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.
Intro 1:08
99 Episode 99, we're almost there. Almost to 100. Welcome to Monday, or whatever day it is that you downloaded the show from the side of your here, remember to rate and review the show, support the show on Patreon, all the normal things, actually, let me circle back on Patreon. It's October now. And so another uptick in Patreon supporters this month by a few and yeah, I'm blown away via $1 be it all the dollars, it doesn't really matter. The fact that you take the time to support the show means that the show can be one. I know, I speak for myself and my family, when they say that the show is taken over parts of the basement and the books and the time, and really not possible without you all. That's not why you download the show, though. But should you feel so led, click the button and you can find all that information at the website for Can I Say This At Church, just literally google. Can I Say This At Church, and it will pop right up. I tried it every way from Sunday, you can't find there's no way to not find the show. Anyway, today I had a conversation with Terry Wardle. So Terry has been a lot of things. He's definitely a dad. He's a he's a husband, he's a sibling. But he's also been a minister. He's been a professor. He's walked a lot of roads through life. And he writes really well about trauma, and how it matters, why it matters. And kind of what are some of the safer ways that we can do this. And while this is not a be all end all conversation about trauma, because that would take years to do. I think it is a good beginning to that. And so I really hope that you enjoy the show. Here we go. Terry Wardle
Seth 3:20
Terry Wardle, welcome to the show and thank you for giving me an advanced copy of your book. I've enjoyed reading it. I'll be honest, I haven't finished it. I try my best to finish every book before I speak to people, but I have not been able to finish I’m about halfway through. But I've really enjoyed what I've read so far. I'm excited for the conversation. And welcome again to the show, man.
Terry 3:40
Thank you. I'm thrilled to be with you said it's a great opportunity to talk about the book and also just to talk about the Lord.
Seth 3:48
We were chatting just off off a bit a second ago if I used to be down here doing this by myself anyway, so I may as well have a conversation with people because people don't do that anymore. They just yell at each other. So yeah, I've been I've enjoyed doing this this past couple years. It's been a blessing to me and I've grown a lot so will tell us a bit about you like what makes Terry Wardle-Terry Wardle, and to be honest, a lot of that is covered in your book, but not everybody's read the book that is listening to this. And they can fix that because by the time this is out, the book should be out and you, you should rectify that it's a great book. But what would you say to those listening that that aren't familiar with you a bit about yourself, and kind of what makes you tick, what makes you you?
Terry 4:33
Wow, there's so many dimensions to that. Most importantly, years ago, you know, the Lord stood before me as he does all of us and invited me into his heart. And that became a major change and a major transition for my whole life. And out of that, I decided that I was going to respond yes to the call to serve him with my life and ended up spending my entire adult ministry in different forms of Christian ministry. For a while I was a pastor and then I went into the Academy, and I taught for 40 years in theological seminaries.
So that's part of it, I think, the more exciting parts of it is that I'm a husband of 45 years. I'm a father of three adults that are all married and have children and I have six grandchildren, and I spend most of my time, if not all of it, training people to position broken men and women for healing encounters with Christ around issues of emotional wounding,
Seth 5:38
Of those three things, Pastor, academic and or what would you say the academy? What is that? What do you mean the academy?
Terry 5:45
Well, that's just a term that you use when you spent your life in either college or university education. It's a much more academic pursuit, although my focus in seminary was on practical theology. So I was really helping people understand how to apply the teachings of Scripture in a in a ministry setting that's going to bring dynamic change to people's lives.
Seth 6:09
What are those two things fills a bigger hole for you like? Has it been equal throughout your life where you're like yet, pastoring? I'm done with that, I'm going to set that aside for now and I feel called to teaching or do they hold an equal…when you when you reflect on them to the equally hold the same weight; or is there one that you liked better and for what reason?
Terry 6:27
Well, you know, Seth, I think for me, there came a point in which I transitioned from seeing myself in a profession to understanding a more Biblical concept of vocation. And vocation simply means a way of life or respond to the voice of God, and that you determine you're going to live your life according to that call. And so I think that there would be pastoral aspects of my life, whether our pastoring the church or not, and there would be teaching aspects of my life, whether I was teaching or not, because those are some of the giftings that God's given.
