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Hello and welcome back to the Bodies Behind the Bus podcast.

Today we have us.

Special at the bus stop with my friend Caleb Campbell.

I asked him how he wanted to be introduced and we really couldn't pick one thing that was more impactful or important in the plethora of things that he's doing, but he is an author of an incredible book called Disarming Leviathan Loving.

Is It Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor?

Yep.

Look at me with the tagline too.

Good job.

He's also doing some really important work with pastors surrounding Christian nationalism and really just trying to remind all of us about the image bearers that we are and how to be in relationship with each other with that as a central point.

So welcome to the podcast, Caleb.

I'm so grateful that you're joining us here today.

Thank you so much for having me.

I appreciate, uh, the podcast and the work you both do.

So thanks for having me.

I think it's always like a little bit, um, everybody like tightens up when they hear pastor when they're our audience.

Well, I get it.

Yeah.

No, I, I'm, yes, correct.

Just so everybody knows, uh, Caleb is a friend who has, I have grown in friendship with in real life.

I have connection to him.

Outside of podcasting in the internet world.

And the first time I sat down with him, I think the first thing out of his mouth was like, let's get the elephant out of the room.

Or like, let's talk about the elephant in the room.

I have listened to potty bodies behind the bus, so I felt like, oh, I instant instantly disarmed because that has never been my experience with someone who has the title pastor.

And then I quickly said, I want to friend zone you.

I'm not looking for a pastor, but I really desperately need a friend.

So.

This is Caleb.

Um.

And, but we do have you here for like a specific reason today, not just you being my friend.

And I would love to hop into the why behind that.

Um, we are partnering with you with Disarming Leviathan to raise money for a.

Specifically a known community member who received daca mm-hmm.

And is facing, um, strong encouragement to self deport.

Yeah.

Can you expand just a little bit more on why we're doing that?

Yeah.

So DACA is Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

So these are, uh, men and women who, uh, at the time would've been, um.

Kids, teenagers who were, and, and young adults who were brought to America when they were kids.

So, uh, in this particular case, the person that we're talking about who we're gonna keep anonymous just for their own safety and not to, they, they have publicly advocated for reform and told their story, uh, but we don't want to target.

Uh, or make them any more targeted than they already are.

So we're gonna be ambiguous a bit.

Um, but in, in, in their case, uh, they were brought when they were, you know, under the age of eight.

And parent brought them over.

So the only world that they've known is in this case Phoenix, and went through our, went through the school systems that my kids are in, uh, graduated, um, is in school to, uh, to pursue a profession that directly serves the community like many DACA recipients, uh, the reason that they raised their hand to receive the deferred action for childhood arrival status was so they could, uh.

Get right with the law.

Um, and I, I mean, I've known DACA recipients who didn't know that they were not citizens until they applied for college.

And they asked their parents for their documentation.

They said, we don't have it.

And so these are many and women, young adults in our communities, all across America.

There's hundreds of thousands, uh, who raised their hand, said, we wanna get right with the law.

And, you know, paid fees, did paperwork, uh, interviews, and, and many of them are in school or have graduated and are in professions that serve communities.

In this particular case, this person, uh, is serving the community in a variety of different ways.

But in recent months, uh, there has been some.

Rhetoric from the federal government that not only are they gonna not honor daca, but that DACA recipients should self deport.

And, uh, for many DACA recipients, they've, they've, they started families.

They have children here who are citizens.

And so what that means is that, like the self deportation would mean.

Living in a country, you have no, I, you have no network, you have no, um, infrastructure that, like where are you gonna live?

Where are you going to eat?

It's not like going back home because again, home is here.

They were raised here, grew up here, and it's terrifying.

I just would invite anyone to imagine, you know, you're a 25 year olds young parent, and you're told you have to leave your community and basically start from scratch in a foreign country.

That's terrifying.

And so this idea of self deportation, while it kind of sounds a little bit, uh, tame, you know, you're self deporting.

It, it would be the equivalent of anyone in a young family moving to another country that you have no infrastructure, trying to find new job, new house.

Who's your friends, who's gonna help take care of the, get all that kind of stuff.

Uh, and.

It also gets more confusing and convoluted when you recognize that the children of DACA recipients are all, are almost always citizens of the United States of America.

So how, like, are you gonna self deport?

And then what do you do for citizenship in the new place?

Um, I is it very, it it, the idea that self deportation is, uh, gonna be helpful to these families is a, a pipe dream at best?

