WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the Gravity podcast where we host conversations on developing a Christian spirituality rooted in love the Foster's resilient faith in everyday life.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Here we are once again on the Gravity Commons podcast.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I'm joined today by Christy.
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[SPEAKER_03]: We got rid of Ben.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Christy, what'd you do to me?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where he is, but I'm sure he'll be back next week.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I think he will be back next week.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Ben has a constellation of antipathes that need, you know, maintenance and check-ins and so probably he's doing something like that, you know, it's either... No, he's doing something very important.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you think so?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I believe.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Let's go with that.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's the most charitable way to describe his absence.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe next week, you can give a counting for himself.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Christy, you were telling me about.
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[SPEAKER_03]: you're building a p-shet.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She said no.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So here's the deal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It has been the secret, but we are pre-recording this intro and it's going to come out on Tuesday and then it won't be a secret so I can tell all of you people.
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[SPEAKER_00]: My husband's been in Africa for the last two weeks and we had this
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[SPEAKER_00]: She said, which I called it, she said, because in over COVID, it was like my office.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I took everything out of there, all, and by now it's like junk.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's like all the kids toys, all the mics all the time.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Can I get, yeah, can I get the listener just to image?
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[SPEAKER_03]: It's, it's basically a backyard barn.
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[SPEAKER_03]: It's a backyard little.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's very small.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like, like, my nine feet by nine feet or something.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I ripped out the car.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I took everything out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I ripped out the carpeting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I ripped out the ceiling because it does look like a barn in the sense of those rafters and stuff.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So there was a exposed just wood.
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[SPEAKER_00]: glasses in and it's his father's day present and he's going to get it on Sunday.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And he doesn't know this is happening.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He has, oh, oh, my favorite, my favorite moment was that I actually brought out electrician and he brought electricity to it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I did not want to pay the $600 that the electrician was going to actually put the wires in the like the sockets and the lights which I'm like, no, I can figure that out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I did.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I felt very proud of myself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it even has electricity.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Did you like watch a YouTube video?
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[SPEAKER_00]: asked a friend and he was like, okay, the black goes to the yellow, black and yellow, black and yellow, he's like saying this song.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so then I did, I wired like the black wire to the golden.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, I, we did it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't believe it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, wow.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, I'm excited to show it to him.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Well, last time Paul and I hung out was, um,
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[SPEAKER_03]: earlier this year on my sabbatical and he was telling me about this dream he had to build.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I think he called it whiskey and leather.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted a whiskey and leather room and then before he went to Africa we had a whole conversation about let's not spend thousands and thousands of dollars building a new shed let's just use the old shed that we had and he was like it will never work Christy and look at I made it work.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Oh man did you enjoy this project was this like fun for you or was it like a bird and you just needed to get it done But you will appreciate the gift it is to Paul.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Like did you enjoy the process as much as you enjoy the description bowl and it was fun.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was both.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's both.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't spend that kind of money
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[SPEAKER_00]: without Paul and I like talk about all the things.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So that felt a little stressful.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like to bring an electrician and bring some electricity there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was a lot of money.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hence why I was trying to save the 600 bucks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So that part was stressful, but overall it was fun.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so it would be like that.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Well, he was, you know, I tried to pull out of him his timetable for this thing and he was like, this is just a dream right now, like, you know, because, and he told me how much electricity would cost and everything else.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So will you, like, record a video of him when he sees it, get one of the kids, maybe to do it or something.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right, right, right, right.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I think it would be cool to see the moment
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the thing is that it looks the same from the outside right now, so like the only way he's going to know that it's not bikes and junk in there is if he actually opened the door and went in and saw all the things so have you have you planned out how you're going to get him to open the door?
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[SPEAKER_00]: No, I need no, I need like help.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So if you have any suggestions.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Well, sometimes you sometimes you and your children are outdoor people, you
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[SPEAKER_03]: So maybe like there's some on under the auspices of being in the backyard, maybe Paul's grilling on Sunday or maybe, you know, something like that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Tell him that you need something from the shed that is too heavy for you to lift.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And that's if you'll go get it.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And then wow, this back start.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, you can all sneak up on him like gather around.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's a great idea.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it was a lot of work.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I bet.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I bet it was.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But it's done.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I should take a picture.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I'll send you a picture.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Who would that be cool?
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I want to see it.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I want to see it.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And then next time I'm there, I want to sit on it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you will.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have an air purifier.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have an exhaust fan.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I did all the things to make sure he could smoke a cigar in there.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So that's incredible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, look at you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see.
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[SPEAKER_03]: And it was super hot this week, and you sold it out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing it in four degrees yesterday, y'all.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was nuts.
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[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's interesting.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We had crazy storms here yesterday, but you had record temps.
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[SPEAKER_03]: We had like tornadoes touching down and all kinds of.
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[SPEAKER_03]: wild things happening.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So there's a wild weather day in the states yesterday.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we should maybe get into this chat we had with Rob Pixon because it was it was productive and jovial.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he's a good guy.
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[SPEAKER_03]: He is.
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[SPEAKER_03]: He's the author of Together in Ministry, women and men in flourishing partnerships and the co-author with his wife Amy of the picture book Penny Preaches.
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[SPEAKER_03]: In addition to serving on inter varsity Christian fellowship staff for almost 30 years, he teaches at four theological seminary and fresco Pacific University.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Today, we're chatting with him about his latest book, allies in ministry how men can support women in God's mission.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Let's get into it with Rob.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Rob, welcome back to the Gravity Commons podcast.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, good to be here.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for having me.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Um, well, Rob, I, you seem to write about men and women in ministry a lot.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Um, which is great, which is great.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, this is, um, one of the reasons why we like talking to you.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Um, would you share a bit of your story with us?
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[SPEAKER_03]: Um, how did that become an area of particular interest or concern for you?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, thanks for having me in good observation mat.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, this is my lane.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think at this point, I'm comfortable saying.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When you get to a point, you sort of look back and you can see how God was sort of working and putting the pieces together to get you where you are.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, I think it started, I mean, what's your foundations?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What's your sovereign foundations to you as a term, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, that was growing up in a home that valued women, women,
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[SPEAKER_01]: carried a lot of the spiritual freight in my house growing up as part of a church growing up where women could lead and serve and they weren't perfect but women could preach and things like that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Then I got to ministry, my 30th year of ministry this year and there's a lot of change that happens in ministry but one through line for me is I've always worked with women so I've been supervised by women multiple times, I've supervised women women as partners and peers and various configurations and all the way through
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think I've had this curiosity, are we doing this well?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Can we be doing this better as we partner together as women and men?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe I'll tell a specific story of a moment that really galvanized me from this posture of having, I have a value for women in leadership to a conviction about women in leadership.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's a pivot that needs to happen there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So the story is at one point, I was,
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was meeting with a student who had been invested in by my wife, Amy, the year prior.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So when we had up and coming leaders, we assigned them to Amy for mentoring and guidance.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so at that point, we had invested in her to invest in these students.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so she spent a year with him.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And at the end of the year, he said to Amy the thing that all ministers long to hear.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, I've grown more this year under your leadership than in any year prior in my life with God.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's like the quote that you put on the board for when ministry days are hard, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Fast forward a few months, I'm sitting with the same student.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He's telling me about his conversion to complementary theology, which is a more restrictive view of women in men in ministry.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm asking him lots of questions.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He's telling me about his journey.
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[SPEAKER_01]: At the end of the conversation, I asked him the question I've been wanting to ask him since the beginning.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I say, I know what you told Amy last year.
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[SPEAKER_01]: that you grew more under leadership than any your prior and your life with God, and you're so thankful.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to know how you're holding that and light of what you're expressing about your theology.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He takes a second, thinks it over, looks at me and he says that was God using Amy in spite of her disobedience.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a moment for me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, a lot of things going on in my head in that moment, including wanting to smack them in the head.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I think for me, that was a galvanizing moment of shifting from, yeah, this is important.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, women should lead to, yeah, we're going to do something about this and have a conviction about this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to act and response to this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think you can draw a fuel line from kind of that moment in moments like that to the books that I've been out in the world today.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, long answer, but that's a story there, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I'm still regulating myself from that story.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Man, well, you use the word ally early on in your book.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And you talk about this male ally ship in relationship to women in ministry.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Can you unpack that a bit for us?
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[SPEAKER_00]: What do you mean by that?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I like the term ally.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's, I mean, it's not without baggage.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Most terms are, so it needs definition, and you'll find that in the first chapter of my book.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For me, I like the term ally because I think I view it as a broad term, like an umbrella term.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And there are different ally ship behaviors, or,
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[SPEAKER_01]: or roles that fit underneath that umbrella, if that makes sense.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's one author, I quote this in the book, where she's identified seven different roles that allies play, sponsor, champion, advocate, but then also scholar, confidant, there's seven different roles upstander.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's seven different roles that allies play.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I sort of like the diversity of that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's not one size fits all.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think the task for an ally is to discern
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[SPEAKER_01]: maybe even in real time, what's the right role to play here?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And actually, what's the right role that fits me?
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[SPEAKER_01]: If who I am and my temperament and things like that, so there's diversity within that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So for that reason, I like that term ally.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and you have four key concepts of ally ship, privilege and empathy and internal development, like all of these, can you just pick one, give us a story
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, allies are understanding their privilege, their with empathy moving to make change both at two levels, the interpersonal level, then the systemic level, I think oftentimes one of the things that differentiates allies is it's not just a one-on-one interpersonal, it's actually a systemic advocacy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's one of the key differentiators there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think for me, I'm probably most comfortable.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I just talked about how there's a diversity without within how allies express their allyship and for me I'm most comfortable interpersonally.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to get to know someone, understand their world, ask a bunch of questions, walk in their shoes if I can, and then seek ways within my purview to like sponsor them or advocate for them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and so I try to do that lots of different ways.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was, I'll tell a quick story.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So number of years ago, I got invited to be an MC at a conference.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Great honor to do that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I felt like that conference would be better if there were women and men of front more.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so my question to the organizers would be OK with you if I invite a woman for my networks to co-MC with me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and they were like, we've never done that before, that seems strange.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's lots of complexities to work through who gets the honorary and things like that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We work through all that and, you know, the value add to the conference was significant, I think, and for me,
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[SPEAKER_01]: just way more joyful to work with someone to partner with someone in that way.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one example of your sort of making space as an ally.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to make space for a woman in my network to have an experience that she probably wouldn't have in a different way.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I want to tackle this word privilege, because I think it's a contested, maybe concept, right?
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[SPEAKER_03]: And we hear all kinds of different privilege, there's, you know, white privilege, we hear class privilege, neuro-typical privilege, but this is one of the key concepts of what it means to be an ally.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So, would you help us understand more what you're referring to when you use the word like male privilege?
