00:00:00 Jeromy Johnson: Hey, everyone. Buckle your seat belts. Today I'm joined by someone who has turned holy mischief into an art form. Stewart Delaney, host of the podcast snarky Faith. Stewart's a pastor turned provocateur who isn't afraid to poke at the bloated, the broken, and the performatively pious parts of American Christianity, all with sharp wit and I'm presuming, a big heart, though he questions what we've been handed and laughs at what needs to fall apart. The goal is ultimately to find a faith that's worth keeping. Stewart. Welcome. Glad you can join us.

00:00:35 Stuart Deloney: Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. Jeremy. Um, I this is the first podcast I've ever been on that sends me, like, advanced packages Really? Yeah. Like this is. This has been fantastic. It's. I mean, I'm assuming you're wearing them, right? I've. You've sent the fishnet, uh, the fishnet stockings for being on slutty Grace. Is that I did, yeah. They do. They they feel a little awkward, but, uh, I'm kind of starting to like it, so. Thank you, man. Thanks for sending me those. You're welcome. You get used to it. Slutty grace vibe. Yeah.

00:01:05 Jeromy Johnson: So I was online the other day, and this picture of Nicolas Cage came across my computer. He had, like, this little giddy smile on his face standing in front of a burning city behind him. It was weird. He seemed to be endorsing, like, this upcoming book, The Tribulation Survival Guide, or something like that. You you wouldn't happen to know anything about this and Nicolas Cage, would you?

00:01:27 Stuart Deloney: I would, I would know nothing and everything about all of this as well too. Yes, it is true. I do have a book coming out, The Tribulation Survival Guide How to Stay Alive When Everyone Else Is Dead, uh, is coming out January the thirteenth on Amazon as well.

00:01:41 Jeromy Johnson: So you're assuming we're going to still be here then, right? We're not going to make the cut.

00:01:45 Stuart Deloney: This is for the remnant. So these are for those that didn't quite make the cut to the rapture. So this is for those that are left behind. How do you survive. How do you keep going. And and I was I was so excited to have Nicolas Cage endorse it too. So it was wonderful.

00:02:00 Jeromy Johnson: What did he say?

00:02:01 Stuart Deloney: He had said something along the lines of, I never understood the rapture until I read this book. I still don't, but at least it made me feel something very Nicolas Cage for me. Yeah, I have him.

00:02:13 Jeromy Johnson: And by the way, Nicolas Cage did not endorse his book. Everyone. Just so there's no legal ramifications?

00:02:19 Stuart Deloney: No, not against you. They'd all be against me anyways for these fake endorsements, but yes.

00:02:22 Jeromy Johnson: All right. Dude, hey, can you tell us a little bit about yourself or your faith journey? What got you here? What made you so snarky and.

00:02:29 Stuart Deloney: Long story short, grew up like probably you've heard many on this podcast, uh, grew up in a Christian household. I took Jesus seriously. Um, more seriously than I think that my parents expected me to take Jesus seriously. And, uh, eventually, yeah, led me into ministry. And then throughout my whole journey of ministry for about twenty five years, it was just really about leaning in on what I thought the teachings of Christ were and pushing back against institutional like you've mentioned, bloat makes me think of like a kid poking, um, like a jellyfish on on the beach with a stick, just poking the bloat. But no, it was I. I worked in ministry and, um, continued to just see where the institutions were letting people down.

00:03:13 Jeromy Johnson: What former ministry was it? Music? Pastoral youth?

00:03:16 Stuart Deloney: Yeah, no, I have let's see. I've been in ministry. I started off doing, uh, I did youth ministry, um, and, uh, then I did a lot of it in youth ministries and worked as a missionary for a, um, for an evangelical organization as well, too, for a number of years, uh, worked in that realm. Did I've done church planting as well, um, as part of my tenure in and out of ministry over the past twenty five years. But, um, but yeah, that's I mean, that's kind of the nutshell. That's not the nitty gritty of it, but that, uh, that's kind of what brought me from there to here.

00:03:49 Jeromy Johnson: So you took the very tried and true path of probably we're in the youth group growing up got connected with that youth group.

00:03:55 Stuart Deloney: Absolutely not. That is that's a that's a dirty, bald lie. I was a kid growing up that absolutely hated youth group.

00:04:00 Jeromy Johnson: Okay, okay.

