#102: Kristen LaValley: Critical Thinking Christians
I reached out to today's guest because I was so intrigued by the way she handled really difficult conversations on Instagram. Kristen LaValley is a champion for helping Christians become critical thinkers. In our conversation, we talk about her adventure in an RV over the last year, tough conversations, and how to listen to God.
This is an insightful dialogue with someone I know you are going to want to learn more about.
Links:
EP. 102 Kristen LaValley
Tony: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Reclamation Podcast, where our goal is to help you reclaim good practices for faith and life. I'm Tony. And today is episode one Oh two today's podcast is part of the spirit and truth podcast network. For more information, check out spirit in truth.life. To learn more about all that God is doing over there.
Now today on the podcast, I have the distinct privilege to sit down with someone who I found on Instagram, actually, her name is Kristen LA Valley, and she is all about helping Christians think critically. And I love this for this season, right? Because there are so many things that are coming at us. So many things that are impacting our thoughts and our feelings.
We talk about kingdom thinking. We talk about what it means to be a critically thinking, Christian. We talk about how to get into the practice of listening to Jesus. Their story is pretty incredible. At the time of this interview, they were getting ready to come off the road after living in an RV and just finding out that they're having twins.
So an incredible story, I recommend that you go follow her on Instagram. Her life has taken lots of twists and turns even since we've we've done the interview. So there's a lot there to learn all the way. All the while though, she is doing an incredible job of bringing God into all of this. And that's what I love most about her platform.
So do me a favor go ahead and click that subscribe button. Make sure you don't miss any future episodes. Leaving a rating or review on iTunes really does help get the word out. And if this episode speaks to you, we'd love to hear about it. Either share it with a friend, tag me on Instagram at TW Milt tag, Kristen on Instagram.
We would love to hear some of the feedback that you have for us. As always, we appreciate you. And without any further ado, here's my conversation with Kristen. LaVale. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm here with Kristin LA Valley today. Did I say that last name, right? Yep. Good job. Awesome.
Hmm. And Kristin, I've been following you on Instagram for several months. And, and does you do a tremendous job of talking about your faith and traveling and you recently shared with everyone on Instagram that you're having twins. So let me start there. Congratulations.
Kristen: Thank you! Wild!.
Tony: How are you feeling about that?
Kristen: I think I'm still processing and like the figuring out the practical stage of bringing in two babies at the same time, so excited, but also like, okay, what are the logistics here?
Tony: That yeah. That, yeah. Whew. Yeah. And you've got extra logistics because you, for the past, for the past year, right. You've lived traveling throughout the world in an RV.
Is that right?
Kristen: That is right. Yep.
Tony: And how did you get to this place?
Kristen: To being in the RV?
Tony: Yes. Yes. Your, your life in general, as much as you want to share, catch us up to, like, how did you get to like, yeah, I'm going to be A voice on critical thinking in the Christian community while I drive around the United States in an RV.
And then that's, I mean, that just seems like such a, a fun way to go through life.
Kristen: Yeah. It's really, really weird, but that seems to be like the theme of our lives. We're just like we have open hands and we're like, wherever God's going to take us, we'll go. And we'll just see what happens. But my husband and I were youth pastors and worship pastors, and he was an associate pastor for a little while for.
All since we've known each other. We were 19 when we met and we've been in ministry together ever since. And a couple of years ago, we just started feeling kind of pulled in a different direction as far as ministry and serving in the church goes. And we went through a pretty difficult church trauma where we were on staff at a church and just a really difficult thing that happened that kind of propelled us into.
Where we're at now, which is where we're not, not a part of a traditional church anymore, but we're a part of What I guess is broadly understood as the organic church community, which it can be home churches or just like small groups of believers who meet together. And a lot of the people in that are people who have been hurt pretty traumatically inside of traditional church communities and are people that just kind of like us who were already being pulled into a different direction.
And then the hurt kind of compounded that. And. Caused them to seek something different. Maybe Jesus was just kind of pulling them in a different direction. And so we were just kind of hanging out in our town in Massachusetts doing that and building our community. And we started thinking about traveling and what it would be like if we traveled in and tried to see what God was doing outside of the walls of traditional church around the country.
And then it all just kind of worked out the RV. We got the idea to do the RV and. We found somebody who was planning on kind of doing a similar thing. And then an illness came into their family and they weren't able to go. So we got the RV from them and took off right as the pandemic was starting, which was not a part of the plan at all, but we just decided to trust the Lord and go with it anyway.
And it's ended up being really, really great in spite of, you know, restrictions and pandemic and all that stuff. It's been, it's been really, really good.
Tony: Sure. What has traveling this year taught you about God? Oh man. Big. That's a big question, obviously.