It, at worst, it's malicious.

Uh, and dehumanizing.

And so the reason why we are, uh, working together to raise some funds is to help, uh, our mutual friend, uh, basically afford legal counsel to do everything they can to keep their family together in the community that they've grown up in and have put roots down and who are serving who they're serving right now.

Just to, I think again, we're, I guess we're doing lots of things to have listeners tighten up.

Um, I think today, in this political moment, um, we could be confused or even, maybe even, uh, deceived into thinking that it is a widespread desire of the American people for DACA kids to be deported.

But we have some statistics behind what the actual support from.

We the people, was for allowing a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients.

Can you speak to that a little bit?

Yeah.

The, uh, providing DACA recipients with a legal pathway to, uh, to have legal status, whether it's citizenship or some other status, has overwhelming support across every political, uh, persuasion.

So over 86% of Americans last I checked, are in full support of this because, again.

To become a DACA recipient, you had to self-identify, which is a huge risk.

You're telling the government that, that's now saying, you should leave, uh, I wanna get right with the law.

Uh, moreover, they were children when they were brought here.

And so there is, and I think especially as a, as a Christian, there's a, a, a justice here.

Let's do them.

Uh, and so it has overwhelming support.

One of the reasons why, uh, there has not been action in Congress to complete the process of providing legal, uh, pathway to, uh, legal residents here in America is because everybody wants it.

So it gets used as political football.

I've advocated for this for over 10 years.

I've been to Washington.

I have talked to my representatives here multiple times and it is clear to me that one of the reasons why there's no movement on it is because everyone wants it.

So they try to leverage, you know, these hundreds of thousands of young people, they leverage their status for their own things that are not as popular.

And so, and this is across the political spectrum, red team, blue team, all the teams are using it because it is so desirable.

Mo the majority of Americans want this to happen, and that leaves a lot of our young, uh, neighbors in limbo where they've done everything that they can and there's just no option for them to complete the process of getting right by the law.

I definitely think it's, it's, uh, it's a appropriate topic for us to talk about too, and especially in light of everything that we're seeing across the, across the US and the growing tensions that we're seeing in, in the political spectrum.

Um, I think for us at bodies behind the bus, we've always been wanting to be in.

We wanted to be part of a conversation and say, how do we represent what we believe the church should be doing or faith communities should be doing faithfully to those in our, in our neighborhood and in our communities, and this is one way to help a specific community.

I would also, if you could Caleb talk about, could you talk a little bit about what were you are feeling in the Phoenix, or I'm sorry, in the Arizona specifically in that area.

Yeah.

Because it does seem from an outsider looking in that, that.

Tension is certainly getting a little more tense.

Oh yeah.

I share more in common culturally with North Mexicans than I do with people from Rhode Island.

Like the food, the climate, the atmosphere I live in, the music, the way we talk, the way we think, like we, we, uh, in many senses, uh, there is a comradery.

There's shared.

Communal experiences between, uh, in our case Sonora and Arizona, and historically Arizona, especially southern Arizona, has been, uh, it is extremely agrarian, so large agriculture and there have, um.

Decades of healthy relationship with northern Mexico and Arizona in, you know, labor and trade and, uh, the cities along the border, there's so much crossover.

Like kids go to each other's, you know, kids across the border go to schools.

So this idea that there's this like baked in has always been antagonistic is not the case.

Uh, and frankly.

Both Arizona and North Mexico want to stop the drug cartels.

And so this idea of like it being a lawless land, it's under-resourced for sure, but there's been a lot of partnerships over the years.

Um, and, and there's also drug cartels operating in Arizona.

Openly in m in regions where there's, uh, less of a footprint, uh, for law enforcement.

So there is a false idea that there's like this pristine America side and then this like horrible degraded, you know, Mexico side.

We gotta keep them out and all that.

Like Arizonans who, who've been here and who have roots here.

There's just that animosity by and large is not there.

The fearmongering around, you know them, the immigrant is.

Propagated not at the street level, but at the media level.

So there's talking heads on screens telling people about how they are, you know, they're gonna flood over, they're gonna so and so that does foment rage.

But people who've, many people who've been at the border who have relationships who've been in the community for a long time, they do not feel that animosity or fear 'cause they know what's real.

Uh, and so I, I would say there is a real sober mindedness of around drug cartels.

