Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.

Back to the Audio Episode

Kathy 0:00

Not everyone is created to be the kind of activist on the street. And not everyone is created to be a preacher teacher. So it's important to kind of know what your lane is. And you're not going to know your lane, obviously, unless you experiment and you test things out and you fail miserably and pick yourself up and have a conversation with God. But in all of that, what I've written in the book as well is you pray, because this is not…this isn't about the history books. It really isn't.

This is about what is God inviting the church into during this time, and all of the different parts of the beloved church and I cannot believe that the invitation is too hide in fear and to build walls that separate us and them. And so how will we know? We need to pray? We need to, we need to be in Scripture. We need to be discerning. And then you do it and then you do it.

Seth Intro 1:50

Hey there, welcome to the Can I Say This At Church podcast? I am Seth, your host. I'm so glad that you download it today. Today's episode, if you think about your week, your day, if I'm honest, a lot of times, the first thing that I do when I get up in the morning is turn on my phone, Check Twitter, check Facebook, and maybe I check email, then I get in the shower, and I'm ashamed to admit that I have a feeling that you do the same thing. And so what do we find when we're on Facebook? I find people just yelling out into the void. I find people voicing their opinion, maybe to a question that wasn't answered. And if it is a question that is answered, be it religious, political, your favorite sports team, whatever it is, whatever you feel like you need to talk about. I find recently, and over the last decade really since the advent of social media, that we poorly, very, very poorly raise our voice.

The world that we live in is so hyper connected. And I feel like it is sometimes a daunting task. To figure out how to speak well, what needs to be said and how to speak that in love, and how to own what is true in and offensive and a non offensive way at the same time. And that is what the interview is about today. So I sat down and I sat down on the internet with Kathy Khang, who has written a beautiful book entitled Raise Your Voice, you will hear in this interview, what we are called as Christians to do, how we should proactively engage in conversations. How when you find what you feel like you're being called to say to the world, how to do so in a way that will help further the church and further our communities because let's be honest, not everyone is in church, but we are still in a conversation with people whether or not they are and I think That's key we have to remember that so I hope that you enjoy it. Here we go. Let's talk to Kathy Khang.

Seth 4:40

Kathy Khang. Thank you so much for joining the Can I Say This At Church podcast, I also can't thank you enough and Intervarsity Press for sending me a copy of your book. I sometimes when I sit down to read a book and I try if I'm being honest, I try to read every everything that's sent to me. Especially if I'm going to Speak to the author because I feel like it is a disservice. And it's not genuine if I can't do that, and so yours I actually sat down and I read in one sitting, which isn't every book but I genuinely voraciously, enjoyed reading and I can't wait to hear the feedback from it as it comes out. But thank you again so much for writing it. Thank you for coming onto the show.

Kathy 5:21

Oh, thank you, thank you so much. And that intro and hearing about your experience with the book means a great deal. I have just gotten a physical copy of the book and there is this excitement and also a wave of nausea that is coming over as I'm realizing that people are actually going to read this.

Seth 5:49

Why why nausea?

Kathy 5:51

I think it's the nervousness, right? It's the what…what will people think? And usually I am not one who gives two hoots about what people think. But I have had to do a lot of business with God in this process of writing and putting out these words into the public. So it was one thing to blog. That's, that's a very different experience. And it's a different experience to be invited into a space as a speaker. But I had to wrestle with ego and thoughts of you know, what it means to be a successful author. Why am I doing this and envy and all of those wonderful, icky human emotions as I got ready to get this book out into the world?

Seth 6:50

Well, I'd like to start where I start with most guests, at least first time guests and hopefully we'll make you recurring as the years go by because I can't see myself not continuing to do this in the future, I'm enjoying it. But what is kind of your upbringing and kind of what has pointed you in the direction those brief milestones in your life of the story of you? Like how did you get from where you were, and wherever that was to being the person that was able to do the wrestling with God, and be very honest in your book? There's a lot of personal stories in it so what does that journey just sort of look like?

