Jill’s Story / Chicagoland Pt 2

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it only takes a moment but has a tremendous impact on our reach thank you for daring to listen today we are honored to share with you Jill's story if you have not had the chance to listen to last week's episode Stephanie's Story take a moment now to pause and go listen to that before we get into this episode they are both sharing about their time at this same church in the Chicago land area with that I'm Jonah Harris and this is the Bodies Behind the bus podcast

I am all about blessed subtraction there there is a pile of dead bodies behind the Marshall bus and by God's Grace will be a mountain by the time we're done you either get on the bus or you get run over by the bus those are the options but the bus ain't gonna stop you either get on the bus to get run over by the bus those are the options put the bus back on stop alright welcome everybody back to the bodies Behind the bus podcast we are thrilled to have Jill on today's episode

Jill is going to be sharing about her time at the same church that Stephanie went to Jill was also on staff at this church in the Chicago land area it was an Acts 29 affiliated church so he's she's gonna be sharing about her time there and her experiences at this church Jill welcome to the podcast thank you so much for having me we're honored to have you and we wanna dive right in to your story I wanna talk a little bit initially about you know this church seems to have a very family feel to it

initially what LED you to this church and when you were there initially when you started going how would you describe the church culture yeah so I started going with my mom back in the summer of 2011 so it was the summer before my high school my senior year of high school and we left because we experienced some church hurt at our last church and we are looking for a fresh start it was definitely a family feel it was it was kind of hippie there were a lot of college kids

it was very laid back and informal very community focused it wasn't your typical put on your Sunday best and shiny smiling happy people I think that's a phrase that we hear often it was not that at all it was come as you are messy broken a funny thing about it was that this the building that we are meeting at at the time was actually a former club so it kind of had this like redeeming feel to it I guess the other very very big piece of the culture I would say is that it was presented as

there was no other church like us and they in our town and that you know we were doing things so uniquely and so right because we got the gospel and other churches around us didn't get the gospel the pastor Jay actually married my husband Steven and I in 2014 and then really in 2016 we committed to staying at that church so there was kind of some gap there but you know we were in college and growing up did you meet your husband at this church then no I met my husband in middle school okay

so we've been together a long time so your husband came to this church with you once you guys got married is that kind of yeah he kind of came a little bit when we were dating and his take on it he liked it he liked the preaching he didn't like Pastor Jay as a person but he liked the preaching okay helpful so 2016 is when you guys like fully committed like we're gonna be here at this church you're two years into marriage right yes yeah and around 2021

is when you decided to take a more formal position within the church am I correct with that yes yeah so my husband and I got really close to Stephanie and her husband Willie and we are part of their community group um and one night uh during community group Willie had mentioned that you know like we're the next generation of church leaders and I knew that there was this need for a youth director and so I texted Pastor Jay that night and asked him what that would look like

and shortly after that I was brought on was this a paid role no it was not surprisingly which I was paid yeah yeah which you know I was wanting it to be paid I had a Newborn baby at the time and a toddler and a at that point in time a full time job a real day job and I but I also understood that we are a very small church pastor J from the pulpit many times would say that not a lot of people tived and the people that did it was a very small group of us so I wasn't surprised at one point in time

a few months after I started Pastor J mentioned that maybe he could figure out how I could get the 400 dollar monthly volunteer compensation but that was the last I heard of that 4 $400 and how how many how many hours did you invest into this role weekly that's a really good question so when I was brought on because our youth ministry it shut down because of Covid there was really nothing in place when I was coming in so Pastor J told me that I could make it as big as I wanted

or as little as I wanted I could do no hours I could do 100 hours but he really left the ball in my court which sounds really awesome but I I had a very overwhelming life with two little kids at the time and no official youth ministry experience so I was kind of needing direction some weeks I would say were as little as including Sunday mornings which is a lot or was a lot I would say probably seven to 10 hours but then there are other weeks that I would say probably closer to 20 hours

and were you I remember what stood out for me in Stephanie's story I can't remember if it was in yours to the serve your guts out motto yes what did that mean to you when you heard serve your guts out basically that you were gonna step up and do whatever needed to be done and if nobody else did then it fell on you I knew because we were close to Stephanie's family and still are I kind of knew that going into it that it was gonna be a lot of work

work which honestly put a lot of strain on my marriage because my husband was like what in the world you're not getting paid and you're taking all of this time and effort and energy away from our family yeah so I would say the biggest bulk was just the long Sundays the biggest bulk was definitely on Sundays so just running essentially if I wasn't there stuff wouldn't get the kids ministry wouldn't function because I was the main person and we are such a small church

that we are always short staffed every week um so even if I wasn't technically scheduled to serve I was still serving because we were short staffed and you had a lot of kids right at the church yeah yeah so I would say on average the time that I was on staff there were probably about 45 to 85 people in regular attendance usually on the lower side but at Max we would have 30 kids yeah so out of those 85 people so wild so like half of yes the people that attended would be children

yes did you ever have official like an official title and what were your expected rules and responsibilities did you have those were you kind of just making it up as you went yeah so my official title which I gave myself because Pastor J definitely was not going to make anything official was youth director there was no job description there was Pastor J was very against expectations because it didn't align with his view on what the gospel was so yeah literally no expectations at all

what do you mean what do you mean didn't align with his view of the gospel so to have expectations meant that you weren't trusting Jesus so it was very much preached from the pulpit that to not have expectations in your marriage and parenting and friendships because our expectation should all be put onto Jesus not onto other people so would you say that was it okay for you to have the expectation that your spouse would be faithful to you is that allowed no essentially

because we're all sinners and we're all gonna mess up and so it's okay for us to have the expectation that we're all gonna do bad things and that's basically the only expectation that's allowed yes so for example if let's say Jay had given me a job description with responsibilities listed out and I didn't fulfill one of them he was under the mindset that he couldn't rubber man me or get mad at me because that's not showing me Grace and we always need to show Grace

