018 I Rev. Dr. Marg Kutz on Stories that Propel Us Forward

Posted on April 8, 2026 by | Leave a comment

I was delighted to talk with my Virginia United Methodist Church candidacy mentor, Rev. Dr. Marg Kutz, about her book “Nevertheless, She Preached“, which tells the story of the two first Virginia Methodist clergywomen and all of the obstacles and barriers they smashed in their ministry, paving the way for women to come after them. Marg herself was in the next generation of clergywomen and broke many barriers in her 39 years of pastoral ministry.

Marg’s process of researching and writing the book alone was fascinating to hear about. The Virginia UMC historical records say very little about the contributions and milestones of Rev. Lillian Russell and Rev. Mildred Long in their years of ministry, so it was really important for Marg to take her insider knowledge and experience to fully flesh out their contributions and the impact they had on their denomination.

Our conversation is saturated with stories that will amaze you. If you would like to have Marg speak with your church or book group, please contact her through her website, Nevertheless She Preached. She just released a brand new book about a Western Pennsylvania clergywoman, Clarie Settlemire. You can purchase her books here.

Here’s a snapshot of us at the 2025
VA UMC Annual Conference–

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TRANSCRIPT:

Ruth Perry (00:16)
My guest today is Reverend Dr. Margaret Kutz, a retired elder in the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church and my mentor for the VAUMC candidacy process. Welcome, Marg.

Marg (00:27)
Thank you. Thanks for having me this morning, Ruth.

Ruth Perry (00:30)
I’m delighted to have you. And I am so honored that they gave you as a mentor to me. In our conversation today, we’re going to talk about the book you wrote, “Nevertheless, She Preached” about the two earliest clergy women in the Virginia Conference their story and all of the barriers that they overcame in ministry. But one thing that really stood out to me as I was reading it and as I’ve known you just for a little bit and I’m new to United Methodist Church, I feel coming from the Baptist Church, which is so far behind even where the Methodist Church is, it’s been so amazing to me to just feel the lack of barriers. So I’m just really grateful reading this story, how far the UMC has come since not that many decades ago.

Marg (01:11)
Yes. Right? Yeah, it is good.

Ruth Perry (01:15)
Before we talk about your book, I don’t want you to jump to the parts of your story in your book, but can you take me back through your story, your faith journey as a child and into when you were called to ministry.

Marg (01:30)
I come from a large family. I have four brothers and two sisters, so there were seven of us. And my mother wanted us to grow up in the church, so she made sure we got to Sunday school when we were little. And then as we got older, that we also went to worship. So I had that early upbringing in the church. And I always liked church. I liked being there. There was a time in about sixth grade that I wanted to go to Sunday school, but I didn’t want to go to worship. So I went through that period about six months, but by and large, I enjoyed going.

And my earliest memory is really of, I was about three and I just remember having a conversation with God. So I guess, at the time I didn’t really know what I was doing. So I think that’s pretty significant if your earliest memory is of God. There must be some kind of path for you.

And then I was set on being a missionary. I felt called to be a teaching missionary in Africa and that didn’t happen because I met and fell in love with a man that wasn’t going to work with. So instead, I went to seminary and then became a pastor and did that for 39 years. And I eventually did become a teaching missionary in Africa, but it took me till 65 to do that. That’s another story for another day.

My ministry really comes through that call to missionary work, because then when it looked like it wasn’t going to work, then what was I called to, to sort of clarify that. And so the local church pastor felt like a fit. And I began to meet on campus some other women who were pastors. And that became more of a reality. In addition, in my own home church, there was one other person who came out of that congregation who went to seminary and went on to be ordained. And that was a woman named Clarie Settlemire. And I just finished a book about her. So I had that model as well. Somebody that was about a generation older than me, 17 years older than me, who had gone into the ministry, finished college and seminary and out of this little rural place that we both were from. And so that was a strong emphasis and for me as well.

Ruth Perry (03:27)
Can you tell my audience a little bit about struggle you had deciding between to the mission field and marriage to your husband?

Marg (03:36)
I can do that. We dated for some time and then we were engaged had the wedding, the date planned all of reconcile the two. So I just postponed the wedding and felt that was unfair. So then I gave the ring back. So it broke the engagement. And then I was a school teacher at the time. I finished college and was teaching school, because both the Peace Corps and the Mission Board said, get some experience in United States first teaching and then come back to us and apply again. So I was in the process of doing that.

I remember it was a morning and it was a snowy day, which it is in Western Pennsylvania. And I was driving to school and I heard an audible voice that said, “Marry Bob.” And I thought for sure it was coming from the back seats. Of course there was nobody there. And that’s the only time I’ve heard an audible voice from God. I felt nudgings and had calls in my sleep and such, but that was the first time in the daytime I heard that. So I waited two weeks, did the pros and the cons, and it just felt like, this is stupid. It just doesn’t make any difference. So I called Bob and said, you know, I had this, he said, well, I’ve been trying to tell you that for two years. So that was in February. We were married April 1st that year.

You know, once we got that sorted out, because we knew we cared about each other and wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, but I just couldn’t reconcile the other. So then I still had to figure out, so I did this, God, now what happens? And like I say, it was really in seminary that that became clearer to me that that’s what I was to do. And so did that. We’re married and still married, we’re coming up on 54 years. And we have two kids and four grandchildren.

Ruth Perry (05:14)
I love that story so much. And I thought as I was reading your book, Nevertheless She Preached, both and Mildred Long were unmarried. And it’s kind of sad that that was necessary for them to fulfill God’s call in their lives. And then I think there are a lot of challenges now for women to manage both a call from God and a family, we don’t have to regret that we didn’t have that opportunity either.

Marg (05:38)
It’s interesting to me, Ruth, that for a male clergy, it’s an asset to be married and In fact, a lot of churches don’t want to take a man who’s never been married. That just seems rather strange to them. So that’s an asset for them. But for women, it’s better to never married, no children. That worked better. And I would say it’s probably still very similar to that actually. Churches still prefer a man’s coming to be married with children and a woman not to have so many with family. So many commitments gets in a way.

Ruth Perry (06:09)
Can you introduce us to Reverend Lillian Russell and where she came from and how she came be a minister?

Marg (06:16)
Okay. Lillian was from Richmond and her family was really active in the church. I mean, that they sort of lived and breathed their church. So she grew up in that and, after she preached one time, a minister in the area said he had seen her do things with the youth. So a lot of youth would come and she would speak to them. And so he said, would you speak at my church? And she did. And then she was asked to speak at a revival. And that was going to be, you know, four or five sermons in a row to do that. And she did that at age 17 and people loved it because here was this teenage girl, petite little thing. I don’t know that Lily never weighed more than 120 pounds and she had this voice and this presentation, something to say.

So then she started being invited a lot and she became a full-time evangelist. Well, she wasn’t officially that, but she really was an evangelist in the Methodist church. And had preached for 17 years all over Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and she never drove. So her family had to support her in all of this and take her places and such. And I don’t know that she ever felt like she was going to pastor a local church, but there was a shortage of ministers with the war and she got a call from her district superintendent to go to a little church in Petersburg and to be the pastor there. She learned later that she sent there because they thought the church was going to close and they didn’t really want to waste that on a man.

So they gave it to this little petite evangelist, Lillian, to do it. Well, she stayed and she stayed and she stayed. She did her whole career there and the church grew and it became a really a vital church. Now they grew in numbers and in ministry and in passion for Christ. It was quite a ministry that she had there. And they came to absolutely love her.

Ruth Perry (08:03)
And then what is Mildred Long’s story?

Marg (08:07)
Mildred, came from a large family as did Lillian, but I think that wasn’t terribly unusual back then for people to have larger families before birth control and such. But Mildred came out of North Carolina and was looking for work and found a job at the mills in Dan River. And so she went to work there and they had it all set up for women to come in and have special places for them to live. And it was really interesting to learn more about that. I could have done three chapters on that, just the life there. And I think that really shaped her a lot. She was there for several years. And then somebody there spotted in her potential and they actually paid for her to go to college. So she dropped out of work with the Dan River mills and, and went back to college and she never quite finished. I couldn’t get all of the story on that, but my guess it had something to do with the war and things that were going on in her family, some deaths and that sort of thing. Anyways, so she came back to work at the mills and while she was there, she was real involved in the local church there and did a whole variety of things. Pastors there seemed to be really open to her knowing lots of things. she did that and she was noticed by her pastor, I think, not the district superintendent.

So he started a new church and then he asked Mildred to help him with that. And so he said, you know, as I move into another church, a logical person to appoint to this church plant, they didn’t call it that back then, but this church plant would be Mildred Long. So she got an appointment there. It was there about two years and then she got an appointment to another church. You know, people just began to see her ability. Now they were very different from each other, Ruth. They were both strong and Lillian could be fierce, but Mildred was fierce. And she ruffled some feathers. Lillian tended to sort of calm things, but Mildred was more likely to confront things. And their friendship meant a lot to them because they were the same age, born the same year, but Lillian was about 10 years in experience ahead of Mildred. So Mildred leaned on Lillian’s experience and they became friends through all of that. they were the only two.

Ruth Perry (10:12)
Do you feel you have anything in common with Lillian or Mildred, Marg?

Marg (10:16)
You know, I connected more with Mildred. There was a, I don’t know, there was a spiritual, both innocence and powerhouse in Lillian that I really admired, but I don’t see in myself. There was fierceness and a determination in both of them, but the way it got acted out in Mildred, I think, was more like how I acted out. A little more upfront.

Ruth Perry (10:37)
So you knew of them when you were coming into ministry and you had contacted them, which you write about, they actually retired the year that you were ordained, is that correct?

Marg (10:48)
They retired a couple years after I was ordained. I think in 79 and I was ordained in 77. So yes, two years. But I had never met them. And I wanted to get together of the clergy at conference for lunch. So I looked to see who all the clergy women were. I think there were five of us. so I asked, this was all written, know, and typed. And it was when we had carbon paper behind it. So it wasn’t, I shot an email out to them, but actually, you know, typed up a letter and sent it out to women to invite them. And it was Mildred that responded back to me and said that she had talked to Lillian and they decided not to come, that they really hoped that our experience would be different from theirs. And they didn’t want their experience to color or influence our own experience.

So I was sorry about that. Because at the time I was sort of peeved. then as I look back, particularly as I researched for this book, I was really sorry that I didn’t know them. And I think it really would have made a difference for all of the clergy women at that time to have known them, even if we had to hear their stories and all the things that happened to them. Once they retired, they sort of set it aside. They were interviewed by a woman, Kathy Morgan, who wrote the history of the United Methodist Women’s Society in Virginia. It was just a little booklet. So it’s maybe 50 pages, if it’s even that. And she had two pages on Mildred and Lillian. And how she did that was she interviewed them by mail. So she wrote them a letter with some questions and then they wrote back with their And they talked as if nothing of any consequence, there wasn’t wasn’t any blowback or pushback on them of any consequence. And I think that by that time they had gotten to the point was like, just letting this go. I don’t need to carry this banner anymore about the prejudice. But it was there. It was clearly there when you read their history. They may not have said it, but they lived it.

Ruth Perry (12:43)
You wrote your book in the genre of historical fiction, which was so beautiful because it really captured not just the facts of what happened, but the emotion and the impact in a really powerful way, I think, and really beautifully captured the culture of their age. Just the little particular things about their own personalities that I think wouldn’t have been conveyed as well, as So I really appreciated your approach to writing the book. And you said in the introduction, that God led you to write this through a dream. Can you tell me about that?

Marg (13:16)
This time I was retired and I had been thinking about writing my own story. People had encouraged me to do that. And so I was sort of thinking about that. Well, I have time now that I’m retired, maybe I could do this. I had a dream and the dream was to tell the story of Lillian Russell and Mildred Long. I mean, it was just plain and I knew even when I was having it that this was from God and that I was going to do this.

And I knew nothing about writing. I did learn that I’m not a good writer. But critique groups helped me tremendously. They were very patient with me. I was definitely the worst writer in the group. And they just sort of brought me in. The first chapter became the first three chapters. And then the first of those chapters, I took to the group three times. And the third time I said, now, when I say make these edits, you want me to bring it back to you again? And they said, no, they were tired of it. Move on. And I had started it as sort of a biography and then I didn’t like it. So then I made it biography combined with historical fiction. And the group said, you got to make up your mind. You can’t write a book that’s both. It’s got to be one or the other. And like you said, as I got to know the women, I wanted people to know them as people and not just the facts of their life. So that’s the reason I made it fiction so I could tell the conversations.

And oftentimes it would be either something I read or something that somebody told me in interview about them, either something that happened or a trait they had in their personality. And then I would create a scene or a story that would help convey that rather than just to write it in a paragraph or in a sentence. And that was fun to think about that. OK, so I know this about them. Like I know that Lillian Russell had to appear before the committee. So what must that have been like? What did people wear? Where would they have been? How would she be feeling? What was going on? And I could sort of refer back to my own experience as part of it, because even though I was a generation behind them, my experience, particularly early on in those first five to 10 years, was almost identical to theirs. Things had not changed much at all in that time period. And then they changed rapidly in the 70s and 80s with the women’s movement.

But up until then, really my experience was very similar to theirs. So I could fall back on my own experience and think about how I felt and what happened and what I saw in the men, either obvious or subtle.

Ruth Perry (15:35)
You clearly worked very hard, and I think you wrote excellently. I was just talking college minister in a previous episode and she quoted GK Chesterton, “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” But I don’t think you did it poorly at all. I think it’s amazing and I really enjoyed reading it.

Marg (15:39)
Thank you. Yeah. I hear what you’re saying though. Yeah.

Ruth Perry (15:55)
I mean, their story is so important.

Marg (15:57)
It is, it is. And I think what makes the book interesting is them. It’s not the way I told it. It’s them. They were amazing people. And I came to what I felt sort of know them, you know, through all of this. And there were times, I remember one night my critique group met about 45 minutes from where I live. And on the north side of Richmond, and I live in the south side.