Kathy 7:31

The journey I guess, in my mind, starts with my family and we immigrated from Seoul, South Korea in 1971. I was eight months old, so I have no memory of crying my way across the ocean and settling in Chicago and growing up as a child of immigrants and a child who didn't know what it meant to be just an American kid in the north side of Chicago. Going to school, I had no idea what it meant to be different, all of the kids were different. We all were very different. And most of my close friends, we all were immigrants.

I still remember the smells, and the sounds, and the languages of my different friends who were Greek, and Filipino and Indian and that was very normal. And then moving to the suburbs. When I was in second grade, was the first time I realized that what I experienced in Chicago was not necessarily the norm. It was the first time I encountered, actually, so many white-Caucasian people; my entire school. And what that meant for me, and how suddenly my face was weird. My name was strange. The language I spoke at home was considered exotic, the smell oils were not smells you wanted to carry with you into the public, all of those types of experiences and the wrestling with who am I? How will I choose to present myself in public? What does it mean to be a child of God?

Because that's what I'm being told at home but that's not what I'm experiencing in school. And all of that wrapped up in the practice of journaling, which was some thing that my father had encouraged me and my sister to do when we were growing up. And so I have various notebooks and then actual little diaries with cute little locks on them. And, you know, my dad, I think, gave us that gift and encouraged us to journal not because he thought that I would become a writer but really it was to practice my penmanship and to practice writing, right to be a good student.

And for me, that just kind of became a wonderful outlet of being able to be fully honest and not have a filter and, and just write what I was experiencing the good and the bad and all of the angst and all of that. So, you know, it was being raised in a Christian, but a distinctly Korean immigrant Christian and home with strong memories and roots for the first few years of school in a very diverse community in the North Side of Chicago, and then moving to the suburbs where, for the rest of my life, I would wrestle with whether or not I fit in. Whether or not I was American enough? Whether I was human enough? Whether or not my experiences and my family was enough? I think all of that continue to follow me into my young adulthood and into my early years of being a newspaper reporter and, and parenting, marriage and all of that. And here we are, squarely in my mid life.

Seth 11:58

Are you so this is your first book, right?

Kathy 12:02

Yes. So it's my first solo book. I was part of a multi-author book about 12 years ago, also from Intervarsity Press called More Than Serving Tea.

Seth 12:15

I haven't read that one. But I also don't really like tea. And I have a feeling that that has nothing to do with the book or very little, but

Kathy 12:22

Yes, correct. (laughter)

Seth 12:25

I'm more of a coffee guy. So the title of your book is Raise Your Voice. And throughout the book you've interwoven, finding your voice and why that's important. And in the world that we live in now, if you turn on the news, or if you go to church, depending on your church, but I feel like every church is going to have this in some way, shape or form. My personal experience has been once you feel “laser focused” on what you feel like your voices and with that comes what you're called to speak truth too.

And that could be preaching that could be, you know, foster ministry, that could be anything. But I find that once you begin to dig into what you're passionate about and what you feel called to do that there is an inherent cost at expressing your voice. Be it a podcast via blog, be it a book, be it at a Sunday school. And so you touch on that a bit. So why is it worth finding a voice? And is it is it worth bearing that costs?

Kathy 13:34

Oh, it's absolutely worth bearing the cost. But I'll be completely honest, there have been many times over the years where I have often wondered whether or not it was worth bearing any cost. It is not fun to receive hate mail. It is not fun to read hate mail. It's not fun to read nasty comments on a blog or an editorial. None of those are fun and they will make you question whether or not you've done the right thing.

And whether or not you've been obedient to God, ultimately. But I would say that if you choose to stay silent, you know, we often hear the phrase these days, you know, “you don't want to be on the wrong side of history”. My response to that is, you know, ultimately, it's obedience to God. I don't know what history will say about any of us and as an individual, one single little person in the world, I don't suspect that history will say very much, if anything about me personally but I believe as a Christian, ultimately my responsibility is, am I being obedient to the things that God is inviting me to.

