Author Archives: Ruth Perry

004 I Scott Harris on the Good News and Reflections on the Church

Posted on December 31, 2025 | Leave a comment

In this conversation, my friend Scott Harris shares his journey of faith, discussing his upbringing in a mainline Protestant church, his college experiences, and his perspective on the challenges faced by the church today after 42 years in parachurch ministry. He emphasizes the importance of following Jesus and articulating the gospel in a way that resonates with contemporary issues. The discussion also touches on the need for the church to adapt and address the concerns of those leaving it, while promoting a message of love for God and neighbor.

Scott mentions reading C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity as he was making his faith his own as a young man, we talk about our Clifton StrengthsFinder results and Enneagram numbers. and Scott recommends the book Kingdom Come: How Jesus Wants to Change the World by Allen M. Wakabayashi (available here). I’ve purchased a copy and look forward to reading it in the new year!

You can watch this episode on YouTube or listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, and more!

Transcript:

Ruth Perry (00:15)
I would love to just know more about my friend Scott that I’ve been in Bible studies with online and I’ve met online, but we’ve never met in person. And I know little things about your life, but I don’t know the Scott Harris story and what your testimony is.

Scott Harris (00:23)
I’ve been around a long time. I guess you had mentioned, knowing a little bit about my background, I think I’ll summarize and say that I grew up in Northern Illinois in a family attending a mainline Protestant church, a believing mother, a non-believing father, both of whom were from Texas. So I have heritage in more than one part of the country.

To go further ahead, when I was in high school, my family moved to Indiana where the state that I currently live in, and we began attending a mainline Presbyterian church, but not just any mainline Presbyterian church, a church where there was a desire to help people, younger and older to make personal decisions to belong to Jesus. That wasn’t the terminology they used, but it was a call for me and all kinds of others. So high school age, it was a call for me and lots of others to make specific decisions. I found that very difficult. of the difficulties I had was understanding evangelical jargon because I was told, all you have to, in fact I think I’m quoting my brother, all you have to do is accept Jesus into your heart. For people with some kinds of church backgrounds that make sense, for others it doesn’t mean very much, it’s just an odd collection of words together. I struggled for some time to figure out what that meant.

A pastor recommended, since I was asking questions, to read C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. I kind of read through that during my senior year in high school. That wasn’t the only factor, but a number of factors came together that I found myself coming to some kind of faith about the time I entered high school. I entered college as a heartfelt Christian and sought to grow as a Christian from there. Am I telling you information you want to know, Ruth?

Ruth Perry (02:38)
Yes, this is, I personally want to know. Now I’m thinking, I grew up more conservative and I’m kind of curious to know the way that mainline Protestants were spoken of or thought of in my experience is that you don’t even believe in Jesus Christ as a supernatural God being. And so in your experience, was your mainline faith orthodox? I think there’s so many biases among the more conservative minded that I’ve had to undo myself, but that’s like an initial question that I have.

Scott Harris (03:14)
First of all, to be fair, I’m not a master of mainline Protestantism, but of course we need to recognize that it is very diverse. in any individual mainline Protestant church of any size, you have a diverse congregation of people with differing levels, maybe of orthodoxy, if we want to use that word. It’s nonetheless unfair to just…

gather a little bit of data together to judge people’s orthodoxy. You can’t judge orthodoxy by litmus tests. I think also leadership of mainline Protestant churches come from variety of backgrounds and they study at a variety of seminaries and so you can’t put all of them in one category. And then there are the different denominations.

Okay, the church I grew up in childhood, which I’m calling a mainline Protestant church in northern Illinois, I was of an age that I don’t remember many things by which I can determine just how orthodox they were or not. I’m sure it was a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds. It was when my family moved to Indiana that I would say the mainline Presbyterian Church staff was quite orthodox. They believed in God. They believed in Jesus. If you wanted to use the jargon as Lord and Savior. And it was clear over and over again and it was a priority of their youth program not to give altar calls, not to put pressure on, but to make it clear again and again that it was a personal decision that we needed to make. So it was evangelistic in that sense. So I can neither confirm nor deny conservative churches’ of mainline Protestantism. There is a diversity in it.

Ruth Perry (04:59)
I think that’s very true because I’ve just been working in the United Methodist Church now for a couple years. And I think it’s been a little surprising for me just to see how conservative the people, like they’re so evangelical. And so that’s been surprising. It’s also been surprising to me how many people have moved to the United Methodist Church from other denominations that are serving in ministry, as you said. And so culturally it’s interesting to me how strong evangelicalism’s influence has been in the mainline church.

Scott Harris (05:23)
Yeah. Yeah, and for moving to Indiana and beginning to do full-time ministry in Indiana, it became very clear, at least in my part of the state, that the United Methodist Church was highly evangelical in its leadership and in its membership. I worked at a university that had a lot of people coming from rural areas, and those rural Methodist churches were rather conservative in a number of ways. Other places in the state it might be different and other parts of Methodism of course are different.

Ruth Perry (06:04)
That sounds really wonderful that you were encouraged to make your faith your own and that you went to college as a strong believer because I know in your work I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of students haven’t had that kind of formation. So that’s wonderful.

Scott Harris (06:19)
Yes. So I entered a small liberal arts college. lived in a fraternity only because it was an all-male college and listeners of this podcast will be able to figure out what college it was. I’m very glad to have attended it. I found myself really valuing what I would call Christian fellowship at the time. Interdenominational connections with people from a variety of church backgrounds that wanted to encourage each other in knowing God, knowing the Bible, and following the ways that God directs us through the Bible.

I don’t think I would have used those terms at the time, but that was a very rich experience for me, and because I desired it so much, I created a lot of it, or I catalyzed a lot of it. I was somebody who found Christians around campus in my fraternity and other fraternities that were interested in meeting together. And I was not the first person to do this, but under some of my leadership, we got an actual campus organization functioning that functioned as an ongoing organization my third and fourth years in college.

Ruth Perry (07:33)
Fantastic. What would you call that gift? I know you have it. I mean, is it hospitality?

Scott Harris (07:38)
I would not say I’m gifted in hospitality. I would call it networking. Some people who are like me who have done the Clifton Strengths Finder test rate high in Connectedness, if anybody is aware of that. So you and I are similar in that sense. That has driven me in a lot of ways before I had a label on it, but I’ve always called myself a networker.

Ruth Perry (07:52)
I rated high on Connectedness. What are your other Clifton strengths?

Scott Harris (08:05)
My goodness, what an excellent question. I don’t remember the specifics of the top five or whatever. I took the test twice and Connectedness rated first both times. That’s why I labeled as number one. Four out of the five were exactly the same in each one. And the other three of the top four, even though I don’t remember their names, if you put them all together, it means I have a very easy tendency to be a smart aleck. I have a very easy tendency to want to learn things and tell other people things that I learned. It’s, I guess Communication is one of them, which is basically oral communication in the StrengthsFinder. Another one has to do with Learning. So I like to learn and I like to communicate what I learn and I’m talkative and I’m long-winded and I’m an external processor. It all measures up in my top strengths of the StrengthsFinder.

Ruth Perry (09:04)
Did you ever look into the Enneagram and what your number is there?

Scott Harris (09:08)
Yes, my wife has been helped a lot by the Enneagram. Lots of colleagues of mine are. I don’t know many things about it, but I do recognize that I align as a nine. I don’t know whether I’m a eight wing or a one wing, but I recognize nine-ness.

Ruth Perry (09:28)
Cool. Well that’s beautiful. Now I’m thinking about what are the other things? There’s the DISC. Have you done that? What else?

Scott Harris (09:34)
I don’t remember DISC and Myers-Briggs, if you want to go back in time, my Myers-Briggs has changed over time. I think it’s changed in part because I’ve done the same kind of work for 42 years and my personality has adapted to it. I don’t think Myers-Briggs is supposed to be like that, but when I first took it, I was kind of close
to the border between introvert and extrovert, but now I’m a massive extrovert in various ways because it’s been, it’s useful for my work to function as an extrovert. Has that rewired my brain? I don’t know, but unfortunately for this conversation, I don’t remember where I rate them the three other categories.

Ruth Perry (10:19)
Does your social battery ever dry up?

Scott Harris (10:22)
I’m of a certain age and I admit that the older I get, less capacity my social battery has. And maybe that’s just physical fatigue. I get energized by people, but I also get tired out by people things and I do have a desire to retreat. Maybe that’s made me a more healthy, balanced person. I don’t know.

Ruth Perry (10:33)
Yeah. So as a college person, you had made your faith your own. You were already exercising your gifts and bringing others into a community with you to have fellowship and grow and learn together. That’s all very cool. How would you describe your faith at that time, like with theological terms, like were you Arminian or Calvinist or?

Scott Harris (11:05)
Okay, these are very good questions and I can kind of say none of the above to that kind of thing. Let me give a more satisfying answer by saying the non-denominationality or the inter-denominationality of the organization I was with and still am and the influences I came under and the reading, the little bit of reading I did did not focus me or cornering me into very many specific categories. So I was neither trained to be Calvinist nor Armenian. If you want to talk about categories, you know, decades into the work, you can throw the category of Anabaptism as something that kind of slowly has grown and it’s influence over me.

In the evangelical world that I was in, dispensationalism is something that is kind of a default setting for lots of people in some areas of theology. I have grown, I never was particularly dispensationalist and now I’m very non-dispensationalist with time. And I think in my work I have chosen to not align myself in very many specific ways with doctrinal movements.

I do have a little master’s degree in biblical and theological studies and a master of arts degree, but it was at an institution that did not try to train me in any doctrinal settings. So I still am quite non-denominational.

Ruth Perry (12:39)
That’s great.

Scott Harris (12:39)
Although that’s in my thinking and in my theology, I do value belonging to denominations, but working with Christians from a variety of backgrounds, I love working in a non-denominational organization.

Ruth Perry (12:54)
How would you describe…Do you feel like, I think a lot of people are drawn out of denominations right now because of our, like we’re distrustful of institutions. We recognize that one institution hasn’t figured it all out. And so we want to be more open. How do you feel about denominations that kind of plant seemingly non-denominational churches, but they’re rooted in a deep, point of view.

Scott Harris (13:20)
Yeah, I don’t have a lot of opinions on this, but it is a very good question. I will briefly say that I value not getting too specific in what you require of members of an organization. I also value very specific theological education and thought and study for leaders. Those might be kind of paradoxical, but

It’s what I think. One of the things I value most about denominations is what I guess I would call accountability. In a denominator, even though there are different structures of polity in denominations, ultimately you are responsible to some kind of leadership within your denomination and you can be held accountable. And I guess a few years ago, I may not have recognized that value of denominations, but because of so much harm, and I guess I would say leadership abuse coming from the non-denominational world, it gives me a rising value of denominational accountability, even though I’ve never been a part of it. I’ve thought about getting licensed, I’ve never really thought about getting ordained, different denominations do it in different ways. It might be something I would do in the future, but I’ve never been a regular preacher or teacher or overseer of theological discourse. So at this point in time I haven’t sought to align myself with a denomination. I do go to a denominational church.

Ruth Perry (14:52)
So how did you and your wife meet?

Scott Harris (14:53)
What a good question. I was a few years into my doing college ministry and she was actually one of the students who became a leader student in the student group. And as is really good conventional wisdom, staff members working with college ministry should not date or fraternize or whatever you want to call it with members of the group, age difference.