we always need to give the benefit of the doubt and so if I wasn't there on a Sunday morning while it was expected for me to be there every week and it was very very very encouraged there was no official expectation because that wouldn't be living out the gospel but you knew that you had to be there every single week if that makes sense I would imagine that it's you have this kind of feeling of like you're confused all the time but then you also don't wanna let him down

is that is that a fair assessment definitely yeah and when if there were sin issues with people at church it was never like okay well let's address this sin issue with this person it would be well how did the other person affect this person to sin or play into it I think this might be a good time to move towards what the staff dynamic was because as him as a leader does this mean that you weren't allowed to have expectations of him in that role how did that play out in a staff dynamic

yeah so Pastor J was a big talker he would um say a lot of things make a lot of plans um have these big visionary ideas but then there was very little follow through so when I came on staff there were two other elders however to my knowledge I don't know how involved they were to my knowledge I don't think there was really any involvement because it all came back to Pastor J being in charge my husband actually used to joke that myself and some of the church members saw

Pastor J is King J instead of king Jesus being king and so with staff it definitely felt strained because there were the people that saw Pastor J as King J without really realizing that's how they saw him and I was on that side and then there were the people that um saw more realistic version of Jay knew that their hands were kind of tied in a lot of situations and what was Pastor Jay like in that setting like how often did you guys have staff meetings

did you have any one on one meetings with him what was that like working in that space with Pastor Jay I never had any one on one meetings with him staff meetings were about once a week it was elders when I first came on staff one elder attended those meetings because he had another role in our church as well but the other elder did not attend and then shortly after no elders attended besides Jay so it was just the deacons and it was very Jay LED Jay directed

and if there was any pushback on an idea or such he wasn't direct in shutting things down he had the very manipulated roundabout way of getting people to agree with him this might be hard but maybe we can take a stab at it can you give us an example of that I know that can be really hard when it's manipulative or like kind of like confusing how he got his way but do you have anything you can think of or a situation you can pinpoint where you watched that happen now that you look back yeah

I think the one that comes to mind easiest would be the church for kids that we had started so for the first six months like I said I didn't have any direction from Jay and then we actually had a dinner with Jay's family and Stephanie's family and at that dinner Jay mentioned maybe we should have a mini church service for kids during big church service and that idea fully came from Jay it had nothing not that I was against it but it was not my idea or my creation and so then

when he presented that idea to the rest of staff and to the church he presented it as this was Jill's idea and so you know you could look at that and say okay well he gave you credit that's great he's lifting you up but really looking back with 20 20 hindsight I think it was a way of him him not wanting to come off as controlling and so if he had just said hey Jill we're gonna do this and this is my idea and this is what I think these are all the things that we need to do

instead he like slips it in at this get together dinner like oh yeah we should do this and because if he had come up with the idea and he had spearheaded it other members of our church would have definitely seen that as controlling and domineering so he went about it in a roundabout way if that makes sense would you say that that was just common how things happened is everything was roundabout and what it sounds like to me is he just didn't really

and I think we mentioned this in Stephanie's story that he didn't really want to be the one responsible for yes yes so even though that seems pretty harmless and probably was fairly harmless in general it's just this lack of wanting to be responsible for any decisions yes and then if let's say I did have a youth idea and if he didn't agree with it he wouldn't tell me no he would pretend to be okay with it but then there would never be any follow through of what I needed from him

like I never had a budget for we called it Gospel Youth so he would never tell me no but he would just never follow through so that X y and Z could play out unless it was his idea and he wanted it to play out it's very confusing cause you don't ever really know which way is up especially if you're serving your guts out and doing everything but even if you're doing that you don't really have direction and then he's also changes his mind and you may not know if he changes his mind it's almost

it's like you're walking on eggshells and trying to read his mind to see what he wants to do which is not a good place to be yeah even as much as picking who the men for the church for kids should be preaching it was like he wanted me to figure out what names he had in his head to ask them eventually he did end up giving me a small list but it was like if I mentioned someone he would be like well maybe let's see let's give it some time and it was very laid back he was never super direct

so he came off like a nice guy cause you know he essentially on the outside agreed with everything but then never actually followed through on things was he open to feedback or questions or even criticism what did that look like absolutely not so the best example that I have for that is from March 2023 he preached a sermon and I've since gone back and listened to it a couple of times it is very chaotic his preaching it's not it wasn't how he typically preached which I'm wondering if some

behind the scenes things started to happen at that point but during that sermon he essentially preached and this is up for debate if it was accidental or on purpose that you could lose your salvation and so that week between that Sunday and the next Sunday he got a lot of phone calls and emails and texts and people were freaking out that they're gonna lose their salvation so he was complaining to staff about that in our staff meeting that week I remember sitting there first off

I remember sitting there listening to the sermon thinking all of the same things that everybody else was but also thinking but Jay said this it has to be true it has to be right you know like he would know like he would interpret whatever he's reading the best and so then in the staff meeting and when he was complaining about all of these people I said you know what I I was actually confused by that too I didn't say that he was wrong I just said that I was confused by it

and you could tell he got like frustrated with me and still didn't really explain where he was going with that at that point so then the next Sunday he gets up on stage and he has this piece of paper in front of him that he starts to read and the start of it sounds so genuine and so apologetic and so sad that he caused so many people to freak out and worry and then he keeps going and he essentially says I didn't preach the Bible wrong and if you misinterpreted it

that was your fault I have this letter of apology and if you wanna read it you can read it later and he crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it on the stage which was like how is that an apology and he started to say and I should explain what I actually I should reteach what I taught so that everybody can understand and then he said but I'm not gonna do that so as our teach our only teaching pastor that was his he just apparently didn't care that a lot of us thought that we were gonna

