me. I take them through the grief recovery method before I even start working with them on Bible counseling and those kind of things discipleship. I start taking them through the program right away.

That is incredible. You just made my day. It is 930 so the day is still early, but I think that will be the highlight of my day on so many levels. One of the things that I often think about, and if you have been a listener to this podcast at all, I have mentioned a couple of times I became a Christian about three years ago.

The thing about this work has always been open to anyone. Christians, Muslims, Jews, agnostics, atheists, it does not matter because really our lane for this work is the emotional work that we believe needs to be done around the topic of grief. I have always thought, hey, I have seen how this enhanced my relationship with my wife. I have seen how this enhanced my relationship with my living parents with my children.

It is so often I want that for people in church communities as well. I look when I attend church with my family right now and sometimes I imagine I daydream, everybody in that room worshipping, what if they had all been through grief recovery? What if they all knew how to be a heart with the ears to other people in the congregation? What if they knew how to really openly and honestly communicate their emotions?

And then the other person knew to just listen and hear them, right? Like all of these things that seem so simple, they really aren't in modern society. And so right now more than ever, trying to bring grief recovery to the world again, but the Christian community specifically, I'm really wanting this to be open and available to them. Like you said, I understand why people really have to, when they ask about programs, is this a Christian program?

Is this biblically based? You know, you know, these different terms? Sure. And the answer is from the grief recovery institute perspective, it's like no, but when you actually look at the handbook and you look at the work, I think like we talked about in the pre-interview, there is nothing here.

You won't find anything in the grief recovery method that is counter to Christianity or to, you know, what people are doing in churches every weekend. But that's a tough sell because a lot of the time the leadership, right, the leadership wants to play it safe and they don't want to bring something in that is harmful. And they don't want to make a mistake and they don't want the whole congregation to say, what did you bring into our church? Right?

So I understand where the decision making in the fear level is high to bring anything in that doesn't have the stamp of Christian based. But I'm passionate about figuring out how to make sure that that leadership in churches know this is not only a safe program to bring in, this will help you. You will not believe what it will do for your congregation. Absolutely, absolutely.

Me and my husband are, we have an outreach ministry and so we do a lot of outreach. So we're out, we're working with the homeless, we're out working in the prisons, we're out working with the public in general and we have it, we run a food pantry and these kinds of things. So we're working with a lot of very broken grieving people. And that was one thing when I presented it to my church.

I said, you listen, we're going to be out there reaching broken, hurting people. But we bring them in here and if we don't have a tool set, if we don't know how to deal with their hearts when they get here, we're going to mismanage them. We're going to hurt them. We're not going to mean to, we just simply are.

And I said, you want a healthy congregation that knows how to deal with grief, that knows how to deal with broken hearts as we're ministering to people from all walks of life. And I said, and then this also brings you healthier marriages as the couples learn how to communicate with one another and have their total honesty and be hearts with ears and it will make us overall a healthier congregation. And I said, I also believe that all of the elders and pastors should have this class under their belt as they are going to be pastoring and counseling and ministering to souls. And so to me, I feel like this is such a compliment, but it's also necessary.

I think this program is necessary in the Christian community because it does teach such a beautiful skill set that not only we're going to be able to help the people that we're trying to bring in and minister to them and to cycle them, but we're going to deal with each other better. We're going to have better communication with each other. We're going to be able to forget. We are going to understand how to forgive each other on a deeper level.

Understand how to have total honesty with each other, hearts with ears, no mouths, learning how not to interrupt each other when each other needs that listening heart. I mean, so many powerful tools are taught in this particular method that we can use across the board in our right. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. And I love for you to add more because you're going to have more experience than I do.

But like what what I realize is there are so many grief experiences that happen in churches on a regular basis. So one of one of a major losses for that church is when a pastor moves on, right. Absolutely. And if we don't know how to help kind of the congregation and grieve and complete their relationship with that pastor, the new pastor is in big trouble, right.

Because they are not being compared to just them, right. They need to be like the old pastor, right. And it's like so like little things like that. You wouldn't think about grief regularly.

You would be like, your whole congregation is grieving the loss of this, the, the past that they loved, right. Right. Or they didn't love. Or they didn't love because there's a lot of toxicity too.

So there's a lot of culture and I don't want to let you. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And you know, maybe we can get into that as well because you know, again, these are terms I never knew before I started attending church. Honestly, it's like church. Oh, what a concept. That makes sense.

Again, pastors also, you know, they're human beings. And so they can make really big mistakes. And you know, just like everyone else here at the church, right. It's like human beings.

That's that's the whole point, right. As we make mistakes on a pretty regular basis. So, but again, the point is that is that that produces emotional pain and unfinished business in people. And if we don't know what to do with that, they just keep stacking it up, stacking it up.

And you know, one of the reactions may be, I'm not, I'm not going to church anymore because it is one of the actions. And I'm, and I'm turning away from the church because they didn't know how to meet me where, where I was right now. I remember there, there's a great gentleman. He's certified.

He got certified in Kenya. Dear, dear friend and hero of ours and grief recovery. Her name is Nancy Martin. She's passed away, unfortunately, but she's from Tennessee.

She was a trainer with us a long time. And her passion was bringing this to Christians. And they would do mission work in Africa. And they would, and they brought grief recovery there.

Yeah. And I remember one time she certified 10 or 15 pastors. And she was telling me about it. And she was telling me.

After getting certified, the, the hurt that they had because they had realized that they were absolutely not meeting people on an emotional level, right. They were picking Scripture to kind of. Yes. Focus on just the spiritual, right.