00:04:01 Stuart Deloney: Um, I did not, uh, part of me and I guess part of my story, I should probably go back. Comes from a lot of it was like, I guess how I was raised pretty much. My dad. Very Southern Baptist, um, always chairman of deacons at any church we're at. We were always there, like Wednesday night, Sunday nights, that that was part of my formative nature. But also, um, when I was three years old, my sister was born and she, uh, had a lot of developmental disabilities. And that led my mom down another path of looking towards the charismatic Pentecostal realm of faith, trying to go and have my sister be healed in different places. So it was kind of this whole thing to where they're still both married. But I would be like certain times I'm going here, certain times I'm going here and working in ministry or not working in ministry, being around that in those two different, those two different camps. As a kid, I started to be able to have like a, a pretty good BS detector and you can start to see where there's just a lot of disingenuousness that that goes along with it, both sides, both sides of those. And I just always wanted to do it differently. Um, I was like, I'm taking Jesus seriously. I don't care about all this. And that's what led me into ministry. And that's what always got me trouble in ministry as well, too, because, uh, sometimes when you take Jesus at his word, the church doesn't always like it.

00:05:20 Jeromy Johnson: So you took him so seriously like you felt, I don't know, kind of a better Christian than all these people.

00:05:24 Stuart Deloney: It was never that it was. It was just kind of like I just saw folks that would show up, um, for church. This is before I got into ministry, and I would just. It was just something you did on Sundays. Um, it was it was just kind of a social club that you went to. And the deeper I tried to, like, lean into it, I started to go, no, we need to like, we need to be caring about the marginalized. We need to care about the poor. We need to care about those that are outside the realms of this. Um, and wanted to be able to do it differently and entered into ministry knowing I could change that and do it differently. And, uh, here we are after many years and trying to reform many things, uh, coming to the place of just realizing that. Yep. Uh, sometimes you have to, to continue to grow. You have to walk away from things.

00:06:08 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. Very true, very true. So you worked as a pastor, but what were some of the really big things you wrestled with as a pastor privately? Because I know as a pastor, there's just certain things you can and can't say within your church and still get a paycheck as you moved from private to public. What are some of those things you wrestled with?

00:06:27 Stuart Deloney: Well, with that, um, I didn't always get the memo about the things you're not really supposed to say.

00:06:31 Jeromy Johnson: Oh, you didn't check?

00:06:32 Stuart Deloney: No, no, I missed out on that memo. I, I was the outspoken one. That was a fool. But no, some of the things I think when we're talking about, like deconstruction of that process, I was always one that had questions. And I just, I wanted this faith to somehow capture my imagination. So I always had questions. I wanted to know more. I was always a kid that had lots of questions and, and and even like when I was younger, you would start to realize there's people that like to answer your questions in church, and there's people that hate that and see that as somehow like a challenge to their authority when it's actually just genuine curiosity and wanting to learn and grow. Um, that that has always been in me.

00:07:10 Jeromy Johnson: So some felt threatened by those questions.

00:07:13 Stuart Deloney: Oh, oftentimes. Yeah. But I but I think a lot of it moving in ministry like the ones that probably would get me into trouble, um, the ones I was wrestling with was, yes, how are we how are we treating the LGBTQ community? Um, you know, from from vantage points where we weren't supposed to be treating them. Well, um, how how can we love these people that the church doesn't want to love. I guess a lot of it really revolves around how we treat others, whether we think that we're right or not, because a lot of things you get into questions of abortion, you get into questions of all of these other things that are the lightning bolt, uh, topics in churches. But the problem is, I think a lot of times I would find is that people want to be theologically correct, but they don't want to have that human element where, you know, am I am I actually looking at this, this person in front of me that's going through this or going through this issue or needing counsel or help, or am I just looking at them like a theological checklist of how I can judge them and tell them to get back on the right path.

00:08:11 Jeromy Johnson: And perhaps keeping a certain distance so they don't affect our theological belief. Yeah, right. Which I know for me and probably for you, that could put your salvation in jeopardy if you change your belief or if people would question, well, maybe you never really were saved.

00:08:26 Stuart Deloney: At least the Baptist gave me the once saved, always saved. Yeah. Line that you can at least hold to that that paper thin idea that that at least your salvation was secure as long as you had gone down the aisle and prayed the prayer and close your eyes.

