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Today we have the privilege of sharing Christy's story with you.

This episode is part two of a three-part series.

Part one was Joshua's story, and he shared his perspective of their time at a missions org in Southern California.

Now we're going to hear from Christy and hear her perspective.

And then tomorrow we'll all come back together for part three.

For J.

Coyle, I'm Jonna Harris, and this is the Bodies Behind the Bus Podcast.

I am all about it.

I'm a dead body.

I am like the buttons.

All right.

Welcome back, everyone, to the Bodies Behind the Bus podcast.

We have Christy with us today.

It's an honor to have her.

Christy is going to be sharing about her time with a nonprofit in Southern California.

Christy's story will be going along with Joshua's story.

So it is together.

They'll be sharing their story separately, and we're thrilled to have Christy here today.

Christy, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Jay.

Thank you for having me.

Well, I want to jump right in and talk through this organization, which is called Novo.

I know it used to be called various different things, but can you talk through, you know, one, you know, when did you join Novo?

How did you get there?

And what your role was there at Novo.

Yeah.

So I joined Novo in, let's see, it was 2009 and was really drawn toward the kind of innovative approach to missions that they seemed to provide and was interested in uh serving overseas.

So yeah, I joined in in 2009, was with the organization for 11 years, and my role, I served as the director of a cross-cultural or cross-collective initiative called Prime.

And this cross-collective initiative was made up of about 50 staff members in 11 different countries.

I founded the initiative, and then I served as the director for three years.

And then I also served on various leadership teams, one being the strategic collaboration team, which was meant to be the guiding leadership team for Novo itself.

Do you mind telling me how old you were when you started there?

Oh, good question.

I'll have to do a little bit of math.

I was around 27, yeah.

So, like a good chunk of those like formative adult years was spent there.

Absolutely, yes.

And my dream was to become a missionary.

Ever since I was 15 years old, that's what I decided I wanted to do.

And so my undergraduate studies in international studies with a focus on Asia, the country that we went to, the language, the culture.

This was the culmination of everything that I had worked hard for, joining this organization and going to the specific city and the specific country that I wanted to serve in.

And I served there for two years.

It was essentially my career launching, joining Novo.

So you guys end up coming back to the states, and that's kind of when you start planting your roots in the organization in like stateside.

So you're kind of in the inner workings of how things are going with this organization, right?

Would you say that's a correct way to frame that?

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Begin to become more acquainted with upper level leadership, how things are working, becoming more and more involved in decision making for direction of the organization, and getting really that inside look more and more as the years went by.

Were you surprised when you got here and started working with leadership and kind of like getting into the role that you described at the beginning of the episode when it came to Prime and some of the strategic places that you were?

Or did it seem consistent with what you had experienced as an overseas missionary?

Yeah, that's a great question.

I really romanticized the organization and I romanticized the mission, the vision, and what we were all doing.

And that honestly probably continued up until the very end once the spiritual abuse that I experienced really became more evident, and I was able to really see and accept what was going on.

But there were some red flags that started to come up for me in terms of the president's role, character, and lack of accountability.

Even early on, probably a few years into, maybe less than a few years into it, I was hearing stories and seeing things that were, you know, red flags.

I really didn't know how to reconcile with my romanticization of who he seemed to be, who he presented himself as and what our organization was doing.

Yeah, I think it it's interesting because like when talking with Joshua about Novo and this idea, I was wondering if this this really hit you as well.

This idea that this was more than just an organization, it felt much like a church and a family and that type of connectivity.

Was that something that you experienced as well?

To where this was more than just a nine to five?

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

This was our family.

This this was our everything.

This was our mission.

This was our what we lived for.

And our support network was Novo.

In fact, we did have a home church, ascending church, but you know, once we launched overseas, Novo was our spiritual home and our spiritual family, even to the extent that when we came back, we we were involved in our our home church, but only in a giving capacity.

We really didn't, you know, feel that we we were receiving a whole lot because we were, you know, Novo was providing that for us, and that was our our community, you know, and our daughters, that was, you know, all of their friends were Novo kids, and you know, these these were our people.

This was our tribe.

At one point, so Joshua gave us like a high level of your story, in particular in the ways that like he was involved in it or saw it or how it affected him.

And so this is an opportunity for us to hear your story from you in with in more detail.

And so the listeners have heard that at a certain point, like your ministry was thriving, and then out of nowhere you get a new supervisor.

What year was that?

Was that 2019?

I believe so, yes, from my recollection.

I I believe it was in 2019.

Yeah, Prime had been going on for a while.

And can you describe one like the state of your ministry when you got that new supervisor?

And then also what your relationship to that supervisor was both inside the structure of the organization and outside the structure of the organization.

Sure.

Okay, so well, I'll kind of back up to the launch of Prime.

So Prime was this cross-collective initiative that I founded based on my vision as well as the vision of a lot of people within the organization.

It was really beautiful how it came together.

I started to see the need for it within the organization and began just to meet with different leaders in many different countries that worked with us that I believe held a vision for it.

I felt like, you know, each person held a piece of the puzzle.

And my job was simply to put the puzzle together and oversee the puzzle.

I wasn't the expert in all of these things, but you know, it just needed some leadership and guidance.

So it was really a collective vision that I I I put together and and presented to the president and said, hey, you know, this is something I believe Novo needs and I'd like to lead it.

You know, can you give me permission to launch this and build this?

And he did.

And it was a formal meeting where, you know, he blessed me to launch this, to build this out, and to have full authority to build it.

And all the pieces came together, and I recruited six leaders for six different teams, and then coached them through recruiting their team members under them.

It was really exciting.

It it felt like, and you know, not to compare, but it really felt like to many people that this was the most exciting thing happening in Novo.

And what exactly was the team doing?

Yeah, good question.

So our job was to really focus on the supernatural and dive into, you know, exploring what might happen if we really give ourselves to the study and the practice of inviting the Holy Spirit to operate through us in supernatural ways on the field.

So each team represented a different aspect of that.

We had a strategic team that focused on how can we change the atmosphere and the spiritual climate in certain areas from darkness to light?

How can we see the Holy Spirit move in dramatic ways in cities to change the city itself?

And so we had teams working on that.

We had, you know, a prophetic team who was learning how do we hear the voice of God and communicate that in ways that advance the gospel and that help bring life and change into people's lives?

We had a team that focused on intercession, you know, how do we do that more powerfully?

And so all of these teams focused on different aspects of the supernatural.

There was a healing team.

How do we learn and allow the Holy Spirit to physically heal sickness and disability and bring inner healing and mental emotional healing that that that we see real visible results in people's lives?

And so we were all practicing these things and we were coming in as learners, but there were experienced people that were more teaching and training in these things.

And so what we wanted to do was how can we how can we equip ourselves and learn about this, kind of be on the cutting edge of exploring these new ideas for us, but but also how can we equip our missionaries to be more effective on the field and not just kind of like trudge along and do, you know, what's always been done, but how can we invite the Holy Spirit to really see supernatural change much more quickly in much powerful ways?

And we were seeing it.

We were seeing amazing things happen.

There were so many stories that were coming out of the field in different countries, and one of the values of Nova is storytelling.

And so we had a lot of stories being told both across the organization, but to our financial supporters as well, and all of all of our networks of these amazing things that were happening through these teams in Prime and those that were involved in the teams on the field.

So it was a really exciting time for Novo and a really exciting time for Prime.

Yeah, that's fascinating.

