In this heartfelt episode of Becoming Bridge Builders, host Keith Haney sits down with Trae to explore her profound journey through neglectful and abusive church environments. Trae candidly shares how these challenging experiences tested and ultimately strengthened her connection with God. She emphasizes the critical importance of grounding one’s beliefs in God’s word and disentangling teachings that do not align with biblical truth.

Trae also underscores the value of community and the role of mentors in providing guidance and support. She offers encouragement to those who have been hurt by the church, urging them not to isolate themselves but to seek healing and growth. Trae calls for greater transparency and accountability within the church to address and prevent abusive situations.

As the conversation draws to a close, Trae reflects on the legacy she hopes to leave, focusing on pouring into her children and mentoring others who have faced similar struggles. This episode is a powerful testament to resilience, faith, and the transformative power of community and mentorship.

Well, Trey, welcome to the podcast. How you doing today?

Good, how are you?

I'm Gray. It's good to have you on. Glad to talk to you today in this fine, sunshiny day here in Iowa. well, overcast day in Iowa,

Whatever I'm talking to guests, the sun is always shining.

Yes.

love that perspective.

You go so to get to know you tell us a little bit about yourself a little about your background

Yeah, so my name is Trey and I am the oldest of five. My parents both became Christians in their late 20s, early 30s. And so I was raised in a Christian home and we had that kind of typical Christian experience of going to church and being active. And I'm just excited to kind of share the journey that God put me on.

I'm so glad. This is one of my series on people and impact the church has had. And some people have had bad experiences, but what brought them back? Because a lot of people have experienced things in the church that were great. Some were hurt by the church, but I'm always curious as to how did God lead them back? So we'll talk about your story in general. Like we said, we don't want to out anyone, but our goal is to just learn big picture lessons that the church can know.

Here's how you can support people on their journey. So I'm looking forward to have this conversation.

Me too, I can't wait.

Good. I love to ask my guests this question to kind of get to know you and think a little bit deeper about you. What's the best piece of advice you ever received that kind of still resonates with you throughout your life?

I think the best piece of advice that I ever received is such a great question. And it's a little like, okay, where do I start? I've been given so much good advice, but I really think the best advice that has helped me overall is to make sure that what I'm believing is founded in God's word, right? We have so much that's coming at us, good things that people are saying, good things that my heart is saying, but is this founded in truth?

Hmm.

I love that, because when I was a pastor, I always said, your temptation is to do a sermon on the top 10 bestselling books in New York, New York Times bestselling list, but nobody wants to hear that. They want to know what does God's word say to them and how does that apply to their life, not the latest trend that's coming out of society.

Exactly. Well, because trends change. know, fads change, but God's Word is that consistent thing that we can depend on.

Yes.

Exactly. I'm always curious people like yourself throughout our life, we always have people that have been mentors for us or maybe leaders who've inspired us. Who is somebody in your life that did that for you? Tell us what made them special. And if you want to give them a shout out, here's a chance to do that.

Well, honestly, I'm really thankful for my parents. I'm just thankful that they helped me to have that foundation in God's Word and that that was our final authority. you know, nobody's perfect and they were not perfect people. I'm not a perfect person. Nobody is. But they did help me to establish that authority that comes from God's Word. So I'm really thankful for that. So thanks, Mom and Dad.

I love that.

I'm glad they'll be little glad to you say that. So think about your, were being raised in a Christian home and come into faith at an early age. How did that shape your understanding of faith and community?

You know, the thing that I love the most about coming to Christ at a young age was being able to kind of grow in my faith with my parents because they were new believers, right? I actually became a Christian when I was seven and they had only been a believers themselves for a couple of years.

So as they were learning, they were passing what they were learning onto me and I was growing as well. And then the other thing that I think I love was seeing my parents now retrospectively seeing them with adult eyes, but my mom has a gift for hospitality. So she was inviting people over and she was like, come to dinner and hang out with us. And so we were having these conversations all the time around spiritual matters.

And I really appreciate that. The thing that I love about my dad is his heart to be a giver. And so I think, you know, having this experience of being in a Christian home really kind of helped me to see giftings and see the way that the Lord blesses and to then see the community that can come around that. And so those are some of the things I'm really thankful for.

What's so neat about new Christians to me is their energy and their desire and their hunger to grow in the Word is always fun because as you get, as you've been a Christian for a while, you may still have that, but that newness for the new Christian is just so infectious. And so I always loved having them in Bible class because they asked questions that I hadn't thought about in a while or in a way I hadn't thought about it. So it's always neat to have that mixture of

Yes.

new believers and seasoned ones in the same group together because you can learn so much from each other.