00:08:38 Jeromy Johnson: And so you kind of were pretty public with these things, then I guess you weren't wrestling with them quietly.

00:08:43 Stuart Deloney: No, I've no, I've, I've, I've gotten in trouble wrestling publicly with these um, as well too. And you make me think of when I was, I was working with an evangelical organization and I'd been with them long enough where I was on the leadership board, and it was all about evangelism, you know? Right. Because you're evangelistic, you're doing that. And I just started asking larger questions. What are we actually inviting them into? Like, what is the larger community your body we're offering them into, or is it simply just about where do I go, where I die? You know, what happens to me after that? And, and I would keep pushing this like the gospel is, is broader than we think.

00:09:22 Jeromy Johnson: What would the answer.

00:09:23 Stuart Deloney: Well, no, it's you're making this way too complicated. It's very simple that I would get stuff like that to where I'm like, no, no, no, no, but no. Because. And then over time you start to realize, oh, you're just you're just kind of being a pain in their ass. Like, you're not you're not being the guy that's trying to help, like nudge in a different direction, help to see it a little differently. And you just like, no, no, I'm they just don't want this. They just don't want it. And, uh, even though I'm much like a reformer at heart, um, in situations and wanting to see things fixed and be put better, um, I at some point I had to realize I was like, nope, I'm just I am just being a pain in the ass to this organization and they don't want it.

00:10:06 Jeromy Johnson: So you you had this prophetic voice. You're like, look, there's just certain things that we need to be aligning with that we're not. You said eventually that got you. I guess the formal word is defrocked.

00:10:15 Stuart Deloney: It was. Well, yeah, my eventual defrocking came from, uh, what I believe it to be, even though I never got a full answer on this, was my support for LGBTQ, um, the community. And number two was that I swear on my podcast, Clutch the Pearls. Oh my goodness.

00:10:32 Jeromy Johnson: I wonder which one that you didn't do. If one of those would have been enough. If you didn't swear they.

00:10:37 Stuart Deloney: Would have put up with me. They would have put up with me with swearing longer than they would have over support of the LGBTQ community. If I'm a betting man, that is the good bet. That is. That is that is the guaranteed money.

00:10:50 Jeromy Johnson: This whole notion of love the sinner, hate the sin. It sounds so great, but it's so broken. No one's buying it. No one's in that community buying that. Like, no, you really don't like me.

00:11:02 Stuart Deloney: Well, it's what even happens within that. Even the idea of love the sinner, hate the sin, it begins to make you look at other people as if they're not even human. You know, it's almost we just see them for their sin in that way. And it creates an otherness, which is something that Christ was never about creating that otherness between us and being able to reach others that are that are in need other humans, other neighbors, other enemies. And that's the simplicity of it.

00:11:28 Jeromy Johnson: So you get defrocked any one step and come alongside you with.

00:11:31 Stuart Deloney: It was a quiet. It was a quiet defrocking, uh, as as most of these things are done. Um, no. And this was after I had been out of formal ministry with them as well, too. But they give they give you a lifetime ordination, and I'm not dead yet.

00:11:44 Jeromy Johnson: Did you step out of ministry then, or were you. Did they let you go?

00:11:48 Stuart Deloney: Uh, no, I, I had stepped out of ministry and continued to do like, snarky Faith came about while I was doing ministry, um, as a way to be able to kind of for me to process through faith and through questions, uh, about what's happening in the world today and how can we, you know, where does faith collide in politics and all of those things we're not supposed to talk about? And it became a place where I would process through that, um, either bringing on different authors, um, who were processing through it in different ways. And it started during my time in ministry, but has continued on beyond that.

00:12:24 Jeromy Johnson: And now you're helping us navigate the coming apocalypse.

00:12:29 Stuart Deloney: That is very true. Yes. It's it it sounds. Yes, it. I started writing this because I was avoiding editing another book that I have finished, but haven't quite grasped, um, where I want it to go yet. But I started writing this one, and this was really just even though a lot of it is it's satire and it's humor. Um, it's really a love letter to the church and to the people who got swallowed up by systems that promised salvation but delivered fear. And so it's something that's kind of mocking the circus that has hijacked, um, our faith. And so it's so some of it, a lot of it has to do with satire about if anyone grew up in, uh, like, left behind type culture growing up and all these other kind of all these kind of things like that, too. So it's really just about holding up a mirror to the absurdity of, of all of this rapture nonsense.