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a system-atized advantage based on some sort of characteristic, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that's my sort of baseline definition.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So there's to put a colloquially, I like to talk about how the playing field tilts in my favor because I'm a guy, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So things are just easier for me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For example, when I walk in a room, people are more likely, generally, to hear what I have to say, to listen to me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: people defer to me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I get more access to, I mean, when someone's looking for an MC for a conference, they call Rob.
15:18.020 --> 15:21.562
[SPEAKER_01]: They may not call someone, you know, a woman in this case, right?
15:21.602 --> 15:34.450
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's that understanding that the world tilts in my favor because I'm a man and being aware of that, I think that's the first step is awareness and then looking to, for ways to leverage, I'll use that
15:37.913 --> 15:41.996
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is the way of Jesus, which is the way of the cross in a lot of ways, right?
15:42.016 --> 15:45.178
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, a Philippians 2 for me is a core of Philippians 2.
15:45.478 --> 15:48.961
[SPEAKER_01]: The Christ Him there is a core text for me when I think about privilege.
15:49.001 --> 15:50.562
[SPEAKER_01]: What does Jesus do with His privilege?
15:51.242 --> 15:53.664
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't consider equality with God something to be grasped.
15:54.104 --> 15:57.507
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's go of that, is incarnate and then takes the cross, right?
15:57.547 --> 16:01.350
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that's a pretty good model for what it looks like.
16:02.050 --> 16:08.527
[SPEAKER_01]: For what you do when you have privilege is you hold it like this and you use it to plus others.
16:10.208 --> 16:21.273
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's really helpful, Rob, because I think one of the, maybe a couple wrong-headed approaches that people have, because it's uncomfortable to realize that, right?
16:22.033 --> 16:26.935
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's like, well, I didn't ask for this and I didn't try to get this and I'm not a bad person and you know what I mean?
16:26.955 --> 16:27.435
[SPEAKER_02]: All of that.
16:28.196 --> 16:35.039
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think one wrong-headed approach is to pretend it doesn't exist or to minimize its effect.
16:35.079 --> 16:37.540
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, oh, that's not really true or that kind of thing.
16:38.520 --> 16:53.667
[SPEAKER_02]: to internalize it as a indictment against you personally as an individual and feel like you have to defend yourself against it and or makes like wish it wasn't there you know and so I like I like what you're saying here that
16:55.092 --> 16:58.714
[SPEAKER_02]: No, the approach is to recognize it is there, and there's nothing you can actually do about it.
16:59.555 --> 17:04.397
[SPEAKER_02]: It's presence, you know, we've grew up in a patriarchal society.
17:04.517 --> 17:05.758
[SPEAKER_02]: We have male privilege.
17:07.459 --> 17:11.381
[SPEAKER_02]: But what we can do, the best thing we can do with it, is to recognize that it's there.
17:11.622 --> 17:19.386
[SPEAKER_02]: And instead of sort of mindlessly trade on it, we can just begin to, I like your word leverage,
17:21.228 --> 17:27.089
[SPEAKER_02]: for the benefit of those who don't enjoy it, as best we can, recognizing that we do have it.
17:27.691 --> 17:29.312
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I've been just to go off that for a second.
17:29.593 --> 17:36.318
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, for me, it's the same question as like all the things that I have on my screen as a person, right?
17:36.338 --> 17:38.560
[SPEAKER_01]: Like everything I have belongs to Jesus.
17:39.060 --> 17:42.343
[SPEAKER_01]: And I get to ask Jesus, or I should ask Jesus, what would you have me do with it all?
17:42.383 --> 17:48.308
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's my car, you know, my future, my bank account, like it all belongs to my privilege.
17:48.368 --> 17:49.489
[SPEAKER_01]: It all belongs to Jesus.
17:49.529 --> 17:54.093
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what would you have me do with this Lord to benefit your people and advance your mission?
17:54.133 --> 17:55.694
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's the core question for people.
17:55.829 --> 17:58.932
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's great.
17:59.632 --> 18:01.474
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, another maybe a related question.
18:02.955 --> 18:10.361
[SPEAKER_02]: So many of us who are men, present company, not fully included, Christy.
18:11.462 --> 18:22.591
[SPEAKER_02]: But if many of us who are men, we've experienced, when we've tried to be allies for women, or allies of women, we've experienced pushback for trying to do that.
18:23.332 --> 18:23.532
[SPEAKER_02]: And,
18:25.557 --> 18:36.166
[SPEAKER_02]: you talk a little bit about this in your book of framing that is not only unavoidable, but also perhaps necessary for us to endure as we become faithful allies.
18:36.186 --> 18:41.431
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about that, some of the pushback that we get and how does that help us, actually.
18:41.823 --> 18:44.084
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you have pushback, not fun, for sure.
18:44.184 --> 18:56.289
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think I've read about this in the book a little bit Ben, I'm toying with you, I think if you're aspiring to be an ally and you have an experience, some degree of pushback, my question would be, are you doing enough?
18:56.829 --> 18:58.130
[SPEAKER_01]: Or are you being courageous enough?
18:58.150 --> 18:59.891
[SPEAKER_01]: Or are you bold enough in your ally ships?
18:59.951 --> 19:03.452
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it does come with a territory and it's a reality.
19:04.173 --> 19:09.295
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of the places where I think men can opt off the ally ship pathway, because it's just hard.
19:09.915 --> 19:18.783
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to be sort of publicly, sometimes or even privately, you know, have someone treat you poorly or judge you harshly or whatever.
19:18.803 --> 19:20.244
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's just a challenge, right?
19:20.324 --> 19:23.127
[SPEAKER_01]: So pushing through that, I think, is a core competency.
19:23.687 --> 19:26.690
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a core part of the development of an ally identity.
19:27.571 --> 19:28.912
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give a quick story from the book.
19:28.972 --> 19:30.833
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a younger staff.
19:30.853 --> 19:32.054
[SPEAKER_01]: I was mentioning for a long time.
19:32.715 --> 19:42.118
[SPEAKER_01]: He had some convictions about women in the ministry and wanted to be an ally, found himself in a meeting where they were planning, which would come and speak at an event.
19:42.838 --> 19:44.978
[SPEAKER_01]: And all the names that went on the whiteboard were male names.
19:45.118 --> 19:48.519
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he's sitting in this room thinking, Lord, is this my moment?
19:48.599 --> 19:49.400
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this my moment?
19:49.980 --> 19:51.440
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, he felt like it was.
19:52.120 --> 19:53.621
[SPEAKER_01]: So he blurred it out.
19:53.641 --> 19:56.102
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it was super eloquent, but he sort of got it out there.
19:56.122 --> 19:57.582
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, could we put a woman on the list?
19:58.685 --> 20:00.807
[SPEAKER_01]: and it was the most awkward moment of his life.
20:00.927 --> 20:05.971
[SPEAKER_01]: I think to that point, it was like, some people said something, mumbled something, someone said, well, we don't really do that.
20:06.371 --> 20:09.994
[SPEAKER_01]: But then it was mute, awkward, and then the leader just moved on with the meeting.
20:10.555 --> 20:19.282
[SPEAKER_01]: And for him, it was this kind of, to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, kind of moment when he came back and we met, and he was like, this was really hard.
20:19.302 --> 20:24.407
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt un- Listen to, no one responded to me, like it was awkward.
20:25.047 --> 20:28.108
[SPEAKER_01]: And so to his credit, I mean, we worked this through and he went and tried it again.
20:28.128 --> 20:30.968
[SPEAKER_01]: So he went for another round and it didn't end up happening.
20:30.988 --> 20:37.370
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think that process of working through pushback and moving ahead anyway was really formational for him.
20:37.770 --> 20:42.991
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like a stage six or seven to use my language, my book ally at this point moving ahead.
20:43.072 --> 20:44.812
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was a galvanizing experience for him.
20:45.968 --> 21:00.997
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's fascinating from a women's perspective to when I see men doing that, even if nothing changes, even if it's kind of ignored or there's something in me that is like, thank you.
21:01.517 --> 21:02.918
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for trying.
21:03.058 --> 21:06.060
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for, like, speaking up or saying something.
21:06.120 --> 21:18.208
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, which is good for me to just hear that, to be able to go back to some men and be like, hey, thanks for, thanks for putting your neck out there, even if, you know, whatever.
21:18.228 --> 21:20.630
[SPEAKER_00]: Go ahead.
21:20.830 --> 21:25.173
[SPEAKER_02]: I suppose, as closely we don't know, even, like, maybe no women got on the speaker
21:26.394 --> 21:28.455
[SPEAKER_02]: But who knows what else changed, you know?
21:28.535 --> 21:28.775
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
21:28.995 --> 21:31.257
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe nobody's ever heard that brought up before.
21:31.277 --> 21:32.737
[SPEAKER_02]: And now that's the lens they see.
21:33.298 --> 21:34.318
[SPEAKER_02]: They see a lot of things through.
21:34.338 --> 21:37.060
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like, oh, I haven't really ever thought about that.
21:37.340 --> 21:37.460
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
21:37.500 --> 21:41.782
[SPEAKER_02]: I wonder why I don't think of women coming to speak at our institution.
21:41.922 --> 21:42.883
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
21:43.183 --> 21:47.185
[SPEAKER_01]: I like to hope for that Ben, but I think the biggest thing that changed that moment was for my friend.
21:47.626 --> 21:48.106
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
21:48.266 --> 21:48.566
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
21:48.646 --> 21:51.308
[SPEAKER_01]: And because I think all of a sudden, he's put his convictions on the line.
21:51.548 --> 21:51.768
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
21:51.948 --> 21:53.289
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's something informational in that.
21:53.349 --> 21:53.489
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
21:53.769 --> 21:53.929
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
21:58.542 --> 22:04.503
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, another concept that you name that I think is really helpful, you call it disruptive encounters.
22:04.823 --> 22:13.105
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's this kind of experience that disorients and challenges it causes friction in our meaning-making system of the world.
22:14.245 --> 22:17.606
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of us find these threatening and negative, right?
22:18.406 --> 22:22.787
[SPEAKER_00]: But you have more of a transformative vision of how they function in ally ship.
22:22.867 --> 22:26.348
[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder, can you double-click on that for us a little bit?
22:26.699 --> 22:26.879
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
22:27.339 --> 22:28.500
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Christy, I like how you put it.
22:28.540 --> 22:28.800
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
22:28.820 --> 22:33.601
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I try to, I try to be a dissonance as an opportunity to grow and develop.
22:35.241 --> 22:39.603
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we tend our first impulses to dismiss dissonance or to get through it as quickly as possible.
22:39.663 --> 22:44.304
[SPEAKER_01]: But is it possible that dissonance is actually a fertile ground for Jesus to work?
22:45.104 --> 22:49.167
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's, I mean, you think of Paul, the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus.