Power Differential, I actually went to work overseas and after a few years of overseas work with her being one of the people I kept in contact with, I found, I guess you’d call it romantic feelings growing. And so after I was overseas for a while and after she had finished college for a while, we brought up the topic of maybe starting today.

It was interesting because this took place overseas. This conversation took place in the suburbs of Paris, France. And we began, she was just visiting there and we got together because she knew me. She was visiting with a friend. And we began a long distance relationship kind of knowing the advantages and disadvantages of them to some degree and this is so far back in time That long distance phone calls were quite expensive We did write some letters, but the most satisfying communication we had as a long distance dating couple was to record and send audio cassette tapes in the mail to each other

Ruth Perry (16:23)
Yeah. How cute is that?

Scott Harris (16:36)
We, very cute, I confirm. We actually have some of the cassettes recorded over. We have a handful of those cassettes in a Ziploc bag and some stuff we’ve stored away. And our adult daughter, young adult daughter, has actually listened to some of them and takes great joy in listening to us. We don’t just say gooey romantic things to each other. We’re giving updates on what’s going on in our lives.

Ruth Perry (16:46)
Yeah. Yeah!

Scott Harris (17:03)
And so she gets a glimpse into the past of her parents.

Ruth Perry (17:07)
That’s beautiful. So you’ve been in ministry for 42 years.

Scott Harris (17:11)
Correct.

Ruth Perry (17:12)
And I, one of my, I think one of the driving forces behind me wanting to podcast is just the sheer number of people who’ve left the church in the last several decades. And so this is what I want to address with my podcast is how can we address the issues that are driving people out of the church.

And what can we do to build a more beautiful kingdom in the United States, particularly as my location, but in the world, obviously. I feel like it’s not just the issues that we’re having here in America are in some ways very unique to our situation, but they’re also leaking out into the world in harmful ways. And that…

Scott Harris (17:52)
Hmm.

Ruth Perry (17:53)
I think that’s something that I really appreciated about our friendship. I’m not sure exactly how we got connected, but I’ve made all these little connections on the internet. And with someone with your giftings, I could see how I know that you invited me into a book study that you were doing with some of your Facebook friends. But I’m assuming that we became Facebook friends because of the Beautiful Kingdom Builders page, that maybe that’s our initial connection was.

Scott Harris (18:20)
a networker, as a networker, undoubtedly a friend of mine had posted something from it I wouldn’t be able to say and I began to follow and like what I found there. That’s undoubtedly the beginning of

Ruth Perry (18:20)
I comment, what’s that? As a networker.

Well now I have really appreciated your friendship Scott because what is the thing that you say when you post things? You always share things and you say, this challenges me to follow Jesus Christ. ⁓ Let me see, do you know it off the top of your head what you say?

Scott Harris (18:49)
Yes. I have lengthened it recently, but the older version is this challenges me to follow Jesus and his ways fully above all else, including many things many Christians consider important.

Ruth Perry (19:09)
And then you’ll share a quote or an article or something newsworthy that’s happening. ⁓

Scott Harris (19:17)
or something from

the beautiful Kingdom Builders.

Ruth Perry (19:20)
Well, actually half of the things that I post on my page now come from your posts because I’m just I’m very by the things that challenge you Scott

Scott Harris (19:25)
I have noticed that. Gives me great joy.

Ruth Perry (19:30)
So I’m very grateful for your friendship and for your work that you share online and that you connect and serve and fellowship online as well as in person. And I feel like you’re someone, your heart is seeking after the Lord in beautiful ways and impactful ways. And that’s the kind of person that I want to learn from and I want to be in relationship with and grow with.

And so thank you for all you’ve done. You’ve connected me in Bible studies and book studies too that have helped me get off the internet but stay on the internet in relationship with others and hear from others. And I’m really grateful for you, Scott.

What do you think it is that the church, how has the church gotten off track in a way that is distancing young people from the church?

Scott Harris (20:19)
of course, so many things to say about that. First of all, thank you for your very kind words. likewise for so much that I learned from you as well. Let me answer your question. Let me answer it first by how I feel like I’ve gotten off track a little bit. You were interested in my story and it’s just the story that serious Christian faith during my time in high school became attractive to me because I felt like it was a true understanding of the world.

The word worldview is used by variety of groups to mean a variety of things, but at that time I felt like a properly understood whole Bible worldview helped explain things and help explain what God calls people to. Although I’m using that term whole Bible at this point because at that time I think it was basically Paul’s writings and the logic and the priorities and the emphases and it was kind of the traditional evangelical gospel outline of we are sinners, Jesus died for us, we must respond to Jesus dying for us, etc. that… For much of my Christian life, I have thought that the main thing that a Christian is, is somebody who believes in what…

has done for them. And that is definitely part of it. I wasn’t particularly off track to think that way. I was following the movement I was in. I affirm all of that. However, I think the basic thing that it means to be a Christian at this point in time is to follow Jesus and his ways fully above all else.

Following Jesus includes believing in who Jesus is. Following Jesus includes believing in what Jesus has done. But believing becomes a much bigger whole life kind of thing that it involves. Following Jesus as my example, following Jesus as my master, becoming an apprentice of Jesus. I haven’t…

been regularly using these terms for too many years and when I use these terms I realize just what a high calling it is and how much further I have to go and how it is a challenging life of constantly calling oneself into question and revising and asking for God’s help and the help of the Holy Spirit to step forward in ways that more more followed Jesus.

To answer the question you asked. I think a number of people are leaving the church in part, I’m not speaking for all people or all churches, in part because they have been taught to add a whole lot of baggage to following Jesus. The baggage is different in different situations. In recent years in the United States, a lot of the baggage is political baggage or culture wars baggage. Of course, there’s a big overlap between politics and culture wars or the baggage of narrow approaches to how children are raised or how people should be educated or how people should think.

When so much of the New Testament emphasis of following Jesus in the Gospels and in the New Testament writers is really about freedom, is about joy, is about following a person who announces and enacts and acts out the Kingdom of God. And so more and more in the future I’m gonna want to emphasize following Jesus as a living in the Kingdom of God kind of thing. I am not saying that if people just say things and think things the way I do that they would remain in churches.

But whatever going into and out of churches are, whatever the patterns are, whatever individuals or groups or demographic categories are going in and out of churches, I think part of the turmoil that’s going on should be a call to those of us who are leaders and those of us who are regular Christians to call people to Jesus, not to a tradition.

Not to a certain political ideology, not to a framework structure of how to raise children, but call people to Jesus above all else. And that’s a dynamic, ever-changing, challenging life that nonetheless is a life of joy.

Ruth Perry (25:03)
Absolutely. Well said, Scott.

Scott Harris (25:05)
Yeah, that just hopefully I’ve just fixed everybody who’s listening. So they can just think like me.

Ruth Perry (25:09)
Yeah. You fixed me.

Scott Harris (25:11)
I think a lot of people leaving the church are rejecting baggage that is accompanied being followers of Jesus. They may be back, they may be in the future, they may change churches, but what do we do with such people? Winsomely invite them to follow Jesus and encourage them to take thoughtful steps that they decide on with their lives, living up to the expectations of Jesus, not trying to live up to the expectations of other people.

Ruth Perry (25:39)
How do you articulate the gospel, Scott?

Scott Harris (25:42)
Such a good question. At this point, let me say my thinking about how I articulate the Gospel is changing and I’ll give a book plug. There’s a book written over 20 years ago. You’ve probably seen me post about it, Ruth. It is the book Kingdom Come by Alan Wakabayashi.

I had heard about it years ago, I was living overseas, I wasn’t necessarily reading what everybody was reading. I had repeatedly decided that I need to read that book someday. And what happened is I noticed that it was for sale for cheap on Kindle. And so even though some people avoid Kindle, Kindle gets me reading stuff because it keeps my place and it’s right there.

I have read it on Kindle and Alan Wakabayashi does, in the middle of the book, give kind of a gospel outline in terms of kingdom thinking. I have copied and pasted. I intend to work on it. I wonder if any friends of mine who do graphics might want to put some graphics to it. So here is an unpolished summary of some of it. It is more detailed than a lot of gospel outlines are. But Jesus came to inaugurate the Kingdom of God. He calls people to walk with Him in it. He brings them deliverance from evil and from the powers that keep people from walking in it. He brings them deliverance from their own sin and condemnation.

And he calls them to be partners of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, himself and the Father and the Holy Spirit, in living according to the values of the Kingdom, anticipating the full coming of the Kingdom, and inviting others to do the same.

Ruth Perry (27:39)
Amen.

Scott Harris (27:40)
That’s just off the top of my head.

Ruth Perry (27:42)
Wow, that’s beautiful. I did add that book to my wish list when you posted about it, and I got some birthday money this week, so I’ll be sure to order that and read that. That’s beautiful.

Scott Harris (27:52)
And in case it’s worth it for your listeners, it’s been out for a while and at least on that one really main merchant that sells things online that you can get almost anything from, it’s at a really low price. I think they must have had a stock build up in the lowest price. The price is low. You can also get it really inexpensively as a used book. And Ruth, let me give you some advice. If you ever want to go public with communicating with others, I invite you to use the word kingdom in what, you know, if you blog or do some Facebooking or if you do a podcast, I recommend the word kingdom to you because God’s kingdom is beautiful. You know, free of charge. I’ll give that to you.

Ruth Perry (28:40)
Thank you, Scott. Thank you. I love that. Yeah, I wonder about the people who are opposed to the word kingdom.

Scott Harris (28:47)
There’s more than one reason, yeah.

Ruth Perry (28:49)
Yeah, I mean I recognize the reason, but I think personally I am okay using it.

Scott Harris (28:55)
Yeah. and we could just… Yes. Yes. And if you want, can use an actually much somewhat more provocative term. In Scott McKnight’s really literal New Testament translation called the Second Testament, he calls it Empire. So if you don’t like Kingdom of God, you can talk about God’s Empire if you want.

Ruth Perry (28:55)
It’s straight from the mouth of Jesus, so…

Scott Harris (29:22)
The idea is it’s a big deal and it is the one true empire, it’s the one true kingdom. There are plenty of other things. I understand if people have issues and I understand that this part of the world doesn’t have much value for kings and queens, but it’s a useful term if it points to the king. If the king is the lamb who was slain, the lamb of revelation, that’s…the kind of kingdom I want to be in.

Ruth Perry (29:51)
Praise God. That was my next question for you, Scott. What do you feel like your dream for the church would be? How would the church be like the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven if we were really following the way of Jesus?

Scott Harris (30:06)
What an excellent question. I don’t have a recipe, I just have bits and pieces. One, to say more briefly what I said at length earlier, the church needs to be about helping individuals and communities together to follow Jesus.

I want to qualify that in so many ways and use terms like inappropriate ways in their particular context, but may the church and may the churches be about the business of helping people in communities to follow Jesus. Second, my dream for the church or the churches is that they would be global churches. They would have an ongoing, interacting relationship.

and conversation and knowledge of other Christians, other churches around the world and other traditions of Christianity in their own context or around the world. I think my dream for the church is that the church or the churches would keep the top priorities the top priorities and by the top priorities I just go straight to this guy who said the first commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And in the Gospel of Matthew, the second commandment is very similar to the first commandment, Jesus says, and it is to love your neighbor as yourself. So here is an abbreviation that I might throw out there. It’s an intentionally provocative abbreviation.