And that there, it's really difficult, uh, to fight the drug cartels both in Arizona and in Mexico, and a real affinity, uh, a neighborly love, so to speak between Arizona and Mexico.

However, there are contingents who do not have those experiences or have had different experiences who are, uh, hold a great deal of animosity.

Towards immigrants.

And so that gets ated and propagated, especially in, you know, rage bait, media click, click bait type stuff.

You notice though that right now, uh, the temperature is being turned up.

Many of our neighbors who are immigrants from south of the border are, are feeling abject terror because of what's happening primarily at the federal level and the media level.

And then that comes down to the street level.

So this is not like a grassroots level hatred.

This is something that's being stirred up by, in my opinion, bad actors.

Yeah.

Arizona is such an interesting case too because we, I mean, when he says we have this relationship, I.

It's not just like friendly relationship.

Even like we had our border open to them working here.

Like there, it was very common for people to live in Mexico, drive across the border and work here for de was it decades that that was allowed?

I, we have had multiple iterations of, and I, I would maybe adjust and say the borders weren't open.

There was just more, um.

Accessibility for work programs, work permits, right.

Is very, very, and I, I, I'm cautious.

There's been security measures, right.

It's not just like there's no fence or something like that.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and, and there was paperwork.

Uh, there have been many programs that are business to business where there's labor exchanges, whether that's like in, in Phoenix, especially the construction industry.

Mm-hmm.

Really leans heavy on immigrant labor.

Uh, one of the reasons why some of the housing market new builds have slowed down is because the labor market and, you know, um, skilled labor for construction is diminishing.

And that speaks to the fact that there's always been this, um, I wouldn't say partnership that was, uh, thoughtful.

Secure, but, but more open than it is now.

For sure.

Why Bodies behind the bus?

Why Leviathan?

Why are we coming together for this one?

Obviously it's because this is a known community member to Caleb and I, but also this is just part of our values here at Sacred Wilderness Bodies.

Behind the Bus, sacred Wilderness is the nonprofit that we're underneath.

If you didn't know or you're a new listener.

We have this year already given funds towards, um, legal fees for a minor who was detained, correct?

Jay?

Yes.

Which is, he's still, he's still the latest update.

They're still fighting to get him.

He's going to be deported, but we're, they're fighting to try to expedite that process or get him in a place to where they, but yes, we did provide funds to someone who was detained by ICE on a, a trip to a basketball camp.

Uh, he was a Sudanese.

Uh, he is a Sudanese.

National.

And he was over here playing basketball for the high school that one of my kids go to.

And he got detained on a bus, on a drive to Texas.

And you know, it's just crazy.

So we did give funds toward that to, to helping find, uh, uh, uh, legal.

Legal representation for him, which he did find that, so we were able, he reached his goal and they were able to get legal representation for the individual.

But yeah, I mean, I personally feel like, you know, the more we can, we can give to these types of things or make people aware of these types of things, the better.

Because I, I mean, like, I.

I struggle mightily with what to do right now with everything that we're seeing in the news constantly.

Yeah.

And the best way that, like I can break it down for me, like in my head is like, how do I help individuals and communities and.

To me, this feels like something where we can step in and really help a person in a community that isn't a crisis like this is a crisis.

And imagine if you were them, like, put yourselves in your shoes, or if your family was in this situation, what a dire situation it is.

Not only for them emotionally, but financially.

Uh, I mean, just so many things that I can think of right now and why I think this is a worthy cause to, to partner with Caleb on this and, and try to really impact the, the community and the individual and the families there.

So we have this series with Joe Ash Thomas, about doing like the Justice of Jesus.

And uh, it's called Just Calling.

And we're going through different, uh, chapters of his book and discussing ways that it relates to us and our community and people that claim Jesus and are trying to do the work of Jesus.

And actually, we just did an episode about, uh, decolonizing our budgets and that probably sounds like a very, um, uh.

PC way to say something, but I am so excited for you all to hear it because I believe that it's really going to partner well with this fundraiser that we're doing doing right now.

Uh, we talk specifically about how our money can be used as a tool for justice for the marginalized and oppressed in our communities, in our nation, in our world, and.

We also talk a little bit about how money can be used as a tool of oppression, and so this is an opportunity for us not to just hear an idea or a concept for us as a community to partner together, to be the hands and feet and to do the justice of Jesus with our finances.

So we are actually going to be doing this fundraiser.