22:49.227 --> 22:53.229
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that is the dissonant moment of his life and what ends up happening, right?
22:53.269 --> 22:59.453
[SPEAKER_01]: He finds himself in a community that empowers him becomes the Paul we know in the, in the, in the epistle.
22:59.513 --> 23:02.575
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think dissonance, the word on the street is it's not good.
23:02.595 --> 23:08.759
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to get rid of it, have an allergy to dissonance, but the reality is it can be a really vibrant place of growth and development.
23:08.779 --> 23:11.321
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think for male allies, certainly true.
23:12.521 --> 23:19.965
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like pushback is the second place where men can opt off the pathway because they don't want to go through that or it's too much.
23:19.985 --> 23:33.511
[SPEAKER_01]: That is one downside, but for the most part, when I see men walk through that disruptive encounter stage or phase, it's really powerful to watch because it can ultimately transform their worldview.
23:33.531 --> 23:34.632
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it takes more than one,
23:35.212 --> 23:36.754
[SPEAKER_01]: sort of disruptive encounter, right?
23:37.154 --> 23:39.597
[SPEAKER_01]: But it can reorient their life.
23:39.637 --> 23:44.602
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of a sudden, we talked about privilege a minute ago, okay, I can see it now.
23:44.682 --> 23:47.925
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like your in water, you can't see, you don't know that your in water.
23:48.245 --> 23:51.188
[SPEAKER_01]: But now all of a sudden, you're like aware of what's going on around you.
23:51.208 --> 23:52.230
[SPEAKER_01]: You see the world differently.
23:52.270 --> 23:52.730
[SPEAKER_01]: It's super.
23:52.790 --> 23:57.315
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost breathtaking for me to watch people walk through that part of the process.
23:58.075 --> 24:15.490
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think I'm thinking of like pushback and stripped of encounters as like that there we have a lot of psychological defense mechanisms when we find out that we're wrong When our good motives are intent isn't valued or foregrounded, right?
24:15.530 --> 24:18.552
[SPEAKER_03]: Somebody's talking about our impact and But you don't know my heart.
24:18.572 --> 24:20.053
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't know what I intended
24:20.974 --> 24:28.640
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and I think a lot of what you're naming to become an ally, Rob, is that you, I mean, sometimes we call it emotional intelligence.
24:29.240 --> 24:30.981
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes we call it metacognition.
24:31.442 --> 24:38.246
[SPEAKER_03]: We have to be able to have a modicum of distance to be able to look at ourselves, look at our life.
24:39.828 --> 24:43.010
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, be curious about psychological defense mechanisms.
24:43.850 --> 24:44.871
[SPEAKER_03]: So they don't run our life.
24:45.351 --> 24:46.051
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's right.
24:46.071 --> 24:56.298
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and I don't know honestly, I don't know how we, there's just some people that seem unwilling or incapable of doing that.
24:58.290 --> 25:15.880
[SPEAKER_03]: have you had any luck have you have you have you made any headway and helping people become the kinds of people who are able to do this work when maybe they they aren't pretty disposed to do it yeah yeah that's a great question I mean I don't know of any solution to that map other than to keep
25:16.745 --> 25:20.248
[SPEAKER_01]: keep presenting the dissonance or to keep putting.
25:20.609 --> 25:28.276
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I have a student, let's say I work with college students in my ministry, let's say I have a student that doesn't seem to get it, doesn't want to get it, isn't willing to get it.
25:28.596 --> 25:33.140
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're still around, they haven't left yet, in other words, and found a different community to be a part of.
25:33.761 --> 25:40.667
[SPEAKER_01]: I think my commitment is let's just keep leading that person into places of displacement.
25:41.328 --> 25:53.877
[SPEAKER_01]: into places that will challenge their worldview and hope that at some point something cracks or something breaks or something, there's a moment where they're caused to go, well, wait a second actually, right?
25:53.957 --> 25:57.859
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know if a different way to do it, other than just keep at it, right?
25:57.879 --> 26:01.322
[SPEAKER_01]: So as long as someone's willing to be in community with me,
26:01.882 --> 26:07.827
[SPEAKER_01]: and a part of the community that I'm leading or a part of, I'm just going to try to be faithful to leading him into that place.
26:07.907 --> 26:12.331
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes that means I'm saying things to them, sometimes that, hey, come with me, let's go.
26:12.351 --> 26:14.573
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a woman pastor preaching at the church or whatever.
26:14.913 --> 26:17.315
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just trying to create those distant moments.
26:17.856 --> 26:20.518
[SPEAKER_01]: I think sometimes disruptive encounters just happen.
26:21.359 --> 26:24.922
[SPEAKER_01]: But one of the points I try to make in the book is we can actually be proactive about them.
26:25.735 --> 26:38.004
[SPEAKER_01]: and the church can think about what's a disruptive encounter I can create for young men here that will try the shape, the tree, and create an environment where they feel dissonance and can grow out of that, right?
26:38.064 --> 26:44.449
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, being proactive and intentional about that, I think is my best answer to your really good question.
26:44.709 --> 26:47.251
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that will maybe one other thing to say too, that
26:51.053 --> 26:58.418
[SPEAKER_01]: That patriarchy, you use somebody who's that word earlier, that's a spiritual stronghold that grips the church and has for generations.
26:58.538 --> 27:07.565
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we should be praying about that and we should be praying that men can think outside of that construct and move towards wholeness and healing, right?
27:07.605 --> 27:14.429
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think, yeah, that intentional sort of creating disruptive encounters and then praying for guys as they enter into them, most of the two things I would be doing.
27:14.970 --> 27:15.210
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
27:17.517 --> 27:17.657
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
27:17.998 --> 27:21.328
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I was going to just point out, yeah, I do have a question.
27:22.752 --> 27:25.240
[SPEAKER_02]: I, you know, sometimes, um,
27:26.801 --> 27:46.927
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we've learned to read the scriptures in such a way that we don't necessarily see sometimes some of the examples of what we like male ally ship, obviously that's a very newfangled concept, you know, that's a new word and I think sometimes the pushback that I've heard from people who value the scriptures and they value, you know,
27:48.167 --> 28:12.082
[SPEAKER_02]: faith is just like is this just kind of newfangled kind of cultural like political correctness I guess people might use that word as much anymore but you know but you know in this book you you talk about you ground this in examples from scripture and so and you mentioned earlier that you know part of following Jesus is sort of offering all of that we have you know
28:17.046 --> 28:21.104
[SPEAKER_02]: to just and share how these figures or stories teach us to be allies.
28:21.718 --> 28:22.758
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure, thanks, Ben.
28:22.818 --> 28:26.340
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, the Sunday school answer would be Jesus, right?
28:26.400 --> 28:29.581
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, to look at Jesus and the life of Jesus and how Jesus has been wrapped with them.
28:30.101 --> 28:30.782
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a good answer.
28:31.022 --> 28:34.263
[SPEAKER_01]: You never on bad footing if you're talking about Jesus, right?
28:34.643 --> 28:49.909
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, but to look at every encounter with Jesus in the gospels, where he's interacting with a woman, I mean, there's lots of quotes I could marshal here, but I remember one of them, I think it's Walter Wink says, he's violating the social customs or moreays of his time in every single encounter recorded with women in the gospels.
28:50.389 --> 28:52.650
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's something he's doing that's out of order.
28:53.330 --> 29:00.191
[SPEAKER_01]: So to speak, and in the most patriarchal of ages, Jesus is transgressing the culture in some form of fashion each time he does that, right?
29:00.231 --> 29:07.053
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I talked earlier about the different hats that allies wear, and you can find Jesus wearing all of those hats.
29:07.953 --> 29:09.754
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Jesus didn't have the language of allyship.
29:09.774 --> 29:11.114
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't use the language of allyship.
29:11.134 --> 29:13.374
[SPEAKER_01]: But you didn't talk about, oh, I'm an upstander now.
29:13.674 --> 29:14.575
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you didn't do that.
29:14.655 --> 29:19.296
[SPEAKER_01]: But you can sort of use that term and look back at the story of Jesus
29:20.356 --> 29:21.477
[SPEAKER_01]: all of those things, right?
29:21.617 --> 29:25.159
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, folks read it, it's chapter four in my book.
29:25.179 --> 29:26.520
[SPEAKER_01]: You look at Jesus as an ally.
29:26.900 --> 29:32.023
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the other story I would tell Ben is, is Boaz, and the Old Testament, right?
29:32.123 --> 29:33.584
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, you go all the way back.
29:33.644 --> 29:37.386
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the OG kind of male ally, I think would be Boaz in a lot of ways.
29:38.086 --> 29:43.910
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he's um, functioning in multiple levels with Ruth as an ally, and then we as an ally, right?
29:43.970 --> 29:47.033
[SPEAKER_01]: So for one thing, he's saying, glean in my fields.
29:47.093 --> 29:54.037
[SPEAKER_01]: That's commanded in the description, the Old Testament law, but he's saying, I'm going to go step further until the men not to harass you and to protect you.
29:54.178 --> 29:56.079
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, that's ally ship right there.
29:56.099 --> 29:58.401
[SPEAKER_01]: And then of course, you know, the Kinsman Redeemer.
29:59.541 --> 30:04.263
[SPEAKER_01]: choice to make that he makes in that in that book is also an example of what it means to be an ally.
30:04.283 --> 30:07.464
[SPEAKER_01]: So I I mean, I think bow as flowing all the way through.
30:07.484 --> 30:10.926
[SPEAKER_01]: There's probably some Old Testament examples, but more Jesus, Paul, Peter.
30:10.946 --> 30:16.628
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you've got examples of ally ship from all of those guys in the most patriarchal of settings.
30:16.968 --> 30:17.689
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's right.
30:19.208 --> 30:27.092
[SPEAKER_00]: Rob, you know, I've certainly been in church systems that have not supported women being fully empowered and trusted in ministry.
30:27.392 --> 30:30.153
[SPEAKER_00]: I know Matt and Ben have also been in situations like that.
30:31.414 --> 30:41.359
[SPEAKER_00]: And our listeners, there's lots of listeners that not only have been, but maybe find themselves currently in church systems like that where Mel, L.I.
30:41.399 --> 30:42.379
[SPEAKER_00]: Ship, isn't valued.
30:42.659 --> 30:43.820
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe even
30:44.403 --> 30:46.344
[SPEAKER_00]: seen as a threat.
30:46.864 --> 31:01.292
[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder if you could speak just a little bit about what have you learned is valuable or helpful to do in those situations and how do you discern whether or not to stay to work on change or to leave because the system is harming women.
31:01.612 --> 31:03.033
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, great question, Christy.
31:03.374 --> 31:04.214
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I am.
31:04.395 --> 31:08.999
[SPEAKER_01]: I get that question a lot mostly from women that are like, hey, I'm in this system.