Maybe I’ll use it more, maybe I’ll never use it again, but I want to promote, and I want churches to promote, LBGAN Christianity. LBGAN Christianity is Christianity that emphasizes loving both God and neighbor. Some Christian traditions emphasize the love of neighbor to in a way that kind of keeps God eclipsed a little bit. Some church traditions emphasize the love of God and the love of neighbor is this optional add-on that you can choose to do or not choose to do. My dream for the church is to emphasize both loving God and loving neighbor.

Ruth Perry (32:20)
I love that Scott, that’s perfect. And thank you for your example of loving your neighbors. You’re not someone who just gives thoughts and prayers, you’re someone who always follows up with action and care and intentionality. And you’ve just been a really inspiring ⁓ example to me and countless others, I’m sure. And so I appreciate that about you and keep on keeping on because you are making a difference. And you’re really wonderful at articulating good news about Jesus Christ, Scott.

Scott Harris (32:44)
You’re so kind. Same Ruth, same. Thank you for your partnership in articulating the good news about Jesus. I am challenged and encouraged by you even though I can’t keep up with all of the content you put out. Now that you’re doing podcasting, it’ll make it even harder for me to keep up with the content you put out, but I really appreciate it.

Ruth Perry (33:11)
I appreciate, anytime you have any advice or correction or you think I’ve gone too far and I’m not loving my neighbors well, I trust your voice and I would welcome you as a friend to please let me know because I know, I mean, it’s, get, what I find my weakness is that I get caught up in the reaction, like the need to react.

And what I want to do is I want to continue to grow and be challenged to follow the ways of Jesus Christ fully. And I know he was not reactionary person. And then that’s a temptation of social media and being online. think for me, this podcast endeavor is kind of, I feel a lot of imposter syndrome and inadequacy about doing it, but that’s one of the things I’m trying to overcome as a Christian woman is the need to be perfect.

Like I know I’m going to mess up and over speak and I’m going to over share at times and I’m going to react. And so what I want to have is a willingness to learn and receive correction and be humble and apologize when that happens, but to continue to just learn in public. Cause that’s what I can’t remember when I started my page, but that’s the best thing that’s happened is that I’ve continued to learn and grow and change my mind about things. And it’s overall, I’d say it’s been a neat experience for me because I’ve met people like you.

Scott Harris (34:29)
It is a total joy to see you doing what you do and now doing a podcast. May God give you wisdom and energy.

Ruth Perry (34:38)
Thank you.

Scott Harris (34:39)
in the days, weeks, months and years ahead.

Ruth Perry (34:43)
Thank you, Scott. God bless you. All right. Thank you. Bye.

Scott Harris (34:45)
Talk to you soon, Ruth. Keep up the good work. Bye.

If you’d like to receive an email every time a new episode comes out, be sure to Subscribe here to the blog!

003 I Jenna Dunn of Ezer Bible

Posted on December 24, 2025 | Leave a comment

In this episode, Jenna Dunn, writer and theologian at Ezer Bible, describes her personal journey out of complementarian theology and the toll that patriarchal bible interpretation and church culture took on her faith and marriage. You can follow Jenna’s ministry on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and more! I hope to have more conversations with Jenna in the future about the Bible and interpreting it through an egalitarian lens. Here is the video of our interview, and you can listen to it on your favorite podcasting platforms.

TRANSCRIPT:

Ruth Perry (00:15)
My guest today is Jenna Dunn, who has a ministry called Ezer Bible. You can find her website at ezerbible.com, E-Z-E-R-B-I-B-L-E.com. And if you scroll down to the bottom of the homepage, there are links to all of her social media.

I wanted to explain briefly that word, ezer. In Genesis 2:18, God says, he made an ezer, a helper, for the man. In English, the word helper can mean someone of a subordinate status. But if you look at the other places where ezer occurs in the Bible, it mostly refers to God, who is our help. So certainly not a subordinate help, but rather a strong help.

Jenna and I talk about the toll that Complementarian Theology took on her faith and her marriage. And we talk about her love for the Bible, even though reading it through a patriarchal lens almost cost her her faith. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Jenna Dunn and follow her Ezer Bible ministry.

Ruth Perry (01:14)
Well, tell me more about your background. So you live in Oregon? Is that where you’re from?

Jenna Dunn (01:18)
Yeah, yeah, I’ve lived in Oregon my whole life. I was not really raised in the church. I used to go to the church a little bit. Like as a teenager, I went to a Baptist church, but, when I got married, my husband’s family was very involved in Calvary Chapel. And so for a long time we were Calvary Chapel people and he became a pastor. He went to the Bible college.

Calvary Chapel has like a Bible college in Arizona. And you know, he read systematic theology, the Wayne Grudem stuff, you know, in Bible college. And then we started a church. And I mean, if you’re familiar with Calvary Chapel, you probably kind of know.

Ruth Perry (01:50)
Yeah. So I’m thinking it’s charismatic. I don’t really know much about Calvary

Jenna Dunn (02:02)
It’s like a charismatic Baptist church. It’s not reformed, but it’s complementarian. And it’s a little political, at least ours was.

Ruth Perry (02:12)
Is Calvary Chapel, is that the one that the Jesus Movement sprang out of? Okay.

Jenna Dunn (02:19)
Yeah. So, I mean, there’s some really neat things about that, the origin of that movement. Like I do like that origin story, but I think what Calvary Chapel has become is much more similar to like the Southern Baptist Convention or like the Reformed Complementarian Movement.

Ruth Perry (02:22)
Yeah.

Jenna Dunn (02:41)
Most the people in Calvary Chapel are reading a new King James Version Bible, not an ESV Bible. But they very much listen to teachers of the Complementarian Reformed Movement. And I remember, that was always like a point of contention is there would be certain Bible teachers or leaders who were Reformed and it’s like, well, we’re not Reformed. So, you know, trying to figure out like where the theology lined up, but…

but definitely that commonality of holding to, you know, complementarian theology or the idea of gender roles and women not being in leadership. And I think, once you accepted that viewpoint, it opens you up for some of the more extreme Christian patriarchy ideas. So in the church context, I was in, it wasn’t a part of our church’s belief system, but I was still exposed to the Pearls. So like I have Created to be His Help Meet. That was a book that was given out to all the women, not from the church leadership, but just from somebody going to the church. you meet a nice homeschool family and like they give out these materials. I was also exposed to
a lot of Mark Driscoll type teaching. And the pastor that ended up coming in and kind of being the lead pastor was an Acts 29? is it? Yeah, the pastor was trained through that. And he quoted Mark Driscoll a lot. So there was that influence. I remember my ex-husband

Ruth Perry (04:00)
It’s 29. Yeah, Mark Driscoll was one of the founders of that. Yeah.

Jenna Dunn (04:15)
like going to a men’s leadership retreat at Mark Driscoll’s church and it, you know, like Voddie Baucham. We were very adjacent to some of these more extreme things. And, and I was always, I’ve always been more like inclined towards theology. I read it, you know, like I go and look up these people and like, I read it and I’m like, whoa, these ideas are, you know.

Ruth Perry (04:24)
Yeah.

Jenna Dunn (04:35)
I just, it was, it’s a weird position to be in because I, I do like actually listen. Like if I go to church, I listened to what the person says and, and I read my Bible and in some ways I had more theology training or a Bible training than the men in leadership around me in Calvary Chapel. Like usually the pastors don’t actually have very much seminary training. They’re just charismatic men who I don’t know, there may be mentored a little bit by older pastors.

Ruth Perry (05:00)
They are called and God equipped them. That’s all they needed.

Jenna Dunn (05:05)
Yeah, and you’re not really in a position as a ministry wife to change anything, so. I did that for over a decade and I was very unhappy for like the last five years and it did slowly tear apart my marriage. There’s a lot of ideas within Complementarian Theology that are really unhealthy for couples and for families. And then I think if you add to that, there’s ideas in our culture, right? So like even though

My ex-husband didn’t really embrace, like he was just not a theology person. He just was like, I just love people and he didn’t think about it. But he also didn’t understand that like the things that we were a part of were problematic. Like he just didn’t see it. And, you know, it caused a lot of conflict. Like it was just very hard on our relationship to navigate that and not have the same understanding.

But I think a lot of good has come from it because it forced me to learn the Bible really well. I always had a message prepared. I always had like in my, the Bible I used at the time, I had seven passages bookmarked and I’ve made a Bible study guide about that, but there’s seven verses starting with Romans 16 that I would break down, This is what the Bible actually says about women in ministry and about men and women. And I was always kind of ready.

And I think, I had convinced my ex-husband and he was kind of just, you know, we kind of had this understanding, he would open the door for me, given the chance. Like if there was a chance I could convince other people in leadership that this is what the Bible really taught. Then, you know, he wanted to see me be able to do that. But he also encouraged me to just pray and And, you know, things change slowly. And so we stayed in this really unhealthy church structure for probably way too long and just kind of hoped that like, people would change, you know, but I, I don’t really recommend people stay in those types of environment. It’s, it’s tempting too, cause you’re like, well, these people all believe the Bible and they love Jesus. So they’ll figure it out, you know, but it, just, it’s a hard,

Ruth Perry (07:08)
Yeah.

Jenna Dunn (07:11)
It’s a hard mindset to bring people out of. But the good of it in my life is just what I’ve learned over the years. I was really influenced by so many amazing theologians and Bible teachers. When I started Ezer Bible, I was really influenced by Is it Carolyn Kustis James? I read Half the Church and it was the best thing I ever read. mean, it was like water in the desert for me. just, she was so brilliant. And I was really influenced by Rachel Held Evans. This was like a lot of women over the years that I just found people online to learn from and to learn what the Bible actually says was better to me than to just leave a sort of toxic mindset and just not believe anymore, which, you know, was the initial path, but when God brought me back to Him and I began healing, was mostly through learning what Scripture actually says. That’s far better than just saying, I don’t want anything to do with that over there. Sometimes I tell people I left Christianity. I walked away from God over one Bible verse. There was this one thing I could not accept and it made me so angry.

First Corinthians 14 with the whole women are to be silent where Paul’s quoting the oral law or quoting the law, “As the law says “. In my Bible at the time, which I think was, the new King James, it has a footnote to Genesis three 16 as if that’s the law that it’s quoting from. That was what I was being taught about that, that Paul is saying that women are to be silent in church. And I just couldn’t, dismiss that and be like, that’s just cultural. And, you know, I just don’t like Paul. I just couldn’t accept that the Bible said that. So it was kind of a final straw moment for me where I was like, I know I’m technically a pastor’s wife, but I just, was sort of a closet atheist for a while. I I walked away from God and I remember at that time in my life being in the position I was, was actually easier. Like if I kind of thought atheism was true, I still cared about people. I remember a few times people would ask me to pray for them and I was like, well, yeah, that’s fine. It helps them. I still wanted to help people, but I didn’t really believe that.

the way the Bible had been presented to me and that understanding of God could possibly be true and I didn’t want to be a part of it and I just thought that’s ridiculous that God would silence women and that.

Ruth Perry (09:30)
What was the emotional journey of that, of losing your faith? What was that like?

Jenna Dunn (09:37)
Yeah, think that there was really so much behind that. Like I had gone through years and years of hurt and being sidelined in the church and I had a very, very traumatic birth experience with my fourth son. And I had been exposed to all kinds of toxic ideas. I had a lot of things that happened.