But out of my own journey, it all began to focus in as I started to teach people more and more how to experience the Lord in a place of unrepaired emotional ruptures. And then I was able to use both my pastoral concern and empathy and my gifts of teaching, to begin to help other people learn how to position folks who have an experience of Christ in what I would call deep emotional wounding.
Seth 7:29
Emotional wounding is a big thing. And I know, as I spoke with Chelsea, who's the one that put us together, she had talked about, you know, you wrote so beautifully, and I agree on your trauma and emotional wounding, specifically as a child. And I know, I've had a lot of conversations lately about child rearing, and ensuring that we do the least amount of damage to our children so that hopefully, they don't have so much to break apart when they get older, in a more healthy way, so that the church is more healthy families are more healthy. You know, psychology is progressed.
So when you say emotional wounding, or, you know, trauma, what do we mean, because it's a very general term. And so what are you getting at when you say that?
Terry 8:11
Well, to make it rather simple for everyone, I'll divided into five categories.
First, trauma is really anything that occurs to us that disrupts the normal developmental cycle. And it isn't something that's easily defined “that this is traumatic, and that is not”, but events that we experience in which it's highly emotional and we do not perceive a way of escape that we want to run, we do not perceive the ability to fight though we want to fight. Then what happens is it has this traumatizing impact on us. So I always divide the conversation to five types of trauma.
Childhood wounds of withholding, when parents were not able to connect deeply, we're not affirming, we're not encouraging. We're not giving children the impression that the party begins when they come into the room that that can have a traumatizing impact, it impacts the way they often view themselves and view God and other people. So wounds of withholding.
Then there's wounds of aggression. Some of us are raised in homes where physical, spiritual, emotional, relational wounding occurs, and it has an impact on our lives, and many of us try to believe we just get over it. But studies today show that it can have a deep psychological and sometimes physical impact on our lives.
And then I would talk about event trauma. Where individuals have gone through a very difficult circumstance, an illness, someone they love, dearly, passed away, or even events like hurricanes and tornadoes and floods that those, again, impact our sense that the world is safe, and we can control it.
And then I would say there's probably two other types of wounding that people struggle with. One of them I would call betrayal trauma, where individuals with power, abuse their power, whether that be teachers abusing students, or doctors abusing patients, or you know, nurses abusing people they care for.
And then the final one I call the trauma of prolonged duress. Which means that some people have lived in situations where there's just a constant sense of anxiety. And when you're a child, and you're in adolescence, and any one of these begins to happen in our lives, it can have a long term impact on our psychological, relational, spiritual, and physical resilience. And what happens for many of us, Seth is we find Jesus, which is great. And we begin to want to follow Him, which is important way to invite the Holy Spirit into our lives, so that He can help to form us.
But for a lot of folks, there are still unresolved emotional issues. And many people carry those way into their adulthood, I've met people that are in their 80s, that are still struggling with their view of self and view of God and view of other people because of events that occurred when they were children. And I know that was true in my life, and there wasn't a pathway for me to really understand that. But all of a sudden, that window opened before, these are issues that I think God wants to address in our lives.
Seth 11:20
Your book that is coming out soon. So Some Kind of Crazy, I like the title, because you'll hear…I've heard that a lot, especially growing up I grew up in West Texas, you know, like that boy over there is some kind of crazy which can either be an affectionate term, or an entirely non non affectionate term. It's equivalent for me with you and bless her heart or whatever.
You talk a lot…And so I now live in Appalachia, I live right outside of the Blue Ridge Parkway, right where Skyline Drive starts. And so I find myself being drawn in at the beginning, but you use, I'm wamma say this right….
So you talk so much about trauma, and fear. And I'm curious at the interplay between those two, is there any trauma without fear? Or the or the are they always attached at the hip? And then how does that impact the way that children become humans? Well, well, yeah. I mean, adults…you know what I mean.
Terry 12:19
Right.