You're so right. I have loved on my journey seeing God bring to me people that are new in the faith or older people that I can ask questions to and have that mentoring type situation. But you know what you just said that I think is really encouraging is how that newer Christian can ask a question that will spur growth in my own heart. I'm like, yeah, I need to think about it that way again. Or wow, I don't think I've.

Yeah.

White heard it that way and it sparked something else that the Holy Spirit can do in my heart and life.

And for me as a pastor, it was fun because it made me look at the scriptures differently to ask the questions from, answer questions of people on both ends of that spectrum. For the new believer, this may be an unusual, difficult scripture for you. And here's why, and taking the time to unpack that and kind of walk them through what does God's word mean for them in that setting. So it's always kind of neat to have all those people in the room at the same time.

right, because we're all valuable and we all have a perspective to share, a different experiences that we bring to the table that helps with that robustness of our church community.

Right. So now we've talked about all the positive things. We're going to talk about a little bit of some of the things that sometimes goes awry in church. so kind of reflecting your experiences with neglectful and abusive churches, how did these challenges test and strengthen your connection with God?

Yeah, you know, I'm sad that I was a part of those experiences, but it did really force me to dig into the word and to see what the truth was. And to have to kind of unravel, you know, I've heard someone say detangling. And I know there's a big push for deconstructing. Well, I don't really like that. I don't want to tear down. I just want to kind of detangle.

some of the things that maybe I was taught or told that aren't exactly biblical. And so that's been my experience now is looking at my past of neglectful and abusive churches and church leadership or communities and kind of detangling that. And so I'm really, it's hard because I never want to be like, I rejoice over that. That might be a little bit much.

Right.

But like being thankful and knowing that God, again, His word is that foundational thing, His faithfulness, I've seen time and time again. And so that's the thing that I'm thankful for, is His faithfulness. God proving Himself to me over and over again and revealing Himself in new ways as the church would fail or as leadership would falter, then I would see God in a new light, if that makes sense at all.

it does. And, you know, I've been around a lot of churches that have, and communities that have caused hurt. And I remember even being part of some of them myself. And I was really very cautious about bringing new people into what I would call a toxic church environment. And as a pastor, hard, especially when you're the pastor of that church, you know, the environment's toxic.

You just kind of go, I'd love you to come to my church, but not right now. Cause I don't want new believers being hurt by the way sometimes Christians behave. As you think about your situation, what were some of the things that were happening without being too aware it was, but what in general, what were some of the, some of the toxic situations or abuse that you, your church or your experience was that people would say,

Yeah

that.

Yeah.

I recognize that, and maybe I didn't realize it was abuse, but now that I hear somebody say it, I know that I need to kind of be aware that this is not necessarily a healthy situation.

Okay.

Yeah, I think I was in several different situations, unfortunately, that were neglectful and some might even say abusive. And I think there was, in the first situation, there was a blurred line between nationalistic pride and patriotism and the Christian faith, you know, a little too like, intermingled of that like America and I'm very patriotic, so don't get me wrong.

Right.

but I love my country and I'm so thankful for it, but it's not above God. You know, so I think some of those lines were a little blurred. And I would say, as I've been able to look back, like, I believe that that church leadership just needed more support and more education and more accountability. And then in another church setting that I was a part of, it was all of the checkmark boxes of legalism. I was like, okay.

Right.

wear this type of clothing and then I want you to behave in this type of manner and have this hair color and this haircut and adhere to this list of rules and sometimes pages of rules that we were signing, you know, in order to have different positions. But I feel like I've come to kind of understand the challenge of leadership because you do want your folks that are coming up in leadership to adhere to certain tenets of the faith.

right? So like, where's that balance of this is what we expect a good Christian, mature Christian to look like without having a checklist, you know? So I feel like I see the different struggles, but I'm also like, yeah, it's not about a checklist. It's about a right heart. It's not about taking different people and measuring them against each other. It's about

Right.

God's standard and what does God want for us. And then I was in another spot of really narcissism and control, which was super challenging because I don't know that I recognize it as that until we were already there for several years. And you're like, and some of that that I think is challenging with a narcissistic situation or a control situation.

Right. Exactly.

I'm

is unless you are a part of leadership, you don't know that that's what happens, right?

Correct. Right.

So just for the average church person, how would they ever know if that's happening? And I would say, you know, looking for areas of inconsistency when it comes to accountability and transparency. So those are the things that I think I kind of learned and gleaned in the situations that I was a part of.

It reminds me, I remember going to a large church. I won't mention what church it was, but I was there in a leadership capacity. So we were, they brought a bunch of leaders in and they kind of gave us, gave us the behind the scenes look at how that church operated. And it was a very charismatic leader and built the church from the ground up with a team and talked about all the safeguards they had in place to make sure they protected the senior pastor and the staff.

from ever crossing, you know, or blurring any lines. Find out 20 years later, almost 30 years later, that none of that, well, I shouldn't say that. The lines they tried to protect, they didn't work, and the pastor had to kind of leave in shame because he blurred all the lines. And he blurred all the lines even at a point where, as he was telling us that in the beginning, it was happening as he was telling us that. So I'm like,

Mm.