00:13:21 Jeromy Johnson: I think I remember you telling me, like, deconstruction never finishes. It doesn't sound like you ever had, like a period of starting and ending deconstruction. You were kind of just always in that.

00:13:31 Stuart Deloney: I feel like. I feel like it's something that's always in flux. Um, and, and maybe that's just just me in my own weird wiring. Um, and the way I process it, because I know, like, a lot of people have made money selling books, telling you this is how to deconstruct so you can become fully reconstructed. Um, but I really just think it's a process of just being human and continuously like seeing things that we have, like, grown up to, to believe to be true and having questions about those and shaking them and figuring out what matters after that, and what were things that other folks just added that weren't really part of the process to begin with? Um, and, and I think that, you know, probably the latter stages of my deconstruction was probably just deconstructing the institution itself of the church and, and how, like patriarchal institutions like this, uh, Uh, oftentimes do work on control and fear tactics and don't seem to be driven by love and compassion and empathy and all of those other words.

00:14:31 Jeromy Johnson: To me, it comes down to like, hey, are you guys really trying to love? Are you really trying to follow the way of Jesus? And if you can check both those boxes. Good on you.

00:14:40 Stuart Deloney: Yeah, I'd agree, I'd agree. And and doing it in ways that aren't just in word only because I feel like there's a lot of them, you know, we have like our bumper stickers, our t shirts that that they all sound nice and good. And we can repeat those phrases that, that do sound nice and good, but unless we're actually doing them, it's just it's just hot air.

00:14:59 Jeromy Johnson: What have been some of the losses and gains as you've questioned things? Because you do gain some things, but you definitely lose a lot of things too.

00:15:07 Stuart Deloney: Yeah. I think, um, I think you begin to in the, in the part of walking things out and this isn't like a one time thing. Um, but I think processing my walk out of church and kind of into the desert, so to speak. Um, of this it's you begin to learn like who's really like who is there for you in life? I think you begin to start to realize there's a lot of BS, um, that happens within faith where we're just not honest, um, about things. Um, I think that some of the things you begin to lose, which can be scary or certainty, um, because we want certainty, we want to know and believe everything is exactly the way we want it to be, and we want it to be very clean and and easy. And the further you walk away from certainty, it becomes more mysterious, and it becomes something more of a leaning towards unknowing things. Um, and being okay with, with the unknowing of things, which is very different than I was when I was younger, where you want to know everything and everything is very black and white and it needs to be very narrow.

00:16:21 Jeromy Johnson: Do you think this is an American thing, per se?

00:16:24 Stuart Deloney: Um, I think the American part of it would be the way that we hold faith, um, individually and not hold faith as a community. I think that would be a very American version of this. Um, but as a faith, people getting stuff wrong all the time and, ah, people being selfish and then using scripture to get, uh, twist scripture to get what they want and to oppress people. No, that's not American. That's just a human thing. Um, and you even mentioned earlier like, oh, if the church wasn't here, would things be easier or better? We would just invent something else. I mean, it's some some of it's a human nature. We would just invent something else as a way to, uh, yeah, we would find out. I mean, we have other churches, we have Amazon.

00:17:08 Jeromy Johnson: Republican and Democrat. Right?

00:17:10 Stuart Deloney: We have those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we have our own theology and beliefs and, you know, sacred cows and.

00:17:17 Jeromy Johnson: And I've heard it, too. Like part of our primal brain, right. Where we just need these groups that we form and we clutch onto. And there's another group comes. We have to defend ourselves against that group. The survival mechanism from back in the day when we were in the jungles. I guess there's part of that and I feel like, man, shouldn't we have outgrown that a little bit by now?

00:17:36 Stuart Deloney: You would hope so. But at the end of the day, we are we are just we're petty, selfish as people, as humans. That's just kind of what ends up happening. And, you know, even at the end of the day, like what may have started a fight with Neanderthals were that you took my shell and I want it back, and now you're bad. Now it's, you took my iPhone, I want it back and you're bad. And but I think. But mentioning you're mentioning like, the differences in faiths in other places outside of America, I mean, just the communal aspect does help with that a bit. Um, and not community, like when we talk about what we think of church community, but where people are more rooted in their identity being part of something. It's more of a lived community, um, which I think America doesn't do that as much. We kind of have, uh, we have like community here for thirty minutes a week, or we have community over here. We we're very, um, we're very compartmentalized in how we do it, which goes back to the individualistic nature.