I mean, so what you're describing is a huge undertaking, and you're building, you've you've built that out.

I mean, it's a huge accomplishment because you're not only training individuals, but you're creating something new, it sounds like, that's really having an impact within the organization.

Absolutely.

It was it was new and it was it was innovative, it was strategically built, it was really well built.

We had our sixth team was simply a support team of older, wiser leaders, experienced leaders.

We had the former COO of Novo, we had a well-known author who was well versed in a lot of these things.

We had a team of supporters who poured into our team leaders and really helped them navigate these new heights of leadership and influence that all of us were experiencing.

And so, you know, I think for me as a leader as well, I was growing so much and seeing what I was really capable of.

That team I asked to really pour into me and and support me and mentor me.

I had two mentors that were invested in me.

And I I remember one of them, the former COO of Novo, he said, Christy, you know, I just want you to know your leadership capacity is even much higher than what Novo can offer you.

And and you you could really lead anything you want.

And I think that was a turning point for me to be able to see, wow, I I didn't know I could build this, I didn't know I could lead this, but I have.

And it is quite amazing and exciting.

So yeah, it was eye-opening for me.

And I think a lot of the team leaders that didn't really maybe hadn't led something so big or been a part of something so big before to see really what they were capable of.

That's a lot.

I mean, that's just a lot of like logistics that I don't think I could do.

So kudos to you.

So you're thriving, and from what Joshua said as well, as our call, like my call with you, it sounds like the ministry was thriving, Prime's thriving, it was being recognized as thriving.

Why did the structure change?

Or like, why did you need to go underneath a new supervisor?

Do you know the answer to that?

Good question.

Although it wasn't formally told to me, I was able to put the pieces together.

So, from my understanding, and this is my my personal understanding from just insider information, the president was looking to retire and choose the next president of the organization.

And he had chosen, I'll I'll call him Leader M, who was very connected to our financial partners.

He had never served on the field before or served in a major leadership capacity before, but he was connected, well connected to our financial supporters.

He was his choice for the next president.

From my understanding, he presented this to the board, and the board was not supportive, didn't feel like he had the qualifications for that level of leadership and and shot it down.

Shortly after that, he was placed over me as my supervisor.

I can only assume that he needed to gain clout in the eyes of the board in order to be then approved for the next seat as president.

From my understanding, he he had no knowledge of what really was going on within Prime or it wasn't really involved in it.

So it honestly didn't make sense organizationally or logistically at all.

I feel like I just have to rant for just one second about the fact that a freaking dude just comes in there with no experience and gets handed this giant organization.

What is like why?

We know, like it's like that's just how it works.

But it's like you have this woman who's like done the work, ground up, has experience, that's like thriving.

And I mean, they're an egalitarian organization, but either way, like there was other men and women, I'm sure, that had much more experience and ability to step into a role like president, yet like he just liked this guy.

Like, what?

Can I just get liked by someone at some point of my life?

Wouldn't that be so nice?

Wouldn't that be so nice?

Well, you know, I do think it was strategic in terms of his connection with the financial partners.

And I think, you know, what I've recognized since is that's really what drove decision making within the organization more than anything, once I was able to see behind the curtain.

And so not only was it he's this perceived alpha male personality that, you know, the the president really thought would be, I suppose, a good choice for president, maybe because of that, but he was connected to what really mattered, and that was the money.

And like you've said that Novo was your family, that you had a lot of like community pieces there.

Was Leader M a part of that community?

Was your relationship solely like in a staffing capacity, or did you would you say that you had another relationship like in a community way?

Good question.

Yeah, we were very good friends, in fact.

And, you know, that was across the board within Novo, you know, the people that we worked with, not only were we good friends, but they knew all of our stuff.

I'm talking deep, deep friendships.

They know our deepest, darkest secrets, they know what we struggle with, they know our, you know, quote unquote sins.

They know all the good, the bad, and the ugly.

And it was the same way with Leader M.

You know, my kids were friends with his kids.

They played together.

We, you know, had conversations over the fire pit regularly.

It wasn't just that we worked together, we had deep friendship.

So you have this deep, intimate relationship with multiple people, you know, with the organization.

It feels like a family, but there's this weird change with.

This leadership change.

So walk us through what was that like when he, Leader M became your supervisor?

What was it like initially?

And when did you start having concerns?

Yeah.

Okay.

So that's a really great question.

So when he was put in as my supervisor, I could kind of see what was happening.

And to be honest, because I cared about him as a friend, I didn't push back against it.

In my mind, the formal supervisor wasn't going to provide really leadership for me.

I had a few mentors that were, you know, pouring into me.

And I was pretty self-sustaining in terms of my leadership.

And, you know, I got the resources I need elsewhere.

I thought, yeah, whatever.

You know, if he needs to be some sort of figurehead, okay, kudos to him.

He's advancing his, you know, position and and I love him and sure.

But, you know, it was interesting because our supervisory calls, there, there was supposed to be a model for supervisory calls.

You know, not only was he supposed to be supporting me spiritually, pouring into me spiritually, checking on me personally, making sure, you know, all these certain areas are are okay.

I'm growing, I'm learning, I'm, you know, all my concerns are are being addressed, but also helping to give direction for what I'm overseeing.

And none of that was happening.

Zero percent.

Zero percent.

I kid you not.

Our calls were solely based on me providing support for him and his personal growth and things that he was concerned with.

It was total opposite.

And you know what?

Honestly, it didn't bother me because we were friends.

And I thought, you know, if he needs support, I'll offer him support.

This is not, you know, I'm not looking to him for leadership or support or anything like that.

That's a the relationship isn't like that.

But if we need to meet for supervision, and and we didn't have supervisory meetings even very regularly because of that.

It's like, well, they're not really doing anything for me.

So yeah, maybe once a month we'll we'll meet and say that we did a supervisory call and we'll talk about what he's struggling with, you know.

So this feels very informal, right?

It feels more like very he's a you know, he's a friend, you know him, he's put in this role, he's really leaning on you for things, but you're not you're not getting the guidance or you know, leadership support that you know a normal supervisor may provide.

All right, so you've got this organization, it's growing.

He steps in.

When does he start to kind of overstep boundaries?

And your gut begins to say, uh, something's going on.

You may have dismissed it initially, but there was something in your gut that was saying, This seems odd.

Yeah.

So again, it came back down to the money.

And and I'll tell a story that that I think will highlight this.

I was invited to speak at a big partnership development event in Palm Springs.

That's an annual event.

All of our top donors were invited to, and and I was a guest speaker to talk about Prime and all the things that were happening, and and then ask them to give financially toward that.

Interestingly enough, Prime wasn't funded.

We had zero funds.

We were doing all of this based on our personal fundraising.

We we weren't given anything from Novo to do all of this stuff that was, you know, they're they're getting all these stories, and you know, they're telling everyone, oh, that all these amazing things are happening.

We we received zero dollars for that.

We we didn't even have money for our team leaders to have a retreat together.

So I was excited.

I I I thought, you know, I'm gonna go out to Palm Springs, share the stories, and we'll finally receive some funds.

I had a budget, but just wasn't being fulfilled.

So went out there, there were lots of tears.

People were really moved.

It was a very moving time.

A lot of people were impacted, and they shared their stories with me of of how they were impacted by hearing about what was happening in in all these different areas.

And so after the event, I guess I waited maybe two months and you know, asked leader M, so hey, you know, when are we gonna get the budget funded?

You know, what what what were the results?