Yeah, I think the issue if we can really talk about it from a more neuro-biological perspective, for just a moment, is that when we're in a situation in which that reptilian part of the brain begins to kick off that this is a fight or flight circumstance, and we can't fight and we can't love that it begins to really generate this deep sense that the world is a fundamentally unsafe place, and I'm not going to be able to handle it. And that's where a lot of anxiety and fear begins to arise. If we were in families, where people understood that and they had an empathic connection with a child, and they were able to have a proper, healthy, secure attachment, then those kinds of things can be processed and downloaded.
But for many individuals, they experienced this kind of an event, whether it's one time or over time, and it to some degree, leaves a part of ourselves suspended in that wounding, and we just try to grow beyond it. And yet, there's this part of us that is still living in this perpetual sense of anxiety and fear. And then what happens as a result of it, which happened in my life, is you begin to compensate for this fear, by a whole lot of dysfunctional behaviors in order to cope with this deep internal storm that's going on inside of you. And you hope someday you can just run as far away from it as you can. And unfortunately, unresolved trauma will always run you down.
So in my case, you know, I was, I mean, born into a broken family, not unlike a lot of folks. My dad came from a horribly broken home, in which he knew a lot of violence, my mother came from a home in which her mom died when she was 18 months old, her dad when she was eight, or grandmother, when she was 14, then she went to live with an that didn't want her. So they bring into their parenting, this level of dysfunction, and then being raised in a family that, you know, my extended family had a disdain for religion and education and an openness to breaking the law. And you could see that you start to combine a lot of that in a young child's life, and it can create a rather intense and anxious world.
And then as a young child, I experienced some rather significant trauma, including not just abuse, but experiencing and seeing death very early on. And, you know, I wanted to grow out of it. And that came a point in my life where I found that anger could mask a lot of that, and then I pushed down that road of aggression. And you know, it didn't pay good benefits. Eventually, I came to Christ, which was wonderful. But I don't think I would be misspeaking that many of us have discovered that when you accept Jesus, which is tremendous, all the problems of your life, don't go away.
Seth 15:11
Sometimes they get worse.
Terry 15:13
Some of the solutions Christians give for problem solving, are really frustrating because it doesn't work. And just to memorize Scripture, when you're dealing with an unresolved emotional pain of the past is not enough. We need to have these experiences of reengaging these stories, meeting Jesus in these stories, and being able to move out not only to a new understanding, but to a new experience. In the very places where we once experienced this, this high level of pain.
Seth 15:48
You write beautifully, early on in the book about kind of your coming to see God moment. But I'm curious and because you've got it in the perspective, and maybe I missed it in the book of your extended family having a standoffish view towards religion, which to be honest to me is slightly not what I usually am a custom with up here in Appalachia. There's like an there's a almost a ”born into it” form of religion, whether or not you're practicing or not. So I'm curious about that. But can you talk to us a bit about like, when you came to Christ, because I love the way you write about it? I believe is that story about the mosque, if I'm not mistaken, I don't have the that note in front of me. But it's just a beautiful story and wonder if you could break into that a bit?
Terry 16:34
Yes, well, let me begin with the first part of, you know, my grandfather, my great grandfather, he came over from England and established the family here with eight children. He left England having gotten out of prison. And so he moves his way into Southwestern Pennsylvania and they begin to establish themselves as coal miners and farmers. And none of them in that broad family would have found church as an element in their life, or in fact, religion. My my own father, he used to make fun of people that went to church. And if anyone in our extended family did, he would always in a mocking way, asked them if they were saved.
But early on, in my experience, my mother began to attend to a rather strange revival service. And in the midst of what was a combination of simple but somewhat distorted gospel and a bit of a vaudevillian approach to church, she did have an experience of meeting Christ and we then ended up being pulled into church. It was kind of a combination of legalism, and Pentecostalism combined, which, you know, that can be an interesting brew. But out of that, I started attending youth group and the youth group leaders decided that they wanted to take us all into Pittsburgh, and there's a great big meeting hall in there called the Syria mosque. And we went there because David Wilkerson was coming sponsored by Kathryn Kuhlman, and he was bringing some of those gang members that he had won to Christ in New York City, Nicky Cruz and others. And I went along because it was with the youth group was doing and there were girls involved, and it was, you know, fine to go.