00:18:35 Jeromy Johnson: And I think some cultures are more okay with mystery. Right? They're more okay with not knowing and not being certain.

00:18:41 Stuart Deloney: Or the wrestling. I mean, if you go to like, a lot of just Jewish traditions is the idea is it's not about the the important thing isn't about where we end up in this argument. It's about the wrestling that we did going through this process. And so some of just the wrestling and the arguing is part of it, and it's seen as good. Whereas we're much in a culture where it's like, I'm right and you're wrong. It's not really communication. I feel like it's just yelling.

00:19:06 Jeromy Johnson: In some ways, it's great that we have this instant communication, but in other ways it has really broken a lot of things. Like, once I really starts getting involved already, I'm seeing people like, oh, I'm sorry I posted that video. That wasn't real. It's already starting. We're just in the few inches of the water of AI and deception, so it's going to be really crazy to see what politics is going to look like and what you can trust. Because back when we were growing up, if there was a video or photograph of something, it was true. And now not so much.

00:19:37 Stuart Deloney: No, you're right, it's hard. I think it's um, in our like online culture now, we can we can choose to engage and disengage or. I feel like it wasn't like that fifty years ago. Um, and in community, we couldn't choose to engage and disengage as easy as we can now.

00:19:54 Jeromy Johnson: Now they would still be your neighbor. You still have to run into them at school. Yeah. In real life, if.

00:19:58 Stuart Deloney: It was in real life, yeah, yeah, you'd have to continue to see them and be like, oh, I may have not said that the way I would have said this online if I had to see you. It's hard and it's where we're at right now. I think it's one of the things I guess you're mentioning, like one of the gifts of, of walking away from things that I've learned is, um, I think it's what to hold on to and what to let go of and to be okay with that process. And I think that that goes with things online and otherwise. And I think it's it's us in a time where it feels like algorithms and everything else fuel, um, outrage and fuel polarization because it makes money. Um, I think we just have to kind of slow down and and just remember, there's more to what's happening here. There's more to being a person than just treating others, like, terribly online. Um, because it does. It feels like we're moving into a very bad place where we can we can no longer communicate with one another, ideologically speaking.

00:20:57 Jeromy Johnson: Like with politics right now, uh, there's a certain revealing of a lot of the weak parts of our democracy, of our country, of our politics. What we thought were checks and balances really are not checks and balances. And so there's a lot of being exposed. There's just a lot of, um, un grace that a large section of American Christianity is embracing right now.

00:21:21 Stuart Deloney: And the sad thing is, they feel emboldened and they feel like they've been given permission. And a lot of them would even say, like, somehow, because the Bible tells me so, gives me permission, um, to act in this way, which is ridiculous. And usually, if people even are saying things in that nature, you should probably say, tell me what scripture you're talking about here.

00:21:40 Jeromy Johnson: American Christianity has become more about America and less about Christianity.

00:21:46 Stuart Deloney: Where they have gone wrong. I mean, just how somehow Trump became their God. Um, a lot of a lot of conservative and evangelical Christianity. I mean, where he has his own Bible that he now signs for people. What? He's he. Yes, yes, he'll sign. He'll sign the Bible for people and things of that nature. And when people see that and be like, oh, that's just him. And you're kind of like, um, that's kind of like Golden Calf one hundred and one here, folks. Like, don't you remember Scripture? But I do think the idea that that the, the immigrant doesn't matter. Um, the poor amongst us don't matter. The all of this and it seems like that it's moved towards more like my comfort matters more, my preference matters more. All of these matter more. I mean, let's be honest. If Jesus started a church today in America, it wouldn't be a church anybody would want to go to, at least not the American Christians. I mean, he's going to tell you stuff like, oh, if your neighbor isn't like if your neighbor is hungry, you know what? Give him your food. And if not, you can sell some of your stuff so you can make sure he has food on his table. And people in the church would be, ah, whoa whoa whoa. That's that's a little too much. Like, I tone this down and and it's the simplicity of the message of Jesus that the church has made overly convoluted, where it's just simply like, just don't be a dick. Be good to those around you, even if you don't like them. Have grace in situations because you've been given grace. And there's times where you were a dick too. Um, and just remember that it's it's not that hard. It's not that hard.