And what they realize and grief recovery, especially in Africa, is the amount of loss, the lost history graphs that they saw in their congregation. And we have to meet people like you said, where they are a lot of the time, they are emotionally brokenhearted from years of different losses. And if we don't go help them with the emotional work, like you said, we're going to miss them, right. We're not going to connect there.

And so anyway, what have you seen? You know, in addition to what I, what I've mentioned about like a pastor moving on, what, what other kind of specific church church areas do you see where unresolved grief kind of goes unnoticed or unaddressed? Well, I agree with you that there, there's a lot of church hurt, you know, and, and I deal with a lot of people. I'm out on the streets a lot here.

A lot of, you know, I grew up in the church and then follow all the horrible things that you have to hear. You know, and a lot of it's just like you said, it's, it's unmet, unmet emotional needs that have not been communicated. And they, if we could just give them a place where they can say, I was hurt because oftentimes when you are hurt in the church and you do try to go and talk about your hurt, it only ends up causing more hurt because they don't know how to deal with it. And I always, a lot of times is defensive or, you know, you have that hierarchy structure and there can just be a lot of, there's just a lot of church hurt from a lot of people.

And so I think that's something that we definitely need to address. It is the tangible, right? But that's why I love about this program is because we talk about intangible losses like having institutionalized church hurt. I did an entire graph myself just on the institutionalized church being in the church for as long as I have been I've seen a lot of things that I wish I wouldn't have seen or haven't, wish I didn't experience, but I did.

And the fact is I needed to graph all that loss that I've seen and all the different churches and the different people that I've dealt with and the different structures of them. You know, and so this gave me a place as well to be able to communicate that and that you know what that did that opened me up to forgiveness, which then opened me back up to go, you know what, I can still go to church. I can, I can forgive, I'm giving communication. And then when this stuff arises again, I have, I'm better equipped on how to have my total honesty, how to deal with the situation, how to go to somebody and understand when they respond away a different way that I need them to, you know, and just the tools just I'm able to use it all the way around where I'm able to just walk in completeness all the time because I'm able to pee.

Yes, I'm able to immediately let go of things. So I'm just that makes sense. And so I do see a lot of toxic environment, church hurt coming out. That's what I hear a lot about.

And so I help people with graphene, the church, graphene, the entangible. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, one of the things that I, what I've noticed from attending, you know, now, I don't know, I think we, we checked out a couple of churches and we found a church local thus that we that we're really happy with. But what I'm realizing is, you know, it's a church is kind of like a big family.

And there, there are, you know, the, the hurt when you say the church hurt or the emotional ways people step on our toes. Sometimes that can be egregiously bad and hurtful. Sometimes that can just be like, oh, you know, why did so and so introduce drums into our worship, right? And I know, you know, of course we'll joke about that.

But it's like when that person is upset about that. And then they go talk to leadership and leadership brushes them off. And again, this is not, this is not a big deal for me. But if that person doesn't know how to forgive the small stuff.

Yes, you know, I am, I'm, I'm shopping for a new church. Absolutely versus knowing how to grieve and complete the small stuff. A lot of the time when I'm working again in marriages. Sometimes through grief recovery, grief recovery will expose or show people this stuff is way worse than I thought it was.

And it's not okay to be treated this way. Other times people will work on relationships and say, you know what, I had a bunch of energy, but it was actually past relationships. This person's a great person. And I got to kind of let this stuff go.

So I can have a better relationship. Right. So people will find their own truth. But my point is, is if you take that example of like marriage.

If you take that example from people in churches, you know, again, they're dealing with different levels of hurt. Right. And a lot of the time. The way we again, we never, we never rank or analyze or tell people what their grief is.

People are grieving at 100% of whatever the loss is for that. Right. So I, I'm not the person to tell that person, hey, get over it. They introduce drums into worship.

Right. If that, if that for some reason is really hurting, you know, upsetting that person, they are emotionally upset about it. Whether I like it or not. And we need to teach them how to complete that.

So they can let go of that. Right. It's like, like for instance, right. My, my wife wants this to be a shoeless home.

But I'm like, we live on, we live on the side of a mountain in Idaho, right. And I can't take my boots off every time I'm in and out of this house. So I know that at some point she needs to forgive me when I, you know, sneak in with my boots on, because I'm not willing to take them off. Right.

She may have to forgive me like 500 times in our marriage for that. But she can make a decision. Is that, you know, is that a grigis enough to like divorce this guy or can I just kind of let that go because he's not perfect. He's not a human being.

So hopefully that makes sense to our listeners, right. But if you can teach everyone in the church, how to forgive each other more clean than how to apologize more cleanly. How to make significant emotional statements to each other. And how to listen.

Yeah. And how to listen. Thank you. You will not believe what kind of community you can create there.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I'm sure you've seen that right. If you're, if you're doing all this work with women at your church, I'm sure you see, you know, you're kind of creating leaders out there who are leading and setting the tone.

Yes. Things okay. Yes. I am the ones that have taken the class are the ones that are more emotionally healthy are able to deal with things better.

Also, they know how to deal better with people as when we go out and do outreach and in those things as well. They become just emotionally more complete. And then I continue to work with them and I do alumni classes consistently because I'm like, listen, we're not one and done. I want you guys to come back.

You did a whole graph. We're going to take and we're going to work on one together and just keep. And so I keep them working on it, which keeps these skills honed in on and keeps them working the tools and keeping it in the front of their mind because so often we can do a take a class like this. And then be like, that was great.

But then we see a squirrel and we go off and do something else for them. You know, and we forget all about it until all the sudden we have all this grief again. And we and like, oh, yeah, maybe I should go back through. So what I try to do is not just do the eight weeks with them, but to keep them in a constant alumni setting to where so they are continuing to work on losses, continuing to work these tools.