But was like, that was the final straw. And I think that there was really a lot of wounds and things underneath that. But I do remember just throwing the Bible across the room and just, I just stopped reading my Bible for a while. And I was very mad at God about that one verse. But you know, years later, I did eventually come back to God through that verse. What God showed me about that verse was so healing for me. So I’m…

I’m glad to have what I think is the proper interpretation of that section of scripture and a better understanding of Paul.

Ruth Perry (10:23)
Yeah. Did God reveal it to you in some way that you weren’t anticipating? How did that come about?

Jenna Dunn (10:37)
Um, yeah, I just remember I had read like different interpretations of it. I’m always researching things, who knows? But at one point I remember reading these quotes about what some of the beliefs were about women. You know, like there’s a quote outside of the Bible, but about women not knowing anything but the use of their distaff and about it would be better for the words of scripture to be burned than to be entrusted to a woman. There’s some different quotes that float around in the teachings of the rabbis.

And I remember seeing a quote that was… It literally said, the voice of a woman is filthy nakedness. And when I did a word study on 1 Corinthians 14:36, it says, the voice of a woman is shameful. And I looked up the word shameful and it was the same word as like filthy. And I was like, wow, that’s really similar.

you know, to say that a woman’s voice is filthy, it really sounds like Paul’s quoting this Jewish oral statement or some kind of slogan or, you know, he’s quoting this idea and then rebuking it. So like, that’s the thing that was so healing for me is like, Paul’s not agreeing with that. He’s rebuking that idea. And then you see that combined with how affirming he is.

Ruth Perry (11:53)
Yeah.

Jenna Dunn (11:59)
And how he’s partnering with women in his work. It made the whole Bible more consistent. Like now I see a more cohesive picture of Paul where he’s affirming female leaders and calling them coworkers and co-laborers. And I’m like, okay, that’s a Paul that I can understand. And then also the strength of his rebuke, like to actually, you know, be like, you men, you think that the Bible came from you. You think the word of God came from you, but it came to us all, you know, it’s actually a really strong rebuke. And so I find that really comforting, like Paul’s on my side.

But yeah, It was a process. I was mad at God for a long time. I was really in a bad place for several years. I kind of came back to God and I was still a pastor’s wife and I was still in an unhealthy situation. I tried to make the most of it, but you know, it was really hard on my marriage. It was really hard to raise my kids in that environment.

I have some really sad stories about women who I was very close to that, I saw them go a different direction. I saw them embrace a more strict legalistic form of Christianity. You know, there’s women I know who I watched their marriages just turn very ugly, People that I even knew before we were saved, before we got involved in ministry, there’s people I was friends with. And so to see the fruit of complementarian theology play out in people’s lives and marriages and how they parent their kids, I have a pretty strong aversion to some of those ideas. And I also just think it’s such an incredibly twisted way to read the Bible. I think it imposes this framework on to Scripture that just makes it really difficult for people to understand the Bible.

Ruth Perry (13:48)
Yeah, that’s one of the hardest things for me. I appreciate so much of my upbringing. I grew up Baptist and there’s so much that I appreciate and I definitely always met God in the churches I’ve been involved in and I appreciate the sincerity of the faith I’ve seen, but I have also seen so much dysfunction and so much spiritual abuse and harm.

And it’s hard, the experience of starting to awaken to the dysfunction, the toxicity of the theology. Talk to me about that experience of your relationships in Calvary Chapel. How were they impacted by your journey away from that culture and that theology?

Jenna Dunn (14:28)
I think you could probably imagine like in a small town, if there’s a couple that’s the pastor and the pastor’s wife and they go through a divorce, It was just it was a nightmare. mean, I was just kind of trying to do things in the least dramatic way possible. Like, as quiet as possible. didn’t want it to harm my children. Like, I just didn’t want there to be rumors, that my kids would hear. My kids were, you know, all their friends were in the church. And, you know, like the church was our family. And, you know, those people that we had birthday parties and baby showers and people that we had known for years and years.

I actually had to work together with my ex-husband to be like how can we make this the least traumatic possible? And I really thought that they would have him stay in ministry because he was more like the administrative pastor. He did all of the the building projects and maintenance and sound equipment set up and like that type of stuff. He wasn’t like the guy in front. He wasn’t like the teaching pastor. But it was a pretty unhealthy leadership dynamic. The church I go to now is a Four Square Church, and a few Sundays ago they had a new pastor and pastor’s wife that they were installing is what they call it in four square but so they were this couple was like gonna start being in ministry and it was, I literally still cry about it. I cried during that service. I came home and cried because it was so healthy. Like everybody in the church promised to pray for the people that are leaders, pastors, and their families. They said, we’re going to pray for you. We’re going to support you. And like, make sure you put your marriage first. Make sure you take care of your kids first. And it was so beautiful to see like the community sort of rally behind these people that were willing to dedicate their lives to serving.

Just the recognition of the toll that that takes on your family. But we care about you first, not just what we can get from you. We’re not gonna put you on a pedestal. You’re just like us, but you’re willing to do this. And it was so beautiful. And that was not my experience at all being in ministry It was very toxic. And we were so afraid to let people know that we were struggling in our marriage or in our family. We didn’t, have support and, yeah, it’s like, it’s just completely different. I’d say there was like a lot of bullying. So like I remember one man that was a leader for a while, they ended up moving away, but it was like his wife was too domineering, right? So was like he was kind of made fun of, like, your wife wears the pants. None of these women were trying to control anything, but it was just like the men had to be a certain, have a certain sort of traditional masculine vibe about them. And so there was some bullying that happened if they weren’t and the main teaching pastor was very much like the guy in charge and everybody else is a yes man. And, you know, we were very afraid of not being able to pay our rent and not be able to pay our bills if we stepped out of line. So yeah, that’s basically what happened is we were forced into a position of of just having to be like, yes, okay, but this is not good. And if you’re the weak link, if you show weakness or they know that you’re struggling in your marriage, they’re gonna turn against you. It’s like you’re the sick chicken in the flock and they’re gonna pick you to death. So it’s like, you can’t show that weakness when you’re in a team like that. I very much identify when I hear people talk about what happened at Mars Hill. Like there’s people that were involved in leadership there and they talk about what that felt like. it just, was so, it was similar to the dynamic of what we were involved with.

Ruth Perry (18:08)
Yeah. My family, my dad was a senior pastor and my brother was his associate pastor and then my family attended the church and they had this big conflict erupt. And it was like, the church just kicked us while we were down. It was just like that. It was like, oh my God, this is so much worse than it had to be. And I’m just so frustrated that Christians aren’t the most loving, caring people. It makes me so mad.

Jenna Dunn (18:42)
Yeah, yeah, it’s weird to see those dynamics and you know, I kind of imagine that in the healthier churches, know, part of what besides there’s sort of being a system of checks and balances so that there’s not just like one main guy that’s the whole everything’s around that guy, you know, but I think in some of the healthier churches, it’s like you do see like the husband and wife ministry teams and you see women in positions of leadership so that they can provide like perspective of like what things are like for women in the church.

I remember saying that at one time I was like, well, if I was struggling, where would I get help? Like all of the leadership are all men and I don’t want to talk to them about that. They’re like, be like, oh, so and so’s wife. And I’m like, yeah, but she’s not in a position to change anything. The wives have to support their husbands. Like I knew, how many times I was in a leadership meeting and I knew that they did not want me to open my Bible and to say something that contradicted what they were saying. Like I know to stay in my place and not make my husband look bad. They don’t want me to lead or to be interested in theology or to have the right answer or to help them. They actually just want me to stay quiet and play my part.

And it was always hard for me because I knew what God wanted me to do. I feel like God called me to be a teacher. Like I actually would find myself in situations where we’re having a two hour long meeting about this topic and I know the answer and I could very easily show you in scripture and it would just end this meeting and we would just all be on the same page. But it was like, that was not what they wanted from me. And I didn’t want to risk my, you know, it’s sad. I wish I…hindsight I wish I would have been more willing to risk my reputation or my standing or whatever like even if it caused a huge problem I mean my life fell apart anyways like staying quiet didn’t serve me either you know so I wish I would have had more courage

Ruth Perry (20:34)
Well, it takes so long to undo all of the toxic teaching that we’ve absorbed and learned. I’ve been doing the Beautiful Kingdom Builders page for a long time. And just recently I’m finding my own voice in personal relationships with other people. Or pursue my own goals apart from my husband and stop waiting for my husband to be the ministry person that I support. It really takes a lot of time, even as your eyes are opening decades before, it still takes time to undo that cultural conditioning that we received.

Jenna Dunn (20:55)
Yes. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think I bought the domain name Ezer Bible, like, 2012. I mean, so that’s how long ago I’ve been, not doing this. And it’s because of the mindset hurdles that I’m up against. So, I started my business and all of the same issues that I was having just in my relationship with God were manifest in my business. So I’m like, why am I struggling so much as a small business owner? I’m chronically undercharging, devaluing my time, devaluing myself. I just came across so much personal problems, because of my background. I just really can’t, can’t, you know, let God fully heal me from like some of these really toxic mindsets.

And I think too, when I go back and read some of the stuff I was writing during that time for probably five years, most of the things I wrote, if I read it now, it’s not the voice I want to put out there. That’s not how I want to sound. Cause what it is, is like, I’m, I’m talking or writing from a place of feeling really inferior, trying to prove myself, right? Like trying to say I actually know something about the Bible. I know something about theology and this is why you should listen to me. And, you know, God isn’t asking me to do that, but I just feel like I know the person I was when I was a Calvary Chapel ministry wife, I felt…so disempowered and so not worthy and like my voice didn’t matter and nobody would want to learn from me or hear from me. They just wanted this silent role, a supportive role. And I just thought who am I to think I know something about the Bible or who am I to challenge complementarian theology? I felt just really inadequate and it’s been so hard to overcome that.

Like there has been growth in that area, but I think that’s kind of why I don’t put myself out there. I put my voice out there. I do more with my marketing. And I think that that’s kind of helped me warm up to the idea of like, I have something to teach. But yeah, it was so hard to start kind of moving forward in my gifting just because of how some of those mindsets had. influence me and I think too sometimes I have a voice in my head like I can imagine the objection already without even anybody hearing my ideas I know the voice of these men that come against the ideas that I have. I’m very aware of the other side. I’ve read a lot of complementarian literature I understand all their arguments and positions and And that’s a good thing, because I can refute those objections. But yeah, I very much understand the mindset and there’s so many people who shut down women. so I feel shut down sometimes even without even sharing my idea. I’m like, I’m going to write this and I’m like, I already can hear the objections and the way that they would shut me down if I share this. I was really active. ⁓

Ruth Perry (24:07)
I would really encourage you, Jenna, to please use your voice. I’m really impressed and amazed by all that you’ve just shared in this short conversation. I think you definitely have a gifting and a calling from God. And part of the challenge of being a woman that grew up in these complementarian spaces is giving yourself permission to follow that because nobody else is going to. And so you have to just take that leap of faith and you are going to have pushback.

But honestly, I think the complementarian men are not trolling the internet as much as we fear and they’re really easy to block or to just like not approve their comment. Like it’s just, you can protect your space.

Jenna Dunn (24:39)
Thank you. Yeah, I see women with a lot of comments and interaction online. I see it’s not as bad as I think. I think I used to be really active. I would debate things with people on Reddit. And so Reddit used to be very anonymous. And so some of the people representing a very reformed comp view were really harsh.

Ruth Perry (24:59)
Bye. They’re the worst.

