I was born in an elevator of the hospital my mom was rushed to. When I had a plan, I would see it through! Naturally gifted with an adventurous, envelope pushing attitude, I started to hang around the group that would end up splitting me in half (metaphorically speaking) in my early twenties, and I learned quickly that my audacity had to go.
While at first I thought it was fine to keep following my ideas, be it to visit someone in another town or country, or offer to write and perform skits for the group’s services, I learned one by one that my travel plans had to line up with the leader’s (unfortunately he never thought it was a good idea to leave) and after writing and performing one skit, the leader would reserve the right to plan a service to the Holy Spirit- not knowing what the topic of the sermon was going to be, I felt unable to write anymore skits. By the time I left the group, my audacity had shriveled my personality into a timid, “what if this isn’t what God wants right now?” wondering paranoid.
The past nine years have taught me, one by one, that I can trust my whims and daydreams again, leading to a life of adventure and the kind of excitement I desire. My family and I have traveled within the US and to Europe, I sing karaoke almost weekly, and with a friend I dreamed up and started our own filmed show on health and wellness, called Living Wellness Live, that we co-host, produced by my husband’s video production company Truth in Motion Studios. However, the pinnacle of regaining my audacity (do I dare to call it God-given?), was to reach out to the authors of “The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse” and another author and pastor, Brian Zahnd. In this post I’d like to share about how that interview came about.
Upon reading “Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God,” I knew that the message of the book was exactly what I needed to hear ages ago. Precisely, Brian explains, what the belief that God hates sinners does to people, churches, communities, and nations. If the God you worship hates, you will become a person that justifiably hates. Having been so deeply wounded and confused at the core about when God loves me, when God protects me, when I could feel good about my eternal status should I die, I needed what Brian had to say.
On top of that, my own home church had already endeavored on a journey of reading and audaciously considering re-interpretation of Bible stories. Believing that God is like Jesus, left us with many shocking discoveries about beloved stories, such as considering that Abraham grossly misunderstood what God was telling him to discover about Him, when he “tested” him; Do you believe, like all the pagans around you, that you need to sacrifice your first born just so that you will get what you are hoping for? Abraham’s discovery was that God did not require such an unthinkable act and later in the prophet Jeremiah 19:5 we’re learning that it hasn’t ever even crossed God’s mind to have someone kill a child for him.
With all these new discoveries about how God was so much better than we had thought, reading Brian’s book filled in cracks or felt like reading a book we could have written as well. I knew I needed to meet him. Reaching pastors of big churches is quite unlikely. Trying to reach him by contacting his team proved fruitless, so I messaged him via Facebook. He got back to me the next day! He was willing to meet me and my husband to film interviews for my first videos on spiritual abuse and a shorter interview for a segment on our wellness show.
Audaciously, I had asked him if we could meet him for dinner and film the next day. My husband and I filled up our orange Beetle with camera equipment to the brim and drove down to St Joseph, Missouri, for seven hours, filled with marveling at the fact that we get to do what we are passionate about: telling (earth shattering) truth with video. We met him and his wife Peri at a Sushi restaurant. It was an incredible hot August Sunday evening and I was excited out of my mind. He looked like a retired rock star with sandals, lots of facial hair, and Pink Floyd shirt. I giggled like a groupie because I had spent the past month basically inhaling his teachings on videos or podcasts, relieved with every other sermon or teaching series at his insight into God’s character that resonated so deeply within me.
We talked vividly for two hours. There wasn’t enough time! Also, if you have ever met someone you admire from a distance, there is the strange sensation of realizing that while you feel like you know them well, they don’t know you well at all, and they might not even have the brain space or desire of getting to know you well. Peri and Brian however were very sweet and showed interest in me sharing my background, which for some reason I decided to start with my grandparents’ birth in Siberia, them becoming Mennonite refugees and ending up in Paraguay, where my mom was born.
When we said good night, I felt like a fool for trying to explain why I believe I ended up in a Christian cult by backing up two generations before I was born, but I wanted them to get to know me as well and as accurately as possible. I guess the moral of the story is, I have to see them again! The interview was filmed in Brian’s office at his church, Word of Life, and covers many different topics. I decided to call it “A reintroduction to God with Brian Zahnd” because that seems to be his ministry. While he is receiving a lot of criticism from other Christians for his positions and views, I believe he is right to say that God is like Jesus and that THAT was the good news, that God isn’t mad and looks to punish people but that He forgives and loves eternally. I believe Brian and Peri Zahnd are nothing short of modern day prophets who speak truth that many people in the body of Christ are beginning to hear as well. I hope you will enjoy the thoughts we are discussing as much as I have!
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