So they are. It's right there in the forefront of their mind. So when that broken person walks through the door there, like you said, the drums are now on the thing. They've got that tool set right on the front of their mind because they're working them all the time.

And I think that's a key to that we need that we really need to talk about is the alumni program and keeping people consistently going through as well. That is so astute of you. I would say that one of the one of the main critiques I have of grief recovery is that we don't set it up enough and we don't position it enough for to essentially be tools for living, you know, for the rest of your life. A lot of the time people are like, hey, I am heartbroken.

Here's here's my knife sticking out of my heart around this loss. We help them with that. And then we say, you know, good luck to you and go out there and have a great life. And for some people, you know, again, we don't want grief to turn into their identity, but no, absolutely not.

But using these tools to understand that we do have grief that comes up often. And if you actually build these habits, you can apply them for good all the time in your life. Absolutely. Yeah, no, I love that you're doing that.

Again, that would be one of my main critiques of us not working with people enough because I remember for me the first time I went through grief recovery. Obviously, it's very overwhelming emotionally. And so really how much stuff are you picking up from your first go at grief recovery? Some people are obtaining more than others.

I know for me, I needed to see it three or four times to really be like, oh, I get the nuance. And meanwhile, I've worked on four relationships in my life. And all of those have been improved. Yes, you know, because of the work that that I've done.

So I love that you're doing that with people to follow up or right. And you're so right because the first class I took, you know, and then she ended up leaving out of town. I knew I love this class. I should get certified.

But I am in full time ministry. I'm just very, I run a business. I'm just very busy. So I never went through with it right away.

She ends up coming back into town. She's like, I'm going to run another class. And she and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to I just had another loss when that had happened.

And I'm like, I'm going to take the class again with you. And so it was taking that class again. And it's like, yeah, I really need to get this under my belt. I really need to do this.

That by the time I end up taking the actual certification, it had been my third class. And so I was already really, you know, a brust to the tools and really knowing I need to get this under my belt for others to help them. And since then I have just been working the tools. And I work in the alumni class.

I work with them and do a graph as well. So I'm constantly working through graphs in my own loss and healing as well. And so it's just it's it is a beautiful, you know, really wanting to work this program thoroughly because I learned something new every single time. Every class I teach every alumni I do every graph I do every time I reread the book and reread the book, I am learning something new that I'm able to take and give away then to help somebody else and myself.

Yeah, me too. No, I couldn't agree more. Also an offline Amy, I'd love to get the name of the person that certified that does the work with ex trafficking and human trafficking. Absolutely.

I've certified many people. I may have served. I don't know, but I've certified some people in California. He was actually certified by your father and by rustling your father.

They actually she did it in person. She's been doing this for about 10 years now. Okay. She was trained by them specifically.

And so yeah, it was she's she's dynamic. Well, I'd love to talk to her at some point too. Absolutely. Obviously, yeah, yeah.

Well, talk to me if you would because I know that you release focus on helping women with this method. Obviously, well, I don't say I shouldn't say obviously women tend by 70% 80% gravitate towards this work more than men. So we're definitely hard at work trying to figure out how to get how to get this work to men more, but it is women are more comfortable doing this work. What do you find?

What are the benefits of or what are the things you regularly see like with with women wanting to do work? What are they working on with you? How does this help women specifically? I guess is my question.

So specifically what I see a lot is childhood trauma. Obviously, a lot of undelivered communication with a lot of childhood trauma and parental alienation. And then of course marriages, you know, just a lot of unhealthy marriages on healthy way of communication with marriages. So I see a lot of those things.

I do want to say though that I have just as many men in my class, my in-person classes, my online classes is basically all women because I gear very much online to women. But in church and out in my in-person classes, I usually have men and women are usually the same ratio. So I do have a lot of men that come into my class. Let me ask you this though.

I'm very focused on this topic right now because I've seen this work so well with both men and women. So it's very frustrating to me as a man where it's like, guys, come on, we need to do this work. But for sure. But and be honest, is this because wives are like shoving their husbands into the class or are they coming willingly themselves?

No, they're coming willingly. Matter of fact, the last in-person class that I just wrapped up here not long ago, because I just did one in the in the winter here, the husband actually led that his wife to the class. Wow, that's great. The other one, they're in they're both in ministry full time.

And so when they saw that I was doing this, they wanted to learn more about it. And so they both wanted to come. And then I have several that are just single men that are they want to the other ones were they're just men that are single. And so in my husband has come through the class because he wants obviously he's not certified, but he wanted to understand and learn.

And so he came and took the class willingly. I never had to push him. It was something he wanted to do as he's a he's a pastor and he ministers to people. And so no, I've not really seen a lot of the, you know, come on, honey, you have to do this.

I've seen a lot of men are hurting too, you know, and they want to they they're grieving as well, you know, and I've just it's been beautiful to watch them allow the program to heal their hearts, you know, into and them using these tools and learning and this I always tell people, well, and you know this from the from the book, but we're all having a human experience. No one's getting out of this without grief and trauma and loss or whatever, you know, Jesus saved us. And he said, I saved you for salvation, but also to suffer. Like in the same sense, we always forget the second half of that sentence and some Philippians, but we're saved for salvation and suffering.

And so as long as we're going to have suffering, but Jesus gave us the model for that. When he saw that his friend Lazarus was dead, the shortest verse in the Bible is Jesus wept. And that Greek word for wept is wailed intensely, groaning up out of the bottom is part and just like wailing. And here's Jesus, he knew he was going to raise him from the dead.