00:23:28 Jeromy Johnson: You brought up immigration. It is so clear all throughout Old Testament and New Testament, and it says you are to treat them as if they are naturally born. You are to treat them as if they are one of you. You're to treat them as if they are yourself.

00:23:42 Stuart Deloney: We've become like, yeah, we're very selfish, we're very selfish, and we don't want to see the needs of others because it's hard to do that and it's uncomfortable, but it is ultimately a better way to exist. We are all in this together. Whether we all believe the same way or whether we all are on the same page theologically, we're all in this together, and it's better for us to try to figure out a way to do this better than we're already doing it currently.

00:24:06 Jeromy Johnson: And I wanted to bring this up because part of what I like looking at is where does Grace intersect with life? And also where does Grace not intersecting with life that it should be intersecting with life? And I think that's where the political conversation really starts intersecting. Okay. Where is Grace showing up? But where where should it be showing up? You can't separate that.

00:24:26 Stuart Deloney: No you can't. And I think that I think and this is not an answer to where it should be showing up now. But but I will say this. I think that we need we're in a time where a lot of people are, um, the temperature is hot politically and otherwise in the country. Uh, we're all acting pretty tweaked. Um, if you're on the highway, like at rush hour, everyone is is everyone is edgy. And I think that when we're in a time where it seems like the whole world is on fire or everything is constantly, something is constantly bad happening, I think we have to give grace to ourselves as well, to, um, grace to ourselves, realizing that there's only certain things that we can control. Um, and, and those are the things that matter more. And it if we can give ourselves grace to, um, in this situation where sometimes it feels like everything is, is screaming and everything has a need, I think it can also help us to have grace with others as well. And realizing that we don't have it all figured out. Uh, we're all acting off of adrenaline and caffeine, and we're all tired and broke. And, you know, the way that a lot of people in America feel. And, uh, if we can realize. Yep, it's it sucks. And this is where I'm at. I need to have grace with myself. And if I can also do that, I can. I need to really work on having grace for those around me as well, to realizing that they are just as tweaked and feeling the world as off as as I do. They're not acting optimally. This isn't probably who they want to be. Um, and so I think we have grace and being able to take a breath.

00:25:57 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, that's well said. And so much of it is just fear. I think selfishness at the root of it is just fear when you're being mean to people. A lot of it's just fear. I need to control you somehow, and I need control because I'm afraid. But no, I think you're you're spot on grace to ourselves for me. And maybe you can echo this. One of the biggest transformations was seeing myself primarily and first and foremost as a human being. Not as a Christian, not as a whatever fill in the blank, but as it starts out with a human being. And before it was flip flopped, like I was a Christian first and foremost. And I human probably fell somewhere below grandson. But as soon as you start seeing like I am a fellow human being and you are to like you said, it starts with grace to ourselves and it opens up that door. Where? How can I treat you like shit?

00:26:48 Stuart Deloney: Yeah, and realizing that, you know, all of us have had crap happen to us in the past. All of us have had trauma and hurt and pain. Others at varying degrees. Um, but, you know, realizing that, yeah, other people are having a bad Monday, too. Um, and being able to have grace with just going. All right, all right. Um, maybe I just need to stay quiet now. And I think that that can be grace just also learning when when to shut up.

00:27:14 Jeromy Johnson: And I can even look at, um, our current president and even past presidents. I feel like you have to have a certain level of narcissism to even want to be president. Yep. And then there's just bigger levels of that. And we've, I think, hit one hundred. But I just see someone who's hurting. I just see someone who's really afraid and insecure and it's just another human being. And then even that, what are we seeing in our culture that without this happening, we would not be seeing like how easy it is to just flick a switch and start caging people.

00:27:45 Stuart Deloney: That was one of those things where like that, that that came too easy. This time I was just kind of like, it makes you pause and like think like, okay, folks, do we not remember history? This is this is coming way too quick and way too easy.

00:27:58 Jeromy Johnson: And at least with Japan, there was a war, right? So I was like, oh, okay. Well, we're we're protecting this one. Like there's no war going on.