You know, what what have people given?

I kid you not, he told me nothing was given.

Nothing was given.

There were no, there's not been any money given at all.

I I said, what do you what do you mean nothing?

No one gave anything?

He said, No, no, no one has given anything.

The extent that my blinders were on is really evident at this point because I I 100% believed him.

I believed what he told me.

Why would he lie?

He's my friend and I respect him, I care for him.

Why would he lie?

But I was told that that nothing was given.

And so I said, Well, this is bizarre.

There must be some sort of spiritual stronghold or something is happening here that's unheard of.

So I promptly wrote an email to the president to address this.

What is happening?

No one gave anything.

I mean, this is a time where people are giving hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You know, no one gave anything.

We've got to address this spiritual stronghold.

We need to pray, you know, we need to.

He never replied to my email.

I find out later because he was probably dumbfounded that I thought no one gave anything, but essentially Prime never saw a cent of that.

I find out later, lots of money was given, in fact, more than ever before.

And I don't know where that money went.

I don't uh I I wasn't a part of that decision-making process, but Prime didn't see any of it.

So it all came down to the money.

And I think Novo was seeing that what Prime was doing was generating so much energy and so much excitement and real stories, real things happening that they could use that for financial gain for the organization.

Does it not feel kind of gross and like slimy to change this from being like training for the mission field to like to grow the gospel like reach and you know, to actually care for people in these places that you're going and to see like healing and growth and goodness.

Does that feel like that is different when it's high givers or funders wanting to like tap into some like I mean, it sounds like it was being pitched as like power, like a like a reach your full potential.

Absolutely.

Yes, absolutely.

That feels different to me.

That that then changes it to like self-help.

We're selling a product, yes, and like your like supernatural powers are attached to you taking these trainings where you give us money and like that feels off.

Am I am I describing that correctly?

Yes, absolutely.

And it did start to feel pretty, pretty icky.

I mean, people who are giving to Novo are just as important as someone, you know, living in poverty in Madrid.

But what is our main mission and and what are we seeking to do here?

And how much effort are we gonna put on building up the personal lives of our financial supporters versus those on the field that don't have the same resources and access to these sorts of things as obviously our financial supporters do, you know?

They're predominantly white, wealthy, living in Southern California.

They have they have access, you know, to a lot of these things.

They can go to as many retreats as they want.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So it was it was it was disheartening to see that shift.

And and so I think what was happening was the president and leader M really wanted to shift the focus of what what Prime was doing to then funnel it toward fundraising and partnership development, which is just the grossest thing I can think of.

And also I think at the heart of where the real darkness was within Novo.

And also with these types of organizations, so you have a culture that feels very enmeshed, right?

It's not uncommon for you to reach out to the president, right?

When you emailed the president and say, Oh, this is like yeah.

Absolutely.

And he was, you know, I mean, he he was a good friend too, you know.

He he and his wife would have us over for dinner, and you know, he he was the one that gave the blessing for me to build prime, and there really wasn't anyone else for me to talk to about concerns or direction of of prime other than him.

And then did you I I'm assuming you viewed him then as a as a a friend, but did you also view him as a leader in a s in a sense of like a spiritual leader as well?

Yes, absolutely.

The highest spiritual leader, the highest spiritual leader that that I knew or had ever had in my life.

And I romanticized him as this charismatic leader that you know he presented himself as.

He kind of presented himself as more knowledgeable, more innovative than regular church leaders, even than other leaders of other missions organizations.

So I really bought that hook, line, and sinker that he he's the ultimate leader, you know, and it if if he says something, it's law, you know, it is the golden truth.

So that's and I wasn't the only one, you know.

We all kind of idolized him.

It's helpful to know.

So this happened with with Leader M.

Now what you've built is morphed into being something that's an engine to raise funds as well.

In the summer of 2019, what happens between you and Leader M?

So with this effort to then funnel efforts toward the partnership development, he began, I think, probably fueled by confidence given to him by the president, he began to make some unilateral decisions for Prime without any real knowledge of how Prime was even fully structured or even worked.

He wasn't involved in any of the day-to-day at all.

Even our supervisory meetings, I didn't even give updates because that wasn't what we talked about.

So he began to make some unilateral decisions.

It culminated in a meeting with him in the office where it was late at night, just me and him there, and he began to write out some of his thoughts on the whiteboard and kind of initially phrased it as ideas for me to consider.

But then as I gave some hard questions and some pushback, it became apparent that he was actually not wanting to have a conversation, but rather just appropriate the efforts of Prime and make these unilateral decisions on my behalf.

And just real quick, why were you guys having this meeting late at night at the office?

Great question.

I don't know.

I was very uncomfortable.

In fact, it was just him and I, and he, I mean, obviously the nature of the meeting was very passive aggressive.

Did you know that going in, like when he asked for the time?

Not at all.

And I didn't know no one else would be at the office.

I didn't know that we were gonna be in the room, just the two of us.

I didn't even know what we were talking about.

But he had asked repeatedly before this point, and this had I would say maybe a month before this point was when things started to shift.

And he was asking to meet with me in my home alone, which was against novel policy, in fact.

And even the president had a policy that he didn't meet alone with, you know, females, which again poses a whole nother problem for leadership development of women.

But even he would have considered it highly inappropriate.

And so Leader M was texting me, you know, for weeks before this meeting, asking to meet with me in my home alone.

I don't remember what he was wanting to meet about, but I had explicitly said no, I'm uncomfortable with that several times.

And he kept asking, almost spam texting my phone.

It was ridiculous.

So the passive, the aggressive kind of behavior was beginning, and I was starting to feel harassed.

And I, of course, showed the messages to Joshua, and he was disturbed.

We were both becoming disturbed.

And I do want to, before we hop into what happened at that meeting, Joshua mentioned that texts had also like crossed boundaries in your in the realm of like friendship in a group text with you guys.

Had that already happened at this point as well?

It had, and it was actually the nature of kind of how Leader M interacted with people.

There was there was a there were sexual undertones to you know a lot of his interactions.

I know that uh crotch tapping was normal for him with other men in the organization.

You know, he would just pass in the hallway and grab their crotch, and that was normal for him.

I know during one of the conferences we had, he did some funny, I don't know, presentation on stage in a speedo, which I think a lot of people were offended by was pretty revealing and odd for the type of organization that that Novo is.

And so the text messages that were come through in the group thread were like sexual jokes and questions about how my husband and I made love and different scenarios what asking us about if we like to listen to certain music.

He actually asked me what type of music I like to listen to while having sex, things like that that were really out of the blue and disturbing.

Did you guys like automatically feel off about that?

Yeah, we did, but again, we were good friends with him, so we kind of just scooted past it and never really addressed it and thought, wow, that's really inappropriate and weird.

But yeah.

And you have like the whole dynamic that he's also your supervisor.

Well, now he was, yes, exactly.

Exactly.

So you had that in the past.

Now you have him asking to come to your house, which like take it or leave it, it is what it is.

Like we have there are things surrounding the culture that both you and Joshua have said that regardless of if those things were happening or not, it's a boundary cross to come to your house for a meeting.

With those things, it feels like pushing boundaries on purpose.

You end up at this meeting and he starts, you said, making some like unilateral decisions for prime.

What were those types of decisions and how were how were they going to affect you or the work that you did or your teams?

Yeah.

So, so our team leaders had the authority to grant at that time permission for their team to serve other divisions or other teams or other initiatives.