lose our salvation how dismissive is that to to be like people actually saying to their pastor who is supposed to be a Shepherd I have concerns about something that you taught and having I mean I had real fear as a kid growing up thinking that I was gonna go to hell yeah and having that fear and then your pastor to not not apologize and almost make fun of you in a way like demoralizing you or diminish what you go through and throw it down to the ground I mean how yeah

and that's just since I mean that's that's not a Shepherd I mean that's that's but I think that's that's a good way to describe the type of culture that you were in so yeah definitely how did people respond with that so some people did end up leaving which typically if somebody left our church we were never like explicitly told don't reach out to them but there was definitely the way that Jay would talk about them it was very understood that we were to not reach out

so there were a couple of people that left after that sermon and I didn't reach out until after the fall of our church and then after reaching out realizing how messed up I was in that situation and how he had totally groomed me to agree with him and to stand up for him when he was actually wildly wrong and hurtful but yeah a lot of the time most of the time people would leave and we would not reach out and Jay would say things like well they just don't get the gospel

they don't get the gospel like we do you guys get the gospel and that's why you're here that's why you're on staff is cause you get the gospel anybody that left just wasn't believing Jay's true gospel would you say that his response to that sermon was elevated comparatively to how he would respond to feedback or would you say that kind of encapsulates a pattern of behavior for him that's a really good question from what I had seen it did seem elevated however nobody ever really questioned him

and if they did I never got their side of the story it was there would have been an issue something would have happened the other person would have left and Jay would have told us they didn't get the gospel so there was never anything as public from the pulpit like that but there was never anything as questionable before that as last March what is so interesting I don't know if that's the right word to use in all of the things that you're describing right now

is the fact that people weren't really questioning or won't really sticking or criticizing or anything like that there was a culture of what he says goes we don't ask questions it's so fascinating that that culture existed but it doesn't seem like there was like these gigantic situations that happened that LED to that it was just like an understood part of the DNA of the culture am I am I reading that correctly yeah and I think that is because over the 15 years of the church

as it was under J so many people had left I mean that's why over 15 years we still I mean Covid obviously played a part of that but we were still not averaging more than 85 a week top number and so I think it was just like oh so and so left and we never heard from them again and I don't wanna be that person so I'm not gonna question because or not even question but like something happened so like you knew that there was some sort of altercation between Jay and that person

and so you just didn't wanna do that because then were you actually getting the gospel did you really believe in Jesus and understand the gospel if you weren't giving J the benefit of the doubt that was like something that was thrown around like air giving the benefit of the doubt we are always supposed to give the benefit of the doubt no matter what which clearly set us up for the ending yet I think with these with actually nine pastors in particular there's always this air of like

when they are in the wrong it's on us to give them the benefit of the doubt but then when others you know whether it be they have questions about homosexuality or gender gender related questions and some churches it's race questions they are immediately you're immediately supposed to fall in the line to be like why are you questioning me about these things you know the answer so I what you're describing to me honestly from you know John is experience on staff

sounds similar to what you experience John when you're on staff with pastor age and we've heard of it we've heard other things from other Acts 29 churches as well so it's definitely a it's a cultural thing that Acts 29 has something that I personally experienced that I'm resonating with as you're telling your story is like I kept trying to figure out what was expected of me or what my boss wanted from me and the more I would ask for like clarifying questions the more I felt like he was like

patronizing me when he would respond like it was silly of me to even expect to know what he was looking for and so there was a constant dynamic for me of confusion where it was like I feel like I'm failing or letting you down but you're not giving me feedback for me to understand why I feel that way so yeah that constant confusion and actually he had similarly would not commit to decisions but then he also wouldn't empower me to make decisions so there was a constant feeling of

I'm about to do something wrong yeah definitely and I think also a lot of times with mostly every characteristic trait of Jay it was always just brushed off that's just how Jay is and I think when I was in it I think I had a huge blessing in my friendship with Stephanie because she had worked with Jay for longer and so when I would start to have these frustrations she would kind of be able to talk me off the legend like things that I wouldn't have tolerated in a

legit workplace I tolerated so much more because it was just the way that Jay was and so because I had Stephanie and I had somebody to bounce things off of I think I was probably less alone feeling and less crazy feeling because I had Stephanie who was like no you're right that's just how Jay is which was helpful in those times okay well I feel like we've got the culture piece did you wanna say anything else Jay no before you go and all went down I just want her to explain what

Kids Church was for our listeners so the idea was that it was supposed to be for men in our church to practice writing and preaching sermons that never happened so men did write and preach sermons but they did not learn anything probably other than don't do what Pastor Jay did at the end but the church for kids was essentially literally a mini kids service for kids 5 to 11 during grown up sermon so there would be a prayer worship songs scripture reading and then 7 to 15 minutes sermon

that was supposed to be very basic and at the kids levels Jay never once observed we never recorded any audio to get his feedback when there were issues or when I felt like the gospel wasn't being preached correctly as I understood it then Jay would never engage with the man that was preaching it was like okay well I'll get to that or yeah he's going through this or it was always just like down the road like we'll get to that and then we never got to it but when we asked these men to preach

it was presented in a way of you're gonna get one on one time with Jay you're gonna actually learn what goes into planning a sermon and um how to keep the kids attention and all of that stuff and that I would say there was only one man that was preaching regularly that got that insight from Jay and that's only because he was Stephanie's husband and he made it a point to go to jail to ask for feedback and such okay so the idea seems interesting right

especially if you're trying to do a sermon for kids because kids church or Sunday school programs and programs like that I think are always looking for ways to engage kids yeah with sharing the gospel or sharing parts of the Bible so I that idea sounds great but then there's not a lot of oversight and then the men who are involved don't really have a lot of direction so it fits into the theme and the culture of the church where it's just not there