00:28:05 Stuart Deloney: It's hard, it's hard. And you're right. But also the flip back on narcissistic presidents at the same time, it's it's one thing to have grace. It's another thing to be like in a abusive subordinates situation to where if that's America's toxic daddy right now, they're all of us are abused children. And and so it's and in that situation where there's a power differential, I just say fuck grace in that to some degree. I mean, if you're if you're if there's such a power differential to where it is. Yeah.

00:28:37 Jeromy Johnson: Because you're punching up.

00:28:38 Stuart Deloney: Punching up versus punching down to where it is, it is totally toxic trickle down, uh, acid theory of how it moves down on folks with that it that's yeah. That's now that's yeah. I just had to make sure we at least said that I'm not trying to give everyone a pass because there is there is just blatant abuse that is happening. And we can have grace for the man. But at the same time you're kind of like, well, let's, let's, let's lean more towards grace for those that are, uh, being beaten and put in cages.

00:29:07 Jeromy Johnson: What could a more graceful Christianity look like?

00:29:11 Stuart Deloney: It would be a faith that cared about the other. If you look at even the ways that we set up churches nowadays, as soon as a church is created, the church exists to keep the church going. Like if we're talking institutionally, like the building and all of that. Um, which that's kind of silly if you think about it, because at that single moment that you started this church, the church is about the church and not about anybody else. It's about needing to keep itself going to feed itself so more graceful. Church would care less about itself, institutionally and otherwise, and doing things radically for the other and for those that are out there that need it. I think it would be churches that care less about new carpets and new buildings and all of this, and care more about kids that are starving or families that are hurting. Um, I think it's about us getting rid of the posh things that we have that make us feel comfortable in our faith and move to the places where we feel more uncomfortable because we need to be there, because that's where help needs to, to be happening. That's because the idea of, you know, you take a light to shine to places where it needs light. Um, you know, it's not something where you're like, getting a flashlight and you're running out on noon on a, on any day of the week and like, oh, look, I'm bringing my light to everywhere around us to see. Oh, cool. Good job. Go to the places where it's hard and it's just it's just getting back to it. It's it's being very rooted in your community. Your like local town community. Like where are those people where Jesus would be hanging out with, who is suffering in your community? And it looks different wherever you're at, uh, and it'll look different wherever your heart is as well, too. Um, some people are gifted and talented in different ways. Um, and it'll be led in different directions. But I think it's just I think it's the whole idea of Christ in the gospel is about this emptying out for the other. And so the idea of like laying what I have down for the other, and if and if the churches and what we're doing doesn't look like that, what are we doing? We're just doing business with choir robes.

00:31:15 Jeromy Johnson: So it would be more it would be less mega, probably more micro.

00:31:18 Stuart Deloney: It would be more micro. And it would have it would probably have to do more with people doing everyday life together more than just doing program time.

00:31:24 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. And the structure. Some people say, well, church structure doesn't matter. Like, you know, if we have a bigger church, we have more resources, we have more people that we can corral and leverage and be able to make a bigger difference. But the structure does matter.

00:31:37 Stuart Deloney: The question you always ask is what percentage of the budget is buildings and staffing. And that'll that'll show you the priorities of that church. And they'll make as many excuses as possible. And I understand it. I've been there, I understand it. But where you're where you're putting your money is where your priorities are. and most churches. It's Sunday morning. That's where the money goes.

00:31:57 Jeromy Johnson: It's true. I was just talking to someone who wasn't from kind of that church background, but then got into church, and he was just so surprised at how little feet on the ground was happening of just going out in the community, helping people, serving people, and how much of it was just keeping the thing going. So we have worship practice, we have choir, we have this, we have meetings.

00:32:19 Stuart Deloney: We have I remember I was um, I, I'm phenomenal at talking myself out of jobs, um, on purpose. I've learned this in ministry, but I just and I've, I've, I've, I've learned to do this on purpose because I know.

00:32:33 Jeromy Johnson: How does your wife feel about this?