And when I got there, we, you know, make our way, crowd pushing in and we make our way up to the balcony, which I wasn't all that happy about being in a balcony and a creaking in a creaky wooden chair. And they began to sing a lot of songs I wouldn't have been accustomed to. And I remember one man sang a solo…that was his eyes on the sparrow, and then pretty soon, Kathryn Kuhlman comes who was quite the personality.
And she comes across the stage and I remember that was the first time of several times that I saw her and I even wondered if she walked it seemed like she was floating across the stage asking everybody if we were waiting for her. And apparently a lot of people were, I wasn't, but it was interesting. And soon she invited David Wilkerson to come up. And he had a couple of these gang members speak. And then he began to preach the Sermon on the sword of the Lord is going to come through the land. And I mean, it was a barn burner of a Hellfire sermon. And it scared me so badly that I kick shins and bumped knees all the way out, trying to get out of that row, made my way outside and then suddenly realized, I don't know how to get home from here. And if I don't make it to the bus, I'm going to be stuck in Pittsburgh. And that's something I've never experienced.
So I go back in to the Syria mosque and went into the restroom, thinking I waited out there with their big chairs, and they just pump the sermon straight into the restroom. So I couldn't escape this moment, made my way back up to the balcony. When Dave Wilkerson is about to say “is there anyone here that does not want to go to hell come on down” and to be honest with you, Seth, by that time, I knew this, I don't want to go to hell.
He's pretty well painted a picture of it that wants me to be free of it. And I went down and it was this moment I was kneeling there. And someone led me through a little prayer. And I had this profound moment of knowing that in spite of the fact that this was a sermon about God, being angry and Hell, I had this deep touch of God's acceptance and love and I wept like a baby as a teenager. Because something occurred inside of me that was almost unexplainable. And to this day, what I would say is that God placed the homing device in me.
And you know, I left that event, you know, with one foot in the world and one foot in the church for an awful long time. But always aware that somewhere deep inside was this beckoning of God's love to come into his embrace. And then later in life as I was leaving my college years, I had a second profound, returning, if you will, that then totally reoriented my life. And I decided I wanted to spend my whole life serving the Lord.
Seth 21:24
So you had, I don't want to I don't want to say meteoric, but you ran into success. Early on, it seems like in your life, and in your, in your answering of a call that many pastors are people honestly would be, would want to. But that came with a lot of baggage. And so my question is this I find often as I talk with pastors, and I message with pastors as a part of this conversation, I'll have people email into the show. Pastors specifically, are not prepared deal with trauma, especially not their own. And it seems to implode, not the church necessarily, but it definitely implodes their ability to effectively…to lead to pastor to come alongside people and to bear more burdens.
And so can you talk to that a bit of you talked about earlier, I think you said, you know, you taught practical theology? I think that's what you said. How are some ways that in your experience in your life experiences, you know, you've gone through, you know, depression and a bunch of other things. So, what are some ways that, not we can protect ourselves against because I don't think that you can even do that if you wanted to, to protect yourself against trauma and fear. But what are ways that people listening can be like, Alright, so here's some things that I need to do. Because when this happens, I have to have some way to do this well, as opposed to just everything falling off the rails and exploding?
Terry 22:54
Well, I'm going to take a run up to that set, because I think it's a great question. It's man's a little bit of a broader answer. For me, there was no question in my life that God had placed some gifting in my life, and the anointing of the spirit in my life. And as a result of that, and my own performance drive to prove I have worth, there was a significant amount of success. Big growing churches, I started church in California was seven or eight people in our back porch. And within a year and a half, there were eight or 900. So you know, a lot of good things happen a couple books early on; then I went to seminary community eventually became the head of that seminary.
So by all outward appearances, there was a lot of what some might see as success. But unfortunately, there was a Grand Canyon of unresolved emotional wounding that I had never taken the time to deal with. And even when the anxiety would raise up, begging for me to pay attention to what was unaddressed, I just pushed on and did more and more until finally kind of fell into that Grand Canyon, and ended up actually in a psychiatric hospital for a month getting care for depression and agoraphobia.