And I wrote this book, in part, because I saw so many of my friends and people I interacted with wrestling with that sense of I should say something or I should do something I should express, X, Y, or Z. I think this is what I made to do. But the cost of not doing that not only do I think a little piece of you dies every time you shut that voice down. I also think that it is refusing an invitation from God.

And not all invitations from God are really pretty and exciting. But I do believe that those are the invitation That we should be listening to the most and most carefully. And what does it mean to gain the world? Right? We we learn those things in church. But I think, in the practical day to day, that's why I wrote the book that this isn't about, you know, the, the one time you have to decide whether or not you're going to raise your hand and stand up in a meeting of 2000 people that may or may not happen, but really, it's the daily obedience and faithfulness to the things that God is asking you to speak up on.

Seth 16:39

So how do you then speak? Well, I'm trying to word this right. So I am a white man. And I there's not much I can do about that. And that's fine. How do you elevate, no elevate is not the word, how do you try to speak and in my case, it would be about theology and about the love of Christ. And I find that when I say that, and I try to raise a voice that says, No, no, no, no, no, no, we we don't need to be concerned about Trump and North Korea as Christians, we need to be hoping that we can love the people regardless of the outcome, or Syrian refugees, or Muslims, or anything I find that's kind of the voice that at least for this year that I've been called, that I feel personally called to, to say, you know, hey, why have we come so little since the lynchings? Why have we not made any progress since redlining? Why, why is this still happening? And, and I find that people don't listen. And so even if you have found what you feel like you're called to speak about, how do you be how do you use your platform effectively?

Kathy 17:54

Well, you know, I think first it's wrestling with that idea of platform because I don't believe everyone necessarily kind of in the pseudo-Christian celebrity sense has a platform. But I do think that everyone has the opportunity and the responsibility, ultimately to say something, and to do something, those words or actions will all be different for everyone. And that's also something that I remind people (about). Not everyone is going to be the person who goes to do a letter writing campaign or not everyone is going to feel comfortable marching in a protest, but ultimately, what is going on that we as Christians forget, and are not listening to the very prayer that we pray every Sunday right? Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. What I say to people is maybe we've been way too focused on the heaven part. And way too focused on the idea that we just need to get people to heaven and make decisions to become a Christian and we've totally forgotten about the part of your kingdom on earth. And that's where I at least for my sisters and brothers in Christ, I, that's where I kind of battle with them and say, no, this is not an opt out. kind of situation. This is very much You do? There is no opt out. If you are praying that prayer if you say you believe in the Gospel, the gospel is not about how many people we can get to pray this sinners prayer.

Seth 20:02

Which isn’t really even in the Bible.

Kathy 20:05

Exactly, exactly. And, and so I, I think here, especially here in the US, we have this kind of brand of Christianity that is about, and particularly evangelicals, have this brand of Christianity that is about getting to heaven. And whatever happens here on Earth, whatever scorched Earth we all have our tickets to heaven and good for us. And the older I've gotten and the more I've wrestled with Scripture, I've realized, Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

That, you know, it's a bonus that we will spend eternity with God. But in the meantime, we are here on earth and what is it that we're supposed to be doing? We're supposed to be proclaiming the Gospel. And the Gospel is not only about the ticket to heaven, it's about how we are going to interact with one another, with the earth, with all of creation, how are we going to interact? And that's why I think it's important. That's why I encourage people to figure out what is it that you're passionate about? What are the things that you care deeply about? What are the big and little things that happen day to day that you know, have to be different? And how will you speak into that whether it's with your friends, your neighborhood, your kids?

Seth 21:44

Well, that's the hard part is is the kids. I said something…what I say? I said something last night on Facebook and and I'll probably edit this out because I don't know that it's relevant, but it comes to the top of my head now. I said something about how if we I watched You have Netflix and everybody I think has Netflix. And so there's a new mini-series or documentary that documents I think it's 9 or 10 rappers and I will say the language is quite vulgar. But one of the ones that I watched and I didn't watch many of them, is on TI. He's a rapper from Atlanta. He's talking a lot about racial reconciliation. And then he engages with a lot of older people, and says, you know, I'm doing this wrong, like when I speak, nobody hears me saying anything. And so I'm going to look back and I'm going to go speak to these other people that were living when Martin Luther King was alive, and ask them how they actually did things with him so that maybe I can do this better. And you can see the light bulbs go off every once in a while.