It's gonna be $10,000.

We are a nonprofit, so it is tax deductible as of now.

We'll see what happens this year with, you know, the times, but it is tax deductible and I think it's something that, I mean.

If the listeners between our two platforms give what they can in this moment, we will easily meet this need, if not surpass this need so quickly.

I know that right now it feels really scary and uncertain and it's so hard to give anything financially because so many of us are feeling that anxiety.

Uh, but this is a moment to step out in trust and utilize our funds for justice.

And I don't know about you guys, but I've been feeling so paralyzed as more and more news comes out and we get more and more polarized and we see, uh, you.

Rhetoric that's causing us to see our neighbors as our enemies, no matter who they are.

I think that is just a widely accepted marker of the time that we're in right now, and I think this is an opportunity for us to pause and to do something because when we're just.

Intaking information, it can, you can start to feel hopeless.

This is a step towards doing something.

This is a step into action and out of being frozen.

So I invite you to join us in this.

We're going to be partnering to get this done as quick as possible so that this family can at least take a little bit of a breath as they pursue justice and legal options for themselves and protecting their family.

So this family, John, I think that's a great, what you said.

So, you know, just to reemphasize that like, as this family is pursuing legal options, uh, we're, we're gonna be stepping in to sustain, help them sustain for the life, life needs that they have, uh, during this, this process, uh, that they're going through.

So maybe, you know, it's, it's a way to look at how you can support them on day to day.

While they pursue legal options to stay in this country and to stay together and, um, it's, it's really like a bridge for them right now.

And I think it's a beautiful thing for us to do, to be able to be that bridge, especially if we're not there with them.

And especially if you're looking for a place to stay.

I am really passionate about what I'm seeing with ICE happening in my city.

I'm really passionate about my neighbors and, uh, marginalized communities and what they're experiencing.

This is a great way to step in and personally help a family, uh, through, through this unrest that we're feeling as a culture.

So, you know.

It's a, it's just such a tough time for, for everyone, but especially for those that are experiencing such hate, and it's just that it's hate.

Uh, it's a way for us to be a bridge and be a, a, a spot for them to land and have a moment to breathe.

Caleb, now that we've uh, introduced this fundraiser, I'd love to just give you a minute here on Bodies Behind the Bus to talk about some of the things that you are doing, and I would love for our listeners to go give you a follow if this is something that resonates with them.

I, I think that you are putting out content that is so helpful for this moment that just for me, it causes my anxiety levels to go down.

I feel like, okay, wait, this is, this is the type of, the type of Christianity that I want to step into that I want to be living out.

Can you walk us through disarming leviathan, and then I'd also love for you to intro J 29 too, our listeners.

So disarming Leviathan, uh, in 2020, about 80% of our congregation that was there in 2016 had had left by the end of 2020.

And that was a super confusing time for me.

Um, I.

Because they, not only did they leave, but they accused me of being demonic and propagating Marxism and deceptive spirit and all this kind of stuff, primarily around issues of immigration, refugee care, uh, racial reconciliation, things like that.

So I got.

It was a really difficult time, but I was also trying to figure out what was going on.

Why are, why are so many people yelling at me?

People that I've known, shared commun communion with for over a decade, and in that same season, uh, there is an organization that, that moved here and started hosting monthly.

Rallies with thousands of people that was propagating Christian nationalism.

And so, uh, I, I started to see that all these things that people were yelling about and angry about and raging about online, they weren't all disparate bits, but they were actually interwoven into a movement.

And, uh, I call the movement American Christian nationalism, uh, and I speak of it like a movement because.

In the actual lived experience of most people who are part of this thing, it's not primarily a political ideology.

So there is a political, there is an ideological term called Christian nationalism, which is basically Christians should run the government.

Uh, but most people, that was secondary to what they were getting out of this thing.

And what they were getting was a safety, belonging, and purpose.

And so I, I started to view this through the lens, not of politics, as if that's why people were animated about this stuff, but really more as a, a, a, a movement that was speaking to the heart, not the head.

And so I started thinking, uh.

And I know that this carries a ton of baggage, but just bear with me.

But thinking like a missionary, thi this is a culture I need to study.

'cause I was assuming that I understood what was going on and I realized I didn't.

And so thinking as a healthy missionary, not a colonizer, uh, thinking about this as a people group to reach instead of an enemy to fight.

