Church for People Who Hate Church
Episode 1 transcript
JOHN YODER: [00:00:00] Hi everybody, my name is John Yoder. I'm one of the three presenters for you in this series, Church for People Who Hate Church. So, I want you to know that all three of us who are presenting have served for years in multicultural church ministry. We've all been wounded by the church. We've all heard stories of people who have been deeply hurt and even dropped out of church because of what they've experienced. We are not going to candy coat anything. We are going to shoot straight about the stories that we've heard.
But all three of us know the beauty of what it looks like when the church is what it ought to be. Where young people are empowered. For ministry where wounded people find healing, where people tell their stories, where they're heard and valued, and where they find belonging.
And most importantly, where people find new hope in Jesus Christ. So you're gonna love these other two [00:01:00] brothers who are presenting alongside me. We're going to let them introduce themselves right now. We're gonna start with my friend Sam Chaco. My name is Sam Chacko.
SAM CHACKO: I pastor Loft City Church in Richardson, Texas.
[00:01:15] I grew up in an immigrant church. My dad was immigrated from India when I was about three years old to the Philadelphia region and he was very involved in helping lead a immigrant church in the Philadelphia area. In fact, he pastored that church for almost 40 years.
JOHN YODER: And now I'd like to introduce to you our other presenter, Moses Saldivar.
MOSES SALDIVAR: [00:01:36] My name is Moses, and so I am a second generation Mexican American, the son of immigrants. On my mom's side of the family, migrant farmers. On my dad's side of the family, my dad came just really trying to make a better life for his family back at home. And I grew up in the midst of all that.
I've been really involved in multiethnic church planting. [00:01:58] So I've walked the line alongside [00:02:00] multiple churches and that are navigating: What does it look like to reach this next gen American that is very intracultural. Doesn't belong neither here nor there, or at least they don't feel that they belong neither here nor there. And really trying to create spaces that really feel like is the future of where the Lord seems to be leading the American church.
JOHN YODER: [00:02:23] As for me, I'm John Yoder, and I have worshipped in more than 80 immigrant churches, mostly here in the Minneapolis area. All kinds of churches. Latino, African, Asian, Russian, And I have had lunch or tea with a lot of pastors and a lot of parents, who are probably very much like your parents, who have come from around the world, and when they worship and when they teach, they do it in ways that make sense to them, that, that meet the needs of their generation, but they grew up in [00:03:00] worlds very different from yours.
[00:03:02] They went to schools very different from yours, and they struggle to present Christ and the Christian faith in ways that make sense to you, and most American churches don't know how either. There simply are not enough churches today that truly understand the unique needs of multicultural people and present Christ and the faith in ways that meet those needs. [00:03:30] Here is Pastor Sam's story.
SAM CHACKO: In 2003, I met my wife, moved to Dallas, got married. A series of events, hard events in the beginning season of our marriage. But, we joined an Indian community here in Dallas and really fell in love with that community. And, thought that we were going to be there for a long time.
[00:03:49] We, because of, My dad, having been in ministry so long, and me having done seminary work, I started preaching at the church. I started serving with the high [00:04:00] school kids, and it was a sweet community, and we thought this is where God was calling us. A few years later, the church asked if we would consider being the youth pastors of the church, and we said yes.
[00:04:09] The church said yes. The board said yes. Unfortunately, there were people in the church that were opposed to it. A lot of it for cultural reasons. We didn't have youth pastors in India. We don't need youth pastors here. The moment we get a youth pastor here, the kids will not want to worship with us and they will have their own service.
[00:04:25] And then they'll start inviting people who are part of different cultures and we'll lose our culture and identity as an Indian church. And unfortunately, our names are caught in the middle of it. And it got really ugly to the point where some. Anonymous letters were going out. Things were being said that the weekend that our second son was born, my wife and I left that Indian church and we thought ministry was done and we knew that we would never go back to an Indian church. [00:04:50] And so we, in many ways, felt like exiles from our own community, as well as not fitting in to the majority community that was around us.