00:32:35 Stuart Deloney: Um. Uh, she's she's early on. It was not great, but I've learned to hone it. Um, but, um, I was it was it's when I was church planting, but it was another church. Since the planting stuff we did, we never did them on Sundays. It was another church that was like a town away. It was like, we want you to come and do like just preach for our plant because we need this. And I was meeting with them and I was going like, they're like, well, we want you here. I was like, what? Um, because we think we have good preaching. Uh, it'll grow the church. And I was like, okay, so how many of you on this committee know your neighbor as well? Like, do you know both of their, like, their first name and last name? When was the last time you, like, like, had a meal with them or shared something with your neighbors around you? And they were like, uh. And I was like, well, who, who, who? This is like, this is a city over from me that you're wanting me to come in and just do pulpit supply, which is fine. I was I would just do that for pay. Uh, I don't mind preaching, um, on Sunday mornings, but I was like, you're expecting me from a guy from a different town to just be able to speak well, to have people coming to hear. And you folks that want to have a church here or some sort of, like, pastoralist church. You're wanting me to bring all the people into the church for you. And. But none of you know your neighbors? No. None of you know the people, anything around you. And I was like, sure, I can come and do this, but it's this is it's never going to grow.

00:34:06 Jeromy Johnson: Because as soon as you leave.

00:34:07 Stuart Deloney: Or, or even the fact of who cares? Like who cares? I mean, maybe I'm a good pastor, maybe I'm a bad pastor. Nobody knows. This is just a podcast. You're just you're just assuming. Um, one way or the other, that maybe I'm an awful, uh, tater, but. But no, but with that, it was just. They just somehow they couldn't see it like they were. These were like the elder board. This was like the body that was trying to keep this church alive. And they just didn't know why they existed anymore. They just really didn't. And that in that way, is what I mean. I'll talk my way out of a job because I knew, I, I knew I wasn't for them. And walking through the process, sometimes you can educate folks as well too, by asking them questions that make them uncomfortable.

00:34:47 Jeromy Johnson: You mentioned personal and this just hit me. This personal deconstruction should be an ongoing process, but churches should also be corporately in a process of ongoing deconstruction. So deconstruction is basically taking a look at the the typewriter, exploding it up, taking a look at all the different pieces that's making this typewriter building something new from that. Right. It's this the hope is that there's something there. And that should just be an ongoing process that churches should be willing to step into. But you have to ask those hard questions that you're afraid of otherwise.

00:35:21 Stuart Deloney: Otherwise we just become hoarders, like, ideologically speaking. Like it's just every just keep bringing it in because but as humans, like we can't like in, in our own houses, like, you know, we we, we kind of deconstruct our houses like, I don't need this anymore. This has too much clutter here. I don't wear these shirts anymore. I should remove them. And it works in the same way. I mean, it's how it keeps things just normal and fresh. I've seen so many churches that have like gotten into arguments about the color of the carpet, or how many hymns versus how many praise and worship songs are there. And you'll have people in the church that'll get so angry about this. And the question just comes back to, why are you even here?

00:36:01 Jeromy Johnson: Like, yeah.

00:36:02 Stuart Deloney: If you can't worship because the the ratio to hymnals to to praise and worship songs was this, that is your problem. This is nothing to do with this somehow, like God is like in heaven, cock blocked because Helen couldn't sing well enough today and he doesn't feel officially worshipped. You know, it becomes about preference and it has nothing to do with it. And when when our faith becomes about us being offended or us having, wanting, oh, I want it to be this way. We need it to be our way in our faith. It's not faith anymore. It's just like a country club. We've just. We're just a part of a club because it pushes us backwards. It doesn't push us forwards. Um, and how we're looking at the people around us and the community.

00:36:48 Jeromy Johnson: Cool. Stewart, thank you so much for being on.

00:36:50 Stuart Deloney: Absolutely, man.

00:36:51 Jeromy Johnson: Pleasure to have you. Any parting words that you want to leave to, uh, to our listeners and guests?

00:36:56 Stuart Deloney: Well, I mean, I would say just hey, keep listening to this guy. I love the journey that he's on. I love that he is looking for grace in places where not always looking for grace and asking questions that aren't asking. Uh, always being asked. And if you want to check me out, parting words, uh, you can find me. Look up Stewart Delany. But that's hard to spell. So look up snarky Faith and you'll find everything you want to find about me when it comes to that. And the Tribulation Survival Guide comes out. Available on Amazon, January the thirteenth. Buy it so you can be prepared.

00:37:29 Jeromy Johnson: Yes, it could happen tomorrow.

00:37:31 Stuart Deloney: Otherwise. Yeah. Uh, I warned you.

00:37:33 Jeromy Johnson: Cool. All right. Stewart, thank you so much for hopping on. Appreciate you man.

00:37:37 Stuart Deloney: Absolutely.