And so as I was coming back home, I was thinking about this because one of the men in the group said, as he was critiquing, they would read 10 pages and tell you what they thought. And he sort of pushed the paper back. He said, look, you don’t have a lot to work with here. So if this is going to be good, it’s got to be written really well. And it’s not. He said, I was like…

Ruth Perry (16:40)
Brutal!

Marg (16:44)
It was brutal. So when I went home that night, I was driving home talking to God saying, you know, these people deserve a really good book. So either I need to get out of the way for somebody else to write it, or I need to get out of the way for you to help me write it. So help me with this, God, if you really want me to do this, help me, because I want this to be a good book for them, because, you know, they really do deserve this. So it’s just a sort of a conversation, you know, if you I don’t know how people pray and listen to God, but I felt like God was trying to tell me how she was informing me and was sort of, listen harder and wait longer. Because I’d be like, why don’t I just do that and then to go forward with it. And she was saying to me, wait a little longer and listen a little harder. And then as I thought about it, I thought, that is true.

Because sometimes what the critique people tell me is exactly what I was thinking when I was writing it but I didn’t stop writing long enough to stop and listen and then to write as I was directed. So I thought God really is directing me in this. I’m just moving forward too fast and not listening enough. I don’t pretend that this is the Bible, but but it did cause me to think, I wonder what it’s like for the Bible writers, particularly like Paul or even the gospel writers telling a story. And we think about them being directed by God. And I just wondered if they had critique groups, you other disciples, you know, sort of this is what I remember how it happened. And maybe you should add this so the reader will see this. And so anyways, just thinking about how God has led people to write all kinds of things over the years from the heights, you know, the Bible to historical fiction and how that works. So I think God still words that are inspired by God, whether they be sermons or books or poems or hymns.

Ruth Perry (18:27)
Absolutely. Part of my own experience now in the United Methodist Church is that I came in completely blind. I knew nothing about polity. I knew some Wesleyan theology because I had already been licensed in another Wesleyan denomination. But I was brand new to all of the language of the Methodist Church, the structure, the politics of it, and it was very overwhelming coming in. So was grateful that they gave me mentors to help. But can you give a little bit of a crash course on the process of becoming a clergy person in the Methodist Church?

Marg (19:01)
So it starts with the local church. And if the person feels a nudging or a call, he or she talks to the pastor. And there’s some resources they can use, some books and such, to sort of walk through it. And if the pastor feels person has thought it through adequately, and it might take a week, it might take two years, and working through some of the resources.

Then has the person go before what’s called the Staff Parish Relations Committee. It’s sort of the personnel committee at the local church. And then they recommend or not recommend for the next step. And if they do recommend, then it goes to the church’s charge conference, which is sort of a group of their leaders. And if they recommend, then the next level, so now it’s done by the local church, the person who knows that person best.

And then it goes on to the district level, which is what the district superintendent overseas. And if they are approved for that, and there’s a lot of papers to write and interviews, and so it’s a long process for that, then they can recommend them for ordination. I guess it’s consecration and becoming a provisional member. When I came in, was ordination as a deacon and probationary membership. And now it’s provisional, but what’s the other? not a deacon anymore.

Ruth Perry (20:12)
Associate.

Marg (20:14)
Yes, associate. And when they’re brought into provisional membership, then they still cared for by the district, but then they’re eligible to be recommended to the annual conference. And then ultimately they’re on by a clergy session. So all the ministers in the conference vote on who gets to come in. And if they’re voted in, then they’re ordained and brought into full membership.

It’s quite a process, as you know. So there’s that polity side, but then there’s a whole education piece, know, with college and seminary or lay licensing school and all those in addition to this approval process through the ranks.

Ruth Perry (20:40)
So it’s good, they definitely equip their ministers, which is great. So and very affirmed in their local church their gifts were obvious had opportunities to local pastors that supported them. But what were some of the barriers that they started to encounter as wanted go through the steps of increasing their status in the United Methodist Church.

Marg (21:14)
Along with that, I found out through reading newspaper articles and Mildred was more likely to tell some of her story and as she was being interviewed, Lillian a little less so, but you could tell from they came through. For instance, when Lillian was appointed to the first church, it was because they thought she was going to close it.

And then when she went to seek some kind of status, because then she was just lay supply, which means at any moment that she could be out of there. There was no guarantee or security really in that position. So as she sought to have some level of status beyond lay supply, she needed to appear before the district committee. And what I read was that she was in the Richmond district and she was approved in a Rappahannock district. Now that didn’t make any sense because you would always be approved by your home district. And then they have the pastors listed for each of the districts, she was listed in the Richmond district. But the newspaper said that she was approved in the Rappahannock. So this is just one case that I did some investigation. And without the newspaper article, I wouldn’t have known any of this had happened.

But with that, then I went to a retired minister named Raymond Wren, who had been around then and knew Lillian Mildred. And at this point, he was over a hundred years old, but he had a really, really good memory. And so he talked to me about that. He didn’t know so much the particular stories of Lillian Mildred, although he knew of them and had met them. But he said, tell me who two district superintendents were. And I told him, and he said, yes.

So she had to leave her district to go to another district in order to find a district superintendent who would even allow her to appear before his committee. So she did, she was approved. And I remember going through those ropes young woman. And so again, I was able to sort of describe her experiences based on my own, how the men were, how their behavior was, what her response was, or trying to read the room. When I first came in, they wanted the minister’s wives to come with them for the interview. Now that just seems archaic now.

But that was standard then and my husband did go with me when I was first interviewed on the district for a deacon So when Lillian went she would have taken her father And her father was a big deal on the district, but now they’re on a different district. They’re not on the home district So he didn’t carry quite as much weight there as he had But just trying to navigate all of that as a young woman.

It was quite remarkable what she did and quite disappointing how the church was, just how much more it had to grow. I also found out, Ruth, that even though it was in the Discipline, it was not enforced. It was sort of like, well, you know, not all of us are on board with you girls, so you can go to this district because this DS thinks it’s okay to have a girl in ministry.

So there were some of that and that was happening in Mildred when she wanted to be brought into full connection, ordained an elder and brought into full connection. She was on one district. I think she was still in Danville then I’m not sure. But anyways but then she had to move and this was something she had written had shared in an interview for a newspaper article. That’s where I read that. The bishop moved her to a different district.

And my take on it was when she couldn’t get the DS to allow her to come and appear before the district committee, that Mildred probably called the bishop. That would be my guess, knowing what I know about Mildred. And the bishop said, let me move you this year. So she moved to a different district where the bishop knew there would be a district superintendent with who more amenable. So they didn’t enforce the rules. They just sort of worked around them because it was a boys club.

They didn’t want to come at each other. They wanted to do the right thing, but they didn’t want to hurt each other. So they just found other ways to do it. It was really hard for Lillian and Mildred and other women in the days that I came in to feel supported by the hierarchy. It just wasn’t there. The very first appointment I had when superintendent called me to tell me where I was going.

It was Round Hill and I said, well, where is that? He said, get a map and look it up. huh. So then he talked a little bit about it and then not much. And, cause I had been out of town and he said, I’ve been trying to call you. And this is, know, before voicemail and all that long time ago. and, and I said, well, I was in California. You shouldn’t travel during appointment season.

And I thought to myself, I didn’t even know there was an appointment season. But see, these were things that the men knew because they mentored each other. the women were totally kept out of those kinds of things. So I was scolded for that. And then he said, glad I’m going off the cabinet this year because I don’t ever want to have to appoint another woman again.

Yeah. So there were district superintendents, even though we were in there as, when I came in being eligible for Deacon, Elder and full connection, just all the rights and privileges the men had the district superintendents for not kept in line with the, with the same book that we all shared and they made a commitment to when they were ordained that they would support and uphold that Book of Discipline. And they, didn’t, and they weren’t held accountable to it. And the people that suffered were a lot of people, but

I was aware of the clergy women as separate as a result of that. The first district I went on was the Winchester district and Lee Schaefer was the district superintendent there. And he was brand new in that position. And I found out that really he made my appointment. He was invited as the new district superintendent to come in and sit on some of the appointment things. And, this is a story. They thought they were all done.

Now they use laptops, but then they had books, their appointment books. And so everybody had closed it up and Bishop Goodson said, well, I guess that’s it. Because it was long, know, our long arduous project process. And the district superintendent, the outgoing retiring district superintendent from that district raised his hand said, Bishop, I still have one church without a pastor. So they don’t open up their books. And so at that point, they’re thinking about appointing somebody that’s retired because it looks like everybody’s taken. And it was Lee Schaefer that says, Bishop, where’s Margaret Kutz gone? And he said, well, she’s going to go to Graham Road part time. And I was going to be part time there because they didn’t want me working after dark. It was just one of those things that’s like when the streetlights come on, all the kids and the associate pastor have to come inside because they’re not allowed out.

Anyways, so I was going to be part-time at a church because I couldn’t be out night and was going to my senior pastor told me a nice guy, but he told me said I don’t know really what I think about women in ministry, but my wife thinks it’s a good idea. So I thought I’d give it a chance. Anyways, so I knew there wasn’t going to be a lot of support there. So when Lee Schaefer found out where I was appointed part-time, he said, well, what about her? No, they would never take a woman. He said, well, let’s ask them.

So they called and they gave him a choice, apparently. I figured one was dead and the other one was nearly dead, or me. I don’t know if that really was true, but anyways, probably two retired people or me. And they said, well, we’ll take that woman. It was the president of the local bank that was chairing the committee, Mr. Cooley. As I came to know him, I thought I can see him being open to that. So that’s how I got that appointment. My district superintendent who supposedly made the appointment. I was the only woman he’d ever appointed and he didn’t want to have to do it again. Hard to believe, isn’t it?

Ruth Perry (28:21)
It really is. So at the end, the last few chapters of this book, you share pieces of your own journey you talk about a minister and pregnant and some of the terrible things that people thought about that, that they didn’t want to see someone behind the pulpit and know that they had done it.

Marg (28:32)
Yeah. Yeah. Yes, you can just tell she did it. And there’s teenagers in the congregation and they’ll know she did it. You know, that and women are naughty.

Ruth Perry (28:38)
and just archaic ideas. So I was thinking about Lillian being posted at a church that they thought only had about two years before it would close. And the idea of the glass cliff that oftentimes when an organization is sinking, that’s when they give a woman an opportunity. And it’s not just an opportunity to lead, but it’s also kind of like putting the woman in a scapegoat position where they can criticize her and blame her. Yeah.

Marg (29:07)
See, we told you. Yes, yeah, we told you. I remember one time I went to a district superintendent saying, I’d like to be considered as a church planter, know, a pastor who would be particularly trained to start new churches. I always thought that a lot of work, but I thought it would be a lot of fun. And he said, I don’t know. He said, you know, we had a woman try it and it didn’t go well. When I knew who she was, I’d went on to seminary with her and a fine minister, really gifted. Anyways, and I said, So if you ever have a male minister try to start a church and fail and he said, yes. And I said, well, what are you going to do if you can’t ask men and you can’t ask women? He was like, Because he’d do such a broad brush for women and a little tiny hair brush for the man. So there was all of that, what you’re talking about send her to the place that is almost impossible. And then say, see, we told you not only that she can’t do it, any of her kind can’t do it. The whole broad brush thing.

Ruth Perry (30:04)
So can you tell me a little bit about the 1979 annual conference how that was a pivotal of mantle passing between Lillian and Mildred and future generations?

Marg (30:13)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Lillian Mildred born the same year, but they didn’t come into ministry the same year because Lillian was the head of Mildred. But they retired the same year, 1979. They were both 65 and retired in 1979. And so when I went back and looked The Advocates of the historical records, the magazine for the annual conference, I looked at what was going on that year. And it really was a pretty big year for several levels, but the year that they retired should have been noted that the two earliest clergy women are retiring and there was of course nothing. But then it listed the people that were ordained that year. And that was also the year that they elected delegates to general and jurisdictional conference.

So it tends to be a really heated session, very competitive and the way it works and you have caucuses that, you know, supporting different people and And the clergy women were just trying to figure out how to influence that vote. We hadn’t quite figured it all out yet, but we did eventually. And truly we changed the face of General Conference from the Virginia side totally. And did it for some years, which really puzzled and frustrated other people who thought they knew how to do this. But anyways, we came up with a different strategy and overcame the biases.

So that year people were contesting for General Conference and they needed one more delegate from Virginia for General Conference. You had to have a majority, but there were three that were elected on the last vote. Usually they reduced how many were needed to elect as they went on. They were trying to wrap up annual conference. They would say, okay, now you only have to have so many to be elected.

So these were these three people. One of them was Jim Turner, the guy that told me, you know, I’m glad I don’t have to point another woman. But anyways, he was elected to General Conference. But the person that really stood out for me was Leigh and Teen Kelly. She was an African American woman, a whole generation older than me. She was just a year younger than my mother. And Leigh and Teen, and she was ordained the same night I was, you know, in order, Kelly and then Kutz.

But anyways, Leontine Kelly, then she went on not only to represent Virginia at General Conference, but she went on and was elected a bishop. She was not elected from the Southeast. They would not elect her. So she got on a plane out of, out of North Carolina and, flew to a place out West. can’t remember now the name of the city where they were having their own. jurisdictional conferences they were all held at the same time. And she was elected there. These people didn’t even know her.

But they knew of her and she went from group to group, you know, and introduced herself, talked about they asked her questions. And so when it was time to vote, they voted for this woman who had just showed up at their jurisdictional conference. It was it was truly an act of God, truly an act of God. So so there was that with Lillian teen Kelly and they probably didn’t even know her. And then Cynthia Corley was ordained that night and she was the first

female district superintendent appointed in Virginia and in the whole Southeast. There were three of them appointed the same year. So she was one of the three first. And none of us knew that this was how it was going to play itself out. But you know, Elisha asked for a double portion of Elijah’s. And I think that was what it was. It was two of them and they both gave a double portion. And here we had two history making things happening as they passed that mantle. So you think about the power that they carried in their mantle. And when they passed it on, the power that then was spread and shared with the, what do you call your blog, the peaceful kingdom kind of thing.