He knew he's like, I'm going to raise him to death, but I'm going to wail anyway. So who was that wailing for for us to see that having a human experience is going to have grief and that grief is a normal and natural reaction. And it's okay to grieve. It doesn't make us less dependent on God or we don't trust God or somehow we we lessen his sovereignty or love for him.

We're grieving. We're having a human experience and weeping and grieving no matter what our our trusting God that doesn't affect that. Jesus is trusting himself or in God that he knew that we were he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead did not change the fact that he was still weeping and impaying to see his best friend lying knowing that he was dead in the grave. And so we I think sometimes as Christians we can try to be too spiritual try to spiritualize everything to where we we forget that we really are having this human experience grief and loss are a part of that.

They're a part of that. And so it's okay to grieve it's okay to say I'm hurting it's okay to say that I don't understand all this and what do I do with this pain and I'm not not trusting God because I'm grieving. And I think that's where sometimes a disconnect can be with Christians is and I even know for myself when I first heard of the class like no I trust God I've forgiven I've done you know I gave it all to God because I'm supposed to forgive you know but really I needed to go deeper I needed to go deeper and God knew I needed to go deeper with the grief and loss that I had experienced you know and he's walking right alongside me with this. I'm excited to announce our premium in-person certification training individuals who have a desire to help other people with grief and loss join us for a four day event that you will remember forever this is based on the proven four day certification we've done before the curriculum is the same but now you're going to get a ton of stories and education and training from Sandy these are tangible tools that help people in any area of their life.

You're going to get a ton of stories and education and training from me we will have double the amount of trainers to answer questions you have. Want to help people by this missing information this missingly. I'm an advocate for the grieving process because I know that's like why would you not tell somebody to heal. There's going to be some tears in there and there's going to be some tissues but well I think what will surprise people that are considering this training is if you sat outside of the room when this training is happening you wouldn't believe how much laughter is happening in this training.

I believe how much joy and hope you can see on people's faces as we're breaking and people are coming out of the room it's everything. The thing she was saying made me feel seen and normal and validated and not insane. I saw grief as this really bad dark thing instead of seeing it as the actual healing process. As someone who's been in this field for 15 years now I would have loved to have been trained under these circumstances it's just such a premier training.

You're going to probably walk away with some like lifelong friends we did not want to say goodbye to each other at that end of that four days. Be able to help walk them through that and give them that same light bulb that came on in my head it was trying to transform it. It was such a rich time of learning and engaging listening to people's stories being present being focused with who you're talking to is such a big part of the grief recovery work. I had done a lot of things I had done coaching I've been in therapy I had done a lot of other modalities and they were helpful.

But when I did the grief recovery method and when I walked through the method and continued to use the tools life began to have color. I went from being very emotionally disconnected to being very connected. Do not wait seats are filling up sign up you will not regret it I cannot wait to see you have a great day. I love this I am so glad that we're here I want to stay here I mean if we can because it's so important it's the key I think to grief recovery working with with Christians you know frankly.

And that's kind of again going back to the pastors in Kenya right is that's that's the that's the verse we were giving them because they weren't using that verse right they would like you said they were spiritualizing stuff and God's going to God's going to heal it and we can believe all that but we can also be doing our emotional work right and a lot of the time was. We find as if we help people with the emotional work through grief recovery yeah all the spiritual stuff is sailing right where where if we start there it can run into some problems right and so I love that you said that reminds me because that was always my dad's kind of point when I was training with him. He Jesus wept that's exactly right and it's like the Christians will do it and also society will do it right for whatever reason feelings are scary to us we don't want people doing open displays of emotions except when it's laughter and that that is a problem that's like yeah I want to be very clear it's like no we were we were made you know to have access to these feelings to last to cry all of all of it right and absolutely.

And you're right I think that is specifically there in the Bible so that there is an example absolutely like hey we need to do this we need to emotionally process stuff this way and and right and so I love I love that you pointed that out. And I see it all the time I see it all the time when I'm working with people with the Christian background right sometimes it is it is harder for them to go down here and have access to their emotions because the habit has been to kind of stay up here right when when we're. in our work, right? We believe, yeah, we need access here for sure, here intellectually, but also here. And we need to know how to flow very quickly anywhere we need to, right?

IE just like my five year old. Like it's like I'm not surprised that my five year old is more equipped than me as an adult to flow just beautifully wherever he needs to flow. Right. And I believe that is natural.

And that should be encouraged. Not beaten out of him by the time he's 15. Absolutely. Stuck here.

Right. You know, and if you're listening and not on video, like I'm pointing to my head because we like to lock these young adults into their head and really force them to be in their head at all times, right? Right. Anyway, go ahead.

Well, I think there's also can be a part of Christianity and there's definitely different sex of Christianity where it can sometimes say, if I admit that I'm angry, that I'm in sin, if I admit that I'm fearful, if I'm admit that I, that this particular event I felt, you know, just irrationally angry or I felt full of fear that that's a sin. So we can't admit that. We can't admit that we have these real raw feelings. But that's what I loved about the group recovery method is that I can say as a mature Christian believer that this I am angry at this or I have fear wrapped around this, but I have a tool set that I can work through that and give it communication and then truly hand it over to God.

But I'm able to actually express it. And I think in Christianity, so often we, we oppress people. We almost like use the Bible or you can use our religion or our spirituality to almost suppress true real feelings that we're having and that needs to be communicated without judgment without analyzing, without criticizing, right? And because often it's like, I can't tell somebody that I'm fearful right now.

I can't tell somebody I'm actually really angry because, oh, well, then you're not trusting God or you don't, you know, that's not very Christian of you. No, this is my total honesty. I'm going to work through it. I've got this beautiful tool set.