Yeah.

you

You had everything that you had in place and I really admired some of the things you had talked about hedges and and all those kind of things. You don't ride in cars with females if you're the pastor because it looks bad and you just protect yourself. Somehow they just blew through all of those. I'm curious as a church member. How would you kind of advise people when you're in church to pay attention and kind of? Notice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I should say it this way. How do you know or how do you make sure you safeguard against that the person you're listening to is following scripture? As a pastor, I know what I tell people, but as a person in the pew, how do you do that yourself?

I think that's a super hard question because I don't, we only know what people are willing to tell us. But I think sometimes some of the warning signs that I've noticed is the person with the big list that says, here's everything that I'm doing, but don't look over here. You know, here's my checklist, you know, but don't look in here. So I think a lot of it is about the honesty.

Right.

Mmm.

Right.

and the transparency. And I think I could tell you, here's this checklist, but I don't know that that's really it. And I wish that there was some kind of standardized testing like SAT, ACT that would mean if you pass this test, this will never happen. I remember when I was meeting with our pastor that was going to marry us.

Right.

And I had two friends that were really in struggling marriages that were going to get divorced. And I was kind of walking them through that time and being a friend to them during that time. So I went to our marriage counseling and I was like, listen, how can I make sure this doesn't happen to me? You know, what do I have to do to make sure that this is not my story? And he said, I really wish that there wasn't ABCD equals

F and you will never experience that. But all I can say is trust the Lord, be as close to him as possible and pray for each other. And as you are getting closer to each other, then you're going to be getting closer to the Lord as he's drawing you in. But he was like, there's actually no surefire way. You know, there is no calculation that's going to mean you get that perfect

Yeah.

church experience. So I think what I've been learning is that there's no perfect church, as everybody always says. And I'm like, well, can't I just find a healthy one and thank God I'm in a healthy spot right now? But healthy doesn't mean perfect. Healthy doesn't mean sinless. Shoot, that's not going to happen until we're in heaven. You know, we're not promised that sinless place until the next world.

Hooray, exactly.

And now we have to struggle along with each other. And just again, it's going to God's word and looking at it and seeing what it says for church leadership. know, it says a lot about humility. It says a lot about living that right life in front of God. So there is a little bit of a checklist, but what I find is that it's not so much what I'm doing, it's who I'm becoming.

Correct.

Yeah, I love that. As you think about those moments where you were hurt by the church, I always noticed that in those times of struggle, we noticed something about God's character that helps us. So what did you learn about God's character that brought you comfort and assurance during those struggles with the church?

definitely his faithfulness. Like I said just a couple minutes ago, it's, you know, his unending faithfulness to his word, himself, his promises that I am his child, not based on what I do and if I measure up to that standard, but it's I am because I believe, you know, and I'm so thankful for that. Anytime we're singing a song in church,

know, grade is thy faithfulness. I am just a mess because I've seen it. I know it. I've experienced it. And so, yeah, I'm not like, yay, I was in abusive churches, but I am like, wow, I really know the faithfulness of God.

I love that. You mentioned something I want to go back to because I thought it was interesting. You talked about church leadership and the congregation.

What do you do now as a Christian in a church to discern and navigate through the imperfection of human leadership? Because I know that's always an issue. Are you more suspicious? Are you more cautious? How do you approach church leadership after coming out of abusive situations?

Well, I definitely think I am more cautious. You know, I had someone else recently ask like, how can I fix that about me? You know, how can I change that? And because I do find myself being more cautious. I do find myself with my discernment ears heightened. And even in some cases, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like everything looks great now, but let's just wait and see.

You know, so really trying to surrender that part of myself to God and to say, here's where I am. And I also have found that having a good friend to talk through these things about has been so helpful. Having someone that I admired who was a little further on her faith walk journey and say, hey, I just want to go through some scripture together because I need to talk to someone about these things.

because I'm not sure if I learned it right. Because of the years of being in neglectful and abusive situations, I don't know if I'm reading it and understanding it clearly and correctly because of all that ingrained legalism. So asking someone to help me with that. then now that for a time it was weekly of going through just the epistles together and really like, what is this and what is that and going back and forth and having good dialogue.

and prayer. And now I feel like

learning that I can have a quick thought of like, that reminds me of that situation and that's probably what's happening. Not reacting on my first inclination, talking with my husband who is that person that God has given me as a help to me as a sounding board and him to say, okay, I don't think that's really what's happening.