Ruth Perry (33:47)
Yeah, the beautiful kingdom.

Marg (33:48)
Beautiful kingdom. and they they became part of that. So lots of times we are part of what the Spirit’s doing and have no idea Have no idea that what I’ve what we done and they didn’t know they were retiring. They didn’t know they were doing anything, but they did. And the spirit took that and wrapped it up, their mantle up, parted the waters, and through they came.

Ruth Perry (34:11)
Praise God. And then you were the first woman that served on the Board of Ordination. Can you describe what that experience was like, Marg?

Marg (34:20)
It was really hard. It was really hard. The only time in my life that I actually had allergic reaction to anxiety was there. Something had happened in one of the interviews that was totally wrong and it happened to a friend of mine and as a result of that she wasn’t approved and they had there was.

confidential information that wasn’t true, confidential information that wasn’t true that they went and intentionally told each of the committees before she got there. So each time that she went into one of the interview committees, they confronted her with something that was none of their business. It was confidential and wasn’t true. And then they wondered why she came across as sort of angry and she wasn’t approved. And

I wanted so much, because she was a friend in particular, but it was awful that I couldn’t help her. And I didn’t know how to do it. It was so much bigger than me. I remember leaving, going back to my room, they had a birthday party for one of the guys and they wanted me to bring in a cake and they one of Dolly Parton’s songs. And it was the whole thing was just, you know, the men are hooting and.

with this old guy that I don’t know, he’s celebrating his 70th birthday or something. Anyways, because I was young, so everybody seemed old to me then. So there was all this guy stuff going on, and I was just carrying this burden for my friend. And I remember going up to my room and crying and calling her after I knew that she had been informed to apologize to her that I didn’t know how to make it right. And then I went directly from there to a clergywoman’s retreat.

And every time I tried to tell the story, I couldn’t breathe. I had to stop talking. Like I said, was the first time I’ve had an allergic reaction like that. I was just closed up and I couldn’t talk. I was made mute.

So that was the worst thing that happened, but it was difficult. We didn’t require inclusive language then. In fact, most of the guys didn’t know what it was. But if somebody came through, a candidate came through and they had used inclusive language in their paper, I just thanked them for it. I said, I noticed you did that and just want to let you know I appreciate that. And some of the other guys on my interview team would apologize for me.

And I said, you don’t have to apologize for me. If they used it, clearly they appreciate it. So you don’t have to say anything, you know? But by the time I left, I had made a motion to require inclusive language in all papers. So I thought, OK, this is a test to how well I did here, see if this passes. And the chair said, Margo, I really want this to pass. I think you need to make it recommend rather than require. I said, mm-mm. I’m going with require.

Let’s just see what happens. And it was approved, not unanimously, but it was approved to require inclusive language on all papers. And I thought, okay, I have come and I found a place for myself and I’ve made a difference and now I’m leaving. I’ve been here seven years and I’m going to leave. But that was an affirmation that I’ve done a few things right anyways. Had earned some crud on the board.

Ruth Perry (37:11)
Where do you see that Virginia needs to continue advancing in their inclusion and treatment of women and minorities? And where do you think we need to improve?

Marg (37:21)
Mm-hmm. I do think that ethnic women in particular really need some attention. There was a time when we had very few Korean pastors, male or female, in the conference. And then just a whole lot came to the board of ordained ministry. And my thinking was that we needed to look to see what God was doing to say, you know, why are all these Koreans coming out? Why is God sending them to the Virginia conference?

And is there supposed to be a specialized ministry that we’re supposed to be doing? Because also a lot of Koreans were moving to Virginia. But instead of doing that, they tried to find a way for them to fit into what we already have. You know, how do we how do we appoint them? Well, let’s just point them with no bias, just as if they’re Anglo. Let’s just move forward with that. So there was no preparation for the pastors nor for the congregations because I think they thought the best way to avoid bias is to pretend there isn’t any. And so it was really difficult. And the women really struggled because in their own Korean culture, they were a step behind the women, I would say, in the United States in terms of recognition. So they had their own bias coming out of their own culture. And then coming into the church and being both female and Korean, they were really hurting and felt really invisible. So that one, and I also think Hispanic and African-American.

The race issue becomes secondary every time another one comes up. So when it women and, you know, race came second and then other things happen. Now it’s LGBTQ and then race is second. And so we’ve made great strides and with women and some ethnic groups and certainly great strides with LGBTQ plus, but we still have a ways to go, I think, with our ethnic groups. the women’s movement has notoriously been about white women. And we need to change that. And I think the women need to come together and the white women need to sort of shut up and do more listening to our sisters who are Black, Latino, Asian, and listen to what they have to say and see if there’s some way that we can back them up and help.

Ruth Perry (39:31)
So on Wednesday, I was participating in a Zoom talk about your book that you were invited to do at the conference. And it was striking that no men signed up to participate and hear from you. Have you experienced a lot of feeling ignored or accepted by your male colleagues or has that mostly been a marginal experience for you?

Marg (39:52)
I think, no, there have been some that have read the book and most of them are acquaintances. So I think they read it as much because a friend of theirs wrote it. But I’ve been invited to a lot of groups to speak about the book, know, women’s circles are, but it’s all always either been the whole church, the whole congregation, like on a Sunday morning, or it’s been just a women’s group. have yet to be invited to a men’s group.

I was invited to one clergy group and I asked, it was Drew Colby that did this and I asked Drew if he would do it. I wanted to see what happened. And so he brought them together. had not read the book, but anyways, it was a good discussion. That’s the only one I’ve had, but that was because I asked somebody to do it.

Somehow history, just history, which is really history that the white men write. And I don’t mean anything against white men, but that’s just sort of the reality that we live in. That that’s for everybody. But then if you have Black history, that’s only for Blacks to hear about. And if you have women’s history, that’s just for women to hear about it. But we need to hear the whole history.

I don’t know what you do with that, Ruth.

Ruth Perry (40:52)
Absolutely. Well, I think calling it out is a place to start and just bringing awareness that we need to listen to each other.

Marg (41:00)
Mm-hmm.

Ruth Perry (41:00)
I was kind of sad towards the end of the book reading about Lillian and Mildred’s retirement years. Lillian especially seemed very lost without her ministry. And just the contrast between their retirement and your own retirement, you’ve never stopped. You’re still going, going, going, and you’ve had amazing opportunities. Can you tell us about the school in Africa that you, and you finally made it to your missionary dream.

Marg (41:25)
Yeah. I heard the call at 18 and finally at 65 was there. So when I was at a church in Williamsburg, Wellspring in the 1990s, we sponsored two of the Lost Boys of Sudan. It was actually the year 2000. And then when I moved from Williamsburg over to another appointment near Richmond in 03, kept my relationship with them, but particularly with one of them named Angelo. And it was amazing what he did with his life. He got his GED and his associate’s degree and his bachelor’s degree and eventually his master’s degree. He got married and he and Stephanie have three children. And so there was all these things that he had accomplished, but one of the things he always wanted to do was to reach back. He always wanted to go back home and help the people there.

And he knew that he was saved. He would say this, I would say for a purpose bigger than myself. And he knew that it was about helping the people in South Sudan. So we organized a team and then it became a committee and then it became a nonprofit. And for a while it was part of the conference and now it’s not, it’s a separate nonprofit. And the idea was to start a school. And so we hired somebody over there to do it it just wasn’t getting done. wasn’t getting done. And I just knew that I needed to go and I know nothing about this. So I don’t know why I thought I was the person that needed to go there, but I did and went with a good friend. Well, she wasn’t a good friend at the time. I barely knew her, Bev Neeland. We’re good friends now, but she and I went together with Angelo. He stayed two weeks and then we stayed almost three months while we were there. And we went back to his home community called Roombaek and the director was there. His name was Philip.

And what’s amazing, Ruth, is that we were in Roombaek for a week and the Monday of the second week we were in a classroom teaching. Now, no human being can do that. That’s the thing of God, because people would say, well, how did you do that? I said, I have no idea. We just showed up and God did the rest. So there I was teaching in Africa, finally.

And I’ve had people say, wasn’t that like sort of a glorious angel singing, moment, you know, with that happening. And I said, no, was so freaking hot. The sweat was just dripping off my chin. I didn’t feel any angels at all. It was fun, you know, but it was really hot. Yeah, too hot to know the angels. It felt more like, I think angels like air-dishing. I think it’s the other end that likes the heat. But anyways, but it was, to me, I guess the phrase that kept coming back to me was, God remembered. Well, it’s sort of like, of course God remembered, but to me it was like, God remembered that word to me. Anyways, it was powerful for me in that sense, that all those years that God honored that, all I had to do was show up and that God gave me an opportunity to teach.

We taught for awhile and then we hired some teachers and they were way better than us, partly because they could understand them and teachers could understand the students. And then we set about setting up a school, you know, doing what we needed to do. Set that up and then we came back home so we could raise money to pay the teachers that we had just hired. And now this school is called Bukloi, which in the native language of Dinka, it means yes, we can. We started with about 35 students and now we have over 700. And it’s considered one of the best schools in South Sudan and one of the largest.

Ruth Perry (44:46)
Wow.

Marg (44:48)
Yeah, pretty amazing. And I’m totally out of it now. I mean, I, you know, continue to support it, but I’m on on the border. I don’t go anymore. I made my last trip when they celebrated their 10th anniversary when they began. But there were many years where we had enough to pay people for a month if we spent everything we have. So we did. We just spent it all and just hope the next month somehow more money would come in to pay the teachers again for another.

Ruth Perry (44:49)
Congratulations, that’s amazing.

Marg (45:15)
We had months that we didn’t have enough and we paid the teachers what we could and told them we probably will never make this up because we’re running really tight. But they hung in there and they stayed with us. And we still have, I think, one teacher from that very beginning time. Maybe two, I think it’s just one now. Pretty amazing.

Ruth Perry (45:33)
Marg, can you put your mentor hat on and speak to young women like myself who are starting out in ministry and give us some of your best from your decades in ministry ahead of us?

Marg (45:44)
If this is what you’re called to do, there is no greater life than you can live to do this. I mean, there’s times that it’s just frustrating and demoralizing and makes you angry. But in the end, it’s amazing what God lets us do. I think about that we get to proclaim the good news of Jesus to people who are sitting there and listening. And we get to do that.

And then when we visit people, they open up their lives to us and tell us things that we get to enter into people’s stories and to walk with people through all of that. It’s to me, it’s just such a wonderful privilege. Certainly it comes with all the challenges and but but to never lose sight of the beauty of what we do and a power of it. Not just political power, but spiritual power and the life power. That’s what I would say, Ruth

Ruth Perry (46:32)
Where can people find information about your fiction?

Marg (46:38)
Okay, I have a website called neverthelessshepreached.net .com and dot org were taken. I got dot net. Nevertheless, she preached dot net and you can get a hold of me through that and I’d be glad to speak with your group. If you want me to do it in person, I can do that or I could do it via zoom or whatever. I have had some book clubs read the book and then I would come in. I’m in a book club and I think it’s wonderful to be able to have the author come in and be able to ask questions and share stories and such with that person. So anyways, I’d be glad to do that or speak to a group of those like me to do that.

Ruth Perry (47:14)
Thank you so much for all the time that you’ve spent with me. I think you were to be my mentor for a year and a half, and we spoke monthly. And you were just always so generous and encouraging and uplifting. And always felt affirmed in my calling by you. And I can’t tell you how and impactful that was for me. And so thank you for that.

And I just want to give you the last word before we sign off.

Marg (47:38)
Praise be to God, we worship an amazing God.

Ruth Perry (47:42)
Amen. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today Reverend Marg.

Marg (47:47)
Okay, thank you Ruth. And you are an amazing pastor, very gifted, and you have much to contribute to the the reign of God.

Ruth Perry (47:55)
Aw, thank you. Blessings to you.

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017 I Jenai Auman on How Church Systems can Marginalize and Harm

Posted on April 1, 2026 by | Leave a comment

In this insightful interview, Jenai Auman discusses her book ‘Othered: Finding belonging with the God who pursues the hurt, harmed, and marginalized.’ She shares her personal journey as the daughter of an immigrant and surviving an abusive pastor as a church staff person. She explores the impact of trauma, and offers a trauma-informed perspective on healing, belonging, and systemic change within faith communities. This is a powerful resource for the hurting as well as those who are hoping to prevent and mitigate the effects of harm in their own church communities.

We talked about all kinds of behavior health science stuff, from family systems, to power dynamics, identity and group belonging, enmeshment, intersectionality, and to person-centered therapy. Be sure to follow me on a social media platform to catch reels from our convo with some of my favorite bits! In our conversation, Jenai mentioned the work of Kimberlé Crenshaw, Carl Rogers, and Henri Tajfel. She also mentioned her friend Rohadi Nagassar’s book, When We Belong: Claiming Christianity on the Margins and Paul Kingsnorth’s book, Against the Machine. And Jenai gives a great example of slowing down to care for the person in front of you from the newest, must-see Knives Out movie: Wake Up Dead Man.

Othered by Jenai Auman – https://amzn.to/4s4wBF0
Jenai’s website: bio.site/jenaiauman
Jenai’s Substack – Othered | Jenai Auman | Substack
Jenai’s Social Media: Instagram and Facebook

Please enjoy this important conversation on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Substack, and more! 