Kristen: Yeah. I mean, it's so much, but I think the biggest thing is that he is moving and continues to move in people's lives in spite of everything in spite of their doctrine, in spite of their understanding of him.
In spite of, if they're in the church or outside of the church, he is moving the same way. Throughout the entire bride of Christ. And it's something that is subtle. And it's not something that you could maybe like here, here's the formula for how to create this movement in your church and write a book about it.
It's just so organic. And so not messy, but just like raw and good. And there's no one leading it. It's just Jesus leading it. And it's just so cool to see him work in and outside of the boxes that we've tried to make for him.
Tony: Yeah, well, one of the things that I see a lot and the content you put out as this very real like tension, because you, you clearly love the church, right?
And, and you, you love the church in a very authentic and true way. And yet the expression of the church as the ekklesia like the called out people of God seems very real for you to, how has, how has building a community been. Cause you're kind of building one on Instagram and you're kind of building one.
I mean, you've got, it's just, it's really crazy. How's that? How's that all come together for you?
Kristen: There's, there's lots of overlap between what I do on Instagram and our real life, but the community that we've built around us and our real, like off the gram was something that was really crucial in our healing process.
As we were like, Moving past the trauma and the hurt that we experienced finding a community of people that were safe was crucial. But also when you're hurt inside of a given community, you're kind of like resistant to finding that community again. So knowing that we, that it's important and as believers we're called the community, we're not called to isolation or to be these autonomous.
You know, followers of Jesus, we just prayed it in. And we were like, we can't go looking at looking for it because our perception is jaded by our hurt. And if we go looking at it, we didn't really trust ourselves to find good community because maybe everything would seem like a red flag or we wouldn't really give people.
The chance that they needed to. So we just prayed that we would find people and we committed to praying, like God just bring us, bring people into our lives. And so we'd meet people in coffee shops and at libraries and, Oh, Hey, you should meet my friend. I think you guys would get along. And then through talking, just finding this common ground and this like-mindedness, that was crucial for the stage that we were in.
So it's, it's happened really organically. Offline. And so that overlaps into what I do online, because I kind of have a better understanding of what true kingdom community is supposed to look like.
Tony: Now are you in Zack extroverts introverts? Is it easy for you guys to meet people? Because I have this sense, like, as I, as I kind of look and, and, and, you know, lurked on yang, Instagram prepping for this interview, I am like, I mean, I don't really get the sense that they're like strong extroverts.
And so I bet it cause. I think it would require quite a bit of effort to, to like, take that nudge to go talk to somebody.
Kristen: Yeah, it does. My it's easier for my husband. He's an ambivert, so he can go either way. I've never heard that word before. Yeah. So he's, he's. He loves people and he loves meeting people, but he gets tired.
But I'm what they call a social introvert, which is an introvert that comes off as an extrovert. So when I'm comfortable, you'd think there's no way she's an introvert, but I get very exhausted. And then I don't answer texts for like a week and in my time. But community is not something that has ever come easy to me.
It's a little bit easier for my husband, but not. For me. So for me, finding that community has been an act of obedience and an act of faith and definitely a refining process as someone who's, it's, it's hard to get through the shell, especially after I've experienced some kind of hurt. It's hard for me to trust.
It's hard for me to know open up in-person so, no, it hasn't been easy, but my husband. He's so funny when he decided that he wanted to find community, and this was like, this is what God was calling him to do. I'm going to do this. He took a notebook and he was like, I'm going to make a friend every day.
And at the time I was working a lot and he was with the kids. So he would go to the library and if he saw a dad there, he would just walk up to them and start talking and then would write the name, his, his name and his phone number, and like one little fact about him. So if he saw him again, he would remember that.
So that's how he. Made friendships. And then I would meet their wives and we would sometimes we'd hang out. And sometimes I did like, please don't make me be friends with their wife. Like you guys can be friends, maybe friends, but he, he made lots of friends that way. And now he does discipleship with some of them and kind of like a mutual discipleship thing.
But yeah, it's just, he found what works for him. And I found what works for me and it's just been really organic and I don't know. It's been good.
Tony: I hear you talk a lot. As you describe all this and prayer and faith. One of the questions I'd love to ask people is how do you, how do you hear from God, right?
How do you know it's God? How do you know it's God's will? Because I think there's a lot of people who are, who are caught in that tension of like, man, is this what God wants for me? Should I stay? Should I go, how do you take a big risk in know that it's of God and not just, you know, your feelings.
Kristen: I think practice and being willing to be wrong, but also Processing what you think you're hearing from God in community with people who are more mature in the faith then than you are.