Talking about our children. At the end of that he's in a think it somewhere at Montgomery. There's like a racial reconciliation museum. And it's not the most recent one it's an older one. And him and his children are walking through and listening to the stories and watching news broadcast about you know, we don't mix any farmer will tell you don't mix your black chickens with your white chickens because it makes both chickens produce less eggs. And just stuff like that. And you can just see the face of his son. And then they go and they read a story of I think his name is Emmett Till. And I basically went to Facebook and said, I don't understand how we've gone so, so short a distance, like if we think of history, and in terms of distance, like we've gone one foot when we should have been 500 miles further, and we've only gone…like how we only gone this far. And, and many of my friends summer, African American Summer, Hispanic, and they all had said, you know, it's a great question. How do we fix it?

And I was like, I don't know, it's gonna have to something that we do has to change the hearts of our children. So that this is different in 50 years, and I've asked that of other people and I don't know what that answer is. Except for to just talk about it in its own, they are very uncomfortable conversations with with a nine year old, in this case, my five year olds a little bit young for that, but you just being honest that this is this exists, and it's not okay.

Kathy 24:19

So yeah, and I would say even with your five year old, there are age appropriate ways to have the conversation. And I wonder if that's part of it. Is that why things have not gone further is that we have kind of made conversations about race and injustice. Level 300 conversations that wait until patterns are way established, and values are already established and have been in practice for too long. And then at that point, we can have conversations and we can come to some sort of agreement. But it's all at an intellectual level. It's really not at a heart level, it's not at a level in which we're making active decisions that are different. And my kids are older, so my kids are 22, almost 19 and 16. And we continue to have those conversations…what it looks like to be able to just even yesterday, for example, we drove down to the University of Illinois, Champaign Urbana to drop off our youngest at camp.

He's at camp for track, throwing discus and shotput and, you know, even in the process of signing him up for that we had the conversation like look, this camp costs a couple hundred dollars we need to know all you need to know as a family. This is something that we have prioritized. But it also means that you have access to this and not every child has access to this and you need to be aware and look and pay attention when you go to camp.

Who are the kids who are at camp with you? Where do they go to school? How far have they traveled? You know, how about your coaches? How about the college students who are going to be your coaches during the week? Where are they from? Where did they go to high school? How did they get into track? You know, ask the questions. And those are the conversations that we've had all along in helping our kids understand that talking about differences is a good thing. And I wonder, at some level, why we haven't come as far as we'd like to think we should have or could have is that at least what I hear a lot in the church.

And this goes back to your question about the cost is that I'm often told, if I point out the division, I am being divisive. And I think that we have translated that into, if we talk about race, then you're racist. If we talk about differences, then we're focusing on the wrong things. And to all of that, I would say, Oh, no, no, no, no. We have it the wrong way. We do need to talk about the differences. I think that that's part of the beauty of how God's created us is that we are different and how can we learn appreciate that if we don't actually know how to define and distinguish what those differences are. And we are so quick to say, oh, but you know, at the end of the day, we're all humans; which I don't think people actually believe.

I really don't think that we would treat each other this way. If at the core, we believed we all were created in God's image. And so we don't know how to talk about that, because we don't know how to talk about how we're all created in God's image when we are so different. When we speak different languages. We come from different places. We may not even believe in the same things, we treat each other horribly, horribly.

Seth 28:48

Yeah, by default. Which is that's a different that's a different podcast episode altogether. But But yeah, I agree. Either. We all bear the image of Christ or none of us do. And the problem is we treat each other like none of us do unless you're in my tribe. Unless you look like me. You go to my church or we're on the same baseball team or whatever, but for the most part 97% of the time we act like no one else except me. bears the image of Christ or the image of God.