it's just left on your shoulders to kind of carry it yes but I am a woman so I couldn't go and correct those not that that was ever explicitly said to me again but it was understood that I was a woman and I was not gonna go and give them feedback on their sermon so they didn't really get any feedback or grew because of it interesting which is really sad actually yeah but I think one other thing to go in with the cultural piece is that there was never any budget presented to the

congregation nobody knew there was a short period of time that Jaywood's give the total like weekly offering update that was very short lived and then after that there was never like this is our church's budget this is how much J is getting paid this is how much staff is getting paid there was absolutely no oversight and everybody kind of just went with it and if you questioned it you left because you didn't get the answer that you wanted but I only know that now

because of stories that I've heard not because I was privy to that in the midst of it and I think something like that is much more common than people realize and when you say that right now everyone on this call are probably listening to her like how the heck was that allowed to happen that's wild but yeah for those that are listening that are not part of a smaller church plant or smaller church congregation in particular within I mean what I can speak to is X29

so many of these congregations are like pick yourself up by the bootstraps like we aren't everybody's volunteer because we don't make any money and so you don't think there's any money to even ask about you're like the fact that we are existing right now is wild and like a miracle and you're not thinking is there money that I should be aware of that is like being allocated wrongly like you really think yep you're all just serving your guts out not being compensated you think it's even and I mean

even in our church situation where we saw the budget a lot of people didn't realize that like the staff salaries were in the budget and they were all clumped together and they didn't realize that what that looked like was the staff making pennies and the lead making hundreds of thousands of dollars and the staff didn't even realize that to an extent we didn't put those pieces together so I say that all to just clarify for everybody or to I guess put into perspective for everybody

that this is very common in these spaces for questions to not really be asked because the Assumption is there's nothing yeah and Jay is the one that planted the church so like who are we to ask or question what he's doing with his church because he this was his baby you know which now you saying that like how does that make you feel in your body when you say that out loud absolutely sick and my husband and I talk all the time about how never again hopefully by the Grace of god

we don't put our trust into man and earliest I don't I don't think my husband did as much he's more level headed but yeah absolutely sick for sure I'm sorry well in the midst of all the chaos of everything that was perpetually chaos from the sounds of things between your story and Stephanie's story y'all decided to play into church can you walk us through that so Pastor Jay decided but probably didn't fully decide because he's not actually responsible for making any decisions so

somehow a decision was made that you guys were gonna plan to church out of nowhere 50 people what did that look yes what did that look like what does that mean when you guys are so small already walk us so we had planted yeah we had previously planted like one and a half churches prior to this and it was always and this is my understanding of how church plants worked is that you a man is raised up has a team around him and then he goes and plants another church

not the lead pastor going to plant that church so and I think that it's very interesting that how separate he kept the one other elder at the time and the rest of staff um I'm wondering if he and I'm sure that he did looking back twist things to make it seem like it wasn't just his idea to the other elder but then to staff it wasn't just his idea with his and the other elders idea so yeah we planted a church six minutes away from our building our current building that was

because the people in that town weren't coming to our town to go to church so we needed to go to their town six minutes away to plant this church it was exhausting and I honestly wasn't even that involved in it because we weren't sure how big the Kids ministry was going to be in that town but overall I mean people were just running on fumes and the same people that were serving their guts out in our town were now also serving their guts out in this other town

it wasn't like the people from that town were raised up and took over the church it was us sending people over there every single week to run church so our short staff teams in our town we're now being spread to the other town as well so for the first month last August Pastor Jay preached every week in the other town then starting in September Jay came back to our town a couple different men from our church took over preaching in the New Town that was very short lived

because of everything that transpired shortly after but it was it was honestly just so weird and then we had this huge cookout block party thing in the New Town to kind of like show them our presence and you know that we were there and they have a church now to go to so it's like this big cookout thing when I say big I mean we're talking a town smaller than our own town with 50 people in our church Pastor J was nowhere to be found also this cookout was his idea so he is nowhere to be found

not cooking the food not mingling with the town people and so a couple of us reached out to him like hey where are you what's when are you gonna show up to this thing and he was like oh no no no no that's Deacon work I'm an elder that's not elder work so I'm not I'm not gonna be there or I'll show up I think he ended up showing up right at the end but it was very much that's on you guys to run and I don't even know why I would need to show up to that even though he is the one

who wants to plant this church yeah I think it was probably a way to like get us all looking in a different direction while he was doing other things with this time I think that would be probably a fair Assumption to make based on the last part of your guys story I do have a clarifying question so this is coming from someone who's lived in major cities so Phoenix and Los Angeles but when you say like the town 6 minutes away are your towns very um insular

so you don't do things outside of your town so I live in Phoenix but it wouldn't be weird for me to drive to Glendale for church or Peoria or Scottsdale for church it's a 20 minute drive but people are involved in each other's different is it a municipal what is that called you don't even yeah no that's totally normal actually the town that we planted in is part of our town school district that's how small we all are and when I say six minutes away I mean building to building six minutes away

so you're in this new kind of world with the with the church plant and then you receive a text message and I guess 2023 asking you to come was it to meet with Pastor Jay what what did that look like so Pastor Jay during September of 2023 was like he was never very reliable obviously but it was always like up in the air if we were gonna have staff meeting or not each week and so I was texting him to make sure that we are having it the next day and he finally got back to me and he was like

there's some crazy stuff going on right now um maybe you and me and Willie and Stephanie can sit down this week and talk and I was like what why why are the three the four of us sitting down and not like why why aren't we talking with all of staff and at that point there were two other people on staff not including the elder and so that Thursday I went over to Stephanie and Willie's house and Jay and his wife met us there and we had no idea what was gonna be discussed