So when we begin to talk about other people's journey, several things, one of them is we got to recognize that our body and our emotions are trying to get our attention. But we often try to kill what the body and the emotions are saying. And so we got to learn to listen, when anxiety comes when fears come when there are deep longings inside that don't seem to be met. When we feel like you know, things are a bit out of control, I always argue that's a deep part of ourselves begging for our attention. And what many of us do is it's like a smoke as alarm is going off, and we just turn the smoke alarm off, rather than find out the source of the problem. And, another thing is that some of the dysfunctional behaviors that we engage in, even in ministry-of performance and competition and comparison, workaholism, people pleasing. These are indication of deep issues inside that the Lord wants to meet us in.
So I think the first thing I would say to folks is, you gotta learn to pay attention to what's being said, inside of you, through your spirit, and through your body, and through your emotions. And you also got to take a look at this factor. Most dysfunctional behaviors that we engage in, whether it's control or people pleasing, or dependencies, or sexual addictions and so forth, are being driven by emotional wounds that have never been healed, that have created a lot of distorted ways of thinking about God and self and others, that also creates a lot of emotional baggage. And we end up trying to kill it through different kinds of coping skills.
So I think that's really important. Let me say one other thing about this, I think it's important to recognize we got to have support, we need a certain kind of support. We don't need people to play can you top this or people that want minimize what we've gone through, we need a safe group of people that understand this formula. Vulnerability in a place of grace always leads to transformation. And so we need those kind of safe communities.
Seth 26:14
I like that vulnerability in a space of grace.
about halfway through your book you talk about, and I don't really want to touch on your time in a psychiatric hospital, because I don't really know how to ask questions well about that, because my closeness to it is too far away, if that makes sense.
It's hard for me to put that into words, although I liked I just don't know how to ask them about. So I'm curious though your faith, you know, walking into planting churches in California. And then your faith today, you talked a bit about, you know, you were grasping at straws, and you use an allegory or a metaphor of you know, if it was a race to stay attached to God, and I think you say an inch warm would have beaten you, which is just a beautiful metaphor.
So I'm curious, what are a handful of things that you're like, yeah, you know, this was what was true. And then after all of this, and some, you know, stick-to-a-tive-ness, and then also some deep self reflection and prayer, and searching and cracking back open the Bible. What are some things now that you hold that you're like, oh, man, this is, this is where Grace is. And this is what Jesus is. And this is how Christ is alive now, as opposed to the you that started churches, you know, early on in your ministry?
Terry 27:31
Well, there's so many pieces of this that I would love to talk about. Let me begin with a positive and that is that Paul was right when he said that people even of mixed motive can bring glory to Christ. When you know, if they're preaching Christ, even out of bad motives, let him go on, because people are going to be saved. So there were great things that happened, a lot of these church isn't, people's lives were changed. But there were really some mixed motives in the midst of this, called a ministry and the way I responded in ministry, and here are some things that I think were really tough, that I'll be different now on this side, one of them was;
I had this belief that doing for Jesus was more important than being so I was far more of a Martha, then I was a Mary in terms of the way I approached ministry, I had very little time for any of that, sitting at the feet thing, I had to be out doing things for Jesus and proving my value there.
Another thing is, I think my theology would have been more Jesus plus theology. And Jesus plus theology works this way Jesus comes, he saves us by grace. But now I need to add my good behavior, and my accomplishments to the equations in order to see blessings come from God. So there was always this sense of what are the rules? What are the rituals? What are the obligations that I need to fulfill? So, Seth, I would say my Christianity was far more transactional, that was relational. And I don't think I was alone in that I think there are many people, they get caught up in that exact same thing. But once you're pulled through a knothole backwards, things begin to change.
And a couple of things that changed for me is that I really began to understand the security of identity that is ours in Christ. And it's about Jesus, not about me. That Paul was right when he basically asked the question, do you think God pours out His Spirit because you behave or is it because you have faith in what Christ has done?