31:09.179 --> 31:15.524
[SPEAKER_01]: It's limits my ability to express my calling and my giftings, what I do, but also from men.
31:15.604 --> 31:16.705
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think a couple things.
31:16.865 --> 31:20.649
[SPEAKER_01]: One is, I think the question is, is Jesus calling you to stay?
31:21.778 --> 31:32.911
[SPEAKER_01]: may sound right as a question, but I think it's a real, it's a legitimate, it's the question that needs to be asked, is Jesus calling you to stay and to be prophetic and to try to bring change within your system?
31:33.211 --> 31:42.422
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a totally legitimate way to go, and if the answer to the question is yes, that Jesus calling you to stay, then my question then is, well, what do you need to stay and be healthy?
31:44.142 --> 31:54.805
[SPEAKER_01]: How can the community come around you and support you and what do you need so that you can endure when things are hard and when you run into the power structures that would keep you from expressing.
31:55.145 --> 31:57.266
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one category.
31:57.286 --> 32:07.349
[SPEAKER_01]: If the answer to the question is no, then I think the question for someone like me as a colleague or as a peer or as a someone in their community is, well, how do I help you leave well?
32:08.429 --> 32:23.698
[SPEAKER_01]: and and walk with you on that journey because that's not an easy journey either, especially I'm thinking of a friend of mine who was a part of a church, you know, for generations in her family, like her, her great grandparents were buried in the church graveyard, and all of this chance she's feeling like she needs to leave.
32:23.738 --> 32:25.319
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a really hard thing to do.
32:26.019 --> 32:29.781
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, I think ultimately what's she's saying?
32:30.222 --> 32:32.003
[SPEAKER_01]: And then what what is the community?
32:32.043 --> 32:35.065
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you need from the community in order to either stay or leave?
32:35.145 --> 32:35.965
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, those would be the
32:37.888 --> 32:38.289
[SPEAKER_00]: That's good.
32:38.429 --> 32:38.949
[SPEAKER_00]: That's helpful.
32:39.170 --> 32:39.370
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
32:39.550 --> 32:41.352
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
32:41.913 --> 32:45.197
[SPEAKER_03]: A recipe for misery is to try to change people who don't want to change.
32:45.498 --> 32:45.778
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
32:46.439 --> 32:49.923
[SPEAKER_03]: It really can be, I can, you can wear yourself out.
32:50.744 --> 32:52.847
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, Rob, this has been wonderful.
32:54.489 --> 33:08.135
[SPEAKER_03]: there's there's so much of your like experience and wisdom in this book along with like you like your name like rooting it in scripture how how often I mean almost almost every encounter that Jesus has with women.
33:09.196 --> 33:19.960
[SPEAKER_03]: I I need to teach you I need to like write something up about this but like he there's a there's a same you use word leveraging and Jesus does the same leveraging of
33:22.343 --> 33:42.008
[SPEAKER_03]: on to their benefit so that they accrue social honor that he could have claimed, but he and that's kind of akin to, hey, can I ask a female friend to help me see this event?
33:42.368 --> 33:51.050
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a giving access to resources or power that otherwise they wouldn't have access to.
33:52.850 --> 33:58.253
[SPEAKER_03]: And I wonder as we close, like you are naming, I think one of the ways that love works.
33:58.314 --> 34:02.336
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Ben and I wrote about this love always records with power, God's love and always records with power.
34:03.777 --> 34:12.741
[SPEAKER_03]: But this call to be an ally, it places demands on how we embody power and authority.
34:13.102 --> 34:14.943
[SPEAKER_03]: And sometimes that can be challenging for us.
34:15.003 --> 34:18.485
[SPEAKER_03]: So what if you learned maybe about
34:19.205 --> 34:23.506
[SPEAKER_03]: what this requires in terms of how we carry power as you've sought to be an ally for women.
34:24.126 --> 34:25.026
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love that question.
34:26.507 --> 34:34.929
[SPEAKER_01]: I've yet to meet a community that talks too much about power, by the way, like the kind of the question of like what's your philosophy or theology on power?
34:34.969 --> 34:39.190
[SPEAKER_01]: I think is a really great question for a church community to wrestle with and think about together.
34:39.550 --> 34:46.311
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I think for me that I mentioned earlier, Philippians 1, and Jesus is sort of choice,
34:49.912 --> 34:59.536
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the journey I want to be on my whole life, and to choose into allyship is to follow Jesus on that road, and that can mean a loss of power.
34:59.596 --> 35:05.499
[SPEAKER_01]: It can mean less prestige, but that is to my benefit as a guy.
35:06.499 --> 35:10.121
[SPEAKER_01]: That is to that benefits my formation.
35:10.801 --> 35:17.683
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm more Christ-like, I think, when I hold power like this as opposed to holding power, you know, with a clenched fist, right?
35:17.803 --> 35:28.025
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I think that's to my benefit, and I'm long for the men in my life to make that journey with me, and the men that I work with, I think all guys need to make that journey.
35:28.445 --> 35:28.945
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard.
35:29.425 --> 35:38.588
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think there's a there's a writer named Karen Katlin, she's written a book called Better Allies, which is to me, just a wonderful writing on this from a secular perspective, but she
35:40.648 --> 35:41.388
[SPEAKER_01]: and shining armor.
35:42.029 --> 35:53.836
[SPEAKER_01]: And her thing is, nights and shining armor come in, swoop in, save the day, the glory goes to the night, and you write off into the sunset with your, you know, damsel and distress, or whatever the metaphor is.
35:54.796 --> 35:56.097
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what we're looking for here.
35:57.098 --> 35:59.239
[SPEAKER_01]: In that metaphor, the night keeps the power.
35:59.599 --> 36:05.503
[SPEAKER_01]: We're looking for an ally who will consistently come alongside a marginalized group in this case women and say,
36:06.183 --> 36:11.150
[SPEAKER_01]: The power I have is yours and let's use it together to be a blessing to the community.
36:11.190 --> 36:14.115
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I think it's a it's a formation of journey for guys.
36:15.482 --> 36:18.905
[SPEAKER_03]: 100 percent 100 percent.
36:19.546 --> 36:40.442
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was recently hanging out with from United Methodist pastors and after the week-long workshop was over, I had lunch with a woman who was a pastor and she was talking about how often, I don't know Christy if I told you the story at how often, after she preaches, a guy will come up to her
36:43.800 --> 37:01.332
[SPEAKER_03]: oh yeah that's right place places hand on their shoulder and she says I and she says the other guys in the church when they preach they never receive any remorse or or compliments about their outfit and she said I I get touched and
37:02.585 --> 37:06.949
[SPEAKER_03]: and I get compliments about why I outfit all the time.
37:07.789 --> 37:10.452
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think, I think it was an awareness.
37:10.612 --> 37:21.061
[SPEAKER_03]: So there is like a power thing, like, I'm a touchy person, and I've learned to like ask for consent before I touch people, is it okay if I put my hand on your shoulder?
37:21.781 --> 37:24.543
[SPEAKER_03]: Even that sometimes it can be hard for like as a pastor.
37:24.563 --> 37:26.405
[SPEAKER_03]: I won't for a woman to say no to a pastor.
37:26.425 --> 37:28.847
[SPEAKER_03]: That can be difficult for them to do that.
37:30.148 --> 37:41.875
[SPEAKER_03]: maybe and maybe it has nothing to do with me, maybe it has to do with the way they've been harmed in the past or if they don't feel like they're would be, they can, you know, they don't want to create friction or conflict.
37:41.955 --> 37:46.377
[SPEAKER_03]: So they just say, yes, so I'm learning that like do you become an ally?
37:46.397 --> 37:51.540
[SPEAKER_03]: Isn't like you don't get a card in the mail that just, you know, where you're verified.
37:51.600 --> 37:53.602
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's like this ongoing learning.
37:54.822 --> 37:55.403
[SPEAKER_03]: throughout life.
37:55.543 --> 38:11.170
[SPEAKER_03]: And I feel like your book and the other books you've written really help us to engage in that journey, not just as a good idea, but as a part of our sanctification, as a part of our becoming more like Jesus and growing in the fruit of the Spirit.
38:11.250 --> 38:13.191
[SPEAKER_03]: So thanks, Rob.
38:13.623 --> 38:13.883
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
38:14.523 --> 38:14.823
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
38:15.023 --> 38:15.963
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen to all that Mackice.
38:15.983 --> 38:16.744
[SPEAKER_01]: That one quick thing.
38:17.104 --> 38:17.324
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
38:17.604 --> 38:23.545
[SPEAKER_01]: It is about sanctification, development as an ally, but it's also about, I think the expansion of the mission.
38:24.165 --> 38:31.026
[SPEAKER_01]: Reality is if I don't cause the woman you're mentioning there to feel awkward, you know, this is weird.
38:31.066 --> 38:32.306
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels unsafe here.
38:32.766 --> 38:38.087
[SPEAKER_01]: She's able to lead out of her gifting and her passion and her calling in a
38:41.908 --> 38:43.328
[SPEAKER_01]: We need that for the mission of God.
38:43.348 --> 38:50.110
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we've been trying to do God's mission with half the team in some ways relegated in the bench and it's time to change that up, right?
38:50.150 --> 38:54.871
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think choosing to be an alley doing no first doing no harm, which is the story you're telling there.
38:54.931 --> 38:59.652
[SPEAKER_01]: I think is a great way to create safe space for women to be who they are.
38:59.812 --> 39:02.473
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what the church desperately needs unto me.
39:02.493 --> 39:02.673
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
39:03.373 --> 39:09.415
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, what a gift it would be if the church became known as a place that was safe and healthy and good for women.
39:10.115 --> 39:10.555
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe so.
39:11.771 --> 39:14.115
[SPEAKER_03]: The book again is called allies in ministry.
39:14.515 --> 39:17.440
[SPEAKER_03]: How men can support women in God's mission.
39:17.661 --> 39:19.323
[SPEAKER_03]: Rob, thanks so much for being our guest today.
39:19.804 --> 39:20.345
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for having me.
39:27.357 --> 39:30.418
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Gravity Podcast.
39:30.458 --> 39:32.399
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39:32.719 --> 39:35.020
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39:35.620 --> 39:41.922
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39:42.503 --> 39:46.724
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39:46.844 --> 39:54.507
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39:54.967 --> 39:59.291
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39:59.911 --> 40:03.514
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40:03.994 --> 40:06.577
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40:06.657 --> 40:11.361
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40:12.045 --> 40:13.726
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40:14.246 --> 40:21.649
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40:22.129 --> 40:27.011
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40:27.631 --> 40:28.332
[SPEAKER_02]: Catch you next time.
00:08.910 --> 00:17.695
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the Gravity podcast where we host conversations on developing a Christian spirituality rooted in love the Foster's resilient faith in everyday life.