For us, we do. Whenever we, especially when we have to make a decision together but even just in our regular life, we call it, we call it listening to Jesus together. Or we'll just sit and be quiet and not say anything and just see if there's like a little nudge or a thought or something and then talk about it.
And then we always of course go to God's word because he's not going to speak anything that contradicts with scripture. So we always go back to that. So sometimes it's just through, maybe we read something and we read something in the Bible and. That feel like, I feel like maybe God's taking us in this direction, but it's never something where we're like, Jesus spoke to me and this is what we're doing.
It's this is, this is what I feel like God's doing. And what do you feel like God is doing? And then we talk about it together and then we'll process it and community as well, especially if it's like a big decision, we'll go to people who are further along in their walk with Christ than we are and process that with them.
Tony: Yeah. I have a group of people that don't know each other, but in my head I call them the council of the godly. You know, it's like, it's like, Oh, that's my check of people that I'm like, I got to talk to, I gotta talk to him. I gotta talk to her. I gotta talk to them and like checking off the council of the godly, even though nobody really knows her on the council and we don't have any official meetings.
Kristen: You should get t-shirts.
Tony: Right. Congratulations. You're on the council of the godly. I think everyone would run away. So talk to me about your heart for the critically thinking, Christian, w w where did that come from? And w. I mean, I have lots of opinions on why it's needed in this season of life, but how, how did it, how was it born in you?
Kristen: I think I just, I didn't realize that that was not something that was prioritized in churches until. Last year I, my parents, the way that they raised us was to, they prioritize independent thinking with us. My parents are pastor. So I grew up in a very conservative Christian home. And they were very, very determined that their children think for themselves sometimes to their detriment.
Now I'm like, you guys have some regrets about that. Like be honest,
Tony: I'm raising a strong, independent young woman in my life, but my, my daughter and I'm like maybe less than two.
Kristen: Yeah. My poor parents, they have five kids and all of us are like, When we disagree on about something and it's annoying to all of us, but I love it.
But so last year when all of this stuff was going on, like when we were getting hit with a new thing every week, it's a pandemic it's, you know, a protest, whatever it was. There was a lot of group thing, go girl, girl, going on, like pressure to believe one way or act one way or see things one way, whether it was on the conservative side or, or the progressive side, it was this, like, this is what you're supposed to think.
This is what you're supposed to do. If you don't do it, then you're a bad person. And I saw so many people just getting swept up because of the pressure to be a good Christian and do the right thing and all these different interpretations of what the right thing. It is, but pressuring each other to just jump on the current and go with it.
And it just shocked me and troubled me deeply as someone who values loving the Lord with your heart and your soul and your mind. It was hard for me to see so many people jump on trains without thinking about it because they just didn't want to risk being wrong. And so that's kind of where I started taking that direction of critical thinking on my Instagram.
Like let's just not make a decision and come to a conclusion right now. Let's think about it and honor the Lord with our minds. So that when we get to that conclusion, we got to it. Not just because other people told us to whether it's the world or the church told us to, but because we've, we've checked all the boxes, we've looked at God's word, we've prayed.
We've thought we've listened. We've empathized, we've had compassionate. And then we come, then we come into a conclusion, but there's so much pressure to rush and decide things quickly, which. I believe it's contrary to how a Christian is supposed to live and act because we're called to be slow to speak and slow to anger and to, to love the Lord with our minds.
And part of that is thinking things through. So make critically thinking Christian again, that would be great.
Tony: How do you how do you slow. Everything down to get to a good cause I think, I think a lot of people are like, hear you. And they say, yes, I want that in my life, but it's not as simple as just wanting it.
There's some action that has to go a part of that. What are kind of the, some of the steps that you recommend, if someone wants to take that journey from, from jumping off the conclusion train to maybe just slowing down and thinking through it a little bit.
Kristen: I think the first step is to practice and maybe even pray that God will expand your capacity for self control, because that tends to be the praise.
Tony: The Lord did my wife call you. I'm just kidding.
Kristen: Yeah. We have like a secret text message. I think especially with social media, we're just pressured and to respond and it makes it so much easier to respond. And not responding is a huge challenge and it's such a temptation to respond quickly and having self control sometimes feels like inaction or apathy or like, and maybe people will even accuse you of that if you don't speak up on something right away.
But taking the time to. Control your responses control the need to say your piece right away and whatever, and think things through. And I, I have a process when something like something culturally comes up that. The world or the church is screaming at me to respond to and do the right thing.
Like it's usually something really moralistic and prove that you're really a follower of Christ. I stop. I think about it. I research it. And if it's something that I feel like I need to actually come to a conclusion because we don't have to, like, we don't have to talk about everything and come to conclusions.