TRANSCRIPT:

Ruth Perry (00:15)
My guest today is Jenai Auman, the author of Othered: Finding Belonging with the God Who Pursues the Hurt, Harmed, and Marginalized. It was a fantastic book. I’ve listened to it two times on Audible, and I have to say your voice is like made for radio. It’s like butter. It’s beautiful. I was really glad I got Audible just to hear it in your voice. Your book explores how people are othered in church systems drawing on your experiences as a biracial Filipina American and from working in a toxic ministry environment. And your book offers a trauma informed path toward healing and belonging in God. It was fantastic. So thank you so much for being on the podcast today, Jenai!

Jenai Auman (00:56)
Thank you for having me Ruth, I’m so glad to be here.

Ruth Perry (00:58)
I resonated a lot with your book. I have spiritual trauma in my background from unhealthy church system that chewed up and spit my family out and kicked us while we were down. And so in my mind, your book is extremely important for Christians to read. I think it’s a sadly common story in the culture that we’re in for some reason, American Christianity. And I think one of the critiques that a lot of people feel with a book like yours is that it’s criticizing the church and they don’t understand that it’s coming from a place of deep love for the church and wanting the church to be what God wants it to be. And so how do you feel about that, Jenai?

Jenai Auman (01:35)
Yeah. Yeah, I, listen, I was a long time, even as a kid, I was a long time people pleaser. And even as a church staff member, I was a people pleaser to a fault, detrimental to my mental health. And I think a part of my healing journey, and I think that includes like, I did a lot of, you know, my own internal work before I wrote the book, that’s what I recommend for all people, do a lot of your own internal work before you write the book. I would say that I realized that you can please people all you want, especially in a church environment, and they will still subjugate you and subject you to horrible treatment.

I do care about loving people, certainly. I don’t know if you do Enneagram. I’m an Enneagram too. But I tell people I’m a two with teeth now because I needed my teeth to help me and to protect me. I’m okay with rustling a few feathers, but that’s also because I think that is a part of what it means to be the church. So I am critiquing the church by and large. I am also a part of the church.

And so some of the critiques are critiques of what I perpetuated. Some of the critiques are systems that I was a part of that I benefited from for a while until I couldn’t see it until it hurt me. And it was hurting me for probably longer than I acknowledged. And so now I’m okay. I understand if some people don’t like the book. I still think it is a part of the conversation. It’s not the entirety of the conversation. And I know that sometimes to make a more holistic, shalom-oriented community, you have to be willing to rustle a few feathers of the people in power. And I think I’m okay with that.

Ruth Perry (03:18)
Before we talk about your book, can you take us back and tell us about your background and your faith journey?

Jenai Auman (03:24)
Yeah, yeah, I tend to tell people I’m a spiritual weirdo in that I wasn’t raised in the church. I was feral as a child, meaning on Sundays we actually had like culverts and ditches in our front yard where I lived in the boonies. And I would be probably, I know we shouldn’t have done this, but playing in the ditches after it rained, skimboarding, doing you know, purely feral stuff as a kid and for that part of my childhood, I did love it. I Filipina. My mother is Filipina. She immigrated to Texas in the 80s and I was born in the 80s. And so I was baptized into the Catholic Church, which is a part of like Filipino cultural norms. My mom, I would say isn’t a practicing, she’s not a practicing Catholic. But baptizing your children is something that was very important to her. So she baptized me, baptized my brother. My dad, he was raised Southeast Texas. I don’t know if people know Southeast Texas very well. I mean, most people know Houston, which is where I am today. But I was born very close to the Louisiana border. And so what happens in that area, there are Catholic churches, but also Southern Baptist churches.

And also a lot of Pentecostal churches. And I’m talking about not only like the charismatic, sometimes you’d see somebody in a tambourine go around the sanctuary or something like that. But Pentecostal in the way of like they don’t cut their hair, they wear long skirts, things like that. So that is kind of the ecclesiological makeup of Southeast Texas. So I wasn’t raised in the church, but I was raised in an area where there were a lot of those three types of churches.

My dad, he had a beef with God. He had a beef with God since before I was born. So he was kind of culturally agnostic, vacillated between agnosticism and atheism. Sometimes he would say like there is no God or sometimes he would say, I don’t know if there’s a God. But antagonistic toward just the idea of God or toward anyone trying to pray over him or proselytize him. So that is my childhood. I remember my dad quoting Gandhi to me. I don’t even know when the first time I heard like the story of Noah in the ark, you know, and I feel like that’s a pretty standard church that kids learn about in Sunday school. I heard Gandhi and the quote was “I don’t have a problem with your Christ. I love your Christ. It’s your Christians that I have a problem with because they are so unlike your Christ.” My dad would quote stuff like that at me during elementary school. So a kind of strange cultural makeup. I think what I encounter in a lot of the deconstruction spaces or even the decolonization spaces is that a lot of people grew up evangelical. I grew up kind of adjacent to evangelical culture, but I wasn’t swimming in it.

When I opened the Bible for the first time, I didn’t know how to pronounce a lot of those words in the Bible, I didn’t know how to pronounce Isaiah and things like that. So I came to faith and I converted, I usually use the word converted. I think it’s less a Christian-ese. I came to faith, but I converted when I was 17. I kind of had like a traumatic, series of things that happened when I was later in my teens and at 17, I drove to the church that my grandmother was previously a part of and it really was kind of an effort to be close to her. Like she went to church every day. And so I thought I’ll go and I had lost her. She passed. And so I wanted to be near her. And so I drove to the church to be near her more so than to be near God at 17. So I converted to Christianity and I would say maybe, I don’t know, five years later, three, five years later, I had some semblance of like a trusting faith in the God of Christianity. So that’s kind of a, I guess a 30,000 foot view of my spiritual makeup.

Ruth Perry (06:55)
That’s interesting about your dad quoting Gandhi. in such a formative time of your life to have that perspective, then it gives you the lens when you are in the church of how the world is perceiving Christians, that maybe some people who are just always in that bubble aren’t even thinking about that on that wavelength.

Jenai Auman (07:13)
Yeah, I would say that my dad, you know, he deconverted probably in the 70s, maybe earlier than that. I don’t really know. He passed, I want to say 15 years or so ago. And my dad and I had a tumultuous relationship. So perhaps a lot of the reason why I didn’t listen to his advice was because I was actively rebelling against him. And so I know though, if he were here today, it would be the biggest, I told you so, you know? And it would be well deserved. I would get it. And in hindsight, I have a lot of empathy for what my dad suffered and weathered and how it was connected to his, like how his own wounds were connected to his church experience. yeah, I am, yeah, it’s such a full circle moment for sure.

Ruth Perry (07:55)
So your book is titled Othered. Can you tell us who are the othered?

Jenai Auman (08:00)
I didn’t want to name it an introduction. I wanted to name it an invitation. So the introduction is called An Invitation for the Othered. And I’ll just read the first few sentences. This book is for the othered, the abused, exiled, excommunicated, scapegoated, and marginalized, the misfits, the grieving, and the angry, the shunned and forsaken. This book is for those pushed out of faith communities and for those on the precipice of making the hard decision to leave. Or maybe you haven’t left at all, but you’re quietly existing on the margins because you’ve been hushed and bullied into falling in line after seeing too much. The words of this book are for you who do not know how you got here or what to do next.

So for me, the othered are the people who don’t fit or who have seen something in the cultural norms of the systems that they’re a part of and they no longer think that those norms are good for them at the very least or for the community by and large. And those norms usually aren’t good for people because it comes with abuse, because it comes with toxic relational dynamics. It comes with some sort of harm with racism or xenophobia or homophobia any any any harmful norm that is normal in a cultural system the othered or those who see it and are either actively resisting or trying to figure out what to do next or whether they feel free enough to resist so it’s a pretty broad category and I wanted it to be a broad category because I don’t think it’s just one particular group of people. It certainly includes those who’ve experienced spiritual abuse, but sometimes that language is not accessible to people. They haven’t quite named that experience for themselves or maybe they feel like spiritual abuse doesn’t name their experience. Maybe they would overtly call it racism or maybe they would over at which I would say racism, xenophobia, homophobia, trans, those things in the church are spiritual abuse. So I wanted it to be a broad term that invited many people who I think have a common experience, although it may look very differently from context to context.

Ruth Perry (10:11)
And can you share the moment when you first realized that that word described your experience in the church?

Jenai Auman (10:17)
I, like cognitively, I would say I believed pretty early on. I don’t think I use the word othered, but I remember in like talks and conversations, articulating specifically, I feel very other right now. And I kind of used the imagery of a table. Well, actually it was physically at a table. We were at a table with, it was me and my husband and then the six pastors who were pushing me out and thinking cognitively and I believe saying, this is not a round table conversation there’s one side of the table with the six of you and then another side of the table with my husband and I and so we are not there is not equal power here there is not equal value here I am other so it’s very early on that I latched on to being the other. And that is a long understood philosophical concept that other philosophers have studied for centuries. So I’m definitely not the one to coin that term. But as a title for the book, or just a title for people who have been harmed in churches in general, I would say about two years later I realized othered is a really broad and welcoming, kind of like an all-inclusive term for people who have just felt this sort of exile and ostracism from the church.

Ruth Perry (11:37)
How did your own experiences of being othered, both culturally and spiritually, shape your understanding of belonging and exclusion?

Jenai Auman (11:44)
Oh my gosh. so, Well, let me ask you, have you ever stepped into a room and you were like, I don’t fit here? How did you feel? What goes through your mind the moment you think I don’t fit here?

Ruth Perry (11:56)
You feel exposed and vulnerable and unsafe and not sure of how to proceed or maybe exit. It’s disorienting.

Jenai Auman (12:07)
Yeah, well, I would say I felt that feeling very early on in life. So I tell people whenever you have a parent who’s immigrated to the States, who doesn’t speak English as a first language, who barely spoke English by the time I was entering into kindergarten, Think about the time when you were entering kindergarten or elementary school. And you have your mom or a present parent who is explaining to you what it’s like to be in school, like what are the cultural norms of school? And so my dad by and large was not present in parts of my life. And so my mom was my primary caretaker for the early childhood. And I did not have a parent who could explain those cultural norms to me. So as far as being othered, being the daughter of an immigrant that’s like strike one, that was already a resource that I didn’t have. And so I from the from childhood would walk into rooms and not know what’s normal. I wouldn’t have been able to put the language to this but immediately trying to figure out how am I supposed to behave in this situation, what’s culturally acceptable? What’s what’s normal? What do I need to do?

And remember, like, I’m an enneagram two what do I need to do to get people to love me? And I don’t know what those things were. So yes, exposed, unsafe, vulnerable. That’s like the trinity of scary and afraid, like as a kid. And so I felt that at pretty young age. Obviously I grew up and I kind of found my teeth, figured out where my footing was. But still, would walk into situations. I’ll give you a, this is a funny anecdote. I’m a very tattooed woman and I wear Black. I have dark eyeliner on. I wouldn’t say I’m goth. I just like dark colors and I like this aesthetic.

And my husband is not this way. He is an Enneagram nine. He doesn’t know style. He’s just gonna wear the blue button up and the khakis to work as an engineer. Like that’s just what he’s going to do. And I remember the first few months at his job, maybe the first year at his job, I’d never met his coworkers until a Christmas party. And I, in my head kind of go through like, do I show up with like long sleeves, hide my tattoos at this, you know, professional Christmas party? Or do I just show up authentically? And I have chosen to show up authentically. And I think I surprised his coworkers. Like I clearly didn’t fit. And I thought, I think it’s funny now. I mean, it was like a harmless situation. And my husband came up to me later and he said, my coworker thought that I was married to someone. He was like, he wasn’t expecting you. And I was like, well, what, who was he expecting? And my husband told me Joe was expecting someone that looked like Laura Ingalls Wilder. And my husband was like, who is that? And I was cracking up and I’m a reader. So I know books. And I said, Little House on the Prairie. So they were expecting your wife to look like someone from little house on the prairie. And I show up tattooed with like almost a full sleeve and I love that. I love being weird now. Like I’ve embraced that part of myself.

And I think that is a part of belonging is learning to walk into these rooms where you don’t fit and maybe you don’t belong I know I don’t belong in certain cultural context now I know that I can walk into even a church even a church that says come as you are we welcome all parts of you; even a radically inclusive church I can walk in and still feel like I shouldn’t belong here, but I do belong to myself And so I have learned over the course of my life. that so often I abandoned myself and if you’ve read the book that you know this I abandoned myself and my preferences the things that make me laugh the things that delight me, but also my safety my sense of trust in myself trusting my gut I abandoned a lot of those things in order to belong in certain spaces. And so I think my experiences both in the church and out of the church have led me to this realization of like what it means to belong to myself, it means to have this inner sense of stability such that I trust my internal resources and I trust I have those internal resources that will say, hey girl, you need to leave, you are not safe here.

And so belonging, I think does include a people group. And I have that inner discernment that knows when I am truly welcomed into a space. And I have been in those spaces and I believe it’s beautiful. And when you know, you know that all of you is welcomed. I think all of us experience not fitting and we can either use those experiences as fear fuel to scare us into complicity or to compliance or obedience or it can be the inner well of wisdom that helps you better discern places that you want to be and show up and take up space in the future.

Ruth Perry (16:52)
Something I appreciated about your book, each chapter you give a biblical example of a character or a story that related to what you’re talking about. I know you talked a lot about how you related to the story of Joseph being betrayed in your personal story with your church trauma.

I’m a pastor and so I’ve been preaching through the lectionary for almost three years now. And this past Sunday, the text was from John chapter nine about the blind man who was a beggar and Jesus healed him with spitting in the dirt and creating a mud and sent him to the pool of Salome to wash. then instead of celebrating his entire community freaks out and they interrogate him basically. The neighbors don’t even recognize him anymore now that he’s healed. And the Pharisees keep saying, we know that you are a sinner or you were born in sin and we know that Jesus is not from God because we know from Moses. And they keep using the word we know, we know they’re so certain about their system. So I talked about systems in my sermon.