JOHN YODER: I [00:05:00] think many of you can really relate to Sam's story. You sit where he sat. You wonder if there is a place anywhere where you can fit into the church. One of the reasons that young people give for rejecting the church is hypocrisy. [00:05:16] Here is what Pastor Moses has to say about it.
MOSES SALDIVAR: One of the things that I've observed about the next generation is that they have a high radar for hypocrisy. And I think if there's anything that you would say or that I would say keeps them away from church? It's that. So what they hear is this narrative of, for them, where they feel like they're called to make a difference in the world.
[00:05:44] They want to make a difference in the world. They want to be part of something that makes a difference in the world, but what they see in our churches or what they feel like they see in our churches are barriers that keep them from being able to do that where, and it's not even, I would say the [00:06:00] issues of brokenness where per se, where they might agree or disagree on it's how we navigate those issues of brokenness.
[00:06:07] and how we highlight some of those areas, some of those sins, maybe more than others, and make them seem worse. And for them, they have friends that are navigating those areas of brokenness and the narrative that they're hearing and what they've been able to observe as they're walking alongside of their friends, family members, whatever, and their mind is the exact opposite of what they feel is coming out of the church. [00:06:32] So it's creating a distance and a gap, and also keeping them from really wanting to engage.
JOHN YODER: Another barrier to church for many young people are regulations about clothing, hair, music, makeup, jewelry, and other things. These standards do not come directly from the Word of God, they're simply cultural norms, and yet they're held up as mandatory for everyone.
[00:06:59] Here's what [00:07:00] Pastor Moses has to say.
MOSES SALDIVAR: I'm thinking right now of the most recent congregation that I helped to plant with a group of folks, and one of the things that we had hoped to see that would come out of that is that we knew that there were going to be a lot of people who what we called "church refugees", a lot of these people that were in the 1.5 and second generation that we were hoping would be willing to engage with us that had given up on church.
And so what we did was we took a posture of, we're going to do our best to try to blend the cultures, and to not let one culture dominate another. And what we found is that the people that the Lord were bringing, what they appreciated was the fact that it was a celebration of cultures.
[00:07:50] They appreciated the fact that they could come the way that it didn't matter which way they chose or preferred to dress, [00:08:00] and they knew that they would be welcomed in whatever manner or style that they would pray in. Which is interesting because we would also take from various traditions as well, as far as like prayer styles and incorporate those into our worship services.
JOHN YODER: [00:08:15] So let's ask the question, Why? Why are there so many toxic churches? Basically, you are going to meet three kinds of people in your lifetime: positive people, neutral people, and negative people. Negative people are the ones who are going to tear you down. They'll give you different kinds of abuse. It could be verbal, it could be physical.
[00:08:38] There's lots of different kinds of abuse that somebody can use to tear you down. In addition to that, there's a lot of neutral people out there. Neutral people will neither hurt nor help you. They're not out to get you, they're just focused somewhere else. Could be social media, could be their kid's sports, could be going to night school, maybe they're just out there to [00:09:00] spend most of their time making money. [00:09:03] The majority of people that you will ever meet regarding you are going to be neutral.
Then, there's positive people, wonderful people that build us up and give us hope. And some of them do specific things to help us. Maybe they give you a ride, bring you groceries, help you fill out a form. And maybe it's not even something direct and specific to you. [00:09:26] Maybe they're just a positive role model in your school, in your workplace, or in the news. They are people that build you up.
You know what's interesting? One person can be positive in one setting, neutral in a second setting, and negative in another setting. Think about it. A businessman might be really gracious and generous to his clients, but really mean with his kids. [00:09:56] A mom might be really nice to her friends when they're face to face, [00:10:00] but she can get really snarky and vicious when she's posting on social media.
A mom or a dad might gush with pride over that child that excels in sports, or gets straight A's, but be very critical of another child that doesn't have that same level of gifting. [00:10:19] I bet every last one of us can name one person that sees us as positive, somebody else that sees us as neutral, and somebody else that even sees us as negative.
What's true of individuals is true of churches as well. Churches can be positive, neutral, or negative. And you know why? because they're made of people, and people are positive, neutral, or negative.