Seth 30:00

There a big theme through your book. And I like it because I don't read the book of Esther. Really ever. And that's probably my fault. And I'm going to rectify that. And Matter of fact, I have since reading your book rectified that I found there's pieces of the Old Testament that I avoided. And I think that was because I didn't want to hear what was in it. Like texts like Amos talking about, you know, when we when we worship, you're doing it like you don't treat God and worship like a whore. And I'm like, I don't like your songs. You're dead. And I don't I didn't want to hear that. I've said and learn to hear that. And it's somehow changed the way I worship. But I like the way that you interweave Esther through. And I was hoping that you could talk a bit about that, like how does Esther as we read through that as Western evangelical Christians or as any other version of any other religion. This is a fairly large audience that listens, how as we read the book of Esther, can that help us inform who we are and how we should act when we're trying to draw that line of I'm going to embrace who I am, but I'm also called to be something foreign? You know, as I bear the image of Christ, and I'm trying to, to be like Jesus, like how do we share or we ride that line?

Kathy 31:24

Yeah. Well, you know, Esther is one of those books I grew up with in Sunday school, and even my Sunday school experience kind of ties in with this is that I never took a hard look at Esther until I was probably in my late 20s, early 30s. Because the way Esther was taught was, you know, she won a beauty pageant and became queen and saved her people. Yay!!! She did it and she was awesome and it's Queen Esther! And for those of us that are old enough who listened to the podcast you know, the felt board you know a little paper felt board stories that's what I remember about Esther and Esther was white and see when a beauty pageant and it was great.

And, even with that type of storytelling, I could not relate to Esther because people like me don't win beauty pageants. We don't win Miss America we are not you know, we're just not in that space and then the idea of becoming queen is ridiculous because, you know, I was not able to watch the most recent Royal Wedding because I was traveling but I did pay attention on social media. I must confess I have this strange fascination with royal weddings. And maybe I'll just blame You know, Sunday school and Queen Esther on that. But this idea of, you know, going from commoner, to becoming royal is so bizarre and yet that actually is the story of us.

Right we are created in God's image but we’re taught when we become Christians we are part of God's special family. But with Esther the more I learned about Esther and heard different women of color preach on Esther. I took a deep dive and I think that particularly white American Christians should hesitate to think of themselves as Esther.

Esther is a Jewish woman growing up in exile in Persia. And when I say woman, I say that loosely because she's probably a teenager. And when I realized that she had another name and that she hid her Jewishness, I thought, “Oh my gosh, that's me”. That's how I grew up. Because my name isn't Kathy is actually KyounghAh. That's my Korean given name. And I don't use that name because well, because when we immigrated, my parents figured that no one was going to bother learning how to pronounce that so they gave me Kathy. And as I grew up, it wasn't because my parents told me to hide my Korean culture. It was because I was ashamed of my culture and white, US, culture tells me that in order to succeed as an American, we say that America is a melting pot, right? So you assimilate, and you lose any distinctive characteristics you have and you just kind of melt and become one.

And that means you lose the uniqueness of who you are and what you bring and your culture and the things that are different. And so the story of Esther I think, is an important one, one because I think it begs the question whether or not that narrative of the melting pot is really what we want in our church, or in the church capital “C”. And what it means for Esther to wrestle with That moment when she recognizes her people are in danger of genocide. And will she be who she's pretended not to be for more than a year? And the other part in Esther that just floors me every time is that idea of language and how the edict to destroy the Jews is written in every language in every dialect so that everybody understands what is going to happen to them and what is going to happen, what's being allowed.

And that idea of a heart language, being able to understand what's happening to you, is written in your heart language and is communicating your own destruction. And I don't think I write this in the book. But I've also wrestled with that in recent times is how have we translated the gospel into something that tells people that your culture has to die; and you're no longer allowed to sing the songs you love to sing, as we talked about, and singing a language that you love to sing, to read Scripture in the language that you love, to be who you are fully in church. That somehow we're supposed to all sing the same way and love the same songs and pray the same prayer in the one language that is allowed in our church.