Because I recognized in my own heart as I watched the rise of Christian nationalism in my community, you know, rip apart relationships that I held dear Rip apart, uh, congregations all across the valley and across the country.

I felt my heart growing angry.

And what I wanted was to like out Bible these people with my really great Bible skills and beat them over the face with Bible verses so that they would repent and return.

And I realized I was becoming.

The very thing that I was trying to fight, uh, this combativeness, this divisiveness, this dehumanizing posture.

So that was a, a conversion moment for me.

Instead of saying, how do I argue and try to fight with people and shifting it to, how do I love people like Jesus is, love me.

And so, uh, disarming Leviathan is a book that I wrote that, uh, I did not want to write, but at the time.

I was desperately trying to find a resource to help me think about how to love my Christian nationalist neighbor, uh, friends, family, loved ones, because I, I'm convinced that people who claim the name of Jesus and then.

Justify a bunch of not Jesus like things.

The best response to that is practicing the real way of Jesus with them.

Not meeting their rage with rage, not meeting their anxiety with anxiety, but rather practicing the fruit of the spirit.

So I, I couldn't find like a pastoral response to the Christian nationalist movement in America today.

So I started putting pen to paper and that eventually evolved into disarming, leviathan, uh, loving your Christian nationalist neighbors.

So.

That is my thesis.

Uh, my argument when I'm, when I'm trying to help people put into practice is how do we talk to Aunt Betty who's yelling and screaming at the 12 year old's birthday party about, you know, lizard people running the government?

Uh, because yelling back just does not work.

Uh, and.

And so I, I'm hope I'm, I'm trying to provide a hope-filled way forward that we can actually respond and not be inactive, but do so in a way that actually, uh, maintains our own integrity, but also creates an invitation back to the way of Jesus.

And then J 29 is, uh, a network of.

Churches and pastors and ministry leaders, uh, that are working together.

Uh, we're predominantly theologically evangelical and we're trying to figure out how to recapture the political imagination of the evangelical church in America, recognizing that for many inside evangelicalism, uh, the, the local churches not helping to develop the political imagination.

And so talking heads on screens are primarily doing the discipleship work of how do you apply scripture to the body politic, which.

Creates a more federalized imagination of political engagement and kind of diminishes the local, like actual body of Christ doing actual work in the body politic locally.

And so we're trying to shift, uh, to, to recapture that imagination from, uh, you know.

Polarized partisanship to like cruciform work at the grassroots level.

Uh, recognizing federal stuff is really important, but we have, generally speaking, very little influence there.

But we got a ton of influence in our local communities, and so trying to equip, uh, pastors, uh, we're, we're working to coach and equip each other, uh, as to how to best do that.

Also, recognizing that, which is surprising to me, but like.

Pastors are still kind of trusted.

Uh, people like they still do have, they're, they're one of the few, uh, embodied people in many people's lives.

That are trusted.

And what I mean is like you can actually go see the pastor.

And I know that that's not always the case, but in healthy churches, pastors accessible, you, you live life with them.

Uh, and they have a leadership that that is often trusted in these spaces.

So that's what J 29 Coalition is.

I would like to talk to Aunt Betty.

That would be fascinating to me personally.

Yeah.

You don't have an Aunt Betty?

Uh oh.

I just, I don't wanna started.

Um, but yeah, I mean, I think that's interesting because, uh, it's constantly the more we see.

Uh, and I also wanna say like, I think people, you know, when you hear the word pastor, that could be super triggering for people.

Totally.

And I wanna recognize that.

But to that point, I think what you're, what if what I look at it as the church when it's healthy or I, I, I would say like any faith community, when it's healthy should be.

Could be a focal point in the community if it's serving that community in the right way.

And the, and I want to throw all religion in there, but in the, in the, if you look at Christianity, it should be more of a, a neighborly love and fighting for injustice or fighting for justice, and those that are oppressed and marginalized, hurting, um, that's what the church should be.

Yeah.

So when you, when, when you say what you guys are doing, I think that's what it kind of comes into.

Um.

That's what comes into my mind is it's more of like trying to, how do we, I don't know, recapture what actually Jesus taught and put it in action, which is, which is a beautiful thing.

Um, I'm interested though on the J 29 stuff.

Is it, uh, is it denomination specific or is it, is it just whoever wants to come to the party?

You're welcome.

Yep.

Because I would imagine that certain denominations see you as a enemy.

Uh, so it's non denomination, like it's not denomination.