Like sometimes we can just sit with stuff for a really long time. But if I feel like it's something that I really need to think about this and, and figure out where I land on this, then I do some research. I go to God's word. I talked to my husband, I talked to my God, what'd you call it your godly counsel counsel, the godly counsel, the godly.
I talked to my people. I talked to my siblings. I talked to my parents, anybody that's in my life that I'm like, what do you think about this? And then when it, when it comes to the end of it, when I've done all this. Thinking the question that I asked myself with everything is how does the gospel compel me to respond to this?
And when I asked myself that question and I answer it truthfully with the word of God, with prayer, with wise counsel, with just taking time to think through it then I can respond from a place that comes from a centeredness in Christ and not in my ideology, my ideological. Impulses or my moral impulses or whatever it is, I'm, I'm responding from the gospels compulsion and nothing else.
Tony: So what's interesting is I, I really appreciate this process and I would imagine it's when I hear you say it, so plainly it's this it's just like, Oh, that makes a lot of sense. It's super easy. Right. But the truth is it's. I bet it's not been that easy. What what's it like being kind of a voice of a, or.
Or trying to be a voice for people in the midst of all this. I bet your DMs get real ugly, real fast.
Kristen: Oh yeah. People, people want you to reflect their their ideas and their opinions and people follow you on social media. If you're, if they're a stranger, they follow you because they see something in you that they relate to.
And then when you say something that they can't relate to, they feel kind of betrayed by it and they take it personally. But, but you should be thinking like this. And so I get a lot of DMS where people are just tearing me up or they'll like repost things that I've said and, and have like 10 points as to why I'm wrong and why I'm not really a Christian and you just have to.
Not care and just know that your identity is not in other people's perceptions of you because they don't know you, whatever, but you just got to stay true to what God calls you to do. And when you, when you take the time to process and you're not acting impulsively, then you can have a little bit more confidence in what you're saying and doing, because I checked all the boxes.
I am confident in what I said. If you don't agree, that's okay. But this is where I stand and I stand by it.
Tony: Yeah. How do you get to a place where you don't care? As you know, like, I think that there are a lot of people who are so nervous to make a statement one way or another. I, I mean, I think if you preach long enough or pastoral long enough, you're going to offend somebody.
I mean, hopefully I think probably and so. I, you know, how, how do you do it? I I'm really curious that. Cause it seems like it's Instagram feels so visceral to me sometimes not as bad as Facebook, but Facebook is a train wreck. I just, yeah,
Kristen: I don't even get on Facebook anymore. I stick to the gram, but I think it's just practice and just being hurt a lot and carrying a lot.
I don't think it's wrong to care. I don't think that's like a character flaw. If you care what people think about you. Even though people will say, you should never care. Obviously we're going to care. There's some personality types that care more than others, but I think it's just time and practice and maturity and really knowing yourself and knowing what your process needs to be.
So when you do speak, if you choose to, again, I don't think everybody needs to speak on everything publicly. But if you do decide to speak on something, know yourself and know what you need to do to. Be as confident as possible when you do speak and just expect people, somebody to say something and to be mad because if nobody ever gets mad at what you're saying, then you're not really saying anything at all.
Somebody's got to get mad at some point, or you're just. You know, then it's just all fluff, which again is okay. But if you want to say something and you want to voice your opinion, be confident in it, and don't just throw your opinion out about everything. And a little humility goes a long way. And if people know that you're willing to be wrong and that you will admit that you're wrong and that you are graciously offering your thoughts to the world, that will kind of trim down the
horrible. "Why don't you just kill yourself", DMS that you might get.
Tony: Are those out there?
Kristen: Oh yeah.
Tony: Oh, that sounds so bad. Random question. How does your husband deal with that for you? Like, I, I, as a my natural instinct is to want to kind of like protect my wife. And even though she does not need my protection, just so we're all clear.
Right? Like, but like, my heart would like, it's one thing. If you're gonna attack me, it's another thing. If you're going to tag my family, like that's gotta be super hard. How do you, how do you guys deal with that as a couple.
Kristen: It's not so difficult now because they don't, th those kinds of things don't bother me as much now.
But he's, he's very protective of my emotional health and my energy. And so when he sees me getting drained, he'll just take my phone. We're just going to delete the app. For a few days, but there was, there was a point where he would scream my DMS for me, and he would just delete stuff that wasn't good for me.
Like it was nothing productive for me to read and I trusted him with that, but now, now it's not so bad, but he he feels like he's an Enneagram nine, so he's very empathetic and. He cannot stand for peace to be disrupted in any way. And if I'm not at peace, he is not at peace. So he's very protective and super helpful with my emotional levels.
Tony: Can I ask what you are on the Enneagram.
Kristen: Oh, I'm a five Oreo.