For instance, they could be invited to do a training, you know, for a team on the field or whatnot.

And and the team, but the team leader, and then of course myself had the final say as to whether or not they would accept that invitation from the field staff or from another division or for another conference with Innovo.

What Leader M wanted to do is to remove that decision-making capacity from them and just say, well, you know, he he was going to make the decisions and he was going to build this new partnership development initiative, and then just pull resources as in pull people from these teams to just start teaching at these things and giving loads of time.

In fact, it would be all that they were doing, really ministry-wise, to this new initiative.

And we'd already addressed it before the the former COO, who was the leader of one of my teams, had already addressed it with Leader M, with the president.

I had already addressed the the issues as well.

And and Leader M had agreed that that he had overstepped boundaries and it wasn't appropriate for him to just pull people and pull their time and efforts and pull the resources that we were creating.

These these teams were were creating a lot of resources and you know, written resources, trainings, and he just wanted to use these and rebrand them without permission from these teams.

And so the decision that he was kind of presenting at that meeting was basically removing the team leaders' decision-making capacity and just and just saying that they'll just do what I tell them to do.

And so you pushed back.

Yes.

And how was that received?

And was there any other boundary crosses that happened in that meeting?

Yeah, I I did push back.

I asked a lot of hard questions, and I, you know, obviously stood up for the team leaders and their, you know, everything that they had built, and a lot of these people, you know, they'd been working on these things for decades.

This wasn't something they were just building within these three years.

This is something they'd given their lives to.

They'd they they were experts in these areas, they they deserved respect.

So I, you know, of course, pushed back and he became more and more passive aggressive.

His he was raising his voice.

He was standing over me at one point.

He I was seated the entire time at the table, and he walked over to me and was just a few feet away of just standing over me, talking down to me.

And once I didn't just, you know, 100% comply with everything.

So yeah, I felt unsafe.

I felt I I had never been treated like that by anyone in Novo, any anywhere in the workplace.

I felt completely belittled.

I felt shocked.

I was confused.

I honestly didn't know what was happening.

And it's important to say too, that's why I brought up that enmeshed culture.

So this culture is very much where it is enmeshed, and you're not prior to this, you're not having typical supervisory calls with him.

They're more about how you doing, you know, what's going on.

They're not, there's not really a direction.

So this sudden shift is not only unexpected from a professional level, because there's never been any expectations.

Expectations set prior to this, but also on a personal level, it's upsetting as well.

Exactly.

Yes, exactly.

So, how do you respond when he uses his physical body to position himself in authority and intimidate you?

How do you respond in that meaning?

I think my natural response is to hold hold the line.

I feel like as a woman, I'm probably in the minority for those who are able to do that.

I think most people probably would have just, you know, wilted because it was so aggressive.

So I did hold the line, but I remained seated, I remained calm, I continued to voice my concerns and ask hard questions, but internally, yeah, all of my alarms were going off.

And I honestly was getting pretty angry for the people that I respected so much that were under me.

What what was his reasoning for wanting to make this change?

I really wasn't given.

I had to read between the lines later, but it really wasn't given.

So this was a situation where we're changing this, and I'm not even gonna give you the answer for why, but you need to get in line.

Yeah, I mean, it was presented as like, oh, this is gonna be great, this is what we need to do.

It yeah, but yeah, it was, and then once he saw that I gave pushback, it was, well, no, this is what we are doing.

And how did it de-escalate?

Like, how does it end?

I honestly don't remember.

I probably dissociated a bit.

I remember going out to my car and thinking, well, that how do I even process this?

I don't really know what to do at this point.

I obviously need to reach out to the president, and we need to to, you know, address this because this is inappropriate behavior.

And the reason you would reach out to the president is because that was Leader M's direct report, correct?

Exactly.

It was his direct report, and I didn't have anyone else, there wasn't anyone else over Leader M or myself that I could have reported it to.

But also he you you perceived Leader S as a or President S as a spiritual leader, as spiritual father figure, correct?

Yes, I did, and I honestly thought we were all playing the same game.

I honestly believed we were all committed to what we understood to be the mission of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, and that however God led, we would all say yes, unapologetically, with any sacrifice that needed to be made, that that's what our lives were about.

So I assumed I made a lot of assumptions.

I assumed that was the same for everyone within Novo, especially the leadership.

And so, you know, I assumed certain values of of mutual respect for other leaders.

And so I assumed, yeah, if I bring up these concerns, obviously it's gonna be dealt with.

And did leader M at any point apologize or acknowledge that that wasn't okay what happened with you?

Like, did he just act like everything was normal right after that?

Yeah, he absolutely did.

And there was never any apology, no, never.

In fact, you know, this kind of behavior from him almost caused the former COO to quit because he was overstepping boundaries so much that the former COO, who was the one of the team leaders under me, yeah, he was so agitated about it.

He he had called me and said, Look, if this isn't dealt with, I'm done.

I am out.

I am not dealing with this is ridiculous.

He doesn't have the authority, he doesn't have the experience, and he's being completely disrespectful to me and my team.

And I said, Look, I'll handle it, I'll take care of it.

Little did I know, I didn't have the authority to take care of it because the president was the one giving him the authority to treat people like this.

Christy, so this was a a very intense meeting with Leader M.

I mean, is there anything else that you'd like to share from this meeting that you can remember?

Well, you know, I think going into the meeting, I already did feel quite unsafe for a few reasons.

One, one of my team leads had already brought to me some allegations of sexual harassment, and you know, I had already heard from her some things that he had done, and you know, she was in tears.

We had talked extensively about it, and so I was already aware that he may potentially be an unsafe person.

Then also, I think I might have mentioned before that he had insisted several times, just almost like spam texting me multiple times, trying to meet with me alone, you know, in my home, and I had refused over and over again.

So there are these that that was kind of the background going into it.

And so yeah, I think I was already feeling unsafe and unsure.

And then, you know, going into that meeting, recognizing that, okay, I understand the goal is to appropriate prime for partnership development expansion, I think that it was shocking, you know.

And I remember, and I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I remember that, you know, when I started just asking some hard questions and reminding Leader M of the goals and the purpose of Prime and what you know what we were working towards and and you know, giving that pushback and saying, okay, this doesn't make sense.

Why would why would this be appropriated for partnership development?

He began to question my character.

He actually accused me of having inner healing needs that I needed to address, and that must be the reason that I was giving pushback.

What do you mean by inner healing needs?

Do you mind giving us an example?

Yeah, so because he was my friend as well, he was aware of my childhood trauma and you know, just different things that I was working on to in my own personal growth.

And so he basically used his knowledge as a friend to then try to kind of make a dig and say, oh, you know, is this I can't remember what he assumed I needed healing for, but it was totally inappropriate in that setting.

And it was passive aggressive and manipulative to kind of take me down a notch to try to, you know, basically say what what I'm bringing to the table, what I'm the real concerns that I have are must be rooted in some sort of personal problem.

It's really common in situations where you're dealing with narcissistic traits that these people will utilize knowledge of your past that you shared in trust or in relationship and vulnerability.

They'll take those little things that they know, those little facts from your life and utilize them to tear you down or to discredit you.

And so I just wanted to point that out for listeners that that's what's happening in that moment.

And I think that there will be people that might hear that and realize, oh, that's something that I'm experiencing right now with someone that I thought was a friend or that I thought I could trust is now making me feel small or like I like I'm crazy, really.

It'll make you feel like you're crazy by utilizing parts of your past.