So there was a lot more moving toward identity security, all of a sudden, it goes from being transactional, to relational. All of a sudden, the Gospel becomes something much more breathtaking, almost scandalous in its acceptance. Here's another characteristic that was very important that I live by now and that is, our Lord really loves to meet people in the ditch, and then turn their wounds into a place of healing for others. And I think before this, the people I hung with and myself, we pretty much hde our wound and try to run away from our wounds, not knowing that Jesus wanted to move through those wounds to actually bring healing to other people. And those four or five things that I've shared have been huge shifts in the paradigm of life for me.
Seth 30:22
How is that shift kind of affecting the way that you are husband or the way that you are father or grandfather? Because I feel like, oftentimes, some of the feedback that I get is, when you begin to see God in a different way, or the heart of God in a different way, those that aren't in that same car with you are standoffish or they're in the car ambivalent? Or they just jettison altogether. And so how is that affected the way that you're involved? I guess, in your family, you know what I mean? Because that that is a big part of that, because that's that's your those are your people, or at least they are mine.
Terry 31:06
Well, absolutely, there's the closest community and the folks that I love the most. Let me say, first, that it's important that we always live out our journey. Honestly, before them both it peaks and the valleys. And that's something I've tried to do with them. But I've had this little saying that I've lived by now for 27 years, and that is, health begets health.
And that when you choose (to live) into a new health, and at first it receives a certain amount of resistance from people, that if you stay the course, keep choosing health, keep living grace, keep secure in your identity in Christ, all of a sudden, people begin to turn toward it and not away from it. And it's actually revolutionized our marriage with Cheryl and I, it's revolutionized our children. And we're certainly trying to impact that with our grandchildren, that knowing who you are in Christ is such an important part part of moving toward health. You know, there was a great African American statesman named Howard Thurman, and he wrote a book called Jesus and the Disinherited. And in that book, this is what he said,
Awareness of being a child of God is what gives a person ego, courage, and strength.
And what I think is important is that he didn't say, being a child of God, he said, being aware that you are a child of God. And that being aware is all based on kind of Galatians 4 where Paul says, Jesus came born of a woman that we might, and then I, you always use three eyes, that we might have a new identity as God's children, we might have a new identity, intimacy, with the Holy Spirit living within us, and we have a new inheritance, that we can begin to tap now and for all eternity. And so that becomes for me, the way I want to respond to the people in my, in my family, and in my circle of influence, that they begin to understand the scandalous nature of this gospel in which Christ crosses the universe, in order to bring us near to God. That's what Ephesians 2 is all about when Paul said, “once you were far away, but now through Christ, you have been brought near”.
Seth 33:22
One of the stories that gripped me the most that you wrote about, and I've read it. So, again, I haven't read the full book. But I've read this section multiple times. I don't know why I'm drawn to it. But I'd like to hear you talk about it a bit.
So you tell a story of your son Aaron, accepting a position as a worship pastor in the church that you founded it in California. I think that's right. And there's there's a story behind that there. Can you go into that a bit?
Terry 33:52
Yeah, you know, I had this breakdown when I was in California, when I was actually passed during that church that had grown so much. And there were a lot of factors both locally, and inwardly, that contributed this breakdown. And so Seth, to a degree, one of the happiest days of my life is when I saw California in the rearview mirror.
And it isn't that there was something inherently bad about California, it just was the context and the location of a lot of pain and brokenness, even though there were great people around me. So as we made our way, and I took a new appointment and began to teach in Ashland, Ohio, pretty soon all my family comes to be there. And my son was the Assistant Dean of Religious Life at the University, which is a kind of a coveted position for a young man, and we were happy and our grandson were there.
And all of a sudden, he comes to me one day, and he says that God called him to leave his position and that he was going to move and that alone, kind of shook me off my pins. Because I felt so good and safe now that we were all together. And then when he shared with me, he was moving back to California, I must say that, my first thought was, he's moving straight back to the pits of hell it was really an emotional moment; and it created a little bit of a tension between my son and I. And then when I asked him where he was going, and he said, he was going back to that church, I'll be honest with you, I was not happy at all. And he and I had a conflict that we had to really work through.