or anything and Jay was very somber and he essentially said that he had engaged in an inappropriate texting relationship with another married woman in our church he clarified that it was not sexual or romantic in nature and that really it was just the frequency of the texting so it's very confusing he was very sad he was very apologetic he was very ashamed and embarrassed and it was like he was telling us that he had committed a murder but he wasn't that's how he was acting

and so we very much were like you know even if you had a full blown affair like the gospel still covers that and we love you and we're here for you and you know you're not alone in this and then he shared that there was another couple in our church we'll call them the Smiths because why not and the wife at that time was on staff so he said that this couple knew about this allegedly inappropriate texting relationship and that they were essentially out to get him and they wanted him to be fired

and they wanted to get to the bottom of whatever was not actually going on according to him and they were in the process of forming a task force to investigate what was going on and to eventually get Jay fired so immediately this other couple that we've all loved and had been close to and we got super protective of Jay because here's this man that you know didn't actually do anything wrong and they are out for blood and they want him to be fired and this is his church plant and this is his baby

and so is very confusing but it also lit a fire he even said in that meeting you guys can't even tell anybody that I was here talking to you because it's gonna make people think that I was trying to get you on my side which is the biggest mind fuck because that's exactly what he was doing so manipulative there were a lot of tears a lot of you know will always be like no matter what we're always gonna be there for you and he said things like you know maybe you know

depending on how all of this goes maybe I'll just be preaching from my front porch and you guys it'll just be us like you guys can come over and I'll just preach to you guys because you guys are my church cause all you've ever wanted is to sit down in someone's front yard and get preached at right those are the things dreams are made of yeah okay Larry Duff yeah he was so grooming us in that moment and then afterwards he group texted just Stephanie and Willie and said

you know you guys are the gospel to me and he listed out our names including mine not my husband's though which is interesting he used a scripture reference and I love you guys and like you're all I have and everyone else has abandoned me and I'm so thankful for you guys so then that Sunday was just super weird he went to the other town to preach even though he wasn't supposed to and nobody really knew what was going on at that point so he told us on a Thursday on that Monday

the other woman reached out to me and Stephanie and said I know that you guys know and I wanna talk to you guys and so that night we talked with her and it was still all the same you know this is blown out of proportion nothing has happened you know I'm so scared that Jay is gonna lose his job and it was just it was still it was very confusing but it was still like okay so nothing happened why are we still forming this task force so the task force was formed and everyone on it

except for Stephanie's husband Willie we're all painted as people that had never really liked Jay and that were all very legalistic in nature and didn't get the gospel and Jay actually asked that Stephanie's husband Willie be on the task force because he wanted an inside man although Willie didn't know that that's what Jay was doing and then eventually my husband also joined but more so to focus on like the finance aspect of it and then the task force decided to bring in

another local pastor was it all men yes yes all men which is actually an interesting point when the task force changed how that all played out but yes at this point it was all men there were like six or seven I think total so the task force brought in another local pastor from about 30 minutes away to kind of lead this investigation and kind of give us like some guidance on what to do the following Sunday they requested that Jay come to church that day so at this point

the church congregation doesn't know what's going on so the task force requested that Jay come and basically share what he has done and ask for forgiveness and explain that there's gonna be a restoration process Jay showed up after church to this members meeting which ironically was the second number of meeting I'd ever been to and at this time just so he said all you know is that there was these there was an inappropriate text thread going that was familiar and the frequency was in question

right that's it yes not that there was like even an inappropriate text scent it was more so just focused on the frequency of texting okay so the frequency of texting this other married person and had you heard Matt Chandler's from the stage confession about frequency and familiarity yet I hadn't which is so funny because for a time Jay was all about Acts 29 and then I think when these stories started to come out like with Mark Driscoll and all these other guys he definitely toned down

how much he talked about Acts 29 and I even heard that one of the staff members wanted to listen to the fallen rise of Mars Hill while we were all still on staff and Jay shut it down so I didn't know anything about any of that until after the fall of our church the only reason I ask that is because the verbage is identical yeah it's not sexual in nature it was frequency and familiarity which is just interesting I don't talk like that I wouldn't be like

there was a lot of frequency and familiarity I'd be like look we got a little carried away and we were texting too much like it's just interesting to me that those words were used yeah even when Jay was reading his letter to the church it felt very disingenuine and forced and I talked it up to at the time it was just because he had already said this so many times he had already talked to like the task force and us and I'm sure his wife and the other husband and so I just talked it up to his

like he said this so many times he's exhausted they're trying to crucify him the apology sound totally fake that was the first time that he addressed and the only time he addressed the church actually before we move on into a little bit more in depth of that meeting and what transpired after it you mentioned that he didn't include your husband when saying you guys are my people where is your husband at during all this yeah he was definitely way more skeptical than me and Stephanie and Willie

just because he had never liked Jay as a person before and so he was like something's not adding up here something just seems weird and so and Jay and my husband had never been close there was no true friendship or relationship there so after the finance what the finances were shared with the task force which at that point in time I was privy too because my husband was on it my husband and I had a lot of questions for Jay obviously like why are you making 100 grand

and there is nothing in the bank um and 100 grand in our little town is a lot of money um and goes a long way and so when my husband and I sat down with Jay to specifically talk about the finances we didn't even care about this text thing at that point Willie was also there and Jay talked his way out of that and then at the end he told my husband that he should be an elder of our church my husband who has no theological training he wasn't even 30 years old at that point

but because Jay realized that he had tricked my husband at that point well then we should put Steven in leadership because why not then he has one more person on his side so how did that come to be you guys have this task this original the OG Task Force bringing this other pastor he apologizes in a member meeting at what point does Steven get brought onto the task force within like a week so this is after that members meeting it might have been like the day before actually okay

because the finances were shared like the same day that the other woman reached out to me and Stephanie so it was all kind of happening at once so really the task force saw it as two issues there was this issue of texting and there was this issue of finances that apparently Jay had no oversight no accountability was literally just taking whatever was left over at the end of the month as well as paying for like his car registration out of the church's checking account

and so the task force started to investigate and so they talked to multiple people and there was kind of this Steven and Willie we're like okay there's nothing going on here like somebody else just needs to take over the finances and we can move forward as a church we can restore Pastor J and then most of the task force was like no no no no no something else is going on and at some point in this the other husband shared a screenshot of the text message with the task force and so obviously