Tony: Yeah. I'm an eight and my wife is a nine.
Kristen: Oh, okay. That's cool. That's a good combo.
Tony: We didn't know it at the time we were, we got married as high school sweethearts, so we didn't like we didn't. I mean, we just didn't know. We didn't know anything.
Kristen: We had no idea.
Tony: As, as you, as you guys look at at discipling your family and the organic church movement, what are some of the things that you guys do as a family to help nurture that faith dialogue and how are you raising critical thinkers? I'm really curious about this.
Kristen: Well, for church, we view our family as our first church.
So we, we, our church at home and our kids are very familiar with what church is not necessarily. We don't talk about church in terms of going to church or services or programs, even though they're a part of all those things in a normal year. And then the, in a non pandemic year they are part of like Bible clubs.
They love traditional church. They love going to service. They love the whole. Process through it. But our biggest thing with our family is that we are the church to each other at home. And we practice the tenants of church. Like we pray together, we do convenient together. We talk to each other, we encourage each other.
We exhort each other, all of those things that are elements in the church body. We teach that at home. Not in any, like, here are the things that you need to memorize, but just as kind of like an organic, natural thing we have a few different models. Yeah. Yeah. And we have a few different practices that we do to make sure that we are being a joy fueled family, which is one of our.
Biggest things that we want to be centered on joy. So we do what we call appreciation stories which I think, I think it's a thing. I don't know my husband, he brought it into our family, so we just do it. But it's basically you just, at the end of the day or beginning of the day, whenever we're, it works for your family, you talk about something that happened a memory.
It could be something that happened that day or something that happened a while ago, but it's a memory that makes you feel good that you appreciate it. And you tell the story and as you're telling the story, You talk about how it made your body feel. And as you talked about how it made your body feel, it kind of.
Makes you remember how, how that felt. And so it brings you back to joy remembering the moment, but then also remembering how your body felt like my shoulders felt really relaxed. And then all of a sudden you realize, Oh yeah, my shoulders are relaxed right now, as I'm telling this story. So it's just a good way to like center us around joy, which we think is a big part of Christian community and should be the core, core value of Christian community.
And then as far as raising critical thinkers, we just. Fight the need to tell them what to think and, and ask them. We ask a lot of questions. Not necessarily like let's sit down and let's learn how to think. But if they ask us a question about faith or a question about what's going on in the world, we'll say, well, what do you think?
And we started regretting that a little bit this year because we have three kids. And they all have different political opinions. They all know who they were voting for. We've got a Trump voter, a Biden voter, and a, why don't you guys just feel forgot? I can't believe you're not voting for God. So a little bit of a guilt trip or a voter, or like, Okay.
Let's just like, not talk about politics in front of people, but what they come up with, their opinions, like my, my son, when he was like, I don't think anybody should vote for Trump or like, okay. Why do you think that? What do you think about as policies? What do you think a president should do? And we just try to encourage them to think through their thoughts and shape them for themselves rather than saying, you know, don't say that, and same thing goes with faith.
When they bring questions of faith to us, we'll say, well, What do you think and why do you think that? And where did you get that idea? And of course we guide them and we lead them as well, but we start with, let's figure out where, where that's coming from and why you're thinking that. And then we're going to guide you into.
Right thinking, because I don't think you should just be like, Oh, whatever you want to think, honey, just like, go live your life. I think it's our job as parents to guide our children, especially when it comes to the faith. But if you don't let them think for themselves and their faith is never going to be their own.
So we try to give a little room there.
Tony: And in, in their sense of community, how do you build community for them? It's probably less important. I'm kinda thinking out loud here, but you know, thinking about my kids and they're pretty flexible as far as they make friends everywhere they go. Is that kind of just how you guys roll?
Kristen: Yeah. Yeah. They have everywhere. Everywhere we park, they find friends, they ask for their phone numbers. Are there roadblocks? Robot. I don't know, whatever that game is that kids are playing these days, they get their screen names. They use there's an app on Facebook called messenger kids where you can, yeah.
Yeah. So we let them do that and they keep up with their friends. They talk to them, they call them there. It's like not even a thing. How old are your kids? 10, seven and five.
Tony: And how are they feeling about the twins?
Kristen: Oh, they're so excited. Are they? Yeah, they get to do all the fun stuff.
Tony: Well, I mean, how is the how, how has the thought process about becoming planted again and, and not so, because you've been pretty open about LA, a lot of that stuff, you guys are moving back East, right. And and how how's everybody feeling about that? And then will you guys find a church home there?
Kristen: Where we're feeling really excited because there's re we really don't have a choice. So when we don't have a choice, we're like, man, that's going to do something great. And that's cause we're so we're, we're excited and open-handed because, you know, God can say. Just get back on the road. You could do those with two infants, no big deal.