And so I hear a lot people kind of wanting to imagine them cells as either Esther or Mordecai you know as the one who kind of gives the challenge to Esther you know,

for who knows for such a time as this that you have come into royal position

and imagining ourselves as Esther but here in the US I think more of us are probably not Esther or Mordecai.

Seth 38:29

So who are we then?

Kathy 38:31

I think sometimes we are more like Haman and Haman’s wife and friends. And I tread carefully on this because I don't want this turned around to tell people who speak out against racial injustice, that they are Haman and that they are offended at every little thing. That is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that I think particularly as Christians, we are too easily offended at people whether or not they're in or outside of the church because we have also drawn those lines pretty clearly, that we are too offended by the questioning of whether or not we are living out the Gospel. And our undies get all in a bunch. And then we yell and scream and say, and point fingers at those social justice warriors, they do not have the gospel, blah! And so we become like Haman. And we become like his friends and his wife who say, yeah, let's get rid of them. You know, let's, let's kick them out. Let's destroy them! Because that's not of us. You know, and I have said this to a lot of my white friends, if the worst thing that could happen to you is that you are called racist, if that's the worst thing that can happen, why are you so afraid?

Seth 40:16

That's a good question. I agree with that question, wholeheartedly.

Kathy 40:19

Right. And, yeah, yeah. And and so I think that's part of it is that I look at Esther and I go, "Wow, Haman got a little carried away with the little power that he had, and took advantage of it because one person did not bow. One person didn't bow.

So it wasn't enough to ruin Mordecai. He took it way beyond and said, You know what, I'm just gonna kill him off all the Jews. And so I think, honestly, going again, back to that question of how have we not come so far? I look at Esther and I think, Oh, I think maybe we need to look at Haman and see what he's done; and see what he does. And maybe think about how the church has taken offense at people we would say, are outsiders, saying you don't live the way Jesus lived.

And instead of listening to that, we listened to, you know, we listen to the people we listened to, and say, Oh, we need to keep those people out! We need to do all sorts of crazy things. Because we don't want to hear that. We don't want to question whether or not it's a good idea to have anybody bow to us. And, then for me again, you know, circling back to Esther is that sense of like, for how long did I just kind of, for survival, pretend I wasn't who I am? Because it's, it is a matter of survival It is a matter of there's a cost to pay when you speak up and you become who God has created you to be. And Esther was no dummy. She knew it, she went to the king and he didn't recognize her. She would die. You know, I'll be honest, you know, I say I would die for Christ. But I don't want to.

Seth 42:50

Laughter both

Kathy 42:53

But, you know, but I'm being honest. And I say that because I don't really want to suffer. I don't. I know that's what I signed up for, but if I'm being perfectly honest, that's not the life I want to choose. And, and I think too easily we say, yeah, that's what I would do. And I think, you know, I….I…I'm with Esther, I would say, you know, Mordecai, I don't want to die.

Seth 43:29

So when I hear you say all that. I find it odd that that the version of church that we, in this country, practice most often is that it's very, it's very, you're going to do it this way. We're going to sing this songs. We're only going to sing verses one and three, because we don't like the words in four.

Kathy 43:51

YES!!!!

Seth 43:53

And if you think about the way that Jesus ministered, he didn't do that. That's literally what the Pharisees and scientists were doing. You're not allowed to come here, don't touch him. You're not allowed to stay over there, stay in your lane. Be quiet, you know that you're not allowed to be here.

Kathy 44:07

Yes!

Seth 44:08

And then when Paul and when all the other disciples go out, you know, I mean Peter was basically told you can go to the Gentiles now they are not Jews and George still gonna be right with me, you're not gonna get tainted in some bad way because they do it differently than you.

And I almost hear him saying, if I tried to put myself in that minds-eye I have I made them to worship the way that I made them to worship and it's not your job to redo that. Your job is to tell them where I'm at so that they can direct their worship appropriately.

Kathy 44:46

Yes, yeah.