Could you explain to us, what does the word system even mean? What does it mean when you’re talking about a system and the church or in the church? And then how is othering a typical part of a church system?

Jenai Auman (18:06)
Hmm. Yeah, I am a seminarian. I’ve studied theology. I am not a biblical text scholar. So I usually leave that to my friends that I trust. But one thing that I learned from another friend, his name’s Rohadi, he wrote a book, When We Belong. And in his book, he mentions that there actually is a word for systems in the Bible. It’s the Greek word cosmos. And I think You can find it in Ephesians, “For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against like the rulers and the principalities.” And there’s the word like the systems of the world. or the somewhere in there. And he says cosmos can be translated kind of as a system. I mean, the universe, the actual cosmos are a system, they’re systems of systems of inter like planets that rely on on gravity and proximity to one another.

And so whenever I talk about the word system, my undergrad is in behavioral health. And a part of my behavioral health science degree was learning about family systems. I thought I was going to become a licensed therapist, and that did not happen. But I do appreciate my education. And one of the things we learned in family systems is that everyone kind of has a role to play in a family system. And whenever there is some sort of harmful family dynamic or if there’s even an addiction within a family, you can’t just treat the person with the addiction. You actually have to treat the whole family because somehow, especially over the course of time, there are micro adjustments that people have made in their behaviors such that they’ve enabled a particular addiction or a particular behavior. It doesn’t even have to be an addiction.

For instance, if dad is never expected to do any of the housework and it’s falling all on mom or all on the other spouse or all on the kids and it’s wearing people down and like relationships are breaking down, well, the system needs to adjust because there have been micro adjustments over the course of years or decades that have allowed for this maladaptive behavior to foster. And so whenever I talk about systems in the church, I talk about something similar. Have you ever used family language of churches before?

Ruth Perry (20:14)
Absolutely, yeah.

Jenai Auman (20:15)
Yeah, and I would say in the same way a local congregation has adapted to certain behaviors. So you expect these certain folks to serve in the children’s department or the children’s ministry. You expect certain people to be preaching. You expect certain people to X, Y, and Z like be the ushers to pass out or distribute communion or take up the offering, whatever your norms in your congregation are, you have a certain family system happening. And my use of that language is that in toxic systems, there’s actually someone who’s dictating what the system looks like. They have a lot of the power that enables them to structure the system. And then people in power in a toxic system have none of the responsibility to execute the labor of the system.

And that is where I believe it gets toxic because you put a lot more undue stress. The load, the weight that everyone is shouldering and carrying is very unequal. And so when you have a lot of people that have a lot of responsibilities but no power to change the system, I would say that creates undue stress and lots of relational dynamics. There are fraught relationships. And so I tend to use the word system in that way, kind of in the family system way but for anyone who is familiar with, other like therapeutic modalities, there’s internal family systems. So, if you’re familiar, there’s the parts language of like a part of me feels this and a part of me feels like there’s just a lot of moving parts in a system, particularly in a local congregation.

Ruth Perry (21:49)
In your writing, you talk about how churches sometimes cause harm instead of offering refuge. Why do you think faith communities struggle to recognize when they are harming people?

Jenai Auman (22:00)
I think they struggle to recognize that they’re harming people because they haven’t done the work on the front end to acknowledge harm is eventually going to come. Like they haven’t done a lot of the proactive work of protecting the vulnerable. And when your cause of your organization, your mission statement or whatever is supposedly altruistic and someone is bringing forward an allegation that they were harmed under this organization and it goes counter to their mission statement and their mission statement is probably in their bylaws. It probably is how they drive donors and there’s a lot of reasons why a church would not want to help like foster repair.

And I will also say there are some churches, I believe, that are fostering repair. And I think a lot of them who are able to do that are acknowledging we needed to do work on the front end. Before there’s a crisis, you need to have a plan. Because if you try to construct a plan in the middle of a crisis, you’re going to hurt a lot of people. So many and I don’t subscribe to this anymore like the doctrine of original sin and we’re all sinful Like if you believe that then you should inherently believe that you’re gonna, even if accidentally even if unintentionally harm someone then have a game plan But those who I think there’s like an identity thing in churches again. It’s the family family dynamic of like, I’m a proud member of this church and almost proselytized to the degree of like bringing people into this church. What does that do to my identity when the leader of this church has caused a lot of harm? It not only hurts the organization, but the identity of every member of that organization. It’s almost too risky.

And usually in enmeshed systems where like identity and group think is so enmeshed. It’s hard to think that your altruistic, goodness, gospel driven mission could actually hurt someone and I think there are some people who do knowingly hurt others And I think they they also spiritually abuse their congregation in a way to manipulate them to perpetuate the hurt onto a particular victim. And also I think that there are churches that are unintentional about their hurt and they weren’t wise enough to do the proactive work on the front end to mitigate risk and actually center the vulnerable, center the poor in spirit, center the pure in heart, the peacemakers. They haven’t done the work of like, this is what it looks like for us to center these things. And I think it’s just easier to just sideline the hurt person instead of actually doing the work of changing the system.

Ruth Perry (24:29)
How does power factor into church systems and how can people with power other others?

Jenai Auman (24:34)
Well, and I think I mentioned this in the book, I don’t think I elaborated on it as much as I would have liked because of space, but power dynamics change and shift. So I do concede in the book that some pastors can also be spiritually abused. I think some people erroneously think that I’m always attacking pastors and that’s not necessarily the case. I think some pastors are spiritually abused by other pastors.

I also think that pastors, in a small church context, and I’m talking like very small church context, congregationally run, meaning they vote in and out and they decide your salary. I think the power dynamic shifts to a more social power. So whoever has the power to change the system, the power dynamic is in their favor. Whether that’s one man in a mega church or whether that is a handful of congregants who have the financial pull to make decisions and to vote someone in or out. Because I know there are different church systems that do things differently. Some pastors are appointed, some pastors found their own churches and it is built around them. Those are usually centered on the pastor. And then there are congregational situations where the congregation has full sway. And maybe not all of the congregation, but a few members of the congregation has full sway. So power dynamics change.

That’s why I love the work of Kimberlé Crenshaw. She’s a Black woman who’s, believe, a sociologist. She coined the term intersectionality. Intersectionality takes into account of different power dynamics among different groups. So for instance, there is this idea that intersectionality exists between the Black community and the white community. But you need intersectionality to acknowledge that the difference between men and their power and women. And that’s is women on both sides of the Black and white spectrum. so intersectionality takes into account all of these compounding identities of marginalization. And the more marginalized identities you have in a particular context, the more likely you are to be sidelined and ostracized. And so it’s not as the power dynamics change, they are intersectional.

For instance, women’s suffrage, in the early 20th century, late 19th century, I have been telling people that’s white women’s suffrage because women of color didn’t have the right to vote until much later, much later, not until like the Civil Rights Act. And so I tell folks like there was no intersectionality then it was really only white women who could vote because they didn’t see the intersection of race as an issue. And so power dynamics changed because the context changes.

And so it’s just important to learn and educate yourself more on power dynamics so that when you enter a new context, when I enter a specific space, I can kind of see who the power holders are and it gives me information on what I want to do with that. Do I feel safe here? Do I want to spend time here? And so, yeah, it’s so confusing and so complex that people study it. And I will say to anyone listening you can read about it and I write a little bit about it in the book.

Ruth Perry (27:40)
And on your substack. What is your substack?

Jenai Auman (27:42)
Yes, it’s jenaiauman.substack.com. It’s actually gonna get a rebrand soon. It’s gonna be a very fun rebrand. It’s like gentle and kind of orthodox, but then a little like spicy. I feel like that’s kind of the niche that I’ve kind of made for myself, but I do write a lot on sociological power dynamics and the politics of respectability, again, that is work done by Black women that I’ve learned from on the politics of respectability, how we all play the politics of respectability, and how I suspect that most people who don’t have very much power in their context don’t like playing the politics of respectability, but they feel like they have to. So yeah, I write quite a bit on that and I, yeah, I invite people to join me on Substack.

Ruth Perry (28:23)
So you’ve talked about how systems protect themselves rather than the wounded. What are some signs that a church culture has become more invested in self-protection than in healing?

Jenai Auman (28:33)
There’s this great work by a Psychologist named Carl Rogers, I don’t know if anyone’s familiar with him, but he coined the term person centered therapy Meaning what a particular person needs in their own therapeutic space like a client needs in their therapeutic space might be very different than what you as the therapist have been trained in or how you would maybe normally use one particular modality with a client, with this particular one, you may need to go a different direction because it’s not helpful. It doesn’t foster healing. It doesn’t matter that the other modalities have research on research about how they’re beneficial and adaptive and helpful 90 % of the time. If that’s not true for this person, you can’t go with the research, you go with the person. So I think in a church culture, they, they go off of numbers, kind of like research. This is what we’ve we’ve seen when we preach on this, we have less attendance, we know that people show up the most on Easter and Christmas. So like a lot of the decision making factors have to do with numbers, And that’s quantitative. I was an engineer early in college, obviously, I’m not an engineer anymore, but I retain some of it.

But I did quantitative analysis and that is strictly numbers. Like what do the numbers say? But healing for a person is qualitative. Person-centered therapy is a qualitative treatment. What is the quality of care look like for this person in front of me? And sometimes qualitative treatment is very costly. It is not profitable. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of energy. And I will also add, we live in a capitalistic society. So we have high emphasis on, you know, pick yourself up by your bootstraps. And we tend to devalue people who are unable to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, let alone acknowledging the fact that some people don’t have boots. And so qualitative care is very costly. It slows down the system.

I’m reading actually from a writer right now, his name is Paul Kingsnorth, and he has a book that recently came out called Against the Machine. And he talks about how the machinery of our societies, the mechanisms of industrialization of capitalism actually don’t see us as human. And when that machinery gets ingrained in the culture of the church, you see people who are hurting as obstacles that are in the way of the machinery of the church and slowing down to care for them is a problem. The recent Knives Out movie, what’s the name of that?

Ruth Perry (31:09)
Was it Wake Up Dead Man? Yeah.

Jenai Auman (31:11)
Yes, that one with Josh O’Connor as the priest and they’re trying to solve this mystery and he’s on the phone. I’m trying not to spoil it for anyone but he’s on the phone with someone who’s like chatty Kathy. And for anyone who has worked on a church staff, you know that those people exist. They’re just chatty. sometimes you enjoy it and sometimes they’re in the way from getting you back on track with the investigation. And then in the movie, this chatty Cathy hits Josh O’Connor’s character pretty hard with some real stuff and if you watch his face, it switches and he’s like, I need to care for this person. And Daniel Craig’s character, the detective is like, man, like we were solving a case and Josh O’Connor goes into another room to talk to this woman who’s going through something legitimate and real and cares for her.

Like caring for a person is costly when currency exists. I think money is made up. Money is a system we’ve created. But time is truly the only thing that we have and it’s dictated away. And he gave his time, his presence to a person, even if over the phone. And it cost him some time on the investigation. And I think some churches aren’t willing to take that time because whatever reason, whatever goal that they’ve created for themselves, not saying that an investigation for a dead person isn’t important, because it is, but caring for the person in front of you, I think that was like the most Jesus-like moment, like positive portrayal of Christianity in a long time, and especially from the Catholic Church. And so I think that is a good illustration of like why churches sometimes don’t care is because people are in the way rather than being viewed as people to love and human beings to care for.

Ruth Perry (32:52)
Yeah, I love that movie. And I do think the, if you think about it, the American church today does run like a business instead of like a family, even though families can be dysfunctional too. But I mean, we’ve become the temple system instead of being the harbor and the refuge for hurting people that drew so many people to early Christianity. And now we’re just hemorrhaging people and so many of them are walking away from their church experience with hurt and pain and it’s really heartbreaking to see that.

Jenai Auman (33:25)
Yeah, it really, it is, heartbreaking. But then I also know, number one, I don’t try to fix it. And I don’t try to fix anyone the book, but I also know like they’ve got to walk their own journey. And my hope for them is that they find something about themselves that they can reclaim along the way.

Ruth Perry (33:42)
Something that really often happens when someone has experienced harm or abuse and then they tell someone else and they expect to be heard. A lot of Christians have a very hard time believing allegations of abuse. Why is it easier to disbelieve allegations of abuse and othering and harm? And then when someone is disbelieved, how does that affect them?

Jenai Auman (34:06)
Hmm. Well, it’s kind of like going back to the machinery language. It’s easier to disbelieve them because nothing for the system changes. Like if I choose to say, I don’t believe you, then the system can keep going. There is actually a Polish psychologist, He’s a Polish Jew. His name’s Henri Tajfel. He was in the concentration camps or maybe prisoner of war camps, but he fought during World War II. And he survived. He came out of that experience. He decided he wanted to study in-group and out-group dynamics. And he eventually coined, I think with a student of his social identity theory, meaning how do we socially organize ourselves? And not only did he study that, but how can one particular in-group like Nazi Germany, hate another out group, like the Jewish people. And so he studied these things and how even the church was complicit. And a lot of it had to do with social identity, meaning who I am as a person is intrinsically tied to who this group is and how this group kind of congregates. Are you a sports person?

Ruth Perry (35:11)
I have a sports son, so I’m slowly learning.

Jenai Auman (35:14)
Okay, well, then we are not the people to be having this conversation, but I’ll use it as an example for people who are listening. I am not a sports person. I do not care. Like go without me. I will not feel like I’m missing out. If everyone in a group starts talking about a particular college sports, basketball, whatever, basketball does pique my attention a little bit. But other than that, I like go into my own happy place in my brain when that conversation happens.

Because I live in Texas people argue about sports in Texas, which is probably why I’m over it. When you are a diehard Cowboys fan and someone in your presence says something about the Cowboys negatively, like it is a fight because, and I think this is true, their identity as a human being, there is pride and a good pride. Or maybe a bad pride, I don’t know, behind the idea that I’m connected to this particular sports team. Such that there are people who have decked out their entire garages. They no longer park inside their garages in Texas because it’s become their man cave with their sports jerseys on the wall. I’m not even kidding. This is for real. And their identity is almost to a core personhood level, interconnected with being a particular sports fan or team fan.