So we'll, we'll see, but we're excited to see what God's going to do. We're excited to get back to our people. We've been able to stay really close with the people that are back home with our community. So everyone's really excited for us to, to come back and yeah, and we, and we do have a church that we would consider our home church.
It's a church that our friends planted, but in new England churches aren't really open. So it's just kind of like. Zoom churches and things like that. But yeah,
Tony: I'd love to talk a little bit about church hurts and and kind of how you guys have walked through that process and your openness around all that.
What's that? How did you guys, how'd you guys move on from those moments?
Kristen: Hang on one second. My kids just came in. You guys are not supposed to be in here, get outside, go find that.
Zach's about to be really mad. Go outside. Now your kids are in here in the middle of a call. They're in there.
Tony: I'm thinking they're more than welcome to jump on the call. I don't care.
Kristen: No. No. Who knows? I told you I'm independent thinkers. Who knows what they would say?
Tony: Well, it'd be fun for me.
Kristen: I can just get in this game. I do not endorse any of their political beliefs at all. Anyway, sorry. You want to answer that question again or ask that question again?
Tony: Yes. What was that question? Oh, church hurt. Yep. Church hurt. How, how, how has that process been for you guys moving through the church hurt and, and how have you seen it play out? Cause it seems like there's a, there's a lot more people who identify with church than I would have guessed. So I, I'm curious just to get your thoughts on all that.
Kristen: Well, the process was long. It wasn't like a quick I'm better now. Hallelujah. It was, it was a process and it was a messy process, a messy emotional process. But when we found gracious community and people who understood what we are going through and what that pain is because people who have never really experienced that, don't understand what a unique trauma that is and spiritual.
Spiritual heart or hurt in a spiritual community does register in the brain as a trauma, as a relational trauma and trauma changes the way that your brain is wired. And I think as believers and research kind of backs us up that the best way to move forward when you've experienced a trauma is with.
People who are happy to be with you no matter what. And so they're happy to be with you. If you're sad, they're happy to be with you. If you're angry, they're happy to be with you. If you're happy, no matter what, you're welcome. You're accepted. You're here. We're not going anywhere. And so finding community like that, that was just relentlessly with us.
Even though this was new community, it wasn't people that we had known our whole lives. There's a little bit of that, but the healing came in and finding other believers who. Understand understood the hurt and the trauma and the messiness that happens when you're trying to salvage your faith. When it maybe feels like it's on its last leg, like and guiding you through that without guiding you through it and kind of, kind of protecting you from completely abandoning it altogether and allowing you to be angry, allowing you to be bitter.
But guiding you through that with grace and hope and truth and hard truth, sometimes challenges sometimes, but that we've seen a lot of that on the road too, as we've come across. It just kind of, I think once you've been through something like that, you just kind of find people everywhere that have been through something like that.
It's just some kind of like a beacon that goes off. Like, I think. I think they've got, I don't even know what it is, but we could recognize it is it and other people and being able to give that compassion to others and that acceptance to others has been really important and really cool big part of what we do is just sitting with people and being like, I'm really sad about this with you.
And that's so validating and healing for people.
Tony: Why do you think it's so a wide spread is as much as it, it has. It is. It seems to be. And in, in my experience too it's, it's just out there a lot and I I'm trying to figure out what man, where did the church I don't want to say go wrong, cause I don't want to just lump it all in there to get it right or wrong, but you know what I mean?
Like, ah, man, it feels like I just, I want to be better.
Kristen: Yeah, well, to put it simply, I mean, it's, it's kind of like a complicated thing to put simply because it's probably different in every place, but I think a big part of it is. The system that we've created in the church, the hierarchy of leadership that we've created and the power dynamics that come into play because most church hurt comes from leadership.
And, and I would say probably, you know, 80% sure there's actually statistics, but at 80% of people who would say, yeah, I have church hurt. It came at the hands of a pastor and From what I've seen and what I, what I've seen with people that I know what we've experienced ourselves and through all of our reading and being involved in this church hurt community.
If you will, even though it's not like an organized community is, is that it's leadership and it's lack of accountability. It's lack of understanding the church. Doesn't really know how to process hurt in community. So when people are hurt, the community can't handle. Someone within the community being hurt because of the pastor.
So the easiest thing to do is to either cast that person out or make them so uncomfortable that they don't want to be in that church anymore. So there's very little reconciliation. There's very little redemption and healing and forgiveness within the church where the person was hurt, which is why there's so many people who are like, I'm just done with church forever because it's so unhealthy.