I mean, even if you’re not being mean, people can still read the tone of your whatever you write and whatever tone they’re hearing in their head. You can’t control that. You just have to like put the message that the Lord has on your heart out there. And it’s not going to be for everybody. if it only reached one person, I feel like you’ve made an impact that matters. So I would encourage you.

Jenna Dunn (25:20)
Yeah.

Ruth Perry (25:35)
to go ahead and be courageous. And I think that it would be really meaningful and fulfilling to you to start putting your work out there. I would listen to your podcast and I’ll share your articles. I’m excited for you.

Jenna Dunn (25:35)
Thank you. Yeah.

Yeah, think I’m going to spend some time this upcoming year focused on developing as our Bible. I definitely over overthink. You know, I overthink a lot.

Ruth Perry (25:59)
Yeah, have you done any enneagram work?

Jenna Dunn (26:01)
What? Yeah. I’m like an INFP. Yeah.

Ruth Perry (26:08)
The enneagram numbers are one through nine and you strike me as number five.

Jenna Dunn (26:13)
yeah yeah yeah, the number one. I’m like a f-

Yeah. What are you?

Ruth Perry (26:18)
I said, you strike me as a five, but I’m a five also, yeah.

Jenna Dunn (26:21)
I think I was a four, but I… Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

Ruth Perry (26:24)
You might have a five wing, but the four part of you would be the more sensitive part. Like for me, I don’t really care if people disagree with me. I’m okay with like online interactions and I actually really enjoy listening to people and reading people who disagree with me. But I think part of that is just my personality is I’m the observer and I enjoy observing people.

Jenna Dunn (26:34)
Yeah, people are interesting for sure. Yeah, no, I am very sensitive and like I think about things a lot and I really take things to heart and like I will sit on an idea for years sometimes before I share it. So yeah.

Ruth Perry (26:49)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Me too. I’m an INFP also. And I don’t feel like I ought to podcast number one, I feel like I have the most annoying voice in the world who would want to like listen to this voice. I don’t know. So I just would I had the idea. So I mentioned it to people and everybody tells me that’s a great idea. So now I feel like I have to try it. But personally, I wouldn’t do it. I have imposter syndrome. I would rather just keep reading other people and thinking about other people’s thoughts. But I do feel like I’ve had this platform on the Beautiful Kingdom Builders page and you can’t really have nuanced conversations when you’re sharing a meme or an article. And I just want to host longer conversations with people that just show that you can be a Christian that loves God and loves the Bible, but you’re not a gun-toting, militaristic, and anti-CRT. You don’t have to subscribe to all of that. You don’t have to believe in penal substitutionary atonement. There’s other ways to be Christian that I feel are more faithful to Jesus.

Jenna Dunn (27:53)
Yeah, it’s so true. And it’s so important to hear other people’s stories. I really do love the medium of podcasting. Like I listen to a lot of podcasts. And some of my favorite Christian ones are just like people sharing their stories.

Ruth Perry (28:26)
Why do you feel like a Beautiful Kingdoms Builder podcast is beneficial to the church?

Jenna Dunn (28:32)
Yeah, so I think it’s such a gift for women just to have a place to share their stories, like just to have their voices heard. I kind of believed I had to like build that all myself. Like I need to somehow earn the right to have my story heard and that’s how I learned web design. Like I was like, I wanna…build a website. But I always had that in the back of my mind that I was going to do Ezer Bible.

So it’s like I went down this whole other path of like, now I have a whole business building websites for people. And I do a lot on the internet. I do all kinds of marketing. But doing it for myself, for my calling has had a lot of obstacles. And I think that a lot of people would never be able to do that. I mean, it takes a ton of time to learn everything, to build your own platform. I love that the internet exists and women can build their own platform, but not everybody’s going to be able to do that. it would be great if there was more places women could just share what God’s showing them and share their stories and share their testimonies. Because if you’re coming out of a context like I was…you’re really feeling like your voice doesn’t matter already, right? And so just the fact that there’s platforms where they’re like, hey, you know, we actually do care about your experiences. We want to know, what following God has been like for you and what God has shown you. I mean, that’s huge. I mean, you just basically holding the microphone up to women and being like, we care about what you’re experiencing and we want to hear from you. Like your voice matters. I think that’s a huge thing. And so

I was going to ask you what prompted the change from Beautiful Kingdom Warriors to Builders.

Ruth Perry (30:09)
The warrior’s name came from Carolyn Custis James. A friend and I, Becky Buck, started the page 10 years or more ago. And we were thinking about the word ezer that it doesn’t just mean helper, it means like a strong help. And then it’s frequently used in the context of military. So like we’re in this battle.

to bring God’s kingdom, which would look like flourishing for all and peace and joy and like the fruit of the spirit and all these things, like building a Christianity. But the, well, see the building part came later in my thought as I’m thinking less about fighting battles, because I’m really tired of culture war. I don’t want to be a culture warrior. But that was so deeply embedded in me 15 years ago.

Jenna Dunn (30:54)
Yeah.

Ruth Perry (30:59)
that warrior seemed like a good name. But now I want to be a part of building something beautiful. Because we’re ambassadors, we’re builders, There is the spiritual warfare aspect of life. But really, the battle is God’s. And I just want to be a part of building a more beautiful Christianity, because I’m really…disappointed in the Christianity that I was formed in.

I know so many people who have walked away from their faith because of the culture warring and the politics and the bad theology and the subjugation of women and the racism and all these things. And I just want to say you don’t have to walk away. There’s a better Christianity that you could be a part of.

Jenna Dunn (31:46)
Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I think about some of the positions that I’ve taken more recently and I’m like, I hope that that focusing on theology or what the Bible really says isn’t just another turnoff for people. Because I’ve known Christians I’ve really cared about over the years who have more of like a shepherd’s heart for people or their…

maybe like more prophetic, they’re, just, they don’t get into theological discussions and they don’t understand half the things I want to talk about. They don’t know the terminology or the different people who wrote whatever books, but they just really love people and they just really have God’s heart for people. And they care about reconciliation or they care about seeing people grow in the Lord. And they don’t geek out about

the Bible or theology like I do and I’m always like, I really want to make sure I keep those people close to me so they keep me in line and I don’t go off in this whole other direction that’s not people focused, right? Because at end of the day, that’s what matters, you know. But yeah, I do think that, you know, that’s a really beautiful change to make it about building the kingdom and being a part of building the kingdom. I was really interested
in that because when I first found the Beautiful Kingdom Warriors, I was very much like, ooh, warriors. And I also was so influenced by the idea. I mean, like, I got like an ezer tattoo. Like, that’s how much ezer was like. And on my muscles, I’m like, it was. It was because I was, I had been influenced and seen so many women’s lives influenced by the ideas.

Ruth Perry (33:16)
Yeah! That was a mind-blowing revelation, learning what AIDS are meant.

Jenna Dunn (33:30)
that are represented by Created to Be His Help Meet and that idea that a woman being ezer means she’s subordinate and then to like see the truth about that in scripture was wow such a radical shift and so yeah I really I really bought into that identity of like being like I’m an ezer like that’s super freeing and healing for me

Ruth Perry (33:53)
Yeah, it is a long process, healing and unlearning and relearning. I think for me, really started, the domino started falling away from my early faith formation about 15 years ago. And 15 years, that’s a long time, almost all of my adulthood.

Jenna Dunn (34:11)
Yeah.

Ruth Perry (34:11)
Or not really, no, that’s because I’m 44 now, so I’m like late 20s. Just really when my home church went through all that conflict and it impacted my family and we experienced a lot of abusive behavior towards us and shunning. And it was just really painful. And then all the little dominoes started falling. And the first thing that I noticed was if the women in this church had any say, this is not how this would be handled.

Jenna Dunn (34:39)
Yeah.

Ruth Perry (34:41)
And then I started wondering why don’t the women have any say? It doesn’t really make sense. And so that was the thing that for me, but I’ve just, last year, I finally went and did some EMDR therapy because over 15 years of me learning new things and working on all of this, I was still carrying the wounds and they were still wide open and painful and

Jenna Dunn (34:45)
Yeah.

Ruth Perry (35:05)
Just going through that EMDR therapy last year was really transformational.

Jenna Dunn (35:09)
Wow.

Ruth Perry (35:10)
And I think maybe that that’s where now I’m getting the I’ll try a podcast courage. I don’t know. I’m not as scared anymore.

Jenna Dunn (35:15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I think sort of gathering together women especially, but also I know when I think about like the strategy behind Ezer Bible, I didn’t want to make it just for women because if I see a Christian man that’s like actually teaching the Bible like the right way and like is understanding how important the voice of women is and how important women are to building the church. That’s actually so beneficial. I don’t like the idea of men and women are against each other. It’s actually just there’s men and women that are a part of the kingdom and it is a very supportive, helpful… I think about all the women that Paul was partnering with. They wouldn’t have been able to accomplish what the early church accomplished without those partnerships.

I had noticed if I say patriarchy, like I almost don’t want to use that term anymore because I talk to many people who when they hear me say patriarchy, they think I’m saying something against men. And like to me, patriarchy doesn’t mean men, men and women hold up patriarchy. I’m not saying anything negative about men. So it’s like to me that the divide should be the people over there that support patriarchy and then the people that are building the kingdom and following Jesus and laying down their lives and serving and submitting to each other. so but yeah, it’s an interesting thing because I think as soon as you try to bring men like I just was so comfortable talking about talking to women you bring men into it. I think there’s just this default that women will just back down and let men lead like there’s just our culture has conditioned us to be like, there’s a man in the room. Okay, I’ll shut up now and just see what he says. How do you get women to participate and to leave behind that sort of cultural conditioning? That’s something I think about a lot. But yeah, I really am super excited that you’re gonna do a podcast. And I hope that that ends up being something that more women…

you know, will start sharing.

Ruth Perry (37:11)
Is Four Square, that’s the denomination that Amy Semple McPherson founded, right?

Jenna Dunn (37:17)
Yeah, You know, it’s weird. There was a four-square church in the small city that I was a ministry wife in, and I had friends that… Even some of the leadership team had been raised in the Four Square Church. And so it’s weird to me. I’m like always wondering, why did they adopt this view of male and female gender roles and male-only leadership, if that was their background? But that particular Four Square Even though…their denominational belief system included women in ministry. They didn’t actually practice it. There wasn’t any women in ministry that I saw. Maybe the pastor’s wife was a little bit more outspoken than in other faith traditions, but they didn’t really practice what they believed, right? But the Four Square Church, now that I’m in a bigger city, actually the city I’m in, there’s so many good churches. Like there’s also a denomination here called Open Bible.

And it’s a bunch, it’s usually a husband, wife, pastor team. And I went to a few of those and like, I just cry. Like a woman gets up front and starts preaching. I just start crying. It’s just beautiful. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s not about one person. There’s a team of people. They take turns teaching. People take turns doing worship and. They just make decisions together as a team and there’s not like women defaulting to male leadership. The women share what they think and it’s just really healthy. I’m still blown away about it, I guess.

Ruth Perry (38:37)
Yeah, I’m glad you found that church.

Jenna Dunn (38:39)
Yeah.

Ruth Perry (38:40)
And I’m glad I met you, Jenna. This is so nice. We’re friends now.

Jenna Dunn (38:42)
I’m glad I met you too. Yeah, I am happy too.

Ruth Perry (38:47)
Thank you so much, Jenna. You shine the light of God from your whole being and everything you’ve shared has been really beautiful and impactful. And I feel like God has definitely gifted you.

Jenna Dunn (38:58)
Thank you. Thank you so much.