I think something similar happens with the church. I think that’s how you get Christian nationalism. There’s something within the core of you that connects with this particular group identity, whether it’s the values they say that they value, whether it’s the sort of camaraderie that is established, how you laugh together, how you find quote unquote joy with one another, there there is an identity aspect. And to Henri Tajfel’s point, there was incredible identity among Nazi Germans. And if you’ve studied World War II documentaries or learned all about that stuff, you kind of know that Nazi Germany came out of a time when Germany was suffering after World War I, and then there was economic depression. And so they were trying to survive. Nazi Germany identity, I mean, it was formed for many reasons, but it was appealing for a lot of people. It provided them security in a way that they needed security.

And I think the church does something similar today. It provides a security for something within us that we need security for and so when somebody comes up with an allegation that challenges the group with whom we identify? They are not only challenging the system. Just by making the allegation it touches the people of the group, their insecurities because that thing that they so desperately cling to, it’s been destabilized by this allegation. And so it’s far easier to say, we don’t believe Emily anymore, or we don’t believe John because he’s not in unity with us. He proved that he was disloyal. That destroys a person. How much it destroys a person varies.

If a person has a strong support system outside of the church, I think that they have some stability. But if the church, if that group was their stability and they’ve been cast out, it is detrimental. It is detrimental to a person’s health. And that was the case for my family. Our families didn’t live close to us. Our church family had become what I would have called our found family. And to be disbelieved was to be annihilated. I didn’t know who I was anymore because that identity, again, it was an enmeshed identity that wasn’t healthy, had been taken away from me. And so it is detrimental, for sure.

Ruth Perry (38:51)
Your work is deeply trauma-informed. How did studying behavioral health and trauma shape the way you approach faith and spiritual healing?

Jenai Auman (38:58)
Well, I think it’s made me a space maker. So I’m not a clinical therapist, like I thought I would be. I love having a lot of friends who are clinical therapists, because I get to witness their wisdom. And then I am recipient of just this tremendous multitude of learning. And so even with my education, there’s so much I don’t know. But what I do know is that trauma is complex, again, person-centered. We all went through the pandemic together, but It’s affected us very differently. Some of us have very different like lungs now some of us have very different X, and Z now and so my education both in behavioral health, but also in seminary and Exegetical understanding it’s made me more spacious toward different perspectives. It’s made me less fundamental like you have to believe X Y and Z or if you don’t, then you’re not a true follower of like the best way of Jesus or whatever. I don’t do that anymore.

I understand now also that oftentimes because of trauma and wounds and the pain, if you don’t want to call it trauma, if you just say that you had a young adult experience, if you had a painful childhood, that religion and faith can be a stabilizing factor. It can not only be like a true essence faith, it can also be a coping mechanism. And so it’s just made me more spacious in understanding like there’s a lot that I don’t know. And perhaps the best gift I can give a person is not more information or education. It’s just to sit with them. And Ruth, that’s exactly what Jesus did. He just gave people wounded people his time and attention.

And so I actually realized that a lot of trauma information is found sometimes in just the way Jesus treated the marginalized and the oppressed and the wounded and the heat, like the people that needed healing. And so it’s just made me slow down and to resist the ways in which the machines of culture and the systems of culture have required that I speed up. Sometimes resistance is simply slowing down and paying more attention to the person in front of you.

Ruth Perry (41:01)
That’s so good. I know a lot of people, when they experience church harm, they feel like they have lost God in the process along with their institution. How do you help people disentangle God from their experience of church harm?

Jenai Auman (41:15)
Yeah, I think the how I would edit that question from like a trauma informed perspective is does that person want to disentangle God from their experience because they don’t need me telling them what they need to do or not do. I don’t feel like I need to defend God. That’s one thing that I’ve learned is God is so big (Also, not a man. So I try not to use he pronouns for God.) God is so big and so much more grand than we could ever realize. I don’t think God needs Jenai Auman from Southeast Texas to defend God when people are angry with God. So my question is really like, what do you want to do with your faith? What do you want to do? Like, where do you want to go?

And what do you want to process? Like as a friend, what do you want to process? We can process that. I had a friend come to me fairly recently asking me, hey, someone’s asked me to be a part of this group and X, Y, and Z. And I told her, I have opinions about this group. I’m not going to tell you what those opinions are. Again, person-centered. So I asked her, what sort of person do you want to become?

And could these people be a part of that? If you envision yourself living your best life or flourishing, what does flourishing look like for you? And what sort of people do you need around you to help you flourish? In the same way, I would ask like to your question, like your understanding of God is probably very informed by a particular worldview right now.

Like, what do you need to do to become the sort of person that you need to become? And if they want my opinion on a more expansive view of God, I’ll certainly give it to them. One of my professors, and he was quoting someone else, he said, you can’t teach someone theology in the middle of a storm. So if someone’s going through some stuff, like real life stuff.

You can’t try to throw deep theology that requires space to think about and process. You can’t give that to them because they don’t have space. They’re containing too much in their story. They don’t have space in their container for theology. And so my responsibility is just making space for them. And if there is one day space in their container to talk about theology, I certainly will do that, but I wouldn’t impress that upon them. That’s my perspective anyway.

Ruth Perry (43:30)
Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. That’s really good. I think for me, my very first really traumatic church experience was 15 years ago, For the past 15 years, I’ve read books and listened to people and gleaned things here and there and here and there. And I’ve learned to find my belonging within myself, like you talked about. And I’ve learned not to be so certain and fundamentalist about what I believe, but to have open hands because I’m probably wrong about things that I believe right now. And if God is love, then God loves me even in the areas that I’m wrong. And so a lot of those little pieces of my spiritual formation have healed over 15 years. But what I appreciate about your book is all the little lessons that have taken me 15 years to learn. You have in this little story, woven in with your personal story and with the Bible, just so much language that’s really helpful to heal. And so if anybody resonates with anything we’ve talked about today, I really encourage you to pick up by Jenai Auman and give give it a read. Listen to her read it to you on Audible. You’ll really appreciate that experience as well. And you have another book in the works, right?

Jenai Auman (44:45)
I do. I’m in the weird stage of what I want to do with it and how I want to write it. And I’m going slow. I’m also graduating seminary, in May. So part of me is like, girl, I need time. I need space. But again, it’s a part of my journey because of what I’ve experienced, I’m very active in activism spaces, social justice, because I have a mother who doesn’t speak English as a first language. And people look down on people who can’t speak English perfectly, I’ve learned since the Super Bowl, which is very frustrating for me. I am active in activism because of my lived experience, but how can you be active in activism and also like, it’s from that space within you where you become like a holistic activist. And so I’m kind of, I’m writing that book, but I’m also writing on Substack. I’m going to play with these ideas on Substack. I’m also on the internet and you can find me. I’m accessible. That’s how you and I found each other. So ⁓ I would love to connect with people. I am on Instagram too, but primarily heading over to Substack. Yeah.

Ruth Perry (45:39)
Yeah. I think it was what you wrote after the Super Bowl that I was like, I got to get her on my podcast. That was really good. And then I listened to your book and I’m just so grateful that you have spent this time with me this morning, Jenai, and that you’ve created this really excellent resource for people. And I hope that even if you don’t resonate at all with this language. I hope that you read it because you never know when you’re gonna be at odds with the system that you’re in. I mean, it’s a tenuous situation where you could be ejected at any point of departure from the social norms of that system. And it’s a really common experience, I think.

Jenai Auman (46:26)
Yeah, and again, I wrote it primarily for people who are trying to heal from this sort of thing. I’ve also wrote it for people who are walking with people and they don’t know how to navigate and you can read it along with them. And I think it’s a resource. I think it will be, unfortunately, timely for a while. I don’t think the issues of toxic systems and toxic churches is going to go away anytime soon. Although if it did, would be the biggest cheerleader. But yeah, I hopeful that it’s a resource for other people. I tried to write it to be a friend to others who didn’t have many friends in their lives.

Ruth Perry (47:01)
Well, you’re a beautiful person with a beautiful soul. Thank you so much for blessing others with your work, Jenai. God bless.

Jenai Auman (47:08)
Thanks

Please be sure to follow The Beautiful Kingdom Builders Podcast on your favorite platform: YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Substack, or more! Thank you for being a part of this important conversation today, and God bless you.

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016 I Rev. Dr. Lisa Corry: Lessons in Grace-Filled Leadership

Posted on March 25, 2026 by | Leave a comment

This episode was so fun to record! Lisa mentored myself and my brother Matthew McNutt when we were students at Gordon College, and we had the best time reconnecting and reminiscing with Lisa about those pivotal years. Matthew and I both participated and led the Chapel Drama Team while we were students at Gordon, which meant participating on the Chapel Cabinet under Lisa’s valiant leadership. The pictures below overlap Matthew’s senior year and my freshman year. I’m glad that Matthew could find some pictures to share–he’s more organized than I am!

Join us for an inspiring conversation with Reverend Dr. Lisa Corry as she shares her journey through faith, ministry, and personal growth. Discover insights on spiritual development, leadership, and the importance of grace-filled mentorship. You can listen to our conversation on The Beautiful Kingdom Builders Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Substack, and more! 

TRANSCRIPT:

Ruth Perry (00:15)
My guest today is the lovely Reverend Dr. Lisa Corry who was working at Gordon College in the chapel office when myself and my brother Matthew, who I’ve invited to be here today as well, we were both part of the chapel cabinet as students. And so Lisa was our mentor. And I’m very excited to have you on today, Lisa.

Lisa (00:38)
I’m thrilled to be here. It’s so great to see you both.

Matthew McNutt (00:41)
Yeah, it’s fun to catch up after so many years.

Lisa (00:43)
Yes, a lot of years.

Ruth Perry (00:45)
So when I started my podcast, I was thinking for my first season, something that I wanted to do is bring on people who’ve been instrumental in my own faith journey. And having you as a mentor at Gordon College was a really clutch time. I remember you walked through the death of a very close friend of mine. You helped me through that. You helped me with my first dating relationship. And you encouraged me to break up with that person? Which I did!

Matthew McNutt (01:16)
Ha!

Ruth Perry (01:17)
It was very wise. It was very wise of you. I appreciate that. You gave me a lot of opportunities to just be involved and have a voice on the cabinet. And that was a lot of fun for me. Matthew, what do you remember about Lisa at Gordon?

Matthew McNutt (01:33)
I probably stressed you out a lot more than Ruth did. I have to reassure you, I’m a lot more organized and prepared than I was back in the late 1900s when I was one of your students. Oh my word. So what I do remember is I jumped in as a freshman, there was a chapel drama team, and I signed up to join it. I had at that point in my life. I really had sworn off God and I was 100 % in it because I liked acting and being on stage in front of 1200 of my peers just had so much appeal and But I was also really good at faking the Christian stuff and by the time my sophomore year rolled around, I thought I was good at faking it.

I’d grown up in really fundamentalist and legalistic environments and just by the time I was 17, 19 years old, had gone like, this is, I don’t wanna be a part of that. And I showed up at Gordon, a 21 year old freshman, and I remember around the end of my sophomore year, at that point, I had become part of the leadership of the drama ministry. But towards the end of my sophomore year, I was just getting really overwhelmed with guilt over, I I’m claiming to be things I’m not. I’m really faking it. I don’t, I don’t know what. And so I had scheduled a meeting with you, Lisa, to just kind of go.

I’m lying. I’m lying about all these things. I, know, and I think I need to get my life right with God, but here’s all the ways I am not honoring God. And I was probably the most honest I had ever been in my life at that point to anyone. And I just genuinely thought, yeah, you’re like, what did, what did I do in this moment? I remember with the environments I grew up in,

Lisa (03:21)
I’m nervous. What did I do?

Matthew McNutt (03:28)
I just assumed with what I’m saying, that you would go away and just be like, we need to get him out of our school. Like he definitely shouldn’t be doing chapel drama. He should probably be gone. Like he’s a failure and like just such legalistic harsh environments. And, you in that moment just express all this love and grace and just were like, you actually seem surprised when you realized.

I thought this was going to just kind of land me out of the school and out of everything. And instead you really dialed in and mentor. And I’d already been kind of wrestling with, this grace-filled approach to Christianity that Gordon College is modeling for real? you know, cause I had remembered thinking at times like I could be that type of Christian. And so that was a really pivotal moment for me where I finally was like, okay, like I’m gonna go all in with God. And my junior year of college, when you were kind of coaching and mentoring, had gotten rid of my TV, which was a big deal. I love movies and I got rid of all of my secular, it wasn’t even that some of it was bad. It was just like, I need to change how I focus on God. And so my junior year was probably the most,

Lisa (04:37)
I do remember that.

Matthew McNutt (04:50)
spiritually intense growth period in my life. And I have given your response to me as an example to youth leaders that I’ve been training for the last 25 years of this is how we love students into faith and show grace. And so, yeah, you were a huge part of me turning back to God. And then a year or so later when I started going, I think I’m actually like, I remembered being so embarrassed telling you, I think I might be called to be a youth pastor, not a high school teacher. And I was waiting for you to laugh at me and be like, this is great because I grew up in environments that gave me very low self-confidence. And so, yeah, so I’ve been in ministry for 25 years now, full-time ministry.

Lisa (05:32)
Heh.

Matthew McNutt (05:42)
in huge part because of those couple pivotal conversations. So that was probably more a longer winded thing than you were looking for, Ruth. But, but yeah.

Ruth Perry (05:53)
No, I mean, that is so beautiful. I love to hear it.

And I just wonder, like, how many years were you in college ministry, Lisa?