00:27.219 --> 00:30.261
[SPEAKER_03]: Here we are once again on the Gravity Commons podcast.
00:30.661 --> 00:32.722
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm joined today by Christy.
00:32.802 --> 00:34.103
[SPEAKER_03]: We got rid of Ben.
00:34.243 --> 00:35.044
[SPEAKER_03]: Christy, what'd you do to me?
00:37.603 --> 00:40.467
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where he is, but I'm sure he'll be back next week.
00:40.847 --> 00:42.028
[SPEAKER_03]: I think he will be back next week.
00:42.089 --> 00:56.465
[SPEAKER_03]: Ben has a constellation of antipathes that need, you know, maintenance and check-ins and so probably he's doing something like that, you know, it's either... No, he's doing something very important.
00:58.029 --> 00:58.710
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you think so?
00:58.730 --> 00:59.130
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe.
00:59.311 --> 01:00.192
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
01:00.472 --> 01:01.113
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's go with that.
01:01.173 --> 01:03.836
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's the most charitable way to describe his absence.
01:03.876 --> 01:07.480
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe next week, you can give a counting for himself.
01:07.601 --> 01:10.224
[SPEAKER_03]: Christy, you were telling me about.
01:11.745 --> 01:13.166
[SPEAKER_03]: you're building a p-shet.
01:13.966 --> 01:14.646
[SPEAKER_00]: She said no.
01:15.086 --> 01:16.007
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's the deal.
01:16.167 --> 01:25.671
[SPEAKER_00]: It has been the secret, but we are pre-recording this intro and it's going to come out on Tuesday and then it won't be a secret so I can tell all of you people.
01:26.631 --> 01:30.253
[SPEAKER_00]: My husband's been in Africa for the last two weeks and we had this
01:31.173 --> 01:35.874
[SPEAKER_00]: She said, which I called it, she said, because in over COVID, it was like my office.
01:36.314 --> 01:39.875
[SPEAKER_00]: I took everything out of there, all, and by now it's like junk.
01:40.015 --> 01:42.535
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like all the kids toys, all the mics all the time.
01:42.555 --> 01:45.176
[SPEAKER_03]: Can I get, yeah, can I get the listener just to image?
01:45.336 --> 01:47.256
[SPEAKER_03]: It's, it's basically a backyard barn.
01:48.577 --> 01:49.597
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a backyard little.
01:49.617 --> 01:50.597
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very small.
01:50.957 --> 01:55.158
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like, like, my nine feet by nine feet or something.
01:55.465 --> 01:55.645
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
01:56.225 --> 01:57.466
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
01:57.486 --> 01:59.147
[SPEAKER_00]: So I ripped out the car.
01:59.207 --> 02:00.008
[SPEAKER_00]: I took everything out.
02:00.108 --> 02:01.148
[SPEAKER_00]: I ripped out the carpeting.
02:01.288 --> 02:06.691
[SPEAKER_00]: I ripped out the ceiling because it does look like a barn in the sense of those rafters and stuff.
02:06.731 --> 02:09.113
[SPEAKER_00]: So there was a exposed just wood.
02:22.300 --> 02:26.797
[SPEAKER_00]: glasses in and it's his father's day present and he's going to get it on Sunday.
02:27.210 --> 02:28.511
[SPEAKER_03]: And he doesn't know this is happening.
02:29.011 --> 02:36.914
[SPEAKER_00]: He has, oh, oh, my favorite, my favorite moment was that I actually brought out electrician and he brought electricity to it.
02:37.355 --> 02:46.919
[SPEAKER_00]: And I did not want to pay the $600 that the electrician was going to actually put the wires in the like the sockets and the lights which I'm like, no, I can figure that out.
02:47.419 --> 02:48.620
[SPEAKER_00]: And I did.
02:48.980 --> 02:49.320
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
02:49.400 --> 02:50.901
[SPEAKER_00]: I felt very proud of myself.
02:51.381 --> 02:53.322
[SPEAKER_00]: So it even has electricity.
02:53.562 --> 02:55.103
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you like watch a YouTube video?
02:56.076 --> 03:04.024
[SPEAKER_00]: asked a friend and he was like, okay, the black goes to the yellow, black and yellow, black and yellow, he's like saying this song.
03:05.265 --> 03:09.549
[SPEAKER_00]: And so then I did, I wired like the black wire to the golden.
03:10.129 --> 03:11.791
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, I, we did it.
03:11.951 --> 03:12.672
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't believe it.
03:12.892 --> 03:13.512
[SPEAKER_00]: So, wow.
03:13.593 --> 03:14.894
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, I'm excited to show it to him.
03:15.254 --> 03:17.656
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, last time Paul and I hung out was, um,
03:18.608 --> 03:25.154
[SPEAKER_03]: earlier this year on my sabbatical and he was telling me about this dream he had to build.
03:25.194 --> 03:27.736
[SPEAKER_03]: I think he called it whiskey and leather.
03:28.957 --> 03:43.730
[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted a whiskey and leather room and then before he went to Africa we had a whole conversation about let's not spend thousands and thousands of dollars building a new shed let's just use the old shed that we had and he was like it will never work Christy and look at I made it work.
03:47.727 --> 03:57.531
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh man did you enjoy this project was this like fun for you or was it like a bird and you just needed to get it done But you will appreciate the gift it is to Paul.
03:57.551 --> 04:03.293
[SPEAKER_03]: Like did you enjoy the process as much as you enjoy the description bowl and it was fun.
04:03.353 --> 04:03.813
[SPEAKER_00]: It was both.
04:03.953 --> 04:04.533
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's both.
04:05.073 --> 04:06.374
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't spend that kind of money
04:07.494 --> 04:10.397
[SPEAKER_00]: without Paul and I like talk about all the things.
04:10.497 --> 04:12.759
[SPEAKER_00]: So that felt a little stressful.
04:12.839 --> 04:15.441
[SPEAKER_00]: Like to bring an electrician and bring some electricity there.
04:15.481 --> 04:16.462
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a lot of money.
04:16.502 --> 04:16.783
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
04:16.943 --> 04:19.025
[SPEAKER_00]: Hence why I was trying to save the 600 bucks.
04:19.165 --> 04:23.388
[SPEAKER_00]: So that part was stressful, but overall it was fun.
04:23.949 --> 04:24.810
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it would be like that.
04:25.230 --> 04:37.855
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, he was, you know, I tried to pull out of him his timetable for this thing and he was like, this is just a dream right now, like, you know, because, and he told me how much electricity would cost and everything else.
04:37.875 --> 04:46.819
[SPEAKER_03]: So will you, like, record a video of him when he sees it, get one of the kids, maybe to do it or something.
04:46.839 --> 04:48.599
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, right, right, right.
04:48.959 --> 04:51.040
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it would be cool to see the moment
04:53.848 --> 05:09.721
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the thing is that it looks the same from the outside right now, so like the only way he's going to know that it's not bikes and junk in there is if he actually opened the door and went in and saw all the things so have you have you planned out how you're going to get him to open the door?
05:09.821 --> 05:11.943
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I need no, I need like help.
05:12.143 --> 05:13.784
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you have any suggestions.
05:13.824 --> 05:19.289
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, sometimes you sometimes you and your children are outdoor people, you
05:21.510 --> 05:29.052
[SPEAKER_03]: So maybe like there's some on under the auspices of being in the backyard, maybe Paul's grilling on Sunday or maybe, you know, something like that.
05:29.092 --> 05:30.392
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
05:31.233 --> 05:34.773
[SPEAKER_03]: Tell him that you need something from the shed that is too heavy for you to lift.
05:36.094 --> 05:36.314
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
05:36.414 --> 05:37.654
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's if you'll go get it.
05:38.714 --> 05:40.715
[SPEAKER_03]: And then wow, this back start.
05:40.895 --> 05:43.976
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, you can all sneak up on him like gather around.
05:44.056 --> 05:44.996
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a great idea.
05:45.556 --> 05:45.796
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
05:46.336 --> 05:47.597
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
05:47.657 --> 05:49.237
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was a lot of work.
05:50.697 --> 05:51.297
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
05:51.938 --> 05:52.238
[SPEAKER_03]: I bet.
05:52.298 --> 05:54.178
[SPEAKER_03]: I bet it was.
05:54.618 --> 05:55.239
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's done.
05:55.439 --> 05:56.719
[SPEAKER_00]: I should take a picture.
05:56.739 --> 05:58.000
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll send you a picture.
05:58.020 --> 05:58.640
[SPEAKER_03]: Who would that be cool?
05:59.220 --> 05:59.840
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I want to see it.
06:00.140 --> 06:00.641
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to see it.
06:00.741 --> 06:02.761
[SPEAKER_03]: And then next time I'm there, I want to sit on it.
06:03.322 --> 06:03.842
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you will.
06:04.062 --> 06:05.282
[SPEAKER_00]: I have an air purifier.
06:05.302 --> 06:06.723
[SPEAKER_00]: I have an exhaust fan.
06:07.043 --> 06:10.104
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I did all the things to make sure he could smoke a cigar in there.
06:10.324 --> 06:10.884
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
06:11.585 --> 06:12.805
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's incredible.
06:13.923 --> 06:14.724
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, look at you.
06:14.744 --> 06:15.264
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see.
06:15.304 --> 06:18.748
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was super hot this week, and you sold it out.
06:18.768 --> 06:21.771
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing it in four degrees yesterday, y'all.
06:21.911 --> 06:22.772
[SPEAKER_00]: It was nuts.
06:23.493 --> 06:24.514
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's interesting.
06:24.814 --> 06:28.778
[SPEAKER_02]: We had crazy storms here yesterday, but you had record temps.
06:28.838 --> 06:32.061
[SPEAKER_03]: We had like tornadoes touching down and all kinds of.
06:33.362 --> 06:34.503
[SPEAKER_03]: wild things happening.
06:34.523 --> 06:37.886
[SPEAKER_03]: So there's a wild weather day in the states yesterday.
06:39.827 --> 06:48.714
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we should maybe get into this chat we had with Rob Pixon because it was it was productive and jovial.
06:50.117 --> 06:51.878
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, he's a good guy.
06:52.058 --> 06:52.418
[SPEAKER_03]: He is.
06:52.458 --> 07:00.763
[SPEAKER_03]: He's the author of Together in Ministry, women and men in flourishing partnerships and the co-author with his wife Amy of the picture book Penny Preaches.
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[SPEAKER_03]: In addition to serving on inter varsity Christian fellowship staff for almost 30 years, he teaches at four theological seminary and fresco Pacific University.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Today, we're chatting with him about his latest book, allies in ministry how men can support women in God's mission.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Let's get into it with Rob.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Rob, welcome back to the Gravity Commons podcast.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, good to be here.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for having me.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Um, well, Rob, I, you seem to write about men and women in ministry a lot.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Um, which is great, which is great.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, this is, um, one of the reasons why we like talking to you.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Um, would you share a bit of your story with us?