Ruth Perry (39:02)
So if you need encouragement, I’m encouraging you. Take the risk, do it, because I love it. I love it. I feel like you’re a beautiful soul.

Jenna Dunn (39:06)
Aww, that means a lot. Thank you so much. Yeah.

Ruth Perry (39:13)
So keep on keeping on, Jenna. You’re doing great.

Jenna Dunn (39:16)
All right, you too. Thank you so much, Ruth.

Ruth Perry (39:18)
Thank you.

Thanks for following TBKB Podcast! A new episode will drop every Wednesday. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite platform! Next week, we’ll hear from my missionary friend Scott Harris. God bless! Have a very Merry Christmas!!

002 I Amber Braddy Jones on Navigating Faith & Healing

Posted on December 17, 2025 | Leave a comment

My guest on the podcast this week is my friend Amber Braddy Jones. Amber’s husband Dale and my husband Logan have been close friends since high school, and though we have never lived near each other, I’ve always loved when our families spent time together. Amber is a kindred spirit and a beautiful soul. I have always been impressed by Amber’s writing that she has shared on social media, and she has compiled her writings and poetry into a book that was recently published. Find Sacred by Amber Braddy Jones on Amazon.

In our conversation, Amber shares her experiences growing up in evangelical Christianity, the impact of purity culture and sexual abuse, and the challenges faced in her marriages and ministry due to complementarian beliefs. She discusses the pain of leaving the church and the need for empathy and understanding within faith communities. Amber emphasizes the importance of affirming all individuals and serving communities without strings attached, while also reflecting on her mental health challenges that arose from these experiences. You can find TBKB Podcast on your favorite platform here: https://podlink.com/1858367321 or watch the video on YouTube. Comment your thoughts below or email me at ruthperry@thebeautifulkingdombuilders.com. Thank you for listening, and if this episode resonated with you, would you share it with a friend?

Transcript:

Ruth Perry (00:15)
My guest today is Amber Braddy Jones, a longtime friend as our husbands grew up together. And they even sang together in the Step of Faith men’s Gospel group that toured around Eastern North Carolina back in the day. Amber has recently published a book called Sacred that has her writings and poetry from over the past 15 years as she’s been healing from purity culture and perfectionism and from being a sexual abuse survivor. So check out Sacred. Buy a copy for yourself or for a friend.

And see if you can find, I’ve left a little Michael Scott blooper in here for you today, where I mix up the words of a common phrase that everybody should know. And if you find it, let me know on a comment thread, somewhere on social media, on one of my pages, or on my website, thebeautifulkingdombuilders.com. Without further ado.

Here is my conversation with Amber Braddy Jones

Ruth Perry (01:12)
So what I wanted to talk with you about, what was it like for you growing up in the evangelical church the good, the bad, the ugly, just speaking from your heart, what your experience was like growing up Christian in America.

Amber Jones (01:25)
What a time to be alive.

Ruth Perry (01:25)
What kinds of things have given you hope, what things have broken your heart, I don’t know. Cause I know you and Dale, but I don’t know you the way Logan knows Dale. I feel like you’re a kindred spirit. But I would love to know more about you, like what was your life like growing up Christian in America?

Amber Jones (01:48)
Whoa.

Very multifaceted. I’m just going to jump into it. I loved my childhood. I was a very happy child. I loved church. We were the type of family that every time the church doors were open, we were there. It was, I mean Sunday school, Sunday morning church, children’s church, Wednesday night revival, youth groups on Friday night. We had, Teen Talent, which was like a teen talent competition that we would travel all over and that was pretty much year-round for us. We started practicing our little songs we were gonna do, you know, so we were in church constantly and I loved every second of it. Like I didn’t have a clue really about any of the issues or problems with the church. Now there were a lot of issues and problems I had with me personally. I internalized a lot of the doctrine that was being thrown at me and growing up in evangelical Christianity I really do feel like

it can go a couple of different ways for people. One of them, I think people can develop a savior complex where it’s like, we have the answers. We have to go out and convince all of these people that we’re right and you’re wrong and come to our side. We’re the right ones, you know? And then there’s also a camp where I feel like I fell in, which was like, I’m never gonna be good enough. I’m not enough. There’s nothing that I will ever do to earn what I need to earn to get where I need to go and do what I need to do. So it was very fear-based I’ve dissected this for years now. I don’t even think a lot of it was intentional. I think people were just scared. It was fear mentality and it just translated to a child growing up in this that you’re not good enough. You’re never gonna be good enough.

And so I just, I was on a quest to like prove that I’m worthy. I’m good. I can do this. And it created a lot of mental health issues, perfectionism issues. I was a hypocrite if you want to put it into church terms like that because I had a facade on Sunday morning that wasn’t quite the truth during the week which created a whole nother set of internal struggles for me.

So it’s very multifaceted and in one respect I loved my childhood, I loved what we did and it was fun and I’m so thankful for the experiences that I had and the people that I had in my life around me but also now coming to this part of my life I see where there were just very toxic teachings that I’m still undoing to this day.

Ruth Perry (04:25)
Yeah, I relate. So did you grow up Pentecostal like Dale?

Amber Jones (04:28)
Yes, Pentecostal

Ruth Perry (04:53)
Yeah, I grew up Baptist, but I relate to the fear. Like I didn’t know it at the time. And it’s not that that’s the explicit message. Like you said, it’s you’re hearing the message that God is love, all of these really good things. But then there’s also that just the culture is conditioning you to seek affirmation from them and belonging. In ways that you have to shape shift to receive those things. And yeah, it’s hard to be your authentic self. Even like, I bet it sounds to me that you’re also a good girl.

Amber Jones (05:05)
Yeah! I’m recovering good girl!

Ruth Perry (05:17)
And that you were probably received a lot of, you probably received a lot of affirmation in the church, like I did too. And it was hard to reconcile for me personally, I just never, I did what I needed to do to receive that affirmation and I also perceived myself as being that person that was a good person. But so much fear of the people outside and fear of being rejected.

Amber Jones (05:33)
Absolutely.

Ruth Perry (05:34)
Looking back, are there particular doctrines that you understand now that were harmful to you?

Amber Jones (05:42)
Purity culture is a huge one. Purity culture, that to me started my mental health journey honestly. As a good girl growing up Pentecostal Holiness, but also developing very early like I got my period early, got boobs early, like just was very aware of my body early and it was your body’s bad. It was the message of you’re a temptress. You know, we grew up in an environment where if we went swimming with the opposite sex, like we were the ones that had to cover up, you know, the boys could wear their swimming trunks with no shirts. And, you know, we always had to wear, even if we wore a one piece, we had to wear a t-shirt over it and we couldn’t let the boys see. And we always had to walk that line of not being a temptress and that was early on. And then, you know, I’ve been very public in certain places with my sexual abuse struggle that when I was about eight years old, I started being sexually molested by a family member that nobody knew about that was happening. And so then I had to deal with all of those.

shame cycles of what did I do to cause this at eight years old and then you know that continued until I was about 12 years old and then finally I told my parents what was going on and then you know that stopped. But just the purity culture message to me is a very toxic message in the church that I’m not sure if we still have honestly because I’m so far removed.

Ruth Perry (06:56)
I’m so sorry.

Amber Jones (07:17)
from the church at this point, but I feel that it’s still there. I feel that we still have a lot of the messages to women and young girls that they’re the problems and they just need to cover up and be less and all of those things and that was a very detrimental message to me growing up.

Ruth Perry (07:35)
I also received, like on top of purity culture though and all the messages about modesty, there were also just a lot of pervy older men in the church that made me so uncomfortable.

Amber Jones (07:45)
Same, All right.

Ruth Perry (07:51)
A lot of attention from men, once I hit puberty and beyond, it was uncomfortable.

Amber Jones (07:57)
Yep. Very uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. And you know, we grew up in the 80s and 90s. So it was like, any type of like short skirt or shorts or, you know, heels, I am very much into fashion. Kind of always have been in a way. And I remember from a very early age being kind of, like that’s too much. First of all, because of my weight, it was, you’re too big to wear that. And also you can’t wear that because it may be a hindrance to your brother type of thing. And so that was really hard to reconcile for me because I am a very free spirit by nature. I feel like I always have been. And I can just remember being like, wait a minute, what? Why can’t I do this? And why can’t I wear this? And why can’t I turn around with my dress on and let it fly up and all the things. And so, the message to me was like, you’re bad, you’re too much, you need to hide, you need to cover, you need to settle down, you’ve got a husband that you’re trying to grab one day and so you’ve got to be pure for him and just awful. Just awful.

Ruth Perry (09:06)
How did that pressure for perfection as a sexual assault survivor, what was that like for you?

Amber Jones (09:14)
Well, I internalized that early on, that that was my fault. And through therapy now, obviously I know that it was not, but I think that for me, I always had to make sure that I was doing the right things. Because if I wasn’t doing the right things, then I was wrong, I was bad.

I internalized that whole message. And so I always had to put on a front and the face that everything was good, we’re good, I’m good.

Even in my marriage with Dale, we’ve been married almost 25 years now. Early on, it was like neither one of us wanted to accept that anything was wrong in our marriage. Like we would rather just deny, deny, deny, we’re good, we’re good, we’re good, rather than really facing the issues because, you know, he struggled with that perfectionism as well in his life. So it comes full circle and if you don’t get that dealt with, it can wreak havoc everywhere.

Ruth Perry (10:11)
Did complementarian theology negatively impact your marriage in any way?

Amber Jones (10:17)
Absolutely. I remember early on, I never really had boyfriends growing up.

So Dale was like my first serious boyfriend when I was 20 and I remember I went to Bible college and I remember when I went away to Bible college like the reason why I was going to Bible college was because I wanted to find a husband like that was my mission in life. That’s what we were taught like you’re not a complete person until you find your husband and You know, I was on the hunt for that didn’t find it at Bible college came home Dale and I met he was singing with Ricky with the singing group and we started as friends for a while and then it just progressively got to you know where we were interested in each other romantically but talk about you know imposter syndrome with me and him because he was older, he grew up in church he was in a singing group like I felt like I can never live up to this man, you know? And now I’m like, you’re lucky to have me bud, you know?

Ruth Perry (11:19)
Yes.

Amber Jones (11:21)
You’re lucky but at the time like it was my gosh if I can keep him he became my identity. I was there to basically serve him and honestly Ruth I know I’m jumping but even me working in ministry years later in a church, when I had kind of gotten out of evangelical Christianity Dale and I kind of walked away from the Pentecostal Holiness Church and moved into a more non-denominational progressive more progressive type church where grace was the central message which was healing for us at the time. But I became a staff member there for worship and I remember I would never call myself the worship leader because I was a woman. And this was years later. I was a professional woman in my 30s, had children, had left the evangelical Christian Pentecostal, but still had to have my husband and all the other men worship leaders out in front. And I could step up and sing a song every once in a while and lead people, but the men had to be the worship leader. And I’m just like, now? I’m like, what the?

Ruth Perry (12:05)
Yeah. And Amber, you are the real deal. Like when it comes to singing, you’re extraordinary and amazing and gifted and called. And yeah, it’s hard to see women who are so gifted to even imagine that they would have any kind of self doubt.

Amber Jones (12:35)
Thank you. I could do everything behind the scenes and did everything behind the scenes. I mean, pick the songs out, the set list, pick the band. I mean, ran the rehearsals, did every single thing that was required to have an excellent worship experience for people, but did not feel the confidence to step myself out and actually be the full-time worship leader for this congregation of people, which is really sad.