Lisa (06:02)
Yeah, that’s a good question. Let me think a second. I think probably 25 maybe. I mean, not always directly, but I always gave time in that direction when I worked in college settings. Yeah, but it’s neat to hear you reflect, both of you. And I just remember you both were authentic, fun. One of you was a little more wacky than the other one.

Ruth Perry (06:26)
Which one?

Matthew McNutt (06:27)
Probably the one that landed in youth ministry and not the one pastoring three churches.

Lisa (06:33)
And you both are leaders. You were leaders then and you’re leaders now. I mean, it’s really beautiful. And it’s beautiful that, I mean, we’re all a little bit older and we all have enough mileage to know that this life holds many lives. And you all are leaders contributing to the kingdom of God and the streams of your church. And that’s, golly, that’s what it’s about. That’s great.

Ruth Perry (06:56)
I think something that inspires me about your ministry is just the non-anxious presence that you were to very angsty people at that stage of life. You were always just really calm, cool and collected and kind and gracious. And I think it speaks to your trust in the power of the Holy Spirit to do the Holy Spirit’s work. And that when you just show up and you’re there for someone, you don’t have to be able to quote the whole Bible or explain 10 tenets of like, I think the way that we kind of grew up, you just should know the road to salvation and like know all these things and ask people and you’re carrying the whole weight of their salvation on your shoulders almost. And so just learning that

Actually, God is a lot bigger than you are. You can just hear someone out and then maybe offer them a little bit of grace and just how far that can go in their spiritual life is really powerful.

Lisa (07:55)
Wow, that’s neat to hear. I was ordained in the Episcopal Church nine years ago this year. And as I reflect to people what a big part of my kind of day job is right now, I tell people a lot that I share calm, that that’s a big piece of my job, is I just share calm with people. And so it’s fun that you would bring that up. I don’t necessarily remember being super calm in those days, but.

Ruth Perry (08:17)
Super calm.

Lisa (08:19)
Yeah.

Matthew McNutt (08:20)
I mean, you’re pretty calm and focused with all of my antics. I remember you reassured another student that was really stressed out. They were leading the dance ministry or something, and they were worried, like, is McNutt gonna even have this stuff done in time? And you were like, look, you because her personality was she already had everything done months ahead of time kind of a deal and you were like look you guys are very different but I can assure you when the day comes it will be ready.

Lisa (08:52)
Yeah, you know, you were never early, but you were never late.

Ruth Perry (08:59)
This is reminding me of a big lesson you taught me. I was a perfectionist and super stressed out about everything. And you taught me that I needed to have life balance and that I should just give 80 % effort. So I dialed it down to 80 % effort my senior year and my grades stayed the same, but my quality of life vastly improved.

Lisa (09:10)
Yes. ⁓

Matthew McNutt (09:13)
Ha ha ha ha ha!

Lisa (09:21)
Hahaha

Ruth Perry (09:22)
And so I’ve taken that into like, I’m just trying to give 80 % here and there and good enough is my life motto now. Good enough.

Lisa (09:29)
Man. That’s right. That’s exactly right. Yes. You know, I was reminding myself I was doing a small group last night and there’s a quote from the, I forget the author’s name, but the gentleman wrote something like everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarten. But the sentence is, anything worth doing is worth not doing well.

Matthew McNutt (09:31)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Lisa (09:48)
Isn’t that great?

Ruth Perry (09:48)
That’s good. Yeah! Lisa, can you tell us about you now? Because when I was in college, I don’t think I ever asked you about you. So now 20 something years later, let’s catch up. Where are you from? Where did you grow up?

Lisa (09:56)
You, how funny. How funny. You know, because when I think of you both, that’s so funny. I don’t think it ever crossed my mind that we didn’t talk about me. But I always think of Boothbay, Maine when I think of you guys. And coffee. I think of coffee. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I’m from Michigan, just outside of Detroit originally. And I’ve lived all over the country.

Ruth Perry (10:12)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Moosehead Coffee Beans. That was the family business.

Lisa (10:25)
Not that I was wandering, but I kept kind of just following the bouncy ball. And I was always a late kind of decider to do things. Like I think when I was with you both, I don’t know if I’d started it yet, but before I left Gordon, I had dinked away slowly at a Masters from Gordon Conwell. And I don’t even remember when that was exactly, but I don’t know if you guys were in my galaxy then, but probably because I left Gordon not long after you guys left. Maybe it’s…

Ruth Perry (10:52)
I think I remember when you graduated.

Matthew McNutt (10:52)
Yeah, I feel like I remember you taking classes, like one at a time, I feel like. One or two.

Lisa (10:56)
Oh, okay. Yeah, it was the power of the dink.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. It took me hundred years, but I got it. But I didn’t even start that till I was probably 30, you know? And then I have a doctorate also that I worked on and almost got kicked out because I took too long, but I did graduate. It was a cohort program, but from Biola, Talbot.

But I didn’t start that until my mid 40s. So about me. So I’ve gone to school. I’ve worked in higher ed and I lived actually, believe it or not, after I left Massachusetts of all places, I’d probably surprised myself because I had to look at a map about where it was before I took the job. I moved to Arkansas. I lived in Arkansas for about 20 years. Isn’t that wild?

And it’s a really great place. And I worked at John Brown University for a while and probably about a decade, I think. It’s in Northwest Arkansas. And in that season got more and more involved in the Episcopal Church and discovered a call there and went through the process, which is fun and a lot of discernment and discovery. I lived in Minnesota for a little while and it was very cold and dark and I don’t know why anybody lives there.

Sorry if anybody’s offended by that. yeah, I’m in St. Louis area now. Been here about a year and a half, maybe two years in August.

Matthew McNutt (12:20)
What landed you in college ministry for so many years? What was your pull to that or what was your calling to that?

Lisa (12:27)
Yeah, I, when I was in college, it was a really important time in my own faith development. I came to college really questioning God. I almost got a scholarship to play basketball and I hurt my knee my senior year of high school. And when that was taken away, I kind of crumbled a bit, you know, as we do when we’re 17 and something important has taken away. So I found myself at Michigan State as an undergrad and was really searching and stumbled into through people on my floor getting involved in Campus Crusade for Christ.

And that was a real foundational experience for me for Bible study and learning about this personal relationship with God and all that that meant and the kingdom of God really helped me set in motion some values. And I think because that was such a significant time after my undergrad, went on staff with that organization for little bit. I didn’t really fit. It’s pretty, not that I’m not conservative, but it’s pretty, it’s pretty conservative. And so I, after a few years, I slid out of there, but it was a great experience for me as a student and as a staff member.

And then after that, I discovered there was this thing called Christian higher education. I’d never heard of it before. See, I’m really slow, I’m slow, slow, slow, but I, I got on that bus and I thought, my gosh, I can work and get paid and invest in college students. What a great idea. so Gordon was my first stop and working in Christian Higher Ed. So I worked at like three different colleges, but since I’m talking with you today, I’ll say you all are my favorite. Gordon’s my favorite.

Ruth Perry (14:04)
I’m keeping that in. Okay, so I wanted to follow up. I have two questions initially. Number one, what do people from Arkansas call themselves? Arkansas-sian? Like, what is that?

Lisa (14:15)
It took me a long time to learn this. Arkansans. Yeah, because I used to call them Arkansinians. But they’d be like, no, Arkansans. Yeah.

Ruth Perry (14:18)
Arkansans, okay, thank you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can see that one too. Arkansans, helpful. All right, and then my

Matthew McNutt (14:27)
Didn’t take off.

Ruth Perry (14:30)
Second question. I guess I’m kind of cluing in that maybe you didn’t grow up in church.

Lisa (14:34)
Good, good, good, good. Listen, good attentive listening. Yeah. Nominally Catholic group, nominally Catholic. And I was confirmed in the Catholic church, but it wasn’t a center of my life or I think it was a practice, particularly with my mom’s, but not necessarily the family system commitment. And so. Maybe even a little bit like you’ve described, Matthew, just I think I probably had more fear of God than vision about a Christian life. So that took a while to undo and redo. And those college years for me are when that happened.

Matthew McNutt (15:11)
So what would you say with 25 years in college ministry, what were kind of your key concerns or key passions when you were working with young people? What is your style of ministry or what was your emphasis with young people in that stage of life?

Lisa (15:22)
Mm. Yeah. Yeah, you know, two things strike me. One is kind of you kind of inferred about this, Ruth. I think not a lot of people, particularly college age students at that time, and I’ve been out of that loop for a little bit, you know better than I do, but don’t have people that sit across from them and look them in the eye and say, how are you? And so I think just expressing that care and not hurrying past that question and following wherever it goes without judgment does a lot inside a young person’s deep places, I think.

So that was a big piece, I think, was just that relational holding of space and being fully present to them. The other thing is, in my doctorate, though you know, doctorates are hard, which you’re aware of, Matthew. I think it’s a terminal degree because it almost kills you, right? But anyway, my dissertation, I went from a PhD to an Ed.D. So it’s a doctor of education because I had a, I stupidly or wisely picked a really hard dissertation chair.

Matthew McNutt (16:22)
Yeah.

Lisa (16:36)
And I assumed he was keeping track of some things he wasn’t. And he assumed I was keeping track of some things I wasn’t. And then he was like, you’ve got to either get out of this program and work on your own and reapply or change to an EdD. And I was like, I’m going to change to an EdD. I can’t keep doing this. I got to stop this hamster wheel.

But anyway, My dissertation, the title of it is something like, and it’s funny, I can’t remember it because it was so much a part of my life, but it was, it’s something like, you know, cause it’s like an inch wide and a hundred miles deep, Spirituality Development in Women in the College Years. And so it had to get that deep, but my research didn’t start that deep. You just kind of find your way.

But the thing I discovered in that, what I ended up doing was intertwining spirituality development in the college years with identity development, like inter-connecting theology and social science theory. And then I also discovered, and this was not even just Christian, it was just spirituality. I was trying to be wide, but the thing I discovered overall that still impacts me in my own life and talking with any age person, but college-age students, it strikes me a lot for, is that the thing that college students need is how to learn how to be quiet and maybe meditate or sit in silence practice some kind of silent discipline, where discipline is not a harsh word but just a silent practice. And there were a of colleges at that time and this was probably close to 15 years ago now, but that the big push was in response to that creating spaces on campus that are only for silent meditation or silent sitting. And that just really was interesting to me.

Ruth Perry (18:19)
There was a room in the chapel office designated for prayer. And I remember you would send me there on occasion with the notepad to like, contemplate something in conversation with God. So you were doing that even then before your doctorate.

Lisa (18:26)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it wasn’t a time out. It wasn’t.

Ruth Perry (18:42)
No!

Matthew McNutt (18:43)
That’s how I’m interpreting it because as I recall, I did not get sent there. So I might have been the better… ⁓

Lisa (18:47)
Hahaha! That’s great.

Ruth Perry (18:54)
Well, it’s actually, so this in particular, was when I was having my first dating relationship. And as a conditioned good girl in the Christian faith, something that I just couldn’t do was imagine that God had a calling on my life. I didn’t know how to say no to anybody. And so every time I would talk with you and you would ask me about my relationship. And I would talk about what my goals were. We had already talked about what I wanted to do after college, which was go to seminary. And then we’d talk about this relationship where he didn’t think I should go to seminary. And you’d be like, so why are you dating this person?

Lisa (19:32)
That’s funny.

Ruth Perry (19:35)
Yeah, so I definitely have had people think, ask me what do I want to do in my life? But you were like, prioritize that.

Lisa (19:42)
Yeah, because you can make decisions to move in the direction. And remind me your husband’s first name. Logan, because I remember when you met him. I remember when you guys started going out. Yeah.

Ruth Perry (19:45)
Yeah. Logan.

Matthew McNutt (19:56)
I did too.

Lisa (19:57)
Well, I remember when you and your wife started going out too, so.

Matthew McNutt (20:01)
Yeah,

Lisa (20:01)
Thanks.

Ruth Perry (20:02)
So what about the Episcopal denomination? What about their beliefs and their tradition do you love?

Lisa (20:09)
Yeah, gosh. You know, when I was in Massachusetts, I was kind of dabbling in going to the Episcopal Church a bit. But the center of my galaxy was always where I was working, is where I would give kind of my free time for ministry. And then in Minnesota and in Arkansas, I began to get more involved in the church. And I hit this moment and I don’t know what predicated or, you know, made it pop for me, but I hit this moment where I was like, you know, I think I want to move. I was working in the co-curricular teaching part-time in the Bible department, but also doing some small group spiritual formation oversight on campus, but I was giving more time than that. And I thought, well, I think what I want to do is start giving my extra time to the church. And so I started getting more involved in the Episcopal church. But what drew me to it was,

You know, for my Catholic upbringing, the liturgy is really similar. And when I first started going, there was something about having this meaning of this personal relationship that was pretty vibrant with the action and participation in the liturgy. And that was somehow put me together. And so I was really drawn to that. then I think too, Episcopals are really good at two things. They’re good at accepting everybody and they’re good at agreeing to disagree, while also being high critical thinkers as a generalization. So those are kind of a few of the things that drew me in.

I don’t know if you guys are familiar with the Episcopal Church.

Ruth Perry (21:37)
Was that in South Hamilton, was that an Episcopal church that I would go for their special services? And I think the reason I found them was because you had them come for Ash Wednesday. And that was the very first time I had ever received the imposition of ashes.

Lisa (21:41)
Yep. Yep. Yeah. Wow, okay. yeah, meaningful stuff. Yeah, and the Episcopals are good because they don’t, you know, they’re really good at marking time. So the colors change, liturgical seasons, so you always know where you are. don’t like, you don’t have to wonder what’s happening. And they’re good at remembering and we need to keep reminding ourselves of reality. I know I do. Yeah.

Matthew McNutt (22:14)
What was the transition like for you going from full-time ministry in college to college students to full-time ministry in the Episcopal Church? Or your focus shifting in that way?