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[SPEAKER_03]: Um, how did that become an area of particular interest or concern for you?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, thanks for having me in good observation mat.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, this is my lane.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think at this point, I'm comfortable saying.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When you get to a point, you sort of look back and you can see how God was sort of working and putting the pieces together to get you where you are.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, I think it started, I mean, what's your foundations?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What's your sovereign foundations to you as a term, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, that was growing up in a home that valued women, women,
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[SPEAKER_01]: carried a lot of the spiritual freight in my house growing up as part of a church growing up where women could lead and serve and they weren't perfect but women could preach and things like that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Then I got to ministry, my 30th year of ministry this year and there's a lot of change that happens in ministry but one through line for me is I've always worked with women so I've been supervised by women multiple times, I've supervised women women as partners and peers and various configurations and all the way through
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think I've had this curiosity, are we doing this well?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Can we be doing this better as we partner together as women and men?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe I'll tell a specific story of a moment that really galvanized me from this posture of having, I have a value for women in leadership to a conviction about women in leadership.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's a pivot that needs to happen there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So the story is at one point, I was,
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was meeting with a student who had been invested in by my wife, Amy, the year prior.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So when we had up and coming leaders, we assigned them to Amy for mentoring and guidance.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so at that point, we had invested in her to invest in these students.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so she spent a year with him.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And at the end of the year, he said to Amy the thing that all ministers long to hear.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, I've grown more this year under your leadership than in any year prior in my life with God.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's like the quote that you put on the board for when ministry days are hard, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Fast forward a few months, I'm sitting with the same student.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He's telling me about his conversion to complementary theology, which is a more restrictive view of women in men in ministry.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm asking him lots of questions.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He's telling me about his journey.
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[SPEAKER_01]: At the end of the conversation, I asked him the question I've been wanting to ask him since the beginning.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I say, I know what you told Amy last year.
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[SPEAKER_01]: that you grew more under leadership than any your prior and your life with God, and you're so thankful.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to know how you're holding that and light of what you're expressing about your theology.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He takes a second, thinks it over, looks at me and he says that was God using Amy in spite of her disobedience.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a moment for me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, a lot of things going on in my head in that moment, including wanting to smack them in the head.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I think for me, that was a galvanizing moment of shifting from, yeah, this is important.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, women should lead to, yeah, we're going to do something about this and have a conviction about this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to act and response to this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think you can draw a fuel line from kind of that moment in moments like that to the books that I've been out in the world today.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, long answer, but that's a story there, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I'm still regulating myself from that story.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Man, well, you use the word ally early on in your book.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And you talk about this male ally ship in relationship to women in ministry.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Can you unpack that a bit for us?
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[SPEAKER_00]: What do you mean by that?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I like the term ally.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's, I mean, it's not without baggage.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Most terms are, so it needs definition, and you'll find that in the first chapter of my book.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For me, I like the term ally because I think I view it as a broad term, like an umbrella term.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And there are different ally ship behaviors, or,
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[SPEAKER_01]: or roles that fit underneath that umbrella, if that makes sense.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's one author, I quote this in the book, where she's identified seven different roles that allies play, sponsor, champion, advocate, but then also scholar, confidant, there's seven different roles upstander.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's seven different roles that allies play.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I sort of like the diversity of that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's not one size fits all.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think the task for an ally is to discern
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[SPEAKER_01]: maybe even in real time, what's the right role to play here?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And actually, what's the right role that fits me?
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[SPEAKER_01]: If who I am and my temperament and things like that, so there's diversity within that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So for that reason, I like that term ally.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and you have four key concepts of ally ship, privilege and empathy and internal development, like all of these, can you just pick one, give us a story
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, allies are understanding their privilege, their with empathy moving to make change both at two levels, the interpersonal level, then the systemic level, I think oftentimes one of the things that differentiates allies is it's not just a one-on-one interpersonal, it's actually a systemic advocacy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's one of the key differentiators there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think for me, I'm probably most comfortable.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I just talked about how there's a diversity without within how allies express their allyship and for me I'm most comfortable interpersonally.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to get to know someone, understand their world, ask a bunch of questions, walk in their shoes if I can, and then seek ways within my purview to like sponsor them or advocate for them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and so I try to do that lots of different ways.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was, I'll tell a quick story.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So number of years ago, I got invited to be an MC at a conference.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Great honor to do that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I felt like that conference would be better if there were women and men of front more.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so my question to the organizers would be OK with you if I invite a woman for my networks to co-MC with me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and they were like, we've never done that before, that seems strange.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's lots of complexities to work through who gets the honorary and things like that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We work through all that and, you know, the value add to the conference was significant, I think, and for me,
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[SPEAKER_01]: just way more joyful to work with someone to partner with someone in that way.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one example of your sort of making space as an ally.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to make space for a woman in my network to have an experience that she probably wouldn't have in a different way.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I want to tackle this word privilege, because I think it's a contested, maybe concept, right?
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[SPEAKER_03]: And we hear all kinds of different privilege, there's, you know, white privilege, we hear class privilege, neuro-typical privilege, but this is one of the key concepts of what it means to be an ally.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So, would you help us understand more what you're referring to when you use the word like male privilege?
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a system-atized advantage based on some sort of characteristic, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that's my sort of baseline definition.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So there's to put a colloquially, I like to talk about how the playing field tilts in my favor because I'm a guy, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So things are just easier for me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For example, when I walk in a room, people are more likely, generally, to hear what I have to say, to listen to me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: people defer to me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I get more access to, I mean, when someone's looking for an MC for a conference, they call Rob.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They may not call someone, you know, a woman in this case, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's that understanding that the world tilts in my favor because I'm a man and being aware of that, I think that's the first step is awareness and then looking to, for ways to leverage, I'll use that
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[SPEAKER_01]: Which is the way of Jesus, which is the way of the cross in a lot of ways, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, a Philippians 2 for me is a core of Philippians 2.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The Christ Him there is a core text for me when I think about privilege.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What does Jesus do with His privilege?
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[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't consider equality with God something to be grasped.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But let's go of that, is incarnate and then takes the cross, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that's a pretty good model for what it looks like.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For what you do when you have privilege is you hold it like this and you use it to plus others.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's really helpful, Rob, because I think one of the, maybe a couple wrong-headed approaches that people have, because it's uncomfortable to realize that, right?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's like, well, I didn't ask for this and I didn't try to get this and I'm not a bad person and you know what I mean?
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[SPEAKER_02]: All of that.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think one wrong-headed approach is to pretend it doesn't exist or to minimize its effect.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Like, oh, that's not really true or that kind of thing.
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[SPEAKER_02]: to internalize it as a indictment against you personally as an individual and feel like you have to defend yourself against it and or makes like wish it wasn't there you know and so I like I like what you're saying here that
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[SPEAKER_02]: No, the approach is to recognize it is there, and there's nothing you can actually do about it.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's presence, you know, we've grew up in a patriarchal society.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We have male privilege.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But what we can do, the best thing we can do with it, is to recognize that it's there.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And instead of sort of mindlessly trade on it, we can just begin to, I like your word leverage,
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[SPEAKER_02]: for the benefit of those who don't enjoy it, as best we can, recognizing that we do have it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I've been just to go off that for a second.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, for me, it's the same question as like all the things that I have on my screen as a person, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like everything I have belongs to Jesus.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I get to ask Jesus, or I should ask Jesus, what would you have me do with it all?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Whether it's my car, you know, my future, my bank account, like it all belongs to my privilege.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It all belongs to Jesus.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so what would you have me do with this Lord to benefit your people and advance your mission?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's the core question for people.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's great.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, another maybe a related question.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So many of us who are men, present company, not fully included, Christy.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But if many of us who are men, we've experienced, when we've tried to be allies for women, or allies of women, we've experienced pushback for trying to do that.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And,
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[SPEAKER_02]: you talk a little bit about this in your book of framing that is not only unavoidable, but also perhaps necessary for us to endure as we become faithful allies.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about that, some of the pushback that we get and how does that help us, actually.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you have pushback, not fun, for sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I think I've read about this in the book a little bit Ben, I'm toying with you, I think if you're aspiring to be an ally and you have an experience, some degree of pushback, my question would be, are you doing enough?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Or are you being courageous enough?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Or are you bold enough in your ally ships?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think it does come with a territory and it's a reality.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of the places where I think men can opt off the ally ship pathway, because it's just hard.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to be sort of publicly, sometimes or even privately, you know, have someone treat you poorly or judge you harshly or whatever.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's just a challenge, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So pushing through that, I think, is a core competency.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a core part of the development of an ally identity.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give a quick story from the book.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I have a younger staff.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was mentioning for a long time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He had some convictions about women in the ministry and wanted to be an ally, found himself in a meeting where they were planning, which would come and speak at an event.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And all the names that went on the whiteboard were male names.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so he's sitting in this room thinking, Lord, is this my moment?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Is this my moment?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, he felt like it was.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So he blurred it out.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it was super eloquent, but he sort of got it out there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, could we put a woman on the list?
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[SPEAKER_01]: and it was the most awkward moment of his life.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think to that point, it was like, some people said something, mumbled something, someone said, well, we don't really do that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But then it was mute, awkward, and then the leader just moved on with the meeting.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And for him, it was this kind of, to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, kind of moment when he came back and we met, and he was like, this was really hard.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I felt un- Listen to, no one responded to me, like it was awkward.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so to his credit, I mean, we worked this through and he went and tried it again.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So he went for another round and it didn't end up happening.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I think that process of working through pushback and moving ahead anyway was really formational for him.
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[SPEAKER_01]: He's like a stage six or seven to use my language, my book ally at this point moving ahead.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that was a galvanizing experience for him.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's fascinating from a women's perspective to when I see men doing that, even if nothing changes, even if it's kind of ignored or there's something in me that is like, thank you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for trying.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for, like, speaking up or saying something.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so, which is good for me to just hear that, to be able to go back to some men and be like, hey, thanks for, thanks for putting your neck out there, even if, you know, whatever.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Go ahead.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I suppose, as closely we don't know, even, like, maybe no women got on the speaker
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[SPEAKER_02]: But who knows what else changed, you know?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe nobody's ever heard that brought up before.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And now that's the lens they see.
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[SPEAKER_02]: They see a lot of things through.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It was like, oh, I haven't really ever thought about that.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I wonder why I don't think of women coming to speak at our institution.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I like to hope for that Ben, but I think the biggest thing that changed that moment was for my friend.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And because I think all of a sudden, he's put his convictions on the line.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And there's something informational in that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, another concept that you name that I think is really helpful, you call it disruptive encounters.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's this kind of experience that disorients and challenges it causes friction in our meaning-making system of the world.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And some of us find these threatening and negative, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: But you have more of a transformative vision of how they function in ally ship.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder, can you double-click on that for us a little bit?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Christy, I like how you put it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I try to, I try to be a dissonance as an opportunity to grow and develop.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think we tend our first impulses to dismiss dissonance or to get through it as quickly as possible.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But is it possible that dissonance is actually a fertile ground for Jesus to work?
