Welcome back to Words of Life. We are now in our fifth week of sharing a rerun of a series that we did back in 2023 with author, pastor, worship leader, Natalie Runyon. This series was based on her first book, Raised to Stay, and it addresses people who have experienced church hurt and maybe even walked away from the faith entirely. As we near the end of this series, in this episode, Bernie and Natalie are now speaking to Christians who've maybe walked away from the faith but are considering finding a new church home.
How do you prepare your heart to enter a new church body, a new church family in a healthy way while leaving the baggage and the damage of the past in the past? I saw people in wheelchairs get up and run. I saw people who couldn't have children suddenly get pregnant. There's enough in me that has FOMO to wonder what's God going to do in the house this morning.
And I think a lot of us don't show up because we're afraid of what will happen. Hey, welcome back to Words of Life. I'm Bernie Dake and joined again this week by Natalie Runyon.
Good to be back. Natalie, I am excited because we are promoting the book, The Resource That's Coming Out, July 4th this year, 2023. If you are someone who's interested in any of the things that we've talked about, you can find some real gems in Raised to Stay by Natalie Runyon. And we encourage you to check it out anywhere you can buy a book. You can find this after July 4th or you could pre-order. Yep.
Yep. We want to pre-order. Pre-order all you can. And there's discounts for bulk orders. So if you're a church leader or someone that can afford to give this resource away, then we encourage you to check those out too.
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Geico, expertise for your motorcycle. Natalie, we're deep. This is episode five of six, and we've talked about where you've come from, what the Lord's called you to. You've been pretty open about some of your church experience and important.
We're not outing people. That's not why we're here. Learning from either mistakes that we've made or things that have been done wrong to us and how you survive them or how other people survive them is strength for the journey.
This is how we wanted to start this week. Do I even really need a church congregation? People have come out of COVID and they've learned that they can go to church online or they can find Jesus on YouTube, so to speak.
How do you feel about that? I remember after my family was really hurt my senior year of high school, we didn't have a church to go to. We left the ministry, we left the church, and I went to college and it was a public university, so nobody was looking for me in a church.
Nobody was looking for me in a chapel, and I did take a long time. I took at least that first year of college not going anywhere. I was part of other communities. I was part of Campus Crusade for Christ. I found other people that had similar views and beliefs, but it was probably one of the most healing parts of my faith journey was taking a rest.
If you grew up in church, that's a big no-no. You're in those doors every single week—revivals, camp meetings—and that was my whole life was showing up when those church doors were open. I looked back over growing up in the church and honestly, the people were my favorite part.
I looked forward to funerals and weddings because I knew there was going to be a potluck afterwards and I was going to see all the people and get to eat really good food. There was something comforting about the family of God when it was in its healthy state. So, about a year of not going to church, I started to miss it. I started to miss that daily looking forward to being in the church and the following Sunday and hearing from people. I think COVID really almost gave us this permission to withdraw from something we were already struggling with. If we were going out of obligation or because people just expected us to be there or it was just routine, suddenly that was challenged.
It was like, you don't have to do that. My hope now is that as we're coming out of that, that we will really miss each other. That we won't miss a place or an institution or a religion, but that we'll miss being with the people of God because we're for the family of God. That's what my hope is, is that we will want to be the gathered saints and be in worship together and get to practice this heaven that we've been all looking forward to.
I like the idea of, I said to you earlier, I'm a body of Christ guy. I think the church offers community like none other. We want to be more like Jesus and we can see Jesus in other people and that is appealing to me.
I find that the most rewarding part of that is having people that are courageous enough to speak into you when appropriate. I'm not suggesting that all of our friends need to be churchgoers. In fact, I think we're called to people that have no idea what the church is.
And more importantly, we're not called to represent the church, we're called to represent Jesus. The idea of race to stay has been so appealing to me and to a number of friends that I've talked to about following you and these little black boxes that you put on your social media. I just want to encourage you and affirm you because I think that the Lord has clearly used your experiences in a way to encourage others. Thank you. The book is broken up into four sections.
You talked about it last week, but I wonder if you could just tell us once again how you did it. The hurt, the hard, the hope, and the holy is really my journey without saying that this is an autobiography because it's not. I share snippets of my life, but I mostly focus on people in the Bible and people that we've read about in the Scriptures that stayed against crazy circumstances. I mean, Joseph in a pit and Judas and Jesus at the table and Paul continuing to get shipwrecked over and over again to the point where you're kind of like, Paul, why do you keep getting back in the boat, buddy? You're hurt over and over and over again.
Why do you keep getting back in? And we learn from the Scriptures is that the risks were there, but the reward was greater. And that's the way I feel about the church.
Some people would be like, well, if the church just keeps hurting you, why do you keep going back into the building? And it's like, because we have to believe that though there is going to be the hard and the hurt, that there's going to be a hope and a holiness that's going to come because it says in the Scriptures that where there is unity, it commands the Lord's blessing and where two or more are gathered that he is in our midst. And there's all these promises of what happens when the redeemed come together and share their testimonies and they worship together.