Seth 44:47

I am curious. So there was a concept in your book called “Midwestern nice”. And so when you talk to a minute ago about you know, evangelicals getting their undies in a bunch is that an example of that?

Kathy 45:00

(laughter) Yeah, yeah, well, you know, it's an example in multiple ways because that's not actually how I speak. I wouldn't necessarily say undies in a bunch because that's probably as much as I could get away with in church. And, and it is…it's very passive aggressive, like being polite and smiling. Or maybe like you might be smiling but you also might be scowling. I can't tell. And it's and it yes, so that's what Midwestern nice is about. And I say that as a Midwestern girl having lived my entire life in the Midwest and minus the eight months in Seoul, Korea. And, this sense of like, I think they like me or maybe they don't; but they weren't outright mean to me and and that's almost worse.

Seth 46:08

Yeah. Well and and growing up in Southwest Texas that as I was read you as a gosh as I read your words about that type of mentality, it reminded me of, you know, a group of people getting together and basically they want to gossip or talk badly about someone so what we'll say first is, “bless their heart, Lord love them but” and now I'm allowed to say whatever I want to say because bless their heart…

Kathy 46:36

Exactly.

Seth 46:38

So in closing as we're coming into the end of our time, so as people are listening to this and as people whether or not they think they are I feel like every time we post something on social media, or every time we say something out loud, we are in some way, shape or form speaking up, whether or not we realize it and which is really scary again, when we think about kids that we are subconsciously modeling the way that we should handle people different than us, which is a very, there's no instruction manual. And that should be on page one, when you're given this child and a birth certificate that should be, you know, we check your manual that you initial that you read that.

And then we check that you have a car seat before you're allowed to leave. And now go and be whatever you're going to be. So in closing, what would you have us think of so what should be our practice and our rhythms? As we find ourselves having an elevated aggression towards an idea or being moved to say something, whether or not it's currently in the culture? You know, what should we do before we do that? How should we sit with that? While we're either typing it or saying it out loud? And then should we let it breathe? Should we just continue to yell into the void and what do we do after?

Kathy 48:00

I pray, before I do anything, I pray. And then while I'm doing it, I'm praying and after I hit send or post, or whatever it is on whatever platform it is in social media, I pray, I pray before I choose to say something in person. And I pray during and I pray after. I think there are lots of you know, real practical things that we can and should be doing. I think in a world where we are connected 24 seven, we should be disconnecting, we should be turning off our phones, we should leave them at home, we should do all of those things. And, but on a…on a very kind of practical, normal level for those who are listening and are Christian. I would say, this is as much about your relationship with God and your discipline and practice of prayer than anything that I when people interact with me it is often first online. And I get asked, you know, how do you decide how do you and I think the impression if you see people online, it's that they are just going gangbusters because they saw something and two seconds later, they are responding. And what you don't see at least for me is that I've been praying. And I know deeply the things that are important that I'm passionate about what God has invited me to, and that is what I'm responding to and that there are many the other things that I'm not posting about that I'm not reacting to. And so I want to encourage people to just take a breath. Take a breath that your prayer doesn't have to be the bless their hearts and a massive gossip session. Also known as prayer time.

Seth 50:22

Out loud, I have an “unspoken prayer about Kathy”

Kathy 50:27

Yes, yes, yes.

We did we go to the same church?

Seth 50:32

Probably.

Kathy 50:37

Is that is that if you see something, you hear something. Take a minute and think about and pray about what is it you're feeling? Why are you feeling that? What else is happening in your heart, in your body in your mind? What is the first knee jerk reaction that you've had? Don't do that. Pray even in that split second and then discern what it is that you should be doing. Because like I said, not everyone is created to be the kind of activist on the street. And not everyone is created to be a preacher or teacher.

So it's important to kind of know what your lane is. And you're not going to know your lane, obviously, unless you experiment and you test things out and you fail miserably and pick yourself up and have a conversation with God. But in all of that, what I've written in the book as well is you pray. Because this isn't about the history books. It really isn't. This is about what is God inviting the church into during this time, and all of the different parts of the beloved church. And I cannot believe that the invitation is to hide in fear and to build walls that separate us and them. And so how will we know? We need to pray? We need to, we need to be in Scripture. We need to be discerning. And then you do it. And then you do it.