Jay and the other woman had like an explanation for it and so there was kind of this are we gonna move forward and restore this guy or are we going and like put a bunch of changes into place like they were by laws for our church that nobody knew about nobody had read nobody knew about but you know we're signing covenant saying that we're gonna be members of the church without knowing the by laws which is wild now thinking back and so the task force basically was just like

we're done with this church like this guy has done too much wrong and we're leaving and so they invited they opened it up for more people to attend like this next meeting in I think it was later in October so you had that you had an original meeting where he apologized Task Force continues to dig in and this is a second meeting yes the task force had a lot of meetings just with the task force this next big meeting wasn't open to the whole church but the task force was like

kind of open to allowing staff members to come in um so prior to this I hadn't been a part of it some of the task force felt very strongly that women should not be a part of it but what was funny was that the entire time they said that they were not acting as elders they were just this committee that formed however by telling us that women weren't allowed to be in this meeting they were calling themselves elders based on how our church thought at the time so in this meeting

that was like a special meeting with not the whole church um most of the task force left um and said we're done with the church you know we did what we wanted to do and we're we're just done other people came onto the task force and these new people were much more like Jay supportive and like we're gonna move forward we're gonna restore him and so at the beginning of November the task force at that point in time was planning on restoring J like within the next several weeks

the morning of that announcement the other husband came forward and had a lot more evidence of way more inappropriateness going on between Jay and the other woman and so that was not shared with the church later that night the other woman asked to meet with me and Stephanie again and she shared with us that it was way more than just this inappropriate text that was sent and so while she was telling us I think I was just like shocked because I had said from night one of finding out like

even if this is a full blown affair there's still Grace for that but then trying to wrap my mind around the fact that Jay had lied to us for a month and a half and was still getting paid like we were fighting for him to still be paid while he wasn't actually preaching or doing anything for the church um so she told us on November 5th and by November 11th it was told to the entire church and he was formally rebuked and fired so this relationship is public knowledge in that community yes

and like we said in Stephanie's episode through our conversations leading up to them recording there was a lot of conversation surrounding what clergy sexual abuse is that affairs are not possible when there is a dynamic of pastor congregant because of the inherent power dynamics that exist with pastors and those that are under their charge I guess would be the word so we're gonna link in the show notes clergy sexual misconduct website that's gonna give a lot more in depth

educational resources to people and if you're hearing this or you've been in a situation where something has come out about your pastor having an affair with a congregant or a staff member I just encourage you to examine that verbitch and look into the again the show notes where we have this information so you can really start to learn how manipulative and coercive and the lack of consent that can truly exist within those dynamics but the reality is

is we don't have a ton of education surrounding that so it's labeled as an affair publicly so this woman as seen is seen as the other woman in an affair and he kinda gets away with leaving it at that when it's so much more nefarious when it's a pastor congregate situation yes and it left her with some of the responsibility too when it shouldn't have been yeah and even in the statement that was read to our church to formally rebuke and fire J it says the woman whom Pastor Jay

had sent the inappropriate text message to admitted to having a sexual and romantic affair with Pastor Jay Pastor Jay admitted to it as well oh and then the next line our time of investigation has LED to a sad and sobering realization Pastor J is in the state of open sin and rebellion to god in his word and he is unfit to continue as pastor of our church and so it's still just open sin and rebellion is how we're gonna label it not calling it what it is

not abuse that's not language that's being used here yeah so I think the craziest part is that even at this point even when Jay was fired I think it's important to mention he completely went into hiding like stopped replying to people just not seen or heard for a while even at this point though like there was still this for me at least longing of like how do we reconcile this Jay needs help and Stephanie had told me about the rise and fall of Mars Hill podcast

and when I started listening to that it was wild and it was such a mind fuck to hear how Mark Driscoll was talked about and I'm not saying that Jay and Mark are the same because there are a lot of differences but there were a lot of similarities to the narcissistic behavior the gaslighting now we know the spiritual the emotional mental and sexual abuse there were just so many similarities and it was really really really hard to wrap my mind around

this isn't just like this isolated incident of him having a relationship with this woman this is like this is Jay overall and so it became clear pretty quickly at that point that this wasn't like new characteristics of Jay that were coming up this was like who he's always been and over time and like processing through specifically with Stephanie and her husband and my husband realizing that this whole time that we thought that we were like on this charge of furthering the gospel in our town

that it was really just Jay building his own little self serving kingdom for himself and makes me sick to think about especially because we were his little ponds in it and it it wasn't just a recent thing like these things and these character traits have always been there and were there even when I started going to the church in 2,011 so it was like experiencing this whole different kind of grief that like all of my theology was built on this man and then

having to deconstruct what I actually believed and what that looked like so December was a very hard and dark month for sure I think there's gonna be a lot of people that struggle with the severity that I see what happened I think what people have to understand is that Jay groomed different people in different ways and I don't know if I wanna include this but I am fully convinced that it was a cult I think a lot of people are struggling with the things that Jay put into place

give the benefit of the doubt and you know Grace covers everything and you know we need to be gospel centered in how we reply to these things and while those things are all true they can also be twisted manipulated and used as a license to sin and that's what Jay did he used it all as a license to sin all of his theology all of it it's not just giving him forgiveness for this affair and stealing money it's all of the manipulation and abuse that went into him