But. It's the system. And I think, I think that we've really drifted far from what the biblical model of community and giftings and callings are supposed to be. And it creates this messy kind of like a corporation dynamic where the pastor is the employee of everybody. And, and if you cross paths with your boss, you're going to get fired.
And unfortunately that happens a lot in the church.
Tony: If you could go back in time and maybe this isn't even a fair question to ask. So feel free not to answer it if you don't want to. If you could go back in time and, and, and craft a better solution to the church hurt that you guys experienced, what would you have liked to have had done for you for you guys?
Kristen: It would have been really great if it would have been more acceptable culturally within the church for us to talk about what happened and to confront it instead, it was. And this is I'm sure anybody who is listening that has had churches at this phrase has been said to them, but what the proper response to do is to leave quickly and quietly and to not cause dissension or division and not speak ill of the pastor, which means you don't actually get to tell people, especially if you're on staff, which was the case with us.
You don't really get to tell people what happened. You just have to essentially lie and come up with another story of why you're leaving and never really talk about. What happened because you'd have to re re or you have to protect the leadership that's in place. So it doesn't really matter what happens to you because the pastor is the ultimate authority and he's in authority that needs to be protected.
So in our case, it would have been nice if we had been able to, to tell the truth and we weren't, and that was, yeah, that made healing harder. It made forgiveness harder. It made understanding why, what happened to us. Why we still don't really understand, because we are never able to talk about that in community, which now we understand it's completely contrary to scripture, but because we kind of prioritize the system that we've created over what God's word said, this is just going to keep happening over and over and over again.
Tony: So the flip side of that, if, if you guys get back to Massachusetts and you decide you're going to plant a church, right. And, and God's put that on your heart, what, what, how would you design it to, to mitigate as much of that understanding that people are always broken and these kinds of hurt, hurt always happens.
How would, how would you set up a more organic. Church model or maybe not, or maybe there is no, I don't know. What do you think? I don't know.
Kristen: It's hard to say, because if you, if pastors are listening to this, their thought is going to be, well, it's easy to say if you've never been a pastor before, which we haven't, we've never been senior pastors before, so I don't actually know how that would work.
It's the worst, Jesse.
Tony: It's the worst. It's the worst and the best, right? Like it's cause. Full story. Like I don't ever feel like I get to tell my side of the story either that the community's just not wired for it. Yeah. I'm not sure that that's right, but yeah.
Kristen: Yeah. I don't think it is. I don't think pastors were ever supposed to the office of pastor was never supposed to be something that was the top of the tier and something that's in isolation.
That was never the structure of. Gifts listed in scripture and pastors carry way more than they are called the carry because of the system. And so pastors are burdened beyond people who have never pastored or been around in a close relationship with the pastor will never know the weight that pastors carry and what they have to keep inside.
And who's pastoring them who was counseling them. Who's helping them. A lot of pastors have no system, no support system. Yeah, that's a whole other rant. So I don't, I don't know, therapist by the way.
Tony: Yeah. And if you're in Ohio, he sees pastors for free. So that's his ministry, right? So like he hit me up if you're in Ohio and you need a good, he's doing tele-health so everything's out, everything's out.
So anyway, back to the original question about structure, I got off track.
Kristen: I don't really know, but we believe strongly. Against the hierarchy of ministry. So we believe that the office of pastor elder profit, whatever it is, are support. So work in partnership together, not in a tier of what you just got to climb that ladder until you get to senior pastor.
I think that they're equal in God's eyes and they're equal and importance to the church and we need them all to operate a healthy church. So I think if we ever got to the point where we planted a church, or if we were a part of a church that was trying to do things differently, We would make sure that the pastor operates and what the pastor is scripturally supposed to operate in, and not as a business owner or a CEO or somebody that has to carry the weight of the entire congregation on their backs, because that's just too much too much for any one man or woman or whatever to, to bear.
I think there needs to be a better system for the pastor, for the health of the pastor and for the health of the church.
Tony: Yeah, it's super interesting to some of my friends who are serving churches. We've, we've long wondered if maybe by vocational ministry is one of the ways to do that. Right. Cause when you're, when your salary's dependent, right, when your family's connected to your salary for security purposes, then things get real wonky.
It just gets real weird and then giving matters and then it's hard to be truthful sometimes. And now I, you know, and it's just. It, like you said, it's just a really weird system that doesn't feel like what scripture had always intended the church to be. Yeah. I'm
Kristen: I'm with you. I believe by vocational ministry would solve everything of pastors.
Didn't have to be dependent on their church being run the way the church wants it. The way that people that want it to be run, because if they don't like it, then they don't tie them. Then you don't get us, get a salary and the shut down, and then you fail and then that affects your future job.