And if that's not your spouse, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a mentor, maybe you're not married, but there's usually someone in your life that God's given you to help you kind of be that check and balance. And then the Holy Spirit, right? He's the ultimate check and balance saying, okay, you're getting fired up about this. Is this really the truth? Is this really what's happening? And then the other thing that I've been doing

that I highly recommend is talking to leadership about it. You know, like if I, I recently had that happen and I was like, I am so, I don't really want to do this. I don't, this is hard because of my previous PTSD of interfacing with leadership where it did not go well. Now I'm in a place of like, okay, I want to ask this question. This is what it looks like. This is what appears like this is my experience.

And then for them to come back and say, okay, this is the things that maybe you didn't see or yes, that is correct. And yes, you know, the humility of that leadership to say, okay, yeah, we need to make a change or we need to handle something differently. So I think those can be hard when you've been in neglectful, abusive situations to confront, not confront, but like confront ourselves.

and our weaknesses and then to go to leadership and say, hey, like here's some of the things that I'm thinking about or that I'm perceiving, can you help me? Because if you have good leadership, they wanna help you and they don't know unless you tell them. Like sometimes I'm like, why isn't this changing or what's going on? And well, if I'm not having a conversation then how can we really interface about it?

Sure.

Exactly.

We pastors love to think that we're really approachable and that members feel very comfortable coming to talk to us. As someone on the other side of that, what can pastors do to truly be more approachable so that someone like yourself who has a question feels comfortable to come and ask? Because if you've been in an abuse situation, you know, you're always at fear that this is going to go badly. So what can we do to make it really a true

Yeah, come talk about anything you have on your mind.

The number one thing that I feel like I've been learning is proximity helps community grow. So just nearness, you know, having situations where you're with your congregation instead of standing afar off, you know, and that can just be your community dinners or your small groups, you know, times where you're interfacing or working alongside or serving and really you taking the first step as leadership to ask how someone's doing.

And I know that sometimes I have a very outgoing personality. can talk to anybody. And I know that's not everybody's personality bent, but just taking the initiative to connect with people. And I'm not saying you become someone that you're not, but in your way, figuring out what that would look like for you to take the initiative or to make those steps.

to be in closer proximity to your congregation.

That's good, like that, because a lot of times we don't think about how can I be the person I perceive myself to be.

Yes. Yeah. And I think it's helpful to have an outside person to say, hey, you know, this or that to encourage us and to help us. You know, I've had people that have said, this part about you is challenging or difficult or, you know, helping me to round out my edges. I think right now it's really popular to say, you know, be you and you're enough and you go girl and, know,

It's all about us and us being the star. And I think there is truth to that, that God did create me and you and everyone to be beautifully unique, but he still wants us to be changed into his image. And he still wants to round us out and help us to grow. So I don't want to say, I'm at all to be all right. I want to still be growing and changing. But at the same time,

Right.

My past experience said that the things that was pointed out to me that I need to change was sin. Maybe it's not always sin. Maybe that really is your personality and that's okay. You know what I'm saying? So I think this give and take of being changed into his image, but also like we still have our personalities and who we're created to be. So.

Yeah, that's great. For someone who has gone through a similar situation, is going through it right now, what advice do you have for them to help them reconcile their faith with their experience? Because I'm sure sometimes people do connect that and they run away from the church because of the experience they had at a church.

think my best advice was to not isolate. I'm so thankful that I have four siblings and we're all raised in the same household and we've been able to communicate and talk and share about our past and about how God has helped to grow us, change us, and to get us into a healthy space. And I honestly don't know where I'd be without them.

And so like, I think that's been the best thing that God ever gifted me with was with the community of my siblings. So I know maybe that's not everybody's situation, but I think when we're hurt, we have a tendency to isolate. And so I'm so thankful that I had kind of built in community that I couldn't really isolate, you know? And so I think finding those people that can kind of help walk with you through the difficulty, through the challenges.

and ask the hard questions and ask the hard questions of God, right? He's there for it. I had so many times where I would be driving, crying, screaming, just like getting it all out to Him. And He's there for it. He's big enough.

love that. Thinking about the church at large, you talked about the victim side of it or the person who's been abused by it. What can the church at large do to bring healing to this problem? Because it's a bigger problem, I think, the church realizes. How can they help those who have been hurt by church experiences?

I think by not keeping a secret, you know, I think when we have a tendency to sweep things out of the rug or to put it over here or to not shed light on it or pretend it's not happening, then we can never change. You know, we cannot change what we don't know. And that's what I think needs to evolve. And as more and more people, more and more victims, victims,

are coming forward and saying, this was my experience, the church has the opportunity to say, yeah, that sucked. We got to do better. You know, we want to be accountable. We want to be a part of this change