[00:10:48] Now, most churches in the United States are monocultural. That means that they were designed to serve the needs of one ethnic group. Might be white Americans, might be African [00:11:00] Americans, or could be any one of many different immigrant population groups. Vietnamese, Sudanese, Brazilians, And every one of those groups has a specific set of needs, of desires.
[00:11:15] They have worshipped the way they like it. Length of service, kind of preaching, kind of music, dress code, and even what the kitchen smells like. If you are an insider to that group, that church is probably positive to you. But to the vast majority of everybody else, that The church would be neutral at best, and to many, that church would be negative.
[00:11:43] It's very difficult for monocultural churches to address the needs of multicultural people.
Now let me explain what I mean by multicultural people. One example would be second generation immigrants. Mom and dad came from another country, they [00:12:00] have a language they love and culture they love, and yet those kids attend American schools and feel pressure to fit into American society.
[00:12:09] Another example would be citizens of the U. S. who grew up somewhere else. Maybe mom and dad were in the military. Maybe they were missionaries. Maybe they were business people. Other examples would be people of mixed race or people in mixed marriages. And for all of you who are multicultural people, it is very difficult for a monocultural church to understand you and to meet your specific needs.
[00:12:38] But no matter how many positive, neutral, or negative people you experience in your lifetime, there is one person you can count on to be positive. And his name is Jesus Christ. Here is what he says in John 10:27: "My sheep hear my voice. I [00:13:00] know them, and they follow me".
My hope for every one of you is that you can lay aside the toxic voices that hurt you, that wounded you, or the voices that did not regard you, and that you'll be able to listen to the voice of Jesus.
[00:13:17] Jesus wants you to enter into a relationship with Him and with a local church in your community. Maybe you've already given up hope. We know already that Pastor Sam did. You heard his story just a few minutes ago. But that wasn't the end of the story. Here's what God did with Pastor Sam after all of that brokenness.
SAM CHACKO: [00:13:45] So, series of events, some of those kids from the Bible study, that church came and asked if we would do a Bible study with them. Eventually that Bible study just starts growing. I'm skipping a lot of parts here, but we see [00:14:00] that Bible study grow to 150 and then we start debating a couple years in if we're a church or a Bible study, there are people who are coming to our Bible study.
[00:14:09] We're not going anywhere else. And we start praying and discerning what God is calling of us. We discerned that God was calling us to plant a church, and we did all the work to plant a church, found a space, did the renovations, and right before we were launching, several pastors in the Indian community began to attack us where they just started saying that we were a cult leader out of fear of losing their kids, and we thought we would have over 100 people to join us when we launched, and Ended up with about 20 people on launch day.
[00:14:38] It was one of the hardest seasons and it was really hard. It was really difficult. And in God's grace and kindness, he blessed the church. We struggled with 20 people for a couple of years. And then in that season, God started bringing the nations to us. And today our church has Close to 30 some ethnicities, people from almost every background.
JOHN YODER: [00:14:59] God is [00:15:00] using Sam's Church, Loft City Church, to bring healing and hope to people who have been wounded by church in the past.
SAM CHACKO: Even pastoring at Loft City, one of the biggest demographics of people that we get here are people who are coming out of churches just beat up, hurt, and so we allow them to come and sit and heal and encourage them, you know,[00:15:23] if you are in a time where you need healing, heal, but our prayer is that as you heal, that You'll get back in and serve because the kingdom.
You're valuable to the kingdom and God has gifted you and even will use your experiences to bless others. And so our church has been a healing ground for many people, many leaders.
[00:15:43] We have seen at this point now, 14 people that have been part of our church that are now on staff or have planted churches in all over the world. Many of them came because they were just [00:16:00] hurt, tired, beat up, and then just found Loft to be a space of healing rest.
JOHN YODER: What Sam just said a moment ago is exactly what we want for all of you, that the church would become a place of healing and rest.
[00:16:15] One of the ways that churches have wounded people is through speaking hurtful words of judgment, of anger, against people who do not believe on Jesus or people who do not follow His moral code. One of the difficult callings that Christians face is to be positive and loving to all people, even to those who are negative to us.
[00:16:39] We'll talk about that next time. Hope to see you then.