building his own kingdom when we all thought we were taking part of the kingdom of Jesus and for me something that was really concerning about your guys story in general is the level of grooming that was so apparent in your story and Stephanie's story and then to know that there was also this clergy sexual abuse situation going on to understand on our side of things that there hasn't been like a thorough investigation into how deep that behavior went as far as

were there other congregants that experienced this over the last 15 years there could be a woman listening to this right now who was amusing air quotes the other woman and is carrying all this shame and not understanding the dynamics that were at play and the grooming that had happened and the fact that clergy sexual abuse is so nefarious and there is such a stigma on it and a lack of education surrounding it and predators utilize that to their advantage to prey on vulnerable people

and as I've gotten to know you and Stephanie through our phone calls I have seen even in your own lives in your own stories where there's vulnerabilities that he capitalized on in order to keep you guys right where he needed you to support the way that he wanted to live and the things that he wanted to do so this is why when we get into Acts 29 doing the bare minimum less than the bare minimum when you guys reach out for help we have so many concerns because they gave their stamp

this dude was assessed and allowed to be a part of that network they wanna wash their hands as soon as a scandal occurs oh that's not us we're not gonna touch that and they're not doing the due diligence to understand they're okay with allowing this person to have power but they're not okay with the fallout that comes from the corruption that was there and the abuse that was there and coming alongside you guys and helping you to understand scope so basically this dude that was your pastor

that has an untold amount of abuse in his wake we don't know how deep it goes is just like moving through the world now and could be pastoring tomorrow at another church in another part of the country and there is no paper trail anywhere nope and Stephanie and I have both reached out tax 29 even post them leaving our church and they want nothing to do with it and they they got involved right in the process when did they get involved in the task force type of investigation

someone from the task force originally reached out at the end of September and there was like a week to two weeks where they didn't even respond and Stephanie also reached out but then when she ended up getting a reply which is funny cause he's actually meant the person that she reached out to was mentioned in a previous episode who is supposed to be leading pastoral care and that is not the case so she kind of dropped it cause it seemed like things were gonna move on

and things were gonna get better and he was gonna be restored but then they were actually brought in at some point between November 5th and November 12th um between the other woman coming forward with the full truth and Jay being rebuked and fired so they brought in Knowle who is the you can find him on the X29 website he's the regional director of the Midwest and then Kyle who leads another Chicagoland area church and he's a volunteer that I've been told he's not paid as our area lead

so that's another way that they can get away with not taking responsibility or having to take accountability for what's going on with their pastors so they came in and after Jay was let go and keep in mind Jay was not there for this at all he wrote a half assed apology resignation letter to the other local pastor and it was never like shared with our church I've read it and it's laughable he doesn't take ownership for anything that actually happened so anyways

these guys come in and they're basically like we can either move forward with the church and we can help you guys do that or you know we can shut the doors and it caused this insane divide between the people that wanted to stay and the people that wanted to leave and at that point there was only a few of us left because so many people had left just over a little text message prior to this so well I think it's interesting for him that Akstrang representatives were

were present when the statement was read about Pastor J Correct yes and they have flip flopped via writing if they helped to write the statement or if they were just present at the statement so they've played whichever card they needed at the time they didn't share the statement with anyone in the church right it was just red correct and then they gave specific instructions on what to do if you had questions or if anybody had questions yes they were very clear

that this was not a topic to be discussed outside of that meeting that if there were church members that couldn't make it to that meeting that day to not discuss it with them that would be gossip and that was not fair to talk about what had happened with anybody outside of the room at that time and so they asked that if anybody reached out wanting to know what happened to have us give the acts 29 guys their email addresses and then the acts 29 guys would reach out to them so

when I sent my team my resignation text later that day I did have someone reach out and ask what had happened and so I said can I give your email text 29 they'll reach out and they'll talk to you so I did that send a text 29 didn't hear back then in January I uh I think it was the Holy Spirit was like you need to follow up with that lady and make sure that she knows what happened and she said that she never heard from X29 so then I followed up with X29 Noel and Kyle and I said hey

following up on this email she never heard from you guys what the heck and Kyle also this is interesting Kyle the volunteer he was the one that was communicating with us I think Nol the official Acts 29 guy only replied like once when he was still trying to get our families to stay so Kyle said no we didn't have anything to do with that statement and it's not our responsibility to share it and yeah that's we're not gonna share that that's not our place and so I said

okay and then Stephanie and Willie and I shared the statement with that lady because now I am under the belief that everybody needs to know what happened and everyone needs to know the truth at that point in time when she had first asked me for it I was like no I need to listen and I need to do what I'm told and I don't wanna gossip and I don't wanna you know tear Jay down but the more I Learned how corrupt he was the more I was like no truth needs to be brought to light

and we need to talk about these things that was just like the best example that I had from that but there were a lot of people that should have been told that weren't told about it and I find it so frustrating that that falls on you guys and that people that claim to be shepherds are not protecting the flock from predators that is their thing that's the bread and butter we love to talk about these warrior pastors who are protecting the flock from wolves and like it's cowardice that's cowardice

you don't wanna be attached to this so you'd rather let an alleged predator with some pretty dang good evidence that they had predatory patterns walk around Scott free like that he can and I as an outsider actually feel frustrated toward the investigator your church use because that person either is out of their depth and does not understand these dynamics that we've talked about today or was used to cover for behavior and to cover up the situation so those are the two options really

and it's frustrating to me that Acts 29 with a pattern of abuse full podcast I mean bodies behind the bus is one of them but not just us rise and fall like their full bodies of work that are dedicated to exposing patterns of abuse within Acts 29 and instead of digging in and saying we're gonna protect people from this this isn't safe we're gonna use correct language we're not gonna use the word affair when we talk about this because that's not what's going on here