Seth 52:37

Yeah. And that's the hard part right there, the doing part. Because you have to, you have to let go of pride to do so. And nobody likes to do that. Kathy, by the time this releases, the book will have been out probably the week prior. And so that is on sell everywhere, correct? Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, Amazon everywhere. So wherever Would you direct people? How can they best? You know, get a hold of a copy of your book? And how would you have them engage with you? Where would you Where would you direct them to?

Kathy 53:07

Sure, I would say if you have a local bookseller, a local bookstore, go there and support your local shop and ask them to order it for you ask them to stock it. And if not, you know go to one of those big boxes or go online and you can find the book and then where you can engage with me I am all over. My blog is KathyKhang.com and I will be more active there. Once the book launch and then I'm also on Twitter and Instagram. And my handle there is @MsKathyKhang and then I'm also on Facebook.

So I'm in all of those places and I love to engage with you leaders and people on those platforms and, and then hopefully, I'll be in physical spaces. We have yet to determine any of those. But hopefully I'll be in physical spaces in the months to come and would love to interact with people face to face.

Seth 54:17

If I could. I would like to lobby for the Charlottesville area of Virginia.

Kathy 54:22

Yes, yes. And if you know of a church or an organization that would invite me that would be fabulous.

Seth 54:28

I know a few I'll email on today. Yeah, I'm sad. I I had the I missed seeing Diana Butler bass. It was like on the same weekend as one of my kids birthdays. And I'm like, She's like, you should come see me. I would love it was like the weekend after I spoke with her. I was like, man, well, I can't cuz baby girls turn in a birthday, but that's okay. So I was gonna I was gonna lose way too many dad points. Yeah and then, I don't often say this, but I usually don't know but You have for those that that travel often and I know many of you listen to this podcast or other books while you drive.

Kathy has recorded her own voice to her own words for the audio version of the book correct, which I assume is that audible and I don't know where else those type of books are lost. But I will say some of the best books that I've found to listen to are not read by actors, because they don't know the emotion and the the reason behind the words. And so if you're one that listens to books, as opposed to reading them, get that version that I find those are sometimes they're better, I don't know why, you can't take notes because you're driving, but sometimes hearing you say your own words is powerful. So right, Kathy, thank you again. I appreciate you coming on.

Kathy 55:51

Thank you so much, Seth.

Seth Outro 56:16

So what are we called to do? What do we do with this?

You've listened for the last 30 to 40 minutes. You hear some of the pitfalls, you know some of the pitfalls as to why. And we also know what it looks like and sounds right to do it, right, because those are the things that get heard. Either the really, really hateful one to the ones that are done right, and there's something deep down inside us when we raise our voice. There is something pure and holy when we are able to do it, right. Something that resonates at a level that is beyond us something true. And I think if we can engage in it in prayer, as Kathy said, when we speak, we pray Before we speak, we pray. As we speak, we pray and then we let it rest. And while we let it rest, we pray. I hope and I pray that we can learn how to do that myself included.

The beautiful music that you heard in today's episode is from the indie worship band from Manchester United Kingdom, Rivers and Robots. Their music is beautiful. They have a new album coming out this fall. You heard a portion of that album, in today's episode is the last song that you heard. So I do hope that you go out and support them. Another way that you can support and that would be this show. I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you sharing and here's what I would call you to do. Please email the show. I really do want your feedback email. mail the show at CanISayThisAtChurch@gmail.com. Leave a message on Facebook or Twitter. I really do want to hear your thoughts on the show.

Should you feel led please consider becoming a Patreon supporter. You'll find links to that at the website, in the show notes everywhere really. And for those of you that have made that plunge, you are literally changing the tempo and the cadence and the quality of the show and I appreciate each and every one of you more than I can say. I'll speak with you next week.

Be blessed.