I've got the word of God. I've got everything I need to work through it, but I need to work through it. And I need to have a safe place to be able to say out loud, I have this feeling without any analyzing, judging or criticizing or being afraid to be taken off leadership border or afraid that I'm no longer a good Christian or, you know, whatever the, the ideas that get pushed, I think upon us a lot of times. Yeah.

No, that's, that's a great point. A great point. And I think that's really a huge, a huge thing that people struggle with. Like you said.

And I was very naive becoming a Christian on all of the different theology right in all different agreements, disagreements. And again, I know we don't have time for that in this podcast, but I think you're right. I love that you're speaking at this core level of we need to allow people to process and express themselves as human beings and let them go wherever they need to go without criticism or judgment or here. Let me tell you how to fix that bad thinking or, you know, no, that's not really, you don't really think that or feel that this is really what you feel probably.

It's like we need to just put all of that aside. And that's where I think the vehicle of grief recovery is beautiful because if you're leading this stuff, you're not allowed to do that, right? Right. And you see why?

Because you've done the work yourself. And you, like you said, in week two, as a leader, right, I'm paraphrasing, but you said at week two, as a person who helps other people, I finally got to sit in that seat and express myself and not have people interrupting or lovingly or not, you know, or trying to lead me where they want, think I need to go. And it was like, right? It's a, yeah, it's a powerful tool.

Yes. It's very powerful. Let me ask you this because this again, this is on my mind a lot. I told you in the pre-interview, I've been very quiet about grief recovery at this church, right?

No, no one really knows what I do. And it's because I really feel safe there and I really am a fan of this church. And honestly, as a human being, I feel like if I offered my services up and they shut me down, it would hurt my feelings and it would be, you know, and I don't want that. So what would you say to, you know, if you're tomorrow had a meeting with a pastor leadership at a church, how would you, how would you pitch the grief recovery method, right, in terms of like how, you know, if they're thinking about bringing this in or even wanting to hear it, like, how do you pitch this to leadership?

I don't, I don't, I think I'm just off the cuff, but I'm just somebody who's kind of bold and just speaks the truth. But I would tell them, you know, what it has done for me, you know, my own experience coming as a child out of a lot of trauma and all that I've seen and then all the work that I do is without reaching with people and how I have seen what it has done for them as well. I would assure them that it's a program that is faith-friendly and it doesn't undermine the scriptures in any way, shape, or form. It actually enhances, but I really would want to express to them, which is what I express to my church, is that a healthy church, when we're healthy with one another, only then can we go out and bring other people in that are going to need healing and we're going to know how to better deal with their hearts and their trauma and their heartache and brokenness.

Because we're going to be healthy, we're going to love each other well, we're going to be working these tools together as an inner church. And so for us to be healthy, inner before we can go out and because when we go out, we're bringing all this stuff in and we're going to need to be healthy enough to handle it. And so having a tool set like this is going to only enhance our, which is our mission, our church, we should be on mission to go out and reach the lost. Well, they're not going to come in with puppies and rainbows and fluffy jeep, they're going to come in, broken and tarnished and preconceived ideas and her and all these things.

You know, I always like to say their baby Christians are going to have dirty diapers and we need to help change the dirty diapers and one of the great ways to help that is with a program like grief recovery. And so that's kind of how I sold it to our church, you know, and there was a little bit of resistance at first. Well, you know, if the elders are here, shouldn't that be our job? And I'm like, well, yes, but I also teach financial peace university, which is a financial class for Dave Ramsay.

And so I kind of put that back on them and I said, okay, but you guys as elders want me to teach financial peace, but I'm sure you could, if a congregate sat down with you and wanted some financial advice, you could give it to them or you could have me do a nine week class giving them an exact tool set that's proven with finances to help them. I said, that's what this is. Yeah, you can give them some grief, you know, counsel, but this is a proven eight week method with a tool set that's going to take them through the pain and into recovery. And that's that it's how I was able to kind of use the financial pieces like, and then they were really smart.

No, I was like, Lord, how do I answer this question? Right? And so, but it luckily I was doing the financial piece at the same time. So I was able to kind of bring that into to let them see that these are proven tool sets that work in a specific area in a Christian's life to help them be better equipped themselves.

And if you have a healthy congregation financially, you have a healthy congregation with emotional completeness, you know, you have healthy marriages and family, you're going to have a healthy church that's going to be better equipped to go out and reach the lost. That's a fact. Yeah. Yeah.

You have a bunch of broken people emotionally in the church and then you bring more emotionally broken people in the church, you're going to have a toxic cesspool of a church. You just are because we're all just going to be biting into vowing one another because nobody has the proper tools, you know, to really work through all of our pain and brokenness. Mm hmm. Yeah.

I'm so glad that you're saying this. This is all I'm taking notes here. I'm glad we're recording this because I'm going to refer to this to when I approach our leadership. Now, do you ever like share the book with them or the format so that they can see that there's no kind of surprises?

Do they ever, is that an important? They didn't ask. No. No.

I mean, I did. I showed them all these to the book and but no one that I know I read it and none of it, sadly none of the elders have taken the class. I've been in it and it's heartbreaking to me. But that's kind of church, that's kind of how church is, you know, they just kind of think they've arrived and they don't, you know, I don't know.

But yeah. But unfortunately, but you know what? The congregates are taking it and they are ranting and raving to the elders how wonderful the classes and how much it's taught them and helped them and then they're going through the alumni. So they can see people transforming and see what it's doing in their lives, but I haven't yet been able to get the elders to kind of come in and really partake in the classroom.