Because at an emotional level, I have to admit, I saw it as a betrayal, though it wasn't. What it actually was, was an invitation of God for me to deal with yet some more unresolved issues of my life. Because when I escaped California, I think God was trying to tell me, I left part of myself behind. And I needed some healing and some closure, and by the fact that my son decided to go there, and I told him, I'll never go there. Again, you need to know if you want to see me you will have to fly off to where I am. But, being married, my wife decided she wanted to see those grandkids and I ended up back out there.
But you know, what, it became a journey of Reclamation. I didn't see it, I didn't want it, I fought against it. If there was ever my example of kicking against God that was the example. But in the midst of it all, suddenly, God showed me some unresolved places inside that I need to deal with. And it brought a real emotional, and if I may say, experiential healing into my life.
Seth 36:31
So in two different stories that you told, and I and I don't, I don't know if I would have connected this prior. So earlier, you're talking about here in a sermon, and you go to the bathroom and the sermon still there, you can't escape it. And that made me think of Jonah. And you're talking about California, and I just keep thinking of Nineveh, you know, like, I'm not going back there. I don't care what you say, I'm not going to go, I'm not doing it. And then lo and behold, there you are healthier for it.
And I guess so was California. Why not? But I don't know why that may be stretching the description bit, but I don't know, I'm just reminded of it. So we talked a lot about brokenness and pain, and trauma. But that is not all that you talk about in your book. So you talk about and it's right on the cover, like breathtaking grace. And so a lot of people give lip service to grace, and they sing about it in songs. And nobody knows; I don't think what they mean when they say grace. And so when you say breathtaking grace, what does that actually mean?
Terry 37:30
Well, yeah, let me go this way. You mentioned the title of the book, Some Kind of Crazy, and it actually has a double meaning.
Part of it is some kind of crazy as, you know, my own journey through my own real madness. But the other one is some kind of crazy is the crazy love that God extends to us, even in the midst of our brokenness. That's why it happened to really, you know, hang, you know, hook myself into Isaiah 42.
A bruised reed be will not break a smoldering wick, he will not without.
And, and so when we begin to talk about grace, I actually feel that grace in its truest form is scandalous, because grace-look, I often say this to people, you got a choice between two little formulas.
Jesus did absolutely everything needed for you to be secure before God as his child. Or Jesus did almost everything needed for you to be secure as God's child, and then you make up the rest of your behavior. Now, a lot of people would never say, the latter. And yet, when they think about, it's probably the way they're living. And, and grace is that Christ cross the universe lived a perfect life, assigns our name to it, and then welcomes them into our family, and we are then secure.
You know, Seth, not getting preachy, I want to say the prodigal son story is part of this breathtaking grace, look, before he left, he was the son while he was away, he still was the son. When he came back, the first thing the father says is, you are the Son. Man, that's grace. There's no behavior requirement there. Now, his behavior may have broken fellowship, but it never broke his identity is God's child.
And so, Paul, he talks in several places, I think Romans 9 is a good example. And certainly 11, where he says this.
The Gentiles would find a righteousness by faith. And he says, in essence, without even trying, other people are trying to gain a righteousness to behavior and obeying the law, which they will never do.
And so the notion of grace is that we're suddenly swept away with this breathtaking recognition, that God loves us so much, that he's provided everything we need to be secure as his child. And then once were touched by that grace, was we respond with a grace filled worship, full response, whereby we say, Holy Spirit, help us live now, out of who we really are.
Seth 40:11
And then, what do I do with that? So I answered that response. And I'm going to live now where I am. What does it feel free to get preachy? Like, what does that mean? What am I going to do? Like if that call is something that I don't feel like I can do, or if that call is something that I kind of refuse to do? Because I think that's most often the posture of most people. I think I hear what I'm supposed to be doing. And I think I know what I'm equipped to do, or what I should be doing, or what I'm qualified to do. And I'm just not going to do that. How would you answer that call? Because you've done that often throughout your life. Like, all right, let's do this. I need to be a professor. Now. I can't be preparing you to start a church now. And you just stopped doing that, Nelly? That's rare. I don't think most people answer the call. And so when you respond to that grace, how do we how do you respond?
Terry 41:04
Well, I'm going to suggest there are three responses to scandalous grace, one of it is this.