22:45.104 --> 22:49.167
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's, I mean, you think of Paul, the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus.
22:49.227 --> 22:53.229
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that is the dissonant moment of his life and what ends up happening, right?
22:53.269 --> 22:59.453
[SPEAKER_01]: He finds himself in a community that empowers him becomes the Paul we know in the, in the, in the epistle.
22:59.513 --> 23:02.575
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think dissonance, the word on the street is it's not good.
23:02.595 --> 23:08.759
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to get rid of it, have an allergy to dissonance, but the reality is it can be a really vibrant place of growth and development.
23:08.779 --> 23:11.321
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think for male allies, certainly true.
23:12.521 --> 23:19.965
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like pushback is the second place where men can opt off the pathway because they don't want to go through that or it's too much.
23:19.985 --> 23:33.511
[SPEAKER_01]: That is one downside, but for the most part, when I see men walk through that disruptive encounter stage or phase, it's really powerful to watch because it can ultimately transform their worldview.
23:33.531 --> 23:34.632
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes it takes more than one,
23:35.212 --> 23:36.754
[SPEAKER_01]: sort of disruptive encounter, right?
23:37.154 --> 23:39.597
[SPEAKER_01]: But it can reorient their life.
23:39.637 --> 23:44.602
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of a sudden, we talked about privilege a minute ago, okay, I can see it now.
23:44.682 --> 23:47.925
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like your in water, you can't see, you don't know that your in water.
23:48.245 --> 23:51.188
[SPEAKER_01]: But now all of a sudden, you're like aware of what's going on around you.
23:51.208 --> 23:52.230
[SPEAKER_01]: You see the world differently.
23:52.270 --> 23:52.730
[SPEAKER_01]: It's super.
23:52.790 --> 23:57.315
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost breathtaking for me to watch people walk through that part of the process.
23:58.075 --> 24:15.490
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think I'm thinking of like pushback and stripped of encounters as like that there we have a lot of psychological defense mechanisms when we find out that we're wrong When our good motives are intent isn't valued or foregrounded, right?
24:15.530 --> 24:18.552
[SPEAKER_03]: Somebody's talking about our impact and But you don't know my heart.
24:18.572 --> 24:20.053
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't know what I intended
24:20.974 --> 24:28.640
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and I think a lot of what you're naming to become an ally, Rob, is that you, I mean, sometimes we call it emotional intelligence.
24:29.240 --> 24:30.981
[SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes we call it metacognition.
24:31.442 --> 24:38.246
[SPEAKER_03]: We have to be able to have a modicum of distance to be able to look at ourselves, look at our life.
24:39.828 --> 24:43.010
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, be curious about psychological defense mechanisms.
24:43.850 --> 24:44.871
[SPEAKER_03]: So they don't run our life.
24:45.351 --> 24:46.051
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's right.
24:46.071 --> 24:56.298
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and I don't know honestly, I don't know how we, there's just some people that seem unwilling or incapable of doing that.
24:58.290 --> 25:15.880
[SPEAKER_03]: have you had any luck have you have you have you made any headway and helping people become the kinds of people who are able to do this work when maybe they they aren't pretty disposed to do it yeah yeah that's a great question I mean I don't know of any solution to that map other than to keep
25:16.745 --> 25:20.248
[SPEAKER_01]: keep presenting the dissonance or to keep putting.
25:20.609 --> 25:28.276
[SPEAKER_01]: So if I have a student, let's say I work with college students in my ministry, let's say I have a student that doesn't seem to get it, doesn't want to get it, isn't willing to get it.
25:28.596 --> 25:33.140
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're still around, they haven't left yet, in other words, and found a different community to be a part of.
25:33.761 --> 25:40.667
[SPEAKER_01]: I think my commitment is let's just keep leading that person into places of displacement.
25:41.328 --> 25:53.877
[SPEAKER_01]: into places that will challenge their worldview and hope that at some point something cracks or something breaks or something, there's a moment where they're caused to go, well, wait a second actually, right?
25:53.957 --> 25:57.859
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know if a different way to do it, other than just keep at it, right?
25:57.879 --> 26:01.322
[SPEAKER_01]: So as long as someone's willing to be in community with me,
26:01.882 --> 26:07.827
[SPEAKER_01]: and a part of the community that I'm leading or a part of, I'm just going to try to be faithful to leading him into that place.
26:07.907 --> 26:12.331
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes that means I'm saying things to them, sometimes that, hey, come with me, let's go.
26:12.351 --> 26:14.573
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a woman pastor preaching at the church or whatever.
26:14.913 --> 26:17.315
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just trying to create those distant moments.
26:17.856 --> 26:20.518
[SPEAKER_01]: I think sometimes disruptive encounters just happen.
26:21.359 --> 26:24.922
[SPEAKER_01]: But one of the points I try to make in the book is we can actually be proactive about them.
26:25.735 --> 26:38.004
[SPEAKER_01]: and the church can think about what's a disruptive encounter I can create for young men here that will try the shape, the tree, and create an environment where they feel dissonance and can grow out of that, right?
26:38.064 --> 26:44.449
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, being proactive and intentional about that, I think is my best answer to your really good question.
26:44.709 --> 26:47.251
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that will maybe one other thing to say too, that
26:51.053 --> 26:58.418
[SPEAKER_01]: That patriarchy, you use somebody who's that word earlier, that's a spiritual stronghold that grips the church and has for generations.
26:58.538 --> 27:07.565
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we should be praying about that and we should be praying that men can think outside of that construct and move towards wholeness and healing, right?
27:07.605 --> 27:14.429
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think, yeah, that intentional sort of creating disruptive encounters and then praying for guys as they enter into them, most of the two things I would be doing.
27:14.970 --> 27:15.210
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
27:17.517 --> 27:17.657
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
27:17.998 --> 27:21.328
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I was going to just point out, yeah, I do have a question.
27:22.752 --> 27:25.240
[SPEAKER_02]: I, you know, sometimes, um,
27:26.801 --> 27:46.927
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we've learned to read the scriptures in such a way that we don't necessarily see sometimes some of the examples of what we like male ally ship, obviously that's a very newfangled concept, you know, that's a new word and I think sometimes the pushback that I've heard from people who value the scriptures and they value, you know,
27:48.167 --> 28:12.082
[SPEAKER_02]: faith is just like is this just kind of newfangled kind of cultural like political correctness I guess people might use that word as much anymore but you know but you know in this book you you talk about you ground this in examples from scripture and so and you mentioned earlier that you know part of following Jesus is sort of offering all of that we have you know
28:17.046 --> 28:21.104
[SPEAKER_02]: to just and share how these figures or stories teach us to be allies.
28:21.718 --> 28:22.758
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sure, thanks, Ben.
28:22.818 --> 28:26.340
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, the Sunday school answer would be Jesus, right?
28:26.400 --> 28:29.581
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, to look at Jesus and the life of Jesus and how Jesus has been wrapped with them.
28:30.101 --> 28:30.782
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a good answer.
28:31.022 --> 28:34.263
[SPEAKER_01]: You never on bad footing if you're talking about Jesus, right?
28:34.643 --> 28:49.909
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, but to look at every encounter with Jesus in the gospels, where he's interacting with a woman, I mean, there's lots of quotes I could marshal here, but I remember one of them, I think it's Walter Wink says, he's violating the social customs or moreays of his time in every single encounter recorded with women in the gospels.
28:50.389 --> 28:52.650
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's something he's doing that's out of order.
28:53.330 --> 29:00.191
[SPEAKER_01]: So to speak, and in the most patriarchal of ages, Jesus is transgressing the culture in some form of fashion each time he does that, right?
29:00.231 --> 29:07.053
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I talked earlier about the different hats that allies wear, and you can find Jesus wearing all of those hats.
29:07.953 --> 29:09.754
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Jesus didn't have the language of allyship.
29:09.774 --> 29:11.114
[SPEAKER_01]: We didn't use the language of allyship.
29:11.134 --> 29:13.374
[SPEAKER_01]: But you didn't talk about, oh, I'm an upstander now.
29:13.674 --> 29:14.575
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you didn't do that.
29:14.655 --> 29:19.296
[SPEAKER_01]: But you can sort of use that term and look back at the story of Jesus
29:20.356 --> 29:21.477
[SPEAKER_01]: all of those things, right?
29:21.617 --> 29:25.159
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, folks read it, it's chapter four in my book.
29:25.179 --> 29:26.520
[SPEAKER_01]: You look at Jesus as an ally.
29:26.900 --> 29:32.023
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the other story I would tell Ben is, is Boaz, and the Old Testament, right?
29:32.123 --> 29:33.584
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, you go all the way back.
29:33.644 --> 29:37.386
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the OG kind of male ally, I think would be Boaz in a lot of ways.
29:38.086 --> 29:43.910
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he's um, functioning in multiple levels with Ruth as an ally, and then we as an ally, right?
29:43.970 --> 29:47.033
[SPEAKER_01]: So for one thing, he's saying, glean in my fields.
29:47.093 --> 29:54.037
[SPEAKER_01]: That's commanded in the description, the Old Testament law, but he's saying, I'm going to go step further until the men not to harass you and to protect you.
29:54.178 --> 29:56.079
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, that's ally ship right there.
29:56.099 --> 29:58.401
[SPEAKER_01]: And then of course, you know, the Kinsman Redeemer.
29:59.541 --> 30:04.263
[SPEAKER_01]: choice to make that he makes in that in that book is also an example of what it means to be an ally.
30:04.283 --> 30:07.464
[SPEAKER_01]: So I I mean, I think bow as flowing all the way through.
30:07.484 --> 30:10.926
[SPEAKER_01]: There's probably some Old Testament examples, but more Jesus, Paul, Peter.
30:10.946 --> 30:16.628
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you've got examples of ally ship from all of those guys in the most patriarchal of settings.
30:16.968 --> 30:17.689
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's right.
30:19.208 --> 30:27.092
[SPEAKER_00]: Rob, you know, I've certainly been in church systems that have not supported women being fully empowered and trusted in ministry.
30:27.392 --> 30:30.153
[SPEAKER_00]: I know Matt and Ben have also been in situations like that.
30:31.414 --> 30:41.359
[SPEAKER_00]: And our listeners, there's lots of listeners that not only have been, but maybe find themselves currently in church systems like that where Mel, L.I.
30:41.399 --> 30:42.379
[SPEAKER_00]: Ship, isn't valued.