Yeah. I tell you, Cole, that I've hit, I, but I, yeah, I've been a battle for me as well. But they do let me have the class and they actually support the class, which is nice. I mean, that's great.

And it is sad though, because it doesn't surprise me what you just said, because that's the feedback we get a lot, you know. And it's too bad. I think that sometimes the pastor at Archers and his last couple of sermons has kind of given us a little bit of inside baseball on pastoring at churches and kind of some of the stuff I would never have thought of because you know, I've never lived in that world. But I, you know, I wonder how much of that is at the group level, they don't feel comfortable to share some of their stuff like in the group level, you know, versus one on one work.

I wonder if we could offer leadership this work more one on one if they would be more inclined to do that. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. They need it as much as anybody else, right?

They do. They're the ones that are ministering to souls more than anyone just because that's who people will go to first, you know, not think, think, I got to go to my pastor, I got to go to the elders. And so that's why my husband took the class because he's a pastor elder and he was like, I want this under my belt. Yeah.

I want to see, you know, and he was so blessed by it. And now he has a better understanding too of how to deal with grievers as well. And so it was beautiful. So I don't know if maybe pastors offering them something one on one outside of the church, you know, where they actually go to the grief recovery institute themselves and do an online class with somebody so they don't feel like, like even me, like, you know, like maybe they don't feel comfortable like, well, I don't want Amy knowing all my, you know, and not because they won't trust me or love me, but just that is uncomfortable.

That can be uncomfortable. Yeah. And so maybe offering something to specifically the pastors where they can join in and take classes through the grief recovery institute or with strangers, you know, and not their congregate, you know, even though they have a specialist on staff, they would still have a way to get the class without feeling like they have to be vulnerable with their congregate, maybe. Yeah.

Exactly. I mean, I know for me when it came to do grief recovery work on the death of my dad, yeah. It's hard for me to be like, oh, I'm going to do this work to someone at the institute about the founder of the work that. Sure.

And I don't know if I can go where I need to go to, you know, there. So I had to really be specific on who I found to purchase me safe. So that's, you know, yeah, I think it's, I think that is, that is a factor for sure. And then I just want to mention this because again, this was in the sermon too.

And my, my pastor was talking about the kind of the burnout rate of pastors like the average could be like, as little as three years, right? And it's like, at first I thought that was shocking. But then I just compared it to other industries that, you know, another work, other, what's the word I want to say here, other professions where you're a caregiver, essentially, you're helping other people. You're accumulating a lot of grief, even though I'm sure in seminary they say, just don't get emotionally attached, just like they do over here.

They do. Right? Whenever the care, no matter what caregiving field you're in, they just kind of brush it off like, yeah, just don't get emotionally involved. And it's like, yeah, that's impossible.

I don't work. People. They stack up a bunch of friendships and they start caring about a bunch of people and then bad stuff happens. And so I just believe too, part of that burnout rate, aside from probably the pastor being asked to do everything at smaller churches, and the fact that just the, the, the, the physical, hey, I'm doing too much.

I think also, you know, hey, I'm up to here with my emotional stuff and I don't have as many tools as maybe I, I could to kind of process that. And they go through a lot of church, her, I mean, pastors, you know, when you're in any kind of leadership like that, I mean, they really, they're not going to be a lot of people. Not only the attending to souls, but a lot of the souls that they've laid their lives down to end up turning, turning on them. You know, they have a lot of church or a lot of pain.

And so there is, yeah, this method would be just so wonderful for them on so many levels. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And again, I've been very motivated to bring this work to the, to the world. I mean, obviously that's my life's work. Yeah. But specifically now, as a Christian, I'm like, wow, wow, that, that community, my, my community really, really needs this work.

Thank you, John. So, thank you for kind of, you know, telling me kind of about how, how you have implemented it. Yeah. You're at, yeah, for sure.

So, so tell me a little bit about, you know, your, your current, like where you're focusing. I know you said you do online work and you're also doing in person work online. You're focusing mostly on working with women, right? That's where you go.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then fully investigators do a website.

I joined that group. Through the, what foundations. They probably don't have stuff in at work. But they egy Panagtay, because they come to, they don't actually want to work with you.

And they let me know if they can do it. And they tend to, when it comes to sunlight, like it needs to be clean. And it's like, and it's quite less important to be aware of that. So theker is a person, 200 people of knowledge in therolling of art and when we bald doitus YouTube, you know, 15% kurives on the board.

Okay. So we need a couple of different milk levels. Right. That's those steps.

I use the grief recovery method first and foremost to kind of start unpacking that on healed trauma and the on healed pain, giving them that communication. And just because I really see that when they just get some of that stuff out and out there, the healing starts to begin, they're actually able to process more, I think of the scriptures as well, and just receive that healing from even the Lord, that love, a lot of it, they don't know how to receive love. You know, and so they just become more open to the love of God even and who they are in Him. It really is a beautiful all the way around.

It just, it all works together very beautifully. That's why I do believe that grief recovery handbook is divinely inspired. Yeah, yeah. Well, and that's what, that was gonna be my next question, Amy, is like, because I know you're doing a lot of stuff with these women.

Why first, right? What is the benefit of doing grief recovery first? It's a proven method. I can walk them through a proven method for eight weeks.

It helps them to learn how to trust me as somebody who can mentor them and coach them, and it shows them that I have their best interest at heart that they're gonna receive total honesty from me. I'm gonna love them and care for them. I'm me, somebody who they can, I'll be that heart with ears always. And so I think it's a proven method to help us build trust together, to learn who we are, to learn actually about them, because I get to hear about their lost history graph.