Ruth Perry (13:13)
Did the leadership of the church call out your leadership and your gifts?

Amber Jones (13:18)
They did really push women in leadership. and I remember them kind of encouraging me and you need to step out. So yeah, they were very encouraging in that point. That was just a personal thing of mine of the way that I grew up.

Ruth Perry (13:33)
I’ve been deconstructing complementarian theology for, I think, 15 years now. And I just realized two years ago that I needed to, pursue my calling in ministry regardless of what my husband is doing. I have a calling, too, and it’s not just to ride his tailcoats. It takes a long time to unlearn the way we were taught.

Amber Jones (13:55)
Absolutely. It really does. really does. Yeah, it does. Still unlearning.

Ruth Perry (13:58)
Yeah. So you left Pentecostalism behind and I’m curious to know, what was that experience like for you? Because you come from a small community and then Pentecostal community inside of that community is even a smaller community, but you still encounter all these people. And like, how have you been?

Amber Jones (14:09)
Yes. Yeah.

Ruth Perry (14:24)
How, what was that experience like for you?

Amber Jones (14:28)
It was hard in some ways. When we decided, we had been contemplating making the move for about a year probably. Just, we were just burned out. We were burned out.

From our marriage, like our marriage was not good. Barrett was small, I was actually pregnant with Chandler at the time but Barrett was small. Our marriage was not great. We were not great personally and we had just needed a change. There were just some things in the church that we were just like, we are not feeling this.

And we finally made the move, which was very hard because my whole family was a part of that church. I mean, my grandmother was a member of that church until she passed away a few years ago. Cousins, aunts, like so many people that still attend the church. And most of them have been great. You know, you have a few people who I was friends with and it totally changed the relationship, which was hard and heavy.

But now that I’m on the other side of that I’m like some of that could have been me as well. I try not to stay in victim mentality with it as it’s like I was changing and growing as well. So it wouldn’t it wouldn’t have lasted the distance anyway, probably with where my mindset and my theology was going. So it was better probably at that time to go ahead and cut the ties. But at the time it was very painful and it felt very isolating.

So when we switched that congregation and made our way to the new congregation we jumped in like because we were missing our community at that point and so that will probably wasn’t the best thing to do as well it was basically going from one congregation full force to and I mean cuz Dale and I were very involved we’ve been involved in ministry since I mean, forever, since we were little kids singing. Both of us grew up singing in the church at little kids. You know, I taught children’s church, sang on the praise team, like always. And so we left that ministry, Pentecostal Holiness Ministry, went into this more non-denominational ministry, jumped in head first there, which probably wasn’t the smartest thing for us to do at the time. So.

And we ended up staying there about 10 years, and then we parted ways as well.

Ruth Perry (16:33)
And now you say you’re far from the church. Tell me about that.

Amber Jones (16:36)
Yeah, we haven’t attended church in a few years.

We were both in ministry positions at our previous church, And both of us served in, I would say full-time ministry, even though I was only considered part-time, it was full-time ministry. We both were involved and he actually left his credit union job that he had been at for almost 30 years to be on full-time staff at this church. And so it was big. We downsized our home, moved into a smaller home.

It was a big deal for us to do this. He ended up staying about three years and he was completely burned out, like classic burnout. And I was burned out as well, but I’m a little bit better at faking it til you make it type person. And so I remember certain things, you know, he would be very vocal about.

And I would say, no, no, no, no, you can’t say that. can’t. Because I had learned how to exist in the system. And I was very good at, like you said, shape shifting into these systems. And so I had planted myself firmly in this system. And now Dale was disrupting that and started calling things out. And it made me very nervous.

Being like mm-hmm like you can’t say that you can’t do that you have to operate this way to stay in the good graces and it became apparent he wasn’t able to do that and so then once he stepped away certain things just started happening that now I was like that’s my husband and this we’re gonna start calling this out.

So we ended up parting ways with that church around the time of COVID, which was, you know, pretty convenient for us. Honestly, was like churches were closing anyway. So it was like the perfect time for us to step away and just figure out can we exist in this congregation now with not being in ministry? Because as you know, when you serve on a church and you’re in the inner circle, and then you step back, it’s really hard to then enter back into that congregation as just a congregation member. So we had to figure out if we could even do that knowing a lot of the behind the scenes and we couldn’t.

And then we of course began looking for another church in town. It was like, oh well what do we do? We go to church on Sunday so let’s find another church. And so we tried a few and never really landed anywhere. We were at one for almost a year probably and started singing again and leading worship again and then it was just like it just wasn’t a good fit for us. And you when you know you know and so I have a hard time because I don’t want to ever make anybody feel like their ministry is not good or you know I don’t want to talk bad about somebody’s ministry but it’s just not a good fit for me. I can say that at this point in my life.

We haven’t gone anywhere in a few years. And I’m at peace with that. Honestly, I’m at peace with that.

Ruth Perry (19:30)
Yeah. Well, I wonder, it just seems like the church in America has become so commercialized and they’re run like businesses. I really enjoy good teaching. I love worship, but I feel like personally, a conversation like this is going to feed my soul so much.

Amber Jones (19:52)
Yeah.

Ruth Perry (19:52)
And I’m so appreciative for your authenticity and willingness to like, just have a conversation about your faith journey and where you are now and where you’ve come from. I feel like that is missing a lot in churches today where we don’t really make space for conversations and we especially don’t make space for hard conversations.

Amber Jones (20:15)
I agree. And I think that growing up, the church that I grew up in was very different than the second church that I was a part of. So the first church that I was a part of was very much more like organic, flying by the seat of your pants. Like we never knew what we were singing to. We got there. Very more laid back. There wasn’t a lot of people on staff. It was really kind of the pastor and then he had a secretary and they had a deacon board and you know everything else was volunteer positions. And so then the second church that I was part of, very different church. It was in the time Hillsong was very popular and so a lot of churches had patterned themselves like you said, very commercialized, very business like and so there were more people on staff, so more paychecks had to be paid every week. And so with that comes more pressure for giving talks. And, you know, we need more people to volunteer because we’ve got more people coming.

You know, it’s a slippery slope because I understand that you want the church to be relevant in your community because there are a lot of things vying for our attention now. Whereas back in the 80s and 90s, I mean, what did you do? You went to church and you went out to eat and you had a few places to go out to eat.
But now it’s like with the culture that we live in, there are so many things vying for us on Sundays. And so churches did have to get creative, I think, to go, how do we get these people here? And so the lights came and the rock music came and the, you know, all the things that now we see as like the typical commercialized church happened.

And I think that a lot of them probably came from good intentions. People were trying to, meet the needs in their community. My thing that I always try to go back to is I don’t know the motives of others. I know my motives and my motives sometimes are not great and I have to constantly check my motives. I cannot tell you your motive. And so I feel like a lot of good intentioned people are in ministry and try just to do the best that they can in this culture that we find ourselves. Now there are predators, 100%. There are people who prey on innocent people, but I do think a lot of pastors and ministry teams do have good intentions, but I think that we have just lost our way in a lot of ways.

Ruth Perry (22:23)
Yeah. And I feel like a big aspect of where the church is today has to do with mental health, like you said, and a lot of unexamined childhood experiences. like, I went and had EMDR therapy last year. And just thinking about the difference of how I feel now compared to before then. And just so many people are traumatized in ways that they don’t understand. And they’re still pouring themselves out because they love God and they love being in ministry. They love using their gifts. They’re called to use their gifts. But I just wonder like how much more impactful would the church be if we were all healed and serving from a place of well-being?

Amber Jones (23:06)
Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Ruth Perry (23:26)
Where we weren’t seeking any kind of personal gain from it because we have these gaping wounds in our lives that need tending and care.

Amber Jones (23:35)
Yeah, Absolutely. So many people, I think, get into ministry for the affirmation of it. And because we developed with the Savior Complex early on, like we have all the answers and you don’t. So here I am to tell you what you need and how you need it, you know? And I think that for a long time, I think it’s getting better, but I think for a long time, the church was very adamantly against therapy and against any type of wellness journeys.

I know myself personally, in my early 20s, I went through a really bad clinical depression and was diagnosed from a therapist. went to see a psychiatrist in my early 20s, had never been to therapy, never even had heard of any type of mental illness really, and was diagnosed with clinical depression and had to go see a psychiatrist. And she basically was like, you’re clinically depressed. I’m like, what does that mean? And you need to be on Prozac. And I was like, okay. And because I…

At that time, I would have done anything to feel better. Like I was literally, I had a lot of things that I needed to work through. And so I remember talking to my church leadership about that and was very excited. Like, yeah, I went to see my psychiatrist and she’s prescribing Prozac and they were like, like literally gasped in my face. And I was like, and she was like, you can’t take that. And I’m like, why? And she’s like, That that’s bad stuff like no you can’t take that and I remember you know a person in leadership telling me that there’s no such thing as depression that I was oppressed and that I just needed to pray and then the shame I was already in such a vulnerable place and so then it’s like wait a minute what my pastor, you know, my leader is telling me that I’m not depressed, there’s no such thing as depression, that I’m oppressed and that I shouldn’t take this medication. So that was really a time in my life where I had to be like, okay, what do I do? Who do I listen to?

And thankfully I listened to my psychiatrist and my parents at that time as well. And so my parents, thankfully, even though they were involved in the church as well, thankfully, had the sense enough to say, you’re depressed, there is depression, you’re taking this medication. And I did, and it was very healing for me. So I do think that the church needs, it’s getting better, but I think that as a whole, the church really needs to dive into these mental health issues and everybody work on it. Leadership down, like everybody, like you said, everybody needs to be whole. Everybody needs to get well.

Ruth Perry (26:15)
I think what I want to ask you, I think there’s been 40 million people that left the church in the last several decades. And so you’re one of those people. from your perspective, not that we want to be commercialized as well and shop for churches, but what do you feel would make for a healthy and safe church where you would be drawn to attend?

Amber Jones (26:40)
For me, at this point in my life, I feel like it would have to be a church that affirmed everyone. I’m just at that point in my life where I’m tired of us versus them. I’m tired of we have the answers and you don’t. We have it all figured out and you don’t. I feel like we’re all on a journey and there are so many theologians that are way smarter than me, who have struggled and argued with biblical text for centuries. So you don’t think that those people could come to an understanding of exactly what the Bible means and says. If they can’t, then what makes us feel like that we’re the experts on it?

So I think that in order for me to feel safe in a church congregation again It it would have to be a church that affirms everyone and it’s not an us-versus-them mentality. It’s like just come regardless of what you’ve got going on. You know and a lot of churches say that that’s what they do, but they really don’t, they don’t at the heart of it, they don’t. And you know the difference.

And so it’s like everybody is welcome and not just welcome, but everybody is celebrated for your uniqueness. Sunday morning is the most segregated place in America. The most segregated hour is Sunday morning still. And I hate that. Like that has bothered me for decades. Why are we so segregated on Sunday mornings?

Ruth Perry (28:09)
Yeah.

Amber Jones (28:10)
There just needs to be a lot of conversations, a lot of healing, more trust, and I just don’t think it’s there in America. We just don’t trust each other.

Ruth Perry (28:19)
That is a word. Yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard not to get caught in cynicism and hopelessness about where things are.