And that's what I'm interested in. I want to know what God's going to do. And growing up, I saw people healed at altars. I saw people in wheelchairs get up and run.
I saw people who couldn't have children suddenly get pregnant. There's enough in me that has FOMO to wonder what's God going to do in the house this morning. And so I go out of anticipation and expectation rather than fear of getting hurt.
And I think this book takes us on that journey with some tension of how do we overcome that hurt and that hard to pursue the hope and the holy. And one way you can overcome FOMO or the fear of missing out is maybe being present. Show up. Just be there.
Sit in the back. You know, I've had seasons in life in ministry where I was the worship leader in the front on the platform there every single week where that was like a non-negotiable and the seasons where I've been in the back not wanting to be there. Yeah. And it's been in those seasons where I've shown up when I haven't wanted to be there that God has done remarkable work in me personally more so than when I'm leading thousands on a platform. It's almost as if you're saying to God, I dare you.
Yeah. Which is a bad place to be because he's going to win. He's going to show up every single time.
But a pastor that I love says that this generation has rejected the two institutions that require humility and accountability and that's the church and marriage. And I think a lot of us don't show up because we're afraid of what will happen. We know we will encounter the living God. We know we'll be convicted. We know we'll be held accountable. We know that the lifestyle choices that we're making might be challenged.
And so we choose not to go to avoid the discomfort when really it's freedom. And I would just say show up and see what God has. I hate that I'm using quotes from people that I can't really acknowledge, but it's either a song or a great quote that says, you know, he may not be there when you want him, but he'll be there right on time. Always on time. And God's timing is perfect. It's true in my life. You talked to us in an earlier episode about how in the season you couldn't imagine why this was happening, but now looking back, you can see God's hand in all of it.
It's true. And you know, I believe that the church that hurt my family so badly when I was a senior in high school, I have avoided and had avoided stepping back into that sanctuary because I didn't want to be reminded of the pain. And two years ago, the new pastors who were in my youth group at the time of all of this, they called me and they asked me to come lead worship for the 100 year anniversary.
I was like, no, why would I do that? There's been therapy and medication to help me get over this. Like, why would I step back into that? And honestly, why I almost wasn't in ministry. And so the Lord said, you're writing a book about a reconciled church.
You'll go back. And I flew into Cincinnati and I walked into that sanctuary and everything was as it always has been. The people I thought were 80 when I was a kid clearly weren't because they're still alive. They're sitting in their pews, same seat, same everything.
They're like 180 now. And I remember getting up on that platform and there are people in that room associated with our exit. They know our family story. They know what happened and they didn't try to stop it.
They let the hurt happen and nobody tried to stop it. And I'm up there trying to lead worship and I'm feeling all these emotions. I'm feeling fear. I'm feeling anger.
I'm feeling like rejection all over again as I did when I was 18 and wrestling as I'm trying to lead. And it came to the point in the message where the pastor goes through and starts introducing all of us on the platform. And he gets to me and I think, oh my gosh, this is like, there's going to be another great exodus. They don't even recognize it's me and they're going to all freak out when they find out. And he gets to me and he says, this is Natalie.
Her dad was one of our favorite pastors that ever pastored this church. And the whole room goes up in a standing ovation. And the Lord said, they never hated you. That was just a tactic of the enemy to make you think that everybody was bad and the whole church was bad. But what you thought was this exile was actually an exodus.
And I got off the platform and all the old ladies are coming up and they're kissing me and they are saying, you look just like your daddy and tell your mom we miss her singing. And the Lord said, if you would have quit, you would have never seen this. You would have never seen me make all things new.
You would have never seen this moment where you were celebrated, not tolerated. And I think we're quitting before the miracle. I think we're not going back. It's actually robbing us of a miracle, not, you know, putting us in harm.
There are good churches all over the world. Wow. That is so encouraging. I can't imagine what that celebration would have been like for you emotionally. I got off the plane in Colorado and ran home and told my dad.
And to see his response and then to see all the text messages he was getting from the people and the phone calls he was getting. We saw Natalie. Oh my goodness. There was so much residual healing, even for my parents who weren't even in the room. And when we go back, that'll be one of the first churches we visit as a family.
Man. Well, I thank God for you, Natalie Runyon. And this story, which could not have been easy and it's also not done. There's more to come. You can read a lot about it in her book that comes out on July 4th, 2023 called Raised to Stay. Anywhere you can find a book, you can pre-order now.
You can get your very own copy and start reading it as soon as it arrives after July 4th. But we want to say thank you. We have another episode. So we hope that you'll join us next week as we wrap up our time with Natalie Runyon from Raised to Stay on Words of Life. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support. You can subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit salvationarmysoundcast.org. Join us next time for the Salvation Army's Words of Life. Thanks so much for listening to Words of Life. We want to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the show. Visit lifeaudio.com where you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They have shows about prayer, Bible studying, parenting, and more. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time. in prayer.
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