So I get to hear more about them. So it gives me a better understanding of who they are, where they come from. I mean, the program just has such a wonderful way of just moving us in that direction of, okay, we've come through these eight weeks, and now what would you like to do next? You know, in that.

And so they can trust that, I'm gonna care for their hearts. I'm gonna be tender with them. I'm gonna love them, I'm gonna counsel them. When we move through this, I also have the alumni that I can put them back through, which I do encourage them to do.

But then now I can start taking you through the scriptures. And there's a level of trust that's been built there. They know that I'm somebody who loves, because when you're online, you can be anybody, right? Online, I can be anybody online, you know?

And so this way, it's hard to fake anything for eight weeks, especially when you're doing that kind of deep work together. Because I'm sharing with them my vulnerabilities. I'm sharing my lost history graph with them. And even though it's online, I share my relationship graph with them with my mother.

And that's a very traumatic relationship that I had. And so they see a lot of vulnerability when I go through that with them. They get to see that. So they see that I've come out of hardship and I've come through.

And so I just really believe that the God's given this to me to be able to give to others. And I use it as the first step in building relationship with somebody in communication and trust and honesty and love. Yeah. And you know what, it's funny, Amy.

I was kind of setting you up to go there. And I was like, I'm not sure if she's going to get there. And you ended with it, which is so beautiful, right? Is like, if I were you, I would do the same thing.

With whatever tools I'm offering, I would start with grief or recovery. There's a couple of reasons. But the main one is what you just touched on. As a leader, I cannot have people trust me if I am not doing any self-disclosure.

And by design, this work is built in. I'm doing as a leader, I'm doing a little bit of self-disclosure. Notice I'm not saying I'm making it about me and I'm indulging in my story. Right, absolutely.

Absolutely. We are sharing our story so that that person can also see this as a human being with real pain too. They use these tools to work through it. And hey, how cool is it that this leader is actually telling me about them versus what a lot of leaders do, which is here.

Why are you here to see me today? And then it's like, and I don't really give you anything. And I don't know, frankly, how leaders can do that, right? And that's another reason, again, why I would love, I would love the leadership of the church to do this work.

Because you actually, I'll speak for me, I got a lot more comfortable disclosing things about me by doing grief for every work and getting complete with those emotions. Before that, I didn't want to show anybody anything of me because it was just painful and unfinished. I didn't want to open that door. But when I learned how to get complete with some of those things, now of a sudden I can use those life lessons or those life events as teaching examples for other people or to build trust, not in a manipulative way, but in a way of, hey, I really want this person to have good results by the end of my work.

And I know that if I can fearlessly, courageously, you use a term vulnerable and society uses that term too, be vulnerable. I just like be courageous, right? Because that to me helps me reframe it too. You know what?

It's like, I don't love going on the road talking about how I was sexually molested when I was six years old. But if I don't say that, maybe those people don't even understand that they can do grief for recovery work about that sexual abuse. And as you know, unfortunately, as I do, there are way too many kids with that story that are now adult, right? And it's like heartbreaking.

So I'm going to be courageous about saying that because now all of a sudden, I know that half of that room says, oh, I can look at that, lost it, I've been caring for my whole life through this lens of grief for recovery. I didn't even know I could do that. So it's like, those kind of things, I just want our leadership to be able to be that courageous and that fearless or quote that vulnerable because it will only bring people closer to them and allow them to tell people with all the other tools we want. Because that's the other thing, Amy, right?

I know you know this, but all these women that are working with you or the guys that are in your in-person groups, we all, when we have a backpack full of grief and make no mistake, that's the whole world. Because no one taught us how to even label it as grief. It's misdiagnosed, it's undiagnosed, but I assure you, everyone you know in your life has a backpack full of unresolved grief. Absolutely.

And what that creates is trouble staying in the moment, right? Think about it. Be sure. Right after you have a loss, right?

This is kind of easy for listeners to understand. Right after a loss, have you ever gone to a room and then you forget why you're in that room, right? We're absent-minded. It's almost impossible for us to stay in the moment.

Absolutely. You know, after a recent loss, well guess what? If you don't really do any work around completing the feelings around that loss, you think that trouble being in the present moment goes away? No, you just get in a habit of being out of the moment more.

And so, you know, if Amy goes and works with a bunch of ladies around grief recovery and helps them get back some present moment skills, well guess what? Now when we're studying the Bible or we're reading scripture, I'm actually in the moment retaining stuff because I have less grief I'm carrying around, I.e., I have a better possibility of being in the moment, right? Right. The thing that I'm sure you would agree with is, especially like you're saying, when you do follow-up work, when you work through four or five or six losses from your life through a grief recovery, in other words, you've been through the grief recovery method, let's say six times.

Yeah. The physical energy levels you have are way different, right? So now I'm motivated to show up and not call in sick or not, you know, miss this next class, right? So we are setting people up for success in whatever tools we want to offer.

If we start with grief recovery first, right? So it's not like, it's not a coincidence that you tell me, hey, I start with this first and that's why I was like, well, why do you start with it first, you know? But you said it beautifully. I think number one, there's not a better way to build trust with people than through grief recovery.

I agree. And guess what? That includes your wife, your husband, your children, your friends. If you know how to do grief recovery and self-disclose what's on your heart on a regular basis, people are going to be like, I don't quite know what it is about Coli's kind of weird, but I like talking to him, you know?

Because I won't know, but you'll just, you know, your interactions with people will just go as deep as you want them to be depending on how much time you have. Right? Yeah, it's just because you go first, right? With your emotions.

I literally met a stranger yesterday. I'm just sitting there trying to eat my chicken wings and all of a sudden she starts talking to me. And within 15 minutes, I'm hearing her whole loss history graph, OK? She doesn't realize that's what she's saying.