Amber Jones (28:26)
Yes. Every day it’s a battle. But I do go back to, and I go back to this a lot Ruth, because I remember that Jesus said on my rock I will build this church. I don’t think we have gotten that right yet though. Like I don’t, I feel like the way that we do church is just not there. It’s just not the idea that Jesus had for his church yet. We’ve tried, we’ve you know, there’s so many denominations and so many churches and so many creeds and so many, and we still haven’t gotten it right yet, I don’t think. And I say we because I’m part of that too. Like, I don’t even know. That’s the thing.

Ruth Perry (29:08)
Like you said, there’s been theological differences and arguments from the beginning of the church. I mean, it’s right there in the Bible. But so many people are so certain about their beliefs and the way they read the Bible. This is a question I would ask God if I could have a conversation with God. Why are our brains wired with so many biases? Like, why can’t we just be smart and perceptive.

Like why does it have to be like this? I don’t understand that.

Amber Jones (29:39)
Absolutely. And it’s getting worse. I mean, with social media and the impact of internet. When I was growing up, we didn’t have social media. We didn’t have, you know, the internet until I was in college. So our teenage years, you know, we had the people in front of us. had the people at our church, with the people we played ball with or whatever. We had, you know, our family members that could have been spread out.

Ruth Perry (29:43)
Yeah.

Amber Jones (30:03)
That was our influence. We had TV, so we watched those shows and had those influences and books. But now think about what our teenagers are consuming on a daily basis. No wonder there’s so much anxiety and mental health issues for our teenagers and young people right now, because they’re wading through so much information and misinformation and trying to find their way. Like, can you imagine?

I just have such empathy for them right now.

Wading through it all and how to, you know, to try to be the best person that you can be and, you know, be a good human in the midst of everything that’s happening.

Ruth Perry (30:44)
I’m thinking back about when I was growing up, I was like the golden child and I got a lot of affirmation in church because I did everything right like I was supposed to. But I have three brothers and two of my brothers didn’t receive that kind of affirmation and nurturing in the church. In fact, they experienced a lot of the opposite.

I think that that is just the experience of a lot of people coming to church. If they don’t fit in and conform, they know they don’t belong. They know they’re not being accepted. They know they’re not being celebrated. And it doesn’t feel good. It does not feel like God’s love and God’s grace and God’s mercy, no matter what language we’re using.

Amber Jones (31:21)
They do.

Absolutely and think about the sense of belonging like that’s a basic need that we all have is to belong and I just think of you know If you’re If you’re in a church you can belong to the church, but that’s so relative because you change one thing or stop doing one thing and then you can be outed and then it’s like you lose your whole community

And that’s hard, like losing your entire community and then having to like, refind that and reframe that, we did that twice now. So it was like we lost our community in the first church that we left and then we lost our second community in our second church and then didn’t find another church community. So Dale and I are still like grappling for community, which community is so important. And that’s one of the things that I think the church does well, but it only offers it to the people in their church. Like they offer it to the people that are serving there and the people that are giving there and the people that are attending there. Just, there’s just something that we’re missing that we could be so much more of a beacon of hope in our communities than we are.

And one of my favorite things about the earlier church that I think of often is, when I see old churches with the steeples and they’re still standing and you think about why those steeples were there. So the churches were planted in those communities and the steeple was built over top of all the other buildings so that when people needed something, needed help, were in need, they knew where to go to get the help. They would go, they would find the steeple and then they would go to the church. And I’m like, do our churches provide that for our communities now? Like are we those staples that we want to be? Are we very insider focused?

Ruth Perry (33:23)
I think we’re insider focused. I mean, just looking at how we spend our money, budgets in churches are like 90 something percent going towards maintaining their staff and their building and very little for the people who are outside.

Amber Jones (33:24)
I do too. Yep, absolutely. Very little, very little. So I think it’s gonna take more than a couple of missions trips a year for churches. I know that feels good, know, that makes us feel good.

Ruth Perry (33:52)
And it’s more, it’s not just about like trying to recruit people to come sit in your pews. It’s about serving your neighbors. No strings attached.

Amber Jones (34:02)
Absolutely. We do not have that down at all. So that would probably be another thing that I would look for in a church is like how community involved are you? More than just a couple of little fundraisers a year, you know? It’s tough. It’s just tough.

Ruth Perry (34:06)
Yeah.

Amber Jones (34:22)
They’re just set up in a different, the organizational structure right now is just very different than, know, so. So many politics involved with it all.

Ruth Perry (34:28)
Yeah.

Amber Jones (34:32)
And I’m not interested in that, if I’m being honest. I’m just not.

Ruth Perry (34:36)
Politics is a fun topic too. How much that’s infiltrated the church.

Amber Jones (34:38)
Shoo!

I didn’t recognize that so much when I was younger and I know that you there was a big push in the 80s with the Christian nationalism movement I’m learning about that now but it wasn’t as prevalent back then I didn’t pick up on it. Now, it’s like blatant in your face like you can’t escape it really so

Ruth Perry (34:55)
Yeah.

No, thank you.

Amber Jones (35:03)
No thank you. No thank you. And I just feel like the church in America, like we have an obligation and I feel like we have the call from Jesus to do the best that we can do. And at this point, I try to stay hopeful, but I don’t know how to reverse it at this point. I see it going down such a slippery slope. It’s gonna take something huge, I think, to wake people up to say, and I’m even talking to myself, you know.

Ruth Perry (35:34)
Yeah.

Amber Jones (35:35)
Because there’s so much more that I could be doing, know, personally without a church for my community and for people all over the world. So I’m not saying that I have it all together and I’ve figured it out and these churches need just need to do it. I don’t. I’m there with you. But I do think that recognizing it is half the battle and I think some churches just haven’t recognized it yet.

Ruth Perry (35:41)
Right.

Amber Jones (35:58)
They see everything else, everybody else as problems when they’re not taking ownership in their toxic practices as well. And so how are we going to change it? There’s going to have to be something huge that wakes us up, to say, we’ve got to about face. Like there’s gotta be an about face, I think. Or it’s just gonna keep going the way that it’s going. And Christians are just gonna be in a totally different camp than everybody else. I mean, they’re writing their own books and they’re making their own movies and having their own shows. And it’s like, I don’t think it was ever intended that way. Like I think you plant yourself in and you be the light and the salt. It’s turned so crazy where it’s like, now we’re gonna put ourselves in a cave and we’re gonna protect ours. Almost like you’re going in a bunker. And you want to…

Ruth Perry (36:47)
Yeah, and I’m so cynical about it. I think that it’s just like their marketing machine. The people that are making all of that content are making so much money because they have a captive audience who this is all that they’re allowed to consume. So that’s the conferences they’re going to. Those are the books they’re buying. That’s the radio shows they’re listening to. That’s the podcast you’re listening to and the blogs they’re reading. And, you know, it’s self-serving in some way.

Amber Jones (37:12)
Very, very self-serving.

And I mean, what good are you doing with that? What are your billion dollars doing? Where are they going? You know? And so I think until that changes where there’s just such an us versus them mentality on both sides, because I can tend to get very us versus them as well.

Ruth Perry (37:23)
Yeah.

Amber Jones (37:35)
I can go my gosh why are they why do they believe that what are they thinking and then it’s like but they’re thinking the same thing of me and until we can kind of have some common ground and figure out where each other’s coming from there’s gonna be no headway and I just don’t know how to do that at this point I really

Ruth Perry (37:51)
Well, that’s what they say, you can’t hate close up. Like if we would just get to the point where we could have a conversation with each other, where we’re actually listening actively and having empathy for other people’s stories, I think that’s what we need.

Amber Jones (37:59)
Yeah. Yeah. I too. I just don’t know how to get there because it’s so polarized. Everything’s so polarized right now. So I don’t know. But I do think that the hope that I see in it is that I do feel like there’s so many people that are using their voice like you. You know, like people who are writing and I love Jen Hatmaker. I mean, she’s using her voice and all of these people that are putting out content, you know, so that we that are following social media can see and go, yes, yes, that’s what I believe. I’m not on my own.

Because when you feel like you’re out on an island and everybody else around you believes this way, but you don’t, it can be very isolating. And so to be able to have like-minded people to have conversations and see, OK, I’m not out on left field here. There are other people who feel the way that I feel. It’s just very important, I feel like, to think out.

Ruth Perry (38:58)
I think that’s why I started the Beautiful Kingdom Warriors with my friend Becky all those years ago, just feeling isolated and alone and like we’re crazy. And I’ve met so many like-minded people who just understand the experience of that first domino falling and the mental anguish of learning that something you always believed might not be true.

Amber Jones (39:10)
We’re crazy here!

Ruth Perry (39:22)
And then the anguish of, what else? Like it’s so much work to start peeling that onion and discovering what do I really believe authentically deep down in my heart?

Amber Jones (39:31)
and what you feeling.

Yeah, it’s like once you start the peeling it just keeps on peeling When does it stop?

Ruth Perry (39:40)
Yeah.

But it’s worth it.

Amber Jones (39:45)
It is. It is. And I’m thankful.

Ruth Perry (39:47)
If you can persevere.

Amber Jones (39:49)
I’m thankful. Dale and I talk about this a lot, you know, with our boys, because we’ve always told them, we don’t want you to have our faith. We want you to find God early. We actually prayed when they were young, and now it’s like, God, that was, we prayed when they were young that they would come to their crisis point early so that they could find God in it and their own faith, not just our faith.

And walking that out is hard, being in the middle of that is hard. But I’ve never wanted them to just accept it because that’s what I’ve thought. But I think for so many people, that’s just what they do. They believe it because grandma believed it and grandma brought them to church and then, mom believed it and so dad got saved and so now they go to church and so now, I guess I’m going to have to get to the age where I’m going to have to stop drinking so I can go to church. I mean, I see that and hear that so often, but it’s

Like that you’re missing it. Like if that’s really what you think, you’re missing it. So. But they just don’t, they just believe it because that’s what they’ve been told to believe in their whole life. So, my brain doesn’t work that way.

Ruth Perry (40:54)
That’s a good thing. I’ve enjoyed having a little peek into your brain today Amber.

Amber Jones (40:55)
Yeah! Thank you. It’s messy up there.

Ruth Perry (41:03)
Well, and I do hope that we can have an episode with your family. I think that would be really great.

Amber Jones (41:09)
I do too. Yeah, absolutely. We have these conversations quite a bit, honestly. So, yeah, thank you.

Ruth Perry (41:15)
Yeah, I love your family and it’s been beautiful and amazing and I’m so grateful. Thank you, Amber.

Amber Jones (41:22)
Thank you.

Be sure to share this episode with a friend! Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky and TikTok!

Subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform from https://podlink.com/1858367321

Subscribe by email here so you never miss an episode.

God bless!

Author Archives: Ruth Perry

004 I Scott Harris on the Good News and Reflections on the Church

003 I Jenna Dunn of Ezer Bible

002 I Amber Braddy Jones on Navigating Faith & Healing

Welcome to TBKB, with your host: Rev. Ruth Perry

Subscribe to TBKB via Email

Like TBKB on Facebook!

Follow Ruth on Twitter

Top Posts & Pages

Author Archives: Ruth Perry

004 I Scott Harris on the Good News and Reflections on the Church

Share this:

003 I Jenna Dunn of Ezer Bible

Share this:

002 I Amber Braddy Jones on Navigating Faith & Healing

Share this:

Welcome to TBKB, with your host: Rev. Ruth Perry

Subscribe to TBKB via Email

Like TBKB on Facebook!

Follow Ruth on Twitter

Top Posts & Pages