30:42.659 --> 30:43.820
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe even
30:44.403 --> 30:46.344
[SPEAKER_00]: seen as a threat.
30:46.864 --> 31:01.292
[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder if you could speak just a little bit about what have you learned is valuable or helpful to do in those situations and how do you discern whether or not to stay to work on change or to leave because the system is harming women.
31:01.612 --> 31:03.033
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, great question, Christy.
31:03.374 --> 31:04.214
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I am.
31:04.395 --> 31:08.999
[SPEAKER_01]: I get that question a lot mostly from women that are like, hey, I'm in this system.
31:09.179 --> 31:15.524
[SPEAKER_01]: It's limits my ability to express my calling and my giftings, what I do, but also from men.
31:15.604 --> 31:16.705
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think a couple things.
31:16.865 --> 31:20.649
[SPEAKER_01]: One is, I think the question is, is Jesus calling you to stay?
31:21.778 --> 31:32.911
[SPEAKER_01]: may sound right as a question, but I think it's a real, it's a legitimate, it's the question that needs to be asked, is Jesus calling you to stay and to be prophetic and to try to bring change within your system?
31:33.211 --> 31:42.422
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a totally legitimate way to go, and if the answer to the question is yes, that Jesus calling you to stay, then my question then is, well, what do you need to stay and be healthy?
31:44.142 --> 31:54.805
[SPEAKER_01]: How can the community come around you and support you and what do you need so that you can endure when things are hard and when you run into the power structures that would keep you from expressing.
31:55.145 --> 31:57.266
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one category.
31:57.286 --> 32:07.349
[SPEAKER_01]: If the answer to the question is no, then I think the question for someone like me as a colleague or as a peer or as a someone in their community is, well, how do I help you leave well?
32:08.429 --> 32:23.698
[SPEAKER_01]: and and walk with you on that journey because that's not an easy journey either, especially I'm thinking of a friend of mine who was a part of a church, you know, for generations in her family, like her, her great grandparents were buried in the church graveyard, and all of this chance she's feeling like she needs to leave.
32:23.738 --> 32:25.319
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a really hard thing to do.
32:26.019 --> 32:29.781
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, I think ultimately what's she's saying?
32:30.222 --> 32:32.003
[SPEAKER_01]: And then what what is the community?
32:32.043 --> 32:35.065
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you need from the community in order to either stay or leave?
32:35.145 --> 32:35.965
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, those would be the
32:37.888 --> 32:38.289
[SPEAKER_00]: That's good.
32:38.429 --> 32:38.949
[SPEAKER_00]: That's helpful.
32:39.170 --> 32:39.370
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
32:39.550 --> 32:41.352
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
32:41.913 --> 32:45.197
[SPEAKER_03]: A recipe for misery is to try to change people who don't want to change.
32:45.498 --> 32:45.778
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
32:46.439 --> 32:49.923
[SPEAKER_03]: It really can be, I can, you can wear yourself out.
32:50.744 --> 32:52.847
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, Rob, this has been wonderful.
32:54.489 --> 33:08.135
[SPEAKER_03]: there's there's so much of your like experience and wisdom in this book along with like you like your name like rooting it in scripture how how often I mean almost almost every encounter that Jesus has with women.
33:09.196 --> 33:19.960
[SPEAKER_03]: I I need to teach you I need to like write something up about this but like he there's a there's a same you use word leveraging and Jesus does the same leveraging of
33:22.343 --> 33:42.008
[SPEAKER_03]: on to their benefit so that they accrue social honor that he could have claimed, but he and that's kind of akin to, hey, can I ask a female friend to help me see this event?
33:42.368 --> 33:51.050
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a giving access to resources or power that otherwise they wouldn't have access to.
33:52.850 --> 33:58.253
[SPEAKER_03]: And I wonder as we close, like you are naming, I think one of the ways that love works.
33:58.314 --> 34:02.336
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Ben and I wrote about this love always records with power, God's love and always records with power.
34:03.777 --> 34:12.741
[SPEAKER_03]: But this call to be an ally, it places demands on how we embody power and authority.
34:13.102 --> 34:14.943
[SPEAKER_03]: And sometimes that can be challenging for us.
34:15.003 --> 34:18.485
[SPEAKER_03]: So what if you learned maybe about
34:19.205 --> 34:23.506
[SPEAKER_03]: what this requires in terms of how we carry power as you've sought to be an ally for women.
34:24.126 --> 34:25.026
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love that question.
34:26.507 --> 34:34.929
[SPEAKER_01]: I've yet to meet a community that talks too much about power, by the way, like the kind of the question of like what's your philosophy or theology on power?
34:34.969 --> 34:39.190
[SPEAKER_01]: I think is a really great question for a church community to wrestle with and think about together.
34:39.550 --> 34:46.311
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I think for me that I mentioned earlier, Philippians 1, and Jesus is sort of choice,
34:49.912 --> 34:59.536
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the journey I want to be on my whole life, and to choose into allyship is to follow Jesus on that road, and that can mean a loss of power.
34:59.596 --> 35:05.499
[SPEAKER_01]: It can mean less prestige, but that is to my benefit as a guy.
35:06.499 --> 35:10.121
[SPEAKER_01]: That is to that benefits my formation.
35:10.801 --> 35:17.683
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm more Christ-like, I think, when I hold power like this as opposed to holding power, you know, with a clenched fist, right?
35:17.803 --> 35:28.025
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I think that's to my benefit, and I'm long for the men in my life to make that journey with me, and the men that I work with, I think all guys need to make that journey.
35:28.445 --> 35:28.945
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard.
35:29.425 --> 35:38.588
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think there's a there's a writer named Karen Katlin, she's written a book called Better Allies, which is to me, just a wonderful writing on this from a secular perspective, but she
35:40.648 --> 35:41.388
[SPEAKER_01]: and shining armor.
35:42.029 --> 35:53.836
[SPEAKER_01]: And her thing is, nights and shining armor come in, swoop in, save the day, the glory goes to the night, and you write off into the sunset with your, you know, damsel and distress, or whatever the metaphor is.
35:54.796 --> 35:56.097
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what we're looking for here.
35:57.098 --> 35:59.239
[SPEAKER_01]: In that metaphor, the night keeps the power.
35:59.599 --> 36:05.503
[SPEAKER_01]: We're looking for an ally who will consistently come alongside a marginalized group in this case women and say,
36:06.183 --> 36:11.150
[SPEAKER_01]: The power I have is yours and let's use it together to be a blessing to the community.
36:11.190 --> 36:14.115
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I think it's a it's a formation of journey for guys.
36:15.482 --> 36:18.905
[SPEAKER_03]: 100 percent 100 percent.
36:19.546 --> 36:40.442
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was recently hanging out with from United Methodist pastors and after the week-long workshop was over, I had lunch with a woman who was a pastor and she was talking about how often, I don't know Christy if I told you the story at how often, after she preaches, a guy will come up to her
36:43.800 --> 37:01.332
[SPEAKER_03]: oh yeah that's right place places hand on their shoulder and she says I and she says the other guys in the church when they preach they never receive any remorse or or compliments about their outfit and she said I I get touched and
37:02.585 --> 37:06.949
[SPEAKER_03]: and I get compliments about why I outfit all the time.
37:07.789 --> 37:10.452
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think, I think it was an awareness.
37:10.612 --> 37:21.061
[SPEAKER_03]: So there is like a power thing, like, I'm a touchy person, and I've learned to like ask for consent before I touch people, is it okay if I put my hand on your shoulder?
37:21.781 --> 37:24.543
[SPEAKER_03]: Even that sometimes it can be hard for like as a pastor.
37:24.563 --> 37:26.405
[SPEAKER_03]: I won't for a woman to say no to a pastor.
37:26.425 --> 37:28.847
[SPEAKER_03]: That can be difficult for them to do that.
37:30.148 --> 37:41.875
[SPEAKER_03]: maybe and maybe it has nothing to do with me, maybe it has to do with the way they've been harmed in the past or if they don't feel like they're would be, they can, you know, they don't want to create friction or conflict.
37:41.955 --> 37:46.377
[SPEAKER_03]: So they just say, yes, so I'm learning that like do you become an ally?
37:46.397 --> 37:51.540
[SPEAKER_03]: Isn't like you don't get a card in the mail that just, you know, where you're verified.
37:51.600 --> 37:53.602
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's like this ongoing learning.
37:54.822 --> 37:55.403
[SPEAKER_03]: throughout life.
37:55.543 --> 38:11.170
[SPEAKER_03]: And I feel like your book and the other books you've written really help us to engage in that journey, not just as a good idea, but as a part of our sanctification, as a part of our becoming more like Jesus and growing in the fruit of the Spirit.
38:11.250 --> 38:13.191
[SPEAKER_03]: So thanks, Rob.
38:13.623 --> 38:13.883
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
38:14.523 --> 38:14.823
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
38:15.023 --> 38:15.963
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen to all that Mackice.
38:15.983 --> 38:16.744
[SPEAKER_01]: That one quick thing.
38:17.104 --> 38:17.324
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
38:17.604 --> 38:23.545
[SPEAKER_01]: It is about sanctification, development as an ally, but it's also about, I think the expansion of the mission.
38:24.165 --> 38:31.026
[SPEAKER_01]: Reality is if I don't cause the woman you're mentioning there to feel awkward, you know, this is weird.
38:31.066 --> 38:32.306
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels unsafe here.
38:32.766 --> 38:38.087
[SPEAKER_01]: She's able to lead out of her gifting and her passion and her calling in a
38:41.908 --> 38:43.328
[SPEAKER_01]: We need that for the mission of God.
38:43.348 --> 38:50.110
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we've been trying to do God's mission with half the team in some ways relegated in the bench and it's time to change that up, right?
38:50.150 --> 38:54.871
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think choosing to be an alley doing no first doing no harm, which is the story you're telling there.
38:54.931 --> 38:59.652
[SPEAKER_01]: I think is a great way to create safe space for women to be who they are.
38:59.812 --> 39:02.473
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what the church desperately needs unto me.
39:02.493 --> 39:02.673
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
39:03.373 --> 39:09.415
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, what a gift it would be if the church became known as a place that was safe and healthy and good for women.
39:10.115 --> 39:10.555
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe so.
39:11.771 --> 39:14.115
[SPEAKER_03]: The book again is called allies in ministry.
39:14.515 --> 39:17.440
[SPEAKER_03]: How men can support women in God's mission.
39:17.661 --> 39:19.323
[SPEAKER_03]: Rob, thanks so much for being our guest today.
39:19.804 --> 39:20.345
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for having me.
39:27.357 --> 39:30.418
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Gravity Podcast.
39:30.458 --> 39:32.399
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[SPEAKER_02]: To record a question or comment for us, you can go to gravitycomans.com slash message and click the start recording button.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You can also email us at podcast at gravitycomans.com.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Catch you next time.