none of that nobody's brought in that has education surrounding this and the idea you guys were specifically told not to put the statement online correct even more so like we were not even supposed to use our own language of what was discussed in that meeting with other church members or with other people that had been there we weren't allowed to talk about it outside of that room that day which is manipulation and abusive and coercive and abusive power because that's not gossip

saying the truth about a predator is not gossip yeah and gaslighting into telling us yeah send us emails so we can share this but then no no no we're not gonna share this with anyone that's not our place that's it's absolutely absurd to see the emails next to each other why also I also think of the carnage of the people that that are left in this community to deal with the fallout of this situation those that are connected is intimately as you've been connected to the story

and those that are not that have just spent the last years with their families going to this church and serving the emotional and spiritual well being of those individuals I don't even think it's in the thought of Acts 29 to to see how or how can we help these people and it's plug and play just move on just move on to another church and and keep keep the keep the gimmick going which is which is I mean it's upsetting but it's not surprising I mean with churches like actually 9 the Spc

and they're just very much working from the same deck and that deck is not good so it's just it's sad Stephanie and I both tried to lay it out for Acts 29 we actually contacted um all of basically everyone on their website we emailed them and Stephanie did get a reply that essentially went nowhere they still don't wanna take accountability and they tried to twist and manipulate things and I ended my email the last email that was sent in the group that just said it seems to me like X29

always wants to have it both ways be involved so you can cover it up and keep things quiet to protect the image but not have responsibility or accountability for anything yet somehow still have the authority to tell us what we can and can't say this is not just happening at a little church in our little town this is happening across the country and while I know this email probably won't change anything at Acts 29 and may even be laughed off I pray one day you each

truly know how much harm and trauma you have had a hand in causing those associated with Acts 29 churches while it's understandable that you can't use church planting money to aid churches that have already been planted the least you can do is not try to silence the voices of those harmed by spiritual and sexual abuse within the church a narcissistic and domineering pastor and so much more you haven't asked to hear our stories but we will share them we will not stay quiet damn sound mic drop

my gosh if somebody's gonna tell me to be quiet I'm not gonna be quiet so I'm gonna be louder wow I mean we could end it right there but I would love to know a little bit about you know why you wanted to share I mean that you kind of shared that but is there anything else you'd like to share about why you wanted to share your story or anything that you'd like to share from your story that you think would be important for the audience to hear I think the biggest take away is that

truth needs to be brought to light no matter how uncomfortable or hard that might be I know in the middle of it I was so scared that Jay had actually had a relationship with this lady and I didn't want to know the truth if that was the truth and then once the truth was shared I realized how important that was that it that it couldn't stay hidden I think the other big thing is that when somebody shares with you that they've experienced church abuse or church trauma

even with within the same church that you're a part of listening to them and hearing their story is so important and just because you didn't experience it doesn't mean that it's not true and I know that Acts 29 isn't gonna change but I really hope that people realize that they don't need to stay a part of these churches and while it seems like this church is your entire life and it takes up all of your time and energy there is life outside of that church and there is community believe it or not

outside of that church and you don't have to stay where there is abuse happening so good I have one more question for you ideally what would the response of X29 been for you when they were made aware of what had gone on I think the biggest thing honestly was just one hearing our stories like nobody ever wanted to hear our stories I know that it's just Steph and I sharing on this podcast but there are so many other people that were hurt even more than a decade ago by Pastor J

in terrible ways so one if X29 could have just been interested in hearing what actually happened and listening to us in an ideal world it would have been nice for them to provide funds for counseling for the people that were hurt and not just oh yeah we'll fly in Knoll so that he can be at a meeting to figure out how we're gonna keep the church going and keep the doors open and people still are serving their guts out there at that church and it's in

it's insanity to me that that's still happening just yeah they would have just cared and and had some process in place to hold these men accountable Jay should never be a pastor again in or outside of Acts 29 and there needs to be some sort of like you said like paper trail to keep him from going elsewhere and for me it's frustrating that all of this has fallen on congregants or even you and Stephanie unpaid staff members who had no authority in this setting to raise the alarms

cause there's also relational nuance with all parties involved in this story like you guys were all up in each other's lives to different degrees and the reality is as an outsider like a third party that truly cares about the church should have been able to come in and also provide Protection and resources for this woman whose life was blown up and that's her story to tell that we can't tell because she's not here to tell it but it was so public like your whole town is aware of this scenario

so you're not outing a situation this is public knowledge it's been framed very publicly by parties involved what went down at your church yeah and she gets to walk around with the scarlet letter now and acts 29 gets to assist in that scarlet letter being on her and there has been no education or resources given to your community in order to actually provide healing and restoration in these lives that have just been blown up there's no pastoral care whatsoever involved in this like yep

even for Jay like Pastor Jay when we have a pastor who messes up or who is abusive or does something corrupt we just wash our hands that's the answer we're just like yeah yeah you're gonna have to go over there and not be associated with us cause you taint our image that's not church that's not how we're supposed to act so for me what I would love to have seen is them to come in and actually do the hard work of resourcing you all educating you

checking to make sure that people are being cared for because lives were blown up and y'all don't there are appropriate hard feelings associated with this and it should not fall on the congregants who were hurt by each other and their pastor to have to sort through this without any education or resources so shame on you x 29 amen this was part 2 of a three part series featuring stories from Stephanie and Jill join us tomorrow for the conclusion of this series

as we bring back both Jill and Stephanie to talk about their time at this church together and what it has looked like for them since leaving for J Coil I'm Jonah Harris and this has been the Bodies Behind the bus podcast the views thoughts and opinions expressed here are the speaker sound and not those of this podcast this content is presented for informational and educational purposes that constitute fair use commentary or criticism while we make every effort to ensure that

the information shared is accurate we welcome any comment suggestion or correction of errors