So I just wanted to point that out for people as you're sharing that.

I think that's a really important piece of the puzzle that you just shared with us.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it gets really murky, you know, when you your job, your career overlaps with, you know, spiritual authority and spiritual community because they do know pretty much everything about you.

They know, you know, the all the struggles that you've had, your traumas, all of that.

And so it can so easily be used against you in a toxic way.

That's a lot.

So after this, Christy, you know, what what do you do next?

Because I know eventually leader S gets engaged in this conversation.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you know, one of the one of the things that happened after this meeting was so Leader M had a another staff member working with them.

We'll we'll call them Leader C.

And they actually gave me a call.

And assuming there was some triangulation going on here, they had heard that I'd given pushback, that I wasn't gonna just kind of adopt this strategy and these plans of appropriation blindly.

And so they decided to use some more manipulation tactics to try to convince me to kind of just go along with Leader M's manipulation.

And so during that call, this person actually asked if they could speak a blessing over me.

And through that quote-unquote blessing blessed me with openness and creativity to just go along with Leader M and to submit.

That was one of the grossest things, in my opinion, because the act of blessing should be a, you know, we were using that practice as a very holy tool to help people and their their spiritual growth and the fact that it was used as a manipulation tactic.

I was really angry and shocked that it would be that blatant.

And this person actually later, once things kind of progressed a few weeks later, would be the same person that would ask what kind of demons I must have to be speaking out against all of this.

So it's really interesting to me, you know, how these these concepts and these practices, these tools that we were using for good were, you know, being twisted.

And now I was being, you know, later would be accused of even having demons for, you know, what's my problem?

Why can't I just go along with this?

Was that confusing for you in that time, especially because they're speaking a type of language and thing they're speaking spiritual gifts or spiritual prep practices that you were practicing?

Yeah, it was not confusing for me.

I knew exactly what was happening, and I had no question, you know, I was doing the right thing.

So it wasn't confusing, but it was it did make me very angry to see essentially, you know, the the teachings of Jesus being used as this talisman.

And I think that's kind of what was coming to light more and more that that these tools that we were using to really help people, those who wanted more power and influence were actually wanting to use them as a essentially a talisman or you know, using like Jesus as a mascot for their own purposes.

So troubling.

Yeah.

So when does leader how does how does leader S get involved in this in this situation?

Yeah, so at this point, I thought, okay, look, I've got this sexual harassment allegation.

I have to bring that to light.

I'd already talked to Leader M about it directly, and he was unapologetic and seemed to think that, you know, there's nothing that he needed to change.

So I thought, okay, I mean, legally I have to take this to HR anyway, but I'd I'd like to talk with President S about it, who is Leader M's direct supervisor.

And obviously, if he found out what's going on with the sexual harassment allegations, the the bullying, the manipulation, the misuse of power, you know, he's gonna take care of this and you know, he's gonna, you know, do whatever needs to be done because this is heinous.

So I requested a meeting with President S and kind of laid out, in effect, I ran the email by several people who knew what was going on, the former COO and several other people, to just make sure, hey, you know, does everything look professional?

Is there anything I should include or not include?

And I kind of gave him an outline of, hey, you know, these are some troubling things I need to talk with you about concerning Leader M.

And he apparently once he received that email, President S, he became furious.

He wasn't concerned about Leader M and his behaviors, but rather what's wrong with me and why am I bringing this up?

Why am I bringing all these things up?

And I I'm sure, you know, Joshua has shared, but he directly after receiving that email stormed into Joshua's office and began yelling at him, asking, what's wrong with your wife?

And Joshua, you know, said, Hey, you know, I I I don't know what you're talking about, but this isn't really my area of responsibility.

If if there's a concern you have, you should talk directly with her.

And he, you know, tried to get him to calm down.

He kept yelling and basically ended up threatening Joshua's job and said, you know, your job is on the line.

If you interfere in this, you need to keep quiet.

And ended up actually kissing him on the cheek before leaving the office, which is a little godfather-esque and weird, but also just a violation of Joshua's personal space.

So the whole interaction basically showed both of us that this, you know, this is kind of the stance that he's choosing to take.

And so I was kind of aware this is going sideways, and I'm number one confused, but also gonna keep going forward with what I know is right and have the meeting with him over the phone.

So I set that meeting up with him, and I did invite the former COO, who was one of my team leads, to join me in the meeting because he held a lot of clout in the organization.

He had a lot of respect from President S.

They had a long history of friendship together, and they were, you know, the same age, same gender.

And I thought, okay, if he won't listen to me, he'll listen to the former COO, you know, he'll back me up.

He's seen these behaviors himself.

He was in the meeting with one of my team leads who came forth in tears about the sexual harassment allegation.

He he was there.

He was furious about all of this.

He had actually told me that he was thinking of quitting because of all of this and because of how Leader M had been treating Primes teams and Prime's people.

So I thought, hey, this is a, you know, uh, if we go together, you know, at least I'll be heard, you know, as a as a woman.

I don't know what's happening with President S and the the anger here, but once he hears the information, you know, he'll he'll see.

That's a lot.

When in doubt, bring an old white guy to meet with another old white guy.

Exactly.

That was the strategy.

I thought, hey, you know what, it's sick that I have to do this, but whatever, you know, whatever I just need to be heard here.

We we've got to get this information out.

Where's your anxiety level at?

I mean, uh before this meeting, because he's already, I mean, he's already leader S has already indicated through Joshua that he doesn't want to listen, at least in my opinion.

Like he's not open to a conversation.

So where like where is your head at at this moment before this conversation even starts?

Yeah, I mean, obviously I was terrified, but I think because of my position of leadership, I felt really confident and like there's no reason for me to feel unsure about what I was sharing.

These are all heinous things and very clear.

So I I just spent a lot of time creating the outline.

I ran it by the former COO, I ran it by Joshua and a few others, and really made sure, okay, what I'm sharing, the flow of what I'm sharing, makes sense.

It's logical, there's proof for everything, there's different accounts to, you know, back all of my concerns up.

And, you know, I thought, okay, well, I'll just put all that anxiety into preparation and professionalism.

And I practiced, you know, okay, this is how I'm gonna share, this is what I'm gonna say, this is what needs to be said, and you know, I'm gonna do my best and do what needs to be done.

I just think too, like, John, I would love your perspective, but just like the setting the stage for this is like if you think about it from an employer to employee, you know, if you have a boss or someone you work for that is meeting with you but has already indicated through other parties that they're not going to like that they're mad, that they're furious and angry, that you even brought this to their attention.

Like that's how I'm reading this situation.

Like the power, the power dynamic is so in their favor.

And it also just shows how narrow-minded this conversation or how narrow-minded this individual is during this conversation, that they're not even open to information.

And it just reminds me a lot, Jonna, when you were trying to prove your story to leaders of the church, like all you had to do to try to prove yourself and how ridiculous that is that these men don't shut up and listen, that they always have to say something and be in control of the narrative.

I don't know why.

I mean, all you had to do was listen.

I mean, it's insane.

I think what's really sad and hard that many women will relate with is that you kind of can work yourself up.

Like the facts are I've done a really good job.

The facts are this ministry or this department is thriving.

The facts are I've never been on a performance improvement plan.

I've never had bad marks and like reviews.

I've only been told that I'm doing everything right.

So you think like that's got to count for something in these settings.

But in reality, it doesn't in these settings.

Like that at the end of the day, the fact that you are a woman who is standing against a beloved man, that's all that it comes down to.