Lisa (22:25)
Yeah. Yeah, you know what’s interesting at first, what’s really surprised me was that people are just people. know, and so somebody who’s 21 or 19 is the same in so many ways as somebody who’s 80, as somebody who’s four, right? You just have to, you just have to know your audience well enough to communicate in the way they can hear. And so I was just really surprised that, you know, the four-year-old and the 19-year-old and the 80-year-old are all worrying about the same things. And they’re all wondering what’s for dinner. And they’re all, everybody’s thinking about the same things, even though it’s such a different developmental scheme, but it’s people are people. And that was my big surprise and also a big help, right? Because I had spent so much time with college students. Thank God that it could translate, right?

Matthew McNutt (23:16)
One of the questions that pops into my mind is, you know, even with an egalitarian denomination, I still read reports to talk about the challenges of being a woman in pastoral ministry. Have you experienced some of those challenges or are there ways where you’re like, it has really worked well for I don’t even I’m not even articulating it very well at this point.

Lisa (23:38)
No, I hear, I know, but I hear you. Well, I’ll tell you, the first time I really felt like I hit a ceiling and that I thought was gender. And it was actually at John Brown University down in Arkansas. When I was taking in the decision of moving from a PhD to an Ed.D, because I think I had more of an internal fantasy that I realized that I wanted to maybe teach full time in the college setting, you know, so I

I thought, oh, I’ll ask the chair of the Bible department what they think I should do. you know, I don’t want to mess up that possibility. And so when I laid it all out with this gentleman, old white man, if I may say, he just looks at me and said, you know, it doesn’t matter. We would never hire you. And I was like, I was like, oh, OK, thank you very much. the last.

Matthew McNutt (24:20)
My gosh. That’s direct.

Lisa (24:26)
Yeah, I was like, dear. And then I was like, I’m just gonna get the EDDs, because why am I knocking myself out? It certainly doesn’t matter. And so that was the first time I felt, and I felt like, I mean, I didn’t say, well, tell me, sir, is that a gender response? But I’m pretty sure it was.

And then I think as a female priest, as a woman who’s ordained, I have been more aware or experienced more misogyny than I ever have in my entire life. And it’s not like aggressive. It’s more like how people treat you or talk to you. Like there’s times, I’m the first woman rector, rector’s a funny word for like lead priest at a church. I’m the first female rector at the church I’m at right now. And there have been a handful of times when people have talked to me and I’ve taken a beat and I’ve looked at them and I’ve said, would you say that to a man? And then they go back. And some of them say, I’m sorry. And then some of them just don’t know what to do at all. I’m kind of awkwardly cavitated back in a way. I’ve learned to gently confront it. But I think that, know, ministry is more than I realized, often a male world. I don’t know, Ruth, if you hit that.

Ruth Perry (25:36)
I got that a lot. I have experienced a lot of misogyny, but not since I joined the United Methodist Church. And the difference has been so striking to me. And I’ve also started attending ecumenical pastors group around the same time that I started pastoring here. And the pastors in that group are not misogynistic. There’s another group here in town with all the pastors are welcome to, and I just don’t go to that one because I don’t want to deal with it.

Lisa (25:56)
Nice. Good.

Ruth Perry (26:10)
But I am really enjoying just, my parishioners have had a lot of women. And so it’s normal to them and they just always call me pastor and they just always refer to me with so much respect and it’s just been really lovely. And so I’ve had three years of no misogyny.

Lisa (26:25)
Yeah. There you go, yeah. And I don’t mean to just be negative, you because it’s wonderful. And I feel like I’ve landed in my call that took me about 50 years to discover, but there’s pockets of it. That’s probably the thing that’s been difficult. So the pockets.

Matthew McNutt (26:52)
And part of me wonders, as you were talking, Ruth, because of where we grew up, where a woman wouldn’t be a lot like it would be a question of whether or not a woman could teach in Sunday school, let alone be a pastor. Part of me wonders if growing up where it was so blatant, because there are women in Methodist churches that will still talk about the challenges they experience as opposed to the men, but where it’s so much less so than what we grew up with. Yeah, not that I’m trying to, Ruth, could you please find some examples of misogyny? That’s a…

Ruth Perry (27:25)
Yeah, it’s been striking. No, I’m having the universal United Methodist experience, Matthew. I speak for all United Methodists.

Lisa (27:35)
Ha ha!

Matthew McNutt (27:36)
I mean, you’re in the South.

Ruth Perry (27:37)
My town is primarily Southern Baptist or Independent Baptist and all the little Independent Baptists that have fought with each other and broken up with each other.

Lisa (27:42)
Okay, dear. You know, Virginia’s an interesting state. They’re interesting people.

Ruth Perry (27:55)
Yeah, it has been very interesting.

Lisa (27:58)
Yeah, but it’s beautiful.

Matthew McNutt (27:59)
Perrys are weird people in Virginia.

Ruth Perry (28:02)
Yeah, the Perrys. We’re doing our best.

Lisa (28:05)
It’s funny.

Ruth Perry (28:06)
Who are some Christian theologians or writers or artists that have been meaningful in your faith journey, Lisa?

Lisa (28:10)
Oof. Boy, that’s a big question. In terms of like reflection, and she’s been around for decades, probably maybe even when I was at Gordon, Jan Richardson is, Ruth, are you familiar with her? Yeah. She says a lot of poetry and a lot of reflection. She’s kind of artsy. I feel like maybe she might be in your Methodist stream.

Ruth Perry (28:28)
I’ve heard her, but I don’t think I’ve ever read her.

Lisa (28:41)
I could be making that up, but I think so. But she’s been significant to just kind of help facilitate thoughtful reflection and take in big spiritual truths. So she’s really great. C.S. Lewis is always just fantastic. There’s a guy, I forget where he’s out of, but he’s done some commentaries. D.A. Carson, I appreciate the way he writes and his thoughtfulness and fidelity to scripture and what it’s trying to say and how and why.

I think most recently, not everybody’s a theologian that helps me. There was a poet laureate from Colorado who died recently, Andrea Gibson. And they have some poetry that is just phenomenal about the hardship and angst of life this landing that they’ve done and hope, which is just beautiful to sit with. So those are what come to mind off the top of my head. How about you guys? Am I allowed to ask you that?

Ruth Perry (29:39)
Yeah. Matthew, you first.

Matthew McNutt (29:41)
Come on. Shoot, would have to, I read, I read a ton, I know, I read a ton of stuff. I really love anything NT writes. Carolyn Custis James has written some really cool stuff that I’ve appreciated. I went through a phase where I was reading everything by Pete Enns, which was kind of fun and challenging some of my thoughts.

Lisa (29:45)
That’s a hard question. He’s good.

Matthew McNutt (30:05)
But yeah, have a ton of favorite authors. My goal this year has been to read like 50 or 60 books over the course of the year. So I’m trying to get there.

Lisa (30:08)
It’s, yeah. Wow. It is funny because we all probably, all three of us probably read a lot of Christian stuff all the time, right? Yeah. How about you Ruth? Yeah.

Ruth Perry (30:28)
Yeah, I think that’s my problem is I kind of snack. And I’m not like, I’ll some people they’ll like I really I’ve read all the books of this one person. I’m like, wow, I’ve read one book. And then I’ve moved on. Although I have all of the Brene Brown books, and I have one in the mail.

Lisa (30:33)
That’s great. That’s a great image.

Ruth Perry (30:49)
that I realized I hadn’t read it yet. So I think that that may be the only person that I’ve like really kept up with all her work. And Lisa Sharon Harper, her book, The Very Good Gospel was really impactful to me. And so I’m reading her book Fortune right now, and I’m hoping that she’ll come. I’m going to invite her to come on and talk with me. I hope she will. I think those two have been
probably more influential than others.

Lisa (31:16)
That’s great.

Ruth Perry (31:17)
Do you have spiritual practices that nourish you in particular, Lisa?

Lisa (31:22)
Nice. Yeah, yeah, I do actually. There’s the one isn’t which I kind of brought up before is that idea of kind of silence, sitting in silence. There’s a practice which you it’s kind of like silent meditation, but it’s a little more. It’s got some parameters to it that are helpful. It’s called centering prayer. You guys heard of that? So in centering prayer, you sit in silence and it’s about just letting go of thoughts. And so even if you’re busy the whole time, just letting go, at least you’re letting go, right? So you can’t fail. You just have to show up.

So I think sitting in silence and seeking the silence of silence every day helps me know what’s going on in my own soul, but it also helps me get rid of the things that are between me and God, you know? So that is probably a personal practice that most days of the week for probably a couple of decades that I think has been really transformative for me.

The other one might sound a little more odd, but it’s yoga. I do yoga. And during the pandemic, I did this online training to be a yoga instructor because I wanted to learn about yoga. And so it’s just a personal practice. A lot of people do it kind of in classes and socially, but I find it kind of magical. Our bodies and minds and wellbeing are also connected. It just kind of helps put me together or take me apart, depending. So those are the two, I think, strangely, those are the two things that come to mind. Yeah.

How about you guys?

Ruth Perry (32:51)
Honestly, playing the piano is a spiritual practice for me. I often will play through the hymnal or I’ll hear a song that speaks to me. I can’t play without music, so I’ll have to find the music online and then print it out and I’ll just play like one song for a while and just sing it to the Lord. And that is probably the one spiritual practice that I have that really fills me up. And then a lot of…

Lisa (33:06)
Nice.

Ruth Perry (33:14)
I think my problem is being quiet. And so I’m taking note, Lisa, that I need to turn things off because I’m just constantly scrolling or reading or listening to podcasts and I do not practice quiet. If I’m in the car, I’m either listening to a podcast or some music. So yeah, I’m taking note. Thank you for that.

Matthew McNutt (33:35)
Yeah, as your brother, I would say I’ve never thought of you as quiet. This is the… I think for me, when I’m able to isolate myself and relax, it’s hard for me to settle down and relax and just be, which is what you were always telling me to do way back then.

Lisa (33:39)
Hahahaha!

Matthew McNutt (33:55)
You were even like Qui-Gon Jinn is saying just be like Qui-Gon Jinn Trying to speak my language back in the day ⁓ Writing is where I get a lot of my energy and and excitement and so Just trying to find ways to write and create about faith has been a good

Lisa (33:59)
Hahaha! Didn’t help.

Matthew McNutt (34:16)
exercise for me as well to dial in.

Ruth Perry (34:22)
One of my questions, because of our background growing up evangelical, something that I’ve realized is that it had never even occurred to me to try mainline denominations. Even though in college, I was a music major taking theology of worship classes and in seminary too, and they would send us to all kinds of services and so I’ve experienced a lot but it never occurred to me to join a church that wasn’t evangelical. I think now where we are culturally in America a lot of people are kind of disillusioned with the evangelical church and they’re feeling lost. And so what would you say that a mainline denomination like the Episcopal Church has to offer to someone who’s rethinking the way that they’ve grown up?

Lisa (35:10)
Yeah, I’m trying to think, you know, there’s some faces from church that actually come go through my mind here where I am now. And I think that.

You know, it’s kind of like everybody’s the same thing, that thing I told you before, you know, you can be 19 or 35 and have two small kids. But, know, that it’s that everything’s OK and you can rest here and you can relax here. And we don’t have a big to do list for you to do this right. I think that when people know that they’re just accepted and that there’s no plumb line that they have to make sure that they hold to, they can be loved in a direction that doesn’t overwhelm them with heavy weight. Yeah, but do, agree with you that, you know, churches are not, Christianity’s got not a great reputation right now. And I would say, you know, I was thinking about this briefly while I was walking my dog this morning, who’s not barking at all, ⁓ and it’s right there. I’m just kidding.

But anyway, I was thinking about how we share a bit of a similarity in that, you know, I really grew in my faith and was exposed to Christianity through Campus Crusade for Christ. And then in the Christian higher ed piece of contributing to faith outside of the church. And you all had the missionary background and I think some, some missionary thought that was so deep within you for kind of para-church kind of things that

For all of us, there’s a degree that it’s certainly, why would it cross our minds? But then we have this sometimes awful history, but a great history. The church is a beautiful thing. And so why would we do anything else but find a church? It’s interesting how it’s the last thing and not the first.

Ruth Perry (37:02)
Lisa, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. just want to, before you go, I want to tell you, just thank you for being person who met me where I was in my spiritual journey and gave me, really wise advice and a lot of grace and kindness and also opportunities, to imagine what I could do to serve the Lord. You gave me my position as the student director of ministries. I don’t know if you remember that, but I was discipling other students and that was really impactful as well. So your ministry to me means so much to me and I want to thank you, Lisa.

Lisa (37:30)
I do. Well, I’m so grateful for you both, goodness, and available to you. I know it’s been 100 years, but if I can support you guys at all, I’m here.

Matthew McNutt (37:50)
Now I think for me it’s a lot of the similar sentiments as Ruth. You were a huge part of me coming back to faith and for me feeling empowered to go into ministry full time. And I must have been a headache at times to deal with the chapel ministry. But that was such a special special season in my life. So thank you.

Lisa (38:00)
Yeah. No, you were not. You guys are great. Yeah.

Ruth Perry (38:14)
God has given her extra blessings for ministering to you.

Lisa, do you want to have the last word before we sign off?

Lisa (38:27)
You know, I’ll just say that what’s so great is because of relationship we’ve had that we can just pick up and I’m so happy and it’s so normal to talk with you both. Feels like we’re in that windowless office I had in the chapel. So thank you. Thanks for thinking of me. It’s great to be together. Thank you.

Ruth Perry (38:41)
Yes. This was awesome. Thank you so much, Lisa. God bless you.

Lisa (38:49)
God bless you guys, take care. All right.

You can listen to our conversation on The Beautiful Kingdom Builders Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Substack, and more! If you find our conversation helpful, please share it with a friend, rate and review, and subscribe so you never miss an episode! God bless YOU!

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