Anybody's welcome.

Uh, and so we've got folks Baptist, reformed, Pentecostal, Mennonite, everywhere in between.

There are some.

Leaders of institutions who do not appreciate the work we're trying to do.

Uh, some folks who, uh, make it their ministry to call out wolves in sheep's clothing or people who are for sale, uh, have targeted what J 29 is doing, trying to.

Uh, frame us as some sort of secret liberal woke.

Atheist.

What, what, like super spies or some sort of like, like sneaky, like we're actually trying to infiltrate the church.

Um, so that certainly is out there because it's so profitable.

You know, one of the, the financial incentives here are so high.

One of the strangest arguments I'm seeing today.

Is that, that there is some sort of liberal, atheist money available for theological evangelicals who talk about Jesus injustice?

Uh, I, I think that there's probably exponentially more money available for people like me.

If I were to tow a party line for a right wing agenda and sanctify everything that a particular party is doing, I, I, in fact, I know there's money available for that because it's been offered to me.

And I know many pastors who in refusing to endorse a candidate have had people pull their donations.

So, as a local church pastor, I don't, I, I have never once felt financial pressure.

To say something on the left, I have explicitly and multiple times felt financial pressure to say something on the right and had people threaten to pull their, their, you know, their checks if I don't do it.

And so that's my one, that's my experience.

Maybe other folks are having different experiences as I've talked to theological evangelical pastors across the country, their experiences seem to be mine.

Uh, and so I, I just think that the whole idea that there's.

Secret subversive, liberal, atheist dollars out there for pastors of the Evangelical persuasion.

I'm, I'm just not seeing it.

Uh, there, I will be fair.

Like, uh, to be fair, there are institutions that give grants and as far as I know, churches for over a century have, you know, availed themselves of those opportunities for things like community building security on property, you know, and so I like this idea that the grantor of the funds.

Controls the theology of the church, I think is not sound argumentation, and it, historically, it's just not been that way.

Um, there are a dozen or so community centers built on church properties here in Phoenix that were paid for by grants from non-evangelical organizations.

And nobody seemed to have a problem with it.

Uh, so I just, I.

I just don't see a lot of weight in those argumentations.

I'd like some of the super liberal money.

So if it's out there, could you, could we have it so we could tell, send it our way so we could tell more stories?

Are you guys familiar with like the Lucky Charms logo and the like Lucky Charms and it's the pot, the, the, the leprechaun and the, the, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

I'm familiar.

Every time I hear about this liberal money, it's just like, it's this.

Facade.

It's like the, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Yeah.

Like it doesn't actually exist.

We just kind of pretend like it does.

Yeah.

It's so weird 'cause like when we, Western religion specifically always baffles me.

It's, you know, we look at it, it's built so much on money and power, and yet the.

The person we're claiming we're following, especially in Western Christianity was built on, not that at all.

And, and it's just so counter to, to what, you know, at least what I read in the Bible, but it's just so counter to that.

So I do think it's, I do think like what you're trying to do.

Like, to be honest, is like a very tough road because there's just so much division right now in the way that, um, and the way that we see one another that it's, it's just this week and the last week alone, I've just seen more people on social media with.

With just such anger and hate about, like I don't even wanna enter a conversation.

I don't even want to have a conversation, and we're so divided by it that it is tough.

So I admire the work that you guys are doing.

And I also just wanna say like.

I think it's work that's needed, but I also think that the results and the success are gonna be in super small wins because we're nowhere near, and maybe that's how it's supposed to be.

We are so far in this stuff that I, I don't know what to do other than small wins.

So, um.

The only way out.

I don't even know if there're wins.

Small conversations, like that's how I say it's small, whatever, just conversations.

So the only way out of this is 10,000 conversations at a hundred thousand kitchen tables for the next decade.

Yeah.

And that's the only way out on intake calls I often hear like a grief and lament about not having community any longer.

And so some of the tension that you've heard through the last four or five years of bodies behind the bus is Jay and I individually being in different spaces, even in our own journeys of where we're at with the local church or the church in a.

Its current form in the US in general.

And I think Jay, would you say it's fair for me to say we've both kind of gone, uh, all over the map in some ways throughout these years and have not necessarily even, I don't know if I've landed, and I don't know if I will, but I will say something that is a commonality with the survivors that I talk to, which is hundreds and hundreds of people at this point.

Is this deep.