It literally doesn't matter.

Like that, there is no other thing factored into the conversation.

And I think it's a really hard lesson that many of us have had to learn.

It's also just wrong.

And it's super gross that it happens in ministry settings.

And it's not like that type of setting isn't in corporate world, but I go back to like the church should be a model for how we should treat each other.

And time and time again, we are the opposite of that.

Church and nonprofits and missions organizations.

We're the opposite.

We're actually the example of what not to do.

And your story is the perfect example of like how to handle a situation of abuse, allegations that come forward as a leader, what you should not do.

Okay, so let's talk about this call.

So when did it happen?

And you already kind of mentioned the players that were on the call.

Just walk us through, you know, when it happened and what happened during the call.

Yeah.

So so at the beginning of the call, and and I really wanted to record it because obviously I, you know, was concerned that things were going sideways and all of these things weren't going to be heard.

I didn't know to what extent, but I just wanted to make sure that it was recorded.

Actually, President S offered to record the call, video record, in fact.

And I thought, well, that's a good sign.

He's gonna be on his best behavior then.

And so we started out.

The call was recorded, and you know, honestly, I haven't gone back and and listened to it since because it's so anxiety-inducing for me.

But pretty much right away he began to cut me off and interject and shut me down.

He didn't hear any of my claims and in fact just started, you know, disparaging my character and my leadership.

I think I I might have been able to bring up a few things almost, and then he would defend Leader M before hearing the account of what I, you know, had to share.

He ended up blaming me as the problem and said that basically because I was reporting Leader M's behavior, that I had sabotaged my role within Novo and my ability to work there.

That simply bringing these things to light, I could no longer work there.

I'd I'd sabotaged myself.

And then he pressured me to resign, and he stripped me of my leadership, my decision-making authority over Prime, and then he gave it directly to Leader M.

So he went full nuclear.

Yes, absolutely.

So you mentioned your former, was it your former boss or the former the COM or COO who was there with me?

Yes, I expected him to speak up during this meeting, and uh it was pretty long.

Yeah, I want to say maybe two hours.

I can't remember, to be honest.

It was at least an hour, maybe two, but he said almost nothing.

And I was shocked.

I was shocked by how terrified he seemed, especially given his experience in business and in high stress settings and his friendship with President S.

He he essentially debriefing with him after the call, he was scared and he was pretty candid about that.

So he he he didn't really have what it took to interject.

Yeah, and that's an excuse being scared.

I'm sorry.

He had the opportunity to stand up for what was right and he chose not to.

He made that choice, whether he was afraid or not, he made that choice and he sat there and he allowed that abuse to happen, which is just as bad, in my opinion.

As this call goes on, so it's a two-hour over two-hour call, and that's a long call.

It's a stressful call, it's intense.

Like, how are you absorbing the information or or the and I'll label it as verbal abuse?

How are you absorbing that verbal abuse that's coming your way, intimidation, all of those things in the midst of that call?

Do you remember?

Did you black out?

Like, what what what do you remember about like how you were absorbing what was coming at you?

Yeah, I mean, I was sweating quite a bit, and you know, my heart was race racing.

I think I'm probably in the minority in that I meet conflict head on and I don't shrink back.

So my head was very clear.

These were things that I was, you know, very passionate about, and so I was dealing with it in my own way.

My body, you know, was experiencing all of the stress and trauma, but I held it together somehow and continued to just do my best to keep speaking in a professional way, and it was interesting because the video that he recorded later, Novo would say that the it was not a video recording, it was an audio recording, and that somehow they lost the capability to for for people to view the video.

But the images that I was seeing on the screen were of President S seething.

It looked his face looked like he wanted to murder me.

I mean, leaning in toward the camera almost just his teeth were bared for part of the time.

It looked unbelievably I dare I say demonic.

It it did look that way.

He was so expressive in his facial, you know, expressions toward me.

I think that's why they quote unquote lost the video portion of the recording.

Because if anybody had seen that, they would be shocked to their core.

I was shocked.

I couldn't believe it.

And again, this is because you brought forward accusations of bullying and abuse, and that you were making him aware of other accusations of sexual harassment that was going on in the workplace.

And as a leader, his duty is to what?

Oh is to investigate, to listen, to understand, to have empathy.

And yet his reaction is pure rage toward the accusations.

I mean, we hear it's it's I we hear this so much, John and I now, that I still my brain still gets shocked when I hear stories like yours that this is that this is just repeated over and over and over again.

It is the script, it's the same script, and these men react the same freaking way.

And it's just like when you said that, Christy, about the murder, you know, Jana talks about her story about feeling like when Pastor H was yelling at her that it felt like he would physically hurt her if he was in front of her.

And like that level of intensity and anger and rage.

I just want all of you people out there, especially men, to think about that.

Like, how that's so unacceptable.

What if that was your wife or your daughter that was in that spot getting talked to that way about a man?

What if it was you?

What if someone had that much rage toward you and they were expressing that in your face for you bringing things to light that were wrong?

Like, how would you feel?

Stop defending these dudes.

I'm so sick of people defending these dudes.

They're wrong.

They're wrong.

And it's not fair to Christy, to Jana, to other survivors, male or female.

It doesn't matter.

We just have to realize how angry these guys are, and it's not right, and they can't keep getting away with it.

Because when we heard Joshua's story and he talked about President S coming into his office, it sounded somewhat similar with the aggressiveness that he experienced.

Like it caught him off guard and caused him to like have extreme anxiety in the moment.

And I think this does happen to men as well.

But I think there is an extra layer, and maybe I'm wrong, but I do think there is an extra layer when it's a woman in these settings because I think that dudes like this know what it does to a woman to be talked to that way.

And they have very clear feelings about superiority over women in a different way than they feel it about men.

And I think they utilize those beliefs and the patriarchy to make women feel scared.

That's the goal, is you need to feel as small as possible, as insignificant as possible, and you should be afraid of what I can do to you.

Oftentimes there's threats involved.

There, I mean, there wasn't just threats involved in yours.

There was outright, you need to resign.

Was there any acknowledgement of what would happen if you did not resign?

I mean, I guess it well, there were threats.

He's took, I don't know if it counts as a threat or an action, he took your everything away from you.

So basically your job's gone.

Yeah.

And he also said I've sabotaged my role with a novel.

Like there's no, he said, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to work with you ever again.

And he's well, he's the president.

So I mean, yeah, basically, yeah, I didn't have a place there.

He made it very clear.

Yeah.

And did he have any concrete things about you that were reasons for this, or was it strictly that you brought this to attention?

It was solely because I brought this to attention.

He had no concerns about my leadership or anything that I had done or said, or any there was nothing.

And in fact, on the call as well, I didn't engage in any of the, you know, emotional arguments that he tried to bring out.

I was very professional, very calm, very cool.

So it there wasn't anything that he had in terms of concern about me.

It was just simply because I was reporting this.

So you get off this call where you're like, well, I kind of just lost my job, but not fully because they're trying to tell me I need to resign.

You and Joshua, at this point, you kind of don't really have an option but to go to the larger Novo board, correct?

What does that process look like?

And what did the board do when you guys went to them?

Yeah, actually, we brought it to HR next because we felt that that was the chain of command.

At this point, it was our like moral obligation to do that.

HR's job is we thought, to to protect the employees from this kind of behavior and decision making.

So we brought it to HR, met with the HR director and the COO.

They basically, I'm trying to remember how it how it all played out exactly, but essentially they were going to quote unquote launch an investigation.

And so we were kind of put on leave while they did that.

And we still thought this was actually all on the up and up, like they're actually going to launch an investigation.

We assumed the board would be brought in.

That's that was our understanding, because obviously giving oversight to leadership, including President S, is you know, part of the board's role to give that accountability and oversight.

So we waited, I can't remember if it was like 30 days or 40 days.

It was it was quite a bit of time.

And so we had to step down from our leadership roles during that time while this quote unquote investigation was going on.

And interestingly enough, you know, they came back at the end of the investigation, and no one had been interviewed.

No one, nothing had been investigated, no information was ever asked of us.

We were never, we weren't even allowed to speak to the board.

We had requested to speak to the board, we were denied, and no one was interviewed.

The person who had sexual harassment allegations wasn't interviewed, the former COO wasn't interviewed, I wasn't interviewed, Joshua wasn't interviewed.

Nobody, nobody received any information from any of us, but we were told that the investigation was complete now, and their finding was that every everything that we had brought, including with all proof, email correspondence, recordings, everything, it just had no merit.

And and there wasn't going to be anything being done about it.

So this was not a third party, this was an internal investigation at this point.

Yeah, there was no third party.

And in fact, I don't know who would have been launching this investigation, but nobody was asked any questions.

So I can only assume it was, you know, we were just being told there was some sort of investigation.

It was a, yeah, it was like, oh, yeah, we're gonna do this, yeah.

It was a leader like President S, what would you like us to do with this?

Pretty much.

Yeah, probably what happened.

We can't be sure.

This is a legend, but it appears that way.

So you did submit all your documentation, though.

I know you and Joshua did.

So you had a chance to submit the documentation, which included the well, they would have had they would have had the video.

Well, they said they lost the video, but they would have had the meeting as well.

So out of all the documentation, what's fascinating to me is that no one reached out to you or Joshua for an interview to get your perspective on anything.

So I don't know how you do an investigation without talking to the individuals involved in the investigation, but you know, there's that.

So all throughout this process, are you getting updates or is it just nothing?

Oh no, it's radio silence, and we're not allowed to talk to anyone about anything.

We were told that we must be silent and trust the investigation.

That's what we were told.

So you get okay, so they come back and say, Oh, you know what?

Big surprise, you guys are wrong.

What do you do?

I mean, I I would be so defeated at that moment, so discouraged.

Like, what are what are you thinking?

What are you and Joshua discussing?

Like, what's going on in your lives at this point?

Yeah, well, we were just very confused.

I think there was such a dissonance between who we believed people to be and what we believed this organization to be, and what it's at least capable of, even if there were some bad eggs, and what we were experiencing and seeing.

And so our I think our brains were just kind of popping.

We we didn't really understand how devious it was, how dark it was.

I we had no concept of how deep the rabbit hole went.

No concept.

And we still somehow believed that good could come of it, and somebody's gonna do the right thing.

Somebody is gonna stand up.

And so we just we had a meeting with the with HR and the COO, and you know, we went through the documentation with with them, like, okay, but we understand that you supposedly did an investigation, but we weren't interviewed.

And have you seen this?

And did you see this email?

And did you listen to the recording?

And so we just kept bringing it forth to them, like, this is confusing though.

And we kept getting shut down.

So there were a few meetings.

The last one, I believe we were pressured to resign, and we were told that we needed to sign an NDA and so that we to ensure that we wouldn't tell anyone anything about this.

We would never be able to speak to it to you know, friends, family, coworkers, no one.

And we were offered a severance package of 50,000 to take that, sign the NDA, and and leave quietly.

I mean, again, it I mean, I don't know a lot about HR, but I would say that this is very a un HR-like to even not only I mean not give like a damn about doing anything other than trying to force the people out, you and Joshua out of the organization.

And you were so intertwined with this this organization that your friends were there, you you both you moved there for this job, right?

And so as you're going through this process of being like, no, you need to leave.

How are you doing?

Like, what's going on in your life?

To where are you are you able to process this?

Are you in shock at that point once you get that that demand?

Yes, absolutely.

We it was starting to come to light at that point.

We were in complete shock because up until that point, you know, we really believed that we could change it from the inside out.

And if anybody could, we could, because we were in positions of power within the organization.

We saw, you know, we could recognize a lot of the toxicity in the upper level leadership, especially with Leader M and President S.

And but we thought, okay, you know, everything that that I was doing with Prime and some other efforts that I was in charge of within Novo on the on the upper level leadership team were to do that, to change the culture of Novo and to heal the toxic part of the culture that we were seeing.

We thought, oh, it's just like thread, this toxic thread.

And if we can just heal that, then you know, Novo has a chance, you know.

This is a great organization with great people.

And, you know, I was leading Prime.

Joshua was leading all the mobilization efforts, he was on the communications team, creating all the website content.

You know, we were the only couple in the highest levels of leadership.

So if anybody could have changed it, we're like, we we can do this, you know, and we believed in the people, we believed in the organization, and the mistake that we made was that we thought everyone was playing the same game.

We thought this is about we're all doing the same thing.

We're all trying to live a life of servanthood, and we are willing to sacrifice whatever it takes, whatever God asks of us.

We'll sacrifice it for the good of others and for God's kingdom.

And we're all playing the same game here, we're all making the same sacrifice.

And so I think it was at this point where obviously the very end, it took us that long to really start to catch a glimpse of how like we were seeing behind the curtain at this point.

Somebody pulled the curtain and we're we're looking at the wizard behind the curtain at this point.

It was obvious here that although there were a lot of good people doing good work in the field, that by and large, the upper upper level leadership, Jesus was being used as a talisman, and this was a business model to increase money and power.

This is what it was about.

And the all the good people, you know, out there in the field sacrificing their lives, sacrificing all of you know their comforts for the good of others, they were essentially propping up.

This business model and you know, this toxic leadership by conforming.

And, you know, we we didn't, we didn't, we just, it was so hard.

It was so hard to wrap our brains around it because these weren't, these were our friends.

President S was our friend.

Leader M was our friend.

Our kids played together.

We knew everything about each other.

We we did life together.

This was our community.

This was everything to us.

We had everything that we had built for 11 years was wrapped up in this.

And there was nothing we loved more than this organization.

As a couple, we had given everything for this organization to build up the people within it.

And we were happy to do it.

But, you know, when it came down to it, we did give everything.

We give everything.

And I think it was the first time in the organization's history where someone was willing to do that.

And that's that's why the vehemence, you know, from President S, that's why the fear in the former COO in the in the meeting, that's why, you know, the current COO told us he was scared.

This had never happened before.

They'd always been able to convince people to leave quietly.

Don't know if they've been paid or signed NDAs, I can only assume.

But this was the first time anyone wasn't backing down.

And this was in 2020, right?

When you received well, when you were when there was a demand to leave and sign an NDA.

And it is a demand.

And so you don't sign it.

Wow.

What courage and bravery.

That must I mean just craziness.

So you don't sign it, but you do leave.

So walk us through what transpired from that time.

Bring us up to now.

Yeah.

Actually, we were we were threatened, you know, if we didn't sign the NDA, we would be fired.

So they said, look, take the severance package and sign the NDA.

And we said, no, we're not gonna do that.

And they said, okay, here's the deal.

You sign the NDA and you take the 50,000, or we fire you.

So we said, well, that's you know, in our understanding, that's not legal.

And this so they did it anyway.