But she's giving me all this grief and loss and trauma. And I'm like, oh my goodness, this is hilarious. You know, that funny. But I mean, I knew it was a god moment.

And I gave her my card and I said, listen, this is what I do. And she was like, you've got to be kidding me. So it is. And she told me right before we left, I'm not kidding this.

She goes, she goes, do you know you have a presence about you? She goes, when you walked into the restaurant, I knew there was something different about you. And I was like, really? And she's like, oh, I know you hear that all the time.

Like, well, no, not really. But she said, no, there's something different. It's a presence. And it's exactly what you're just talking about.

I've done a lot of grief work. I show up differently. I don't show up hidden now with the mask on and can't be authentic. And now I've learned how to be authentic and walk in my total honesty of who I am, who gods made me to be.

And I'm walking in as a more healed person that I'm out there looking to help others. And then God just brings them to me because I'm somebody safe that he can bring them to as well. And so it is. It's a beautiful thing.

I just love how you said that. Yeah. No, I'm really enjoying this conversation. And I am so grateful that you found your way to grief recovery.

And I get so inspired by this podcast because I get to be reminded of the quality of human beings that are out there representing this work and helping people's hearts. And so I just want to thank you for all the work you're doing. And Amy, where can people find you if they want to work with you? What's the best way to get in touch with you?

I actually have a website. It's our ministry website is be the church ministry with a Y dot com. And if you go there, you can book a free call with me and just free grief recovery, free medical discipleship. And this goes on this what we do in ministry.

We do a lot of outreach. And my podcast is there and all of those things. So if you go to the website, you'll get in contact with me. You can email me there.

You can book a call with me, whatever you need. I'm there. Awesome. OK, great.

So you know, and I just want before we wrap, I want to cover this last topic. Because I think it's important as well. You know, you touched on wanting to get more people to come to the church and guess what? Those people are coming with a bunch of broken hearts, right?

And dealing with a bunch of stuff. And so we need to know how to kind of grieve and complete our stuff so that we can meet them with where they are. But then also teach them how to heal. And right, and a huge part of that is the spiritual work that needs to be done for individuals.

Absolutely. But we don't want to miss the emotional work, right? And so I love what you're doing. And this is a really bad comparison, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Because I think people will understand it. Again, I'm not trying to compare, but I just want people to follow this train of thought. I got sober in a 12-step program. OK, and so, and I was pretty young, and I had a problem with drugs and alcohol.

And so when I went to, when I first started going to meetings, you know, I'm fresh off of living a bad life and having a lot of problems, right? And so the people I gravitated towards and wanted to talk to were people who were willing to talk about the war stories, frankly, the stuff out there, right? The people that was hard for me to relate to are the people with 20-year sober. You may as well have been, you know, a true, like, impossible, right?

But the person that had 60-day sober, wow, that's somebody I'm going to listen to, right? Because it's like they know where I'm at, right? Quote on quote, they know how I feel, right? You know, we don't believe that term, but that is, you know, coming into it, that's how I felt.

Yeah, sure. And frankly, I'm, you know, 20-plus years into being sober. And it is hard for me to meet people where they're at when they have four days sober, and they, you know, they're living that life. And it's been a challenge, right?

And I try and do it as I, but a lot of the time, I want to pair them up with somebody that, you know, has six months or something that's attainable to them, that they can relate to. Again, I think they need both people. Don't get me wrong, but I think both of those people. So, you know, again, here's where my bad comparison is.

So if you have people who are emotionally hurt coming to the church, right? And all we're talking about is very high-level spiritual stuff in high-level scripture. Are we truly meeting those people where they need to be met? Which is, I'm also, right?

Yes, I'm drawn to that on some level, but I'm also leading to death emotionally and have been for years. And if, like you're saying, right, if people at the church don't know how to connect with them on emotional level, don't know how to tell a little bit about the truth of themselves, right, first to get them to really connect and say, wow, I don't know what it is, but Amy really has a presence, right? Like at the restaurant. Right.

Let's empower all of our congregation to do that, so that when new people come in, we're meeting them wherever they need. If they need to flow to a spiritual conversation, we got you. If they want to talk scripture, we got you. But if they want to talk about, you know, I don't know if my partner is dead or alive out there, or whatever, fill in the blank with emotional pain and trauma.

If we don't know how to flow there, are we really going to get that person to feel comfortable and heard and met where they need to be met at that part? Absolutely. And I think that's where grief recovery, you know, again, unbiased in any setting, whether it's a 12-step setting or a church or a, you know, therapist's office, if we know how to have these tools, we're going to be able to flow to where a lot of people need to be met, which is, I'm bleeding to death emotionally, do you have anything for me? Absolutely, yes.

And then we don't say all the unhelpful things too that we can do so poorly. Like, well, God is sovereign. Just trust God, you know, and those things that can be intellectually true, but are not helping the bleeding of their heart that isn't so much pain. And so, like I said, it's just that two-fold of us also learning how to better speak to and handle these broken hearts in an authentic way that's not going to do more damage by saying unhelpful things.

Yep, yep. And again, right, all these things, right, that out of the Bible, they are need to be absorbed by Christians, they need to be read. And all that is good, but timing, I think, is the thing, right? One in where we are kind of doing that, I think, is where sometimes we miss.

Well, Paul says he became all things to all people, you know, and there were times, he never lessened the gospel of Jesus Christ. He said, I know nothing but Christ's in crucified. That was never an issue. But when he went into the Athens and he needed to talk to them about their pagan gods and their things, he met them where they were in their intellectual place of where they were and he came in from that angle when he was talking to them.

Because he knew that was the