It so takes your breath away, that all you can do is say I want to spend the rest of my life, aligning my life with this unbelievable Gospel of grace, and living through the Spirit's help, according to the call the Father.
Another response is, people want to take advantage of it. I have so much grace, I can go do whatever I want. It doesn't matter if I sin. A third response is a person who says, I love this grace. Now, what do I need to do in order to stay secure in it? I think that we will move back and forth from some of those two extremes. But life and healing comes when we get lost in the breathtaking grace of God. You know, it was St. Ignatius, he boils down the Christian life, he says it's just about three things.
Number one, position yourself to know Jesus better. Just want to know Jesus, do you want to know what the father's like, look at Jesus, you want to know Jesus, all of a sudden, you'll see more of what the Father was like than you ever know. So we start with knowing. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you grow intimate with Jesus. Love him more learn how much he loves you, and Adam that then move forward to serve. He had it correct don't go out and try to serve until you really know. You're getting to know and you're getting to love. Because part of my problem was this. I had a little bit of His love. I went out to serve I turned it into doing I turned it into performance. I turned it into Jesus plus, and then and it was a barrenness in my soul.
But when we can be into say, Lord, just wrapped me up in a deeper understanding of Christ as the center, and learning to love him and receive His love. All of a sudden, service flows out. You know, Seth, there's this passage of Scripture that really moves me and it comes in Zephaniah, no, no..Zachariah, I think it must be chapter seven or eight, it says @there will come a day, when 10 people from all nations will lay their hand on the Jew and say, may we walk with you, because we see the God is with you“.
I think we begin to prioritize breathtaking grace, a worship or response to this amazing love of God, that all of a sudden, there's something attractive about it, and people will come and say, maybe walk with you, because we see that God is with you.
Seth 43:50
Well, and that's not always, I think you hit on it earlier, too. It's not always what you're doing. It's the way that you're posturing. It's just being present, being there responding to people, as people need to be responded to. Sitting there, you know, sometimes being a Mary, as opposed to a Martha, though the world needs both the world definitely needs needs both point people in the right direction, Terry, where do they go to do more to get more of what you're doing? Because I mean, you do a lot of things, you you've got retreats, you do speaking events, I think you have a podcast, you definitely have this book and other books, like you do a lot of things. And so what would be the place that people get to, to learn more about you grab ahold of the book and all the other things?
Terry 44:33
Well, if they go to Terrywardle.com, they're going to find a link to all kinds of things literature, video series, there's good, and a lot of those are absolutely free. There's also going to be a list of the events where I'm out speaking, which I'm out most of the time, talk to people about grace, and also training people to position people free willing, we also have these retreats a days where people come together in a small group with very highly qualified caregivers who will walk them through. And then we have a new ministry called the healing Care Center, where individuals are going through a tough spot, they can come and stay with us and spend five to 10 days and receive deep counseling and care. That's all focused on the very things we've talked about.
So the website is one of the best places to go. There is a second website that I have. It's just HCM International stands for healing care ministry, international go there, we find all kinds of material and if they buy the book, at the end of the book, it gives all that kind of information and we exist to position people to experience deep healing in Christ. That's that's all that we're about.
Seth 45:50
Nice. Well, thank you again, I really enjoyed the conversation I and I enjoyed your often I have enjoyed your authenticity, and your transparency in your book. It's a lot of people people say a lot of things and they don't say anything at all. But there's so much of you in this book. I really appreciate it. But thank you again so much for coming on, Terry.
Terry 46:08
Well, it's been a joy and a lord gets all the glory is always
Seth outro 46:13
Absolutely
going to make this outros as brief as possible. I've listened to this episode with Terry now twice, and I really liked it. I liked what it calls us to do. I like what it calls me to wrestle with. And I would love to hear some of your feedback on that. Let me know what you thought of the show email in a Can I Say This At Church at gmail, com Facebook, Twitter message? Instagram, although I check that rarely. I'm really bad at Instagram. I think that generation missed me, or I missed that generation or however you say that sentence. I look forward to next week for Episode 100. Tell your friends. Let's do this thing. Be blessed.