They fired us because we didn't sign the NDA.

Yeah, okay.

So that yeah, that that adds a different level of disgust in my mouth toward this organization even more.

So you're fired, you're both fired.

It's 2020, so it's in the midst of the lockdowns, especially in California.

Walk us through, you know, what transpired between bring us up till now, you know, as far as you know, what transpired through the years with with you, and if you can to the best you can, just bring us up to now.

Yeah, absolutely.

So it actually happened a few years before or a few weeks before the lockdown.

So it was before COVID really hit.

It was in March of 2020, five, five years ago now.

We were thrown out, essentially, and we lost our family's income, both parents.

We lost our community, our entire community.

We lost all of our friends, we lost the careers that we had built for 11 years.

In fact, more than that, because we were part-time ministers before we really joined Novo.

And so everything that we had built up to this point was essentially lost.

But 11 years with Novo, everything that we, you know, we lived, breathed, and sweated the projects that we were working on, the people that we served.

We lost all of that.

We lost our influence, we lost our voice, we lost our platforms, we lost everything.

And then COVID hit, and we're now, you know, we're we're really isolated.

And so 2020 was a hard year for everyone.

For us, you know, it was layer upon layer.

And it's it's hard to describe, you know, what we went through, but it was extremely disorienting.

It was like being in the middle of the desert, kind of being dropped in the middle of the desert with nothing.

It's interesting because as part of my work with Prime, we would often receive, you know, visions or dreams, and we would, you know, interpret those with one another.

And, you know, what does this mean?

And not long before all of this happened, maybe a year before all of this happened, I had a a significant dream that had prepared me for it.

And uh it's not uncommon for me.

So I had written it down, and in the dream, I had been given power and an opportunity, and there were a group of people that sought to destroy me, and they had come after me.

And in this dream, I had to escape, and I escaped to the forest where I met King David, and King I asked him to send provisions for me.

I told him I, you know, I'm gonna have to go into hiding, just like the story of King David when Saul was pursuing him.

So in this dream, I went into the forest and I found a safe house where I went to sleep and hide for five years.

And at the end of the five years, I was given a microphone to share my story, and I recognized that it has been exactly five years since all of this went down, and being able to share, you know, with you all now my story is it is encouraging to me that there's purpose, you know, in all of this despite the pain and the suffering.

The amount of suffering that I've been through is just unbelievable.

But if I can help anybody to avoid, you know, the pain and suffering that that I've been through, then it is in some way worth it.

And so I'm so thankful for this opportunity to to share my story as vile as it is.

You stole my last couple of questions, Christy.

But I I I do want as we wrap up.

I mean, one, I want to thank you for your courage.

I do, honestly, like your courage is is so astounding to me and the bravery that you face for all of that, all of that violence that was thrown your way, and it is violence, that you faced it, that you stood it down, that you stood up to it.

It's not enough because you still faced tremendous hurt and trauma from this situation.

And stuff was stolen from you, not only your voice, but your job, your career, your gifts.

And that will forever be an injustice.

And I don't even know how to how to say what we can say to bring that back, but I just want to acknowledge it to say that was stolen from you.

All of those things were stolen, and they have no right to take them.

And I hope in this process that you get some of those things back, at least the ability to say, you know, I have them back.

I can take them back because they're yours, your talents, your skills, your voice, your courage, your spiritual wisdom, your spirituality, they don't, they don't get that.

It's yours.

God gave it to you.

And so with that, I mean, I do want to I do want to just say thank you.

And I want to ask, like, is there anything else you'd like to share about your story?

Would you like me to share with anything for others that may be going through similar situations?

Or did you want to take time to talk to the leadership at Novo?

Thank you for asking.

I really appreciate that.

I think once I started really processing what had happened to me, I began researching and reading a lot.

And I think the big question on my mind was why do people follow abusive leaders?

Why do they allow this to persist?

And so I think, you know, finding the answers to that question really helped me.

And so I'd love to help others who may be in similar situations to recognize, you know, their responsibility to stand up and and to speak up.

I think for for people especially, if if your paycheck comes from your spiritual authority, recognizing that you're in a very dangerous position just to begin with.

It's it is a very dangerous position to be in, unless you're willing to risk everything to stand up for what's right, because you will lose everything if you do.

You could, you could lose everything.

And just recognizing for anybody thinking about, you know, receiving a paycheck from their spiritual authority or spiritual community, recognize what you're getting into, recognizing the risk that you're taking here.

I personally would never do it again.

But if you're in that position, you you have such a grave responsibility.

But even for those within church organizations or religious communities of any kind, spiritual communities, recognizing that as a follower, you share a moral obligation with the leadership to uphold the your community's goals above your leader's goals, if that makes sense.

So moral obligation is to act as a check-in balance on the leader's power and to protect the organization, the community from abuse of power.

One of the things that I learned as I read and educated myself after the fact was that there tends to be two types of followers in abusive organizations, or if there's an abusive or toxic leader involved.

And these two types of followers would fall into two categories.

They're the colluders, these are the people who know what's going on.

They're often in the highest levels of leadership, they see what's going on, they see the red flags, but they choose to look the other way because they are ambitious, they desire status, they want to profit in some way.

I'm here to speak to the to the other group.

And those would be defined as conformers.

And so I think one of the big questions in my mind when I left was why didn't more people stand up?

And and why why did they just watch Joshua and I become martyrs?

Why did they just watch it happen?

Some of our best friends who seem to be very courageous people were silent.

Why?

Why didn't they take the same, you know, stand up and take the same stance?

Why didn't they risk it all?

Why didn't they sacrifice to the same extent?

You know, research shows that the fear of social death and fear of isolation from your community is actually a very primal fear.

It's it's very primally driven in the amygdala.

And so it makes sense, you know, especially for those overseas, you know, your your paycheck is tied up into this organization, your visa is tied up, your safety in some regards.

And so to stand up and say, no, we will not tolerate this, you could be risking your your entire livelihood.

I know that research shows if if a if a leader, in fact, directly asks a subordinate to to do something that goes against their moral values, their ethical values, 65% of followers will acquiesce blindly.

Most people just don't have what it takes to stand up unless they're aware and they educate themselves.

And so I just want to encourage, you know, listeners who may be dealing with a toxic leader, or maybe, maybe the organization that you're a part of is great and you don't see any problems.

But educating yourself is so important.

And Dr.

Wade Mullen wrote a great book, Something's Not Right.

It helps to identify the tactics of abuse.

I think it's just so important to educate yourself so that you can break this cycle of fear and abuse that that is so prolific in spiritual communities and to stand up against toxic leadership, to protect others and to protect your organization.

So well said.

Thank you.

Thank you, Christy.

It's been an honor to have you on the podcast.

It's been an honor to hear your story.

And we just thank you.

Thank you, Jay.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

It's such a privilege and honor.

And yeah, I'm I'm very blessed to be able to share with you all.

Thank you.

We are so grateful to Christy for spending her time with us sharing her experience at This Missions Org.

And tomorrow, we want to invite you back to part three of this series, where we're going to be joined by both Joshua and Christy, and we're going to have a conversation all together.

This is one you don't want to miss.

So if you have not yet, make sure you've subscribed to Bodies Behind the Bus so it drops into your feed in the morning.

For J Coyle, I'm Donna Harris, and this has been the Bodies Behind the Bus podcast.

While we make every effort to ensure that the information shared is accurate, we welcome any comment, suggestion, or correction of errors.