Grief over the loss of community.

Yeah.

And something that I personally felt, and I looked for it other places, like I, I really gave it a good try to be like, can I join these different clubs?

Can I do these different things?

Maybe it's gonna be like doing sports with my kids, which was, is still a battle for me as a very not sporty person.

And the reality is, is.

Like Jay, the community that we had in Burbank was so special and felt so just, it felt like family and I felt like even for all of the ways that I would go back and change a million parts of how I even did ministry there, there, there is this beauty to the local church that I cannot replicate anywhere else.

And so I deeply desire that.

Um, I think Jay does maybe too, just in like, maybe in a different way.

Um, I don't wanna speak for you, but I think that something like J 29, uh, as long as it includes listening to the voices of people who maybe have been harmed by these systems, is a potential.

Step towards healing because I, I think that there is a desperate desire for the local church to reflect Jesus.

Jesus is compelling.

Uh, when you see people living like Jesus, it is compelling.

Christian nationalism loses it's, uh, shininess pretty much one day in if you're actually paying attention.

So to me.

When Jay and I talk about like, where do we go, which Jay and I say almost every day to each other on the phone because it feels so hopeless to me.

Like I deeply desire the church to step into this moment and to be a voice of calling people towards.

Love and service and care and um, advocacy.

So I hope that for J 29, we all know that I'll be out here calling you guys out if it wasn't that, but I don't foresee that in the future.

I've heard lovely things from people that are part of your cohort.

If you're a ministry leader and you are sitting in the tension of even being scared to know what to say.

First, I have so much empathy for you because I feel that on a daily basis, even just with bodies behind the bus, like how do I enter this conversation and be a voice that is.

Wise and healing and not adding to the noise.

It's a, it's a, it's a way for us to, at least, if you're in a place where you don't know what to do, it's worth a conversation with someone like Caleb and J 29 to say, I don't know what the hell to do.

And, and, and that may be where you're at.

And I also want to say like, I do think, like I have a.

Love-hate relationship with the church.

And I always have.

I still think that when it's, when it's a church that is, that is in a place to where it is actively pursuing justice and it is actively trying to love its neighbor and it is putting those things before everything else, uh, for a community, it is a beautiful place.

And I do think there's churches like that out there.

And if you have a heart for that and you're like, I don't see it at my church, I would reach out to someone like Caleb or J 29 just to say that because we need better leaders and church people to go to places and be in places where we can love.

Well, because I think what you said, Caleb is beautiful.

It is gonna take.

You know, tens and thousands of conversations, you know, one-on-one families to try to figure this out.

That's how it, that's, we're gonna have to get off the internet and we're gonna have to have og uh, dialogue again, because Q Anon and four chan and, uh.

Whatever, whatever else we want to say that has, that has infiltrated the church to a point to where it's, it's just so much disinformation and misinformation that we don't know where to turn and we have to turn to each other and just start talking again.

So anyways, but that was, I think that's where you're going, John.

I'm not really sure.

It was part of where I was going.

Thank you.

That was beautiful.

Yeah.

It feels scary when you're on an island and you're alone and.

The conversations with people who are also struggling and also trying to figure out how to be faithful in their ministry right now, that is going to help ease the burden.

Just knowing that there are other people in this with you that are feeling the same things as you.

So that is partially my plug for getting into a J 29 cohort is even if you don't know what to do, it's so much easier when you have people alongside you that also don't know what to do, but are there to help carry the burden.

Um, and that can see you for who you are and where you're at, and ask the hard questions and you know.

Uh, for me personally, I, the board we have for Jay and I, like, we picked them specifically 'cause they're not easy people to like pull the wool over their eyes.

Like they're gonna call us to the carpet if we misstep.

And I think that you're creating a space that is loving and caring, but also will hold people accountable.

So if that's something you're looking for and you're in ministry.

Big recommend.

Alright, well this has been lovely Caleb.

Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for letting us kind of pull at some of these threads.

Uh, I just wanna send us out like realizing that we do have a fundraiser that is currently active.

It is in the show notes.

It's gonna be all over our socials.

We are aiming to raise $10,000.

I believe we can do it.

I believe we can do it fast.

To this community is a community that loves justice, wants to see goodness, and this is an opportunity for us to do that for this family's life.

So thank you, Caleb.

Appreciate having you here, and we will update you guys on fundraiser.

Information as it comes out.

Hopefully we fund it today.

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