Opportunities as well, if that was not the system and you didn't have to depend on a salary from a church, you could lead the way exactly the way the Holy spirit leads you and not have to worry about what are people going to leave. This is going to cause a split church, you know, not that you're not letting the Holy spirit lead you, but being needing that paycheck affects.
More than people probably realize
Tony: It's hard to be kingdom minded. It's hard to be really kingdom minded when you're worried about a full church. Yeah. Because the two just are not, there's just nowhere in scripture that suggests go and build churches. Right. It's really much more about relational disciple-making and things like that.
So that, that resonates, that resonates really deeply. I do want to talk a bit about your, your critical thinking. Core CE recently just come out with it. W what's the what was kind of your prayer and your hope when you started, you know, crafting all this together and putting something together that would create a community of critical thinkers.
Kristen: I think, I mean, so many things that compelled me to do it, but the biggest drive was that I just really believe that being a critical thinker and being a good thinker makes you a better asset to the kingdom of God. And that's, that's the, the core of everything that I do is that I'm just trying to help equip and empower people to be better tools in the kingdom and to serve the kingdom better.
And I think that critical thinking is a big part of that, especially right now. Especially right now. Amen.
Tony: That'll preach.
So if somebody wants to take the course, what's the best way for them. I mean, kind of give us the rundown. How's it work? Working, they go what's it all look like.
Kristen: You can just go into my website. Kristen lavale.com and it's right there at the top. It says critical thinking, Christian, and you click on it and all send you through the prompts.
And as soon as you pay for the course, you have access to everything. And there are 11 sessions in it and there's a couple of skill development. So like you were, we talk about how to be a better listener, how to teach your kids, how to think critically, things like that. And then it's all super gospel focused.
So every session has scripture verses it has examples from scripture and it answers the question. How does the gospel compel me to listen? How does the, the gospel compel me to learn? How does the gospel compel me to respond? And we look at scripture and instead of me saying, this is what scripture says, and this is what you should do.
I just kind of like. Talk a little bit about the verses or I'll list the verses, and then you have to go and look them up. And I ask a few questions. Like, why do you think, what, what do you, what did you think was interesting about the questions that Moses asked and how can you relate to that? So very open-ended like.
I'm just guiding you, telling you how to think, but not telling you what to think. And there's a discussion group and we've been doing zoom calls, so it's pretty interactive. And I dunno, I like it.
Tony: I'm glad. I'm glad. So what, what's the next big project? Is it, do you have something already planned? Has God already put something on your heart or is it basically a have twins?
Kristen: The choice? They're a little wrench in the plan. But not too much. I've actually been writing a book for a year and a half about healing from spiritual trauma and how God has just picked up the pieces of my life and healed, healed me through that. But it's just taken a long time to write because it's so raw.
But the plan is to have that out this summer.
Tony: Oh, wow. Yeah, that's great. Do you have, I mean, do you have a release date? Do you have a no. Do you have a publisher? No,
Kristen: I'm going to self publish. Oh, fantastic.
Tony: Yeah. I'm back on and talk about it. I would love to get a copy and love to I'm very into these kinds of topics.
I think it's important for. The body of Christ to hear more about this kind of spiritual trauma. And so it's good. Thank you. Thank you. Last question, I always love to ask people is an advice question. If you could go back, if he could go back and give yourself one piece of advice, but I'd like to do it in very specific moments.
So day one, you and your family step onto the RV. If you could go back and tell Kristen one thing about what you're about to experience this pre pre pandemic. This is like, this is pre everything. What's the one piece of advice that you would give yourself?
Kristen: Can it be practical advice? How about a both hand?
Okay. Practically, I would say get rid of everything. You have too much stuff,
but on a spiritual or relational level, I would just say. Listen, keep your eyes open and be open to whatever God has, because it's not going to be anything like what you expect.
Tony: You know, that's actually probably a pretty good word for a lot of us, so that's perfect. That's perfect. And your Instagram handle one more time for
Kristen: us.
It's kristen.la Valley.
Tony: Excellent. Kristen, thank you so much for being so generous with your time today and for your heart and your vulnerability. I, I do really believe that it's making a difference to the kingdom of God. So thank you. Well, thank you. You guys, what an incredible conversation I love the way that she thinks through and kind of has developed a system of thinking through what it means and looks like to be a critically thinking, Christian.
I recommend checking out her website, crystal valley.com. Get a feel for what's going on there. What it looks like all the different ways you can connect. So thankful for you, thankful for being a part of this community. Again, make sure you hit that subscribe button, leave a rating or review iTunes, and maybe share this episode with a friend.
It does do wonders to get the word out about what God is doing here at the reclamation podcast. Thank you guys so much, and I'm excited to bring you a brand new episode next week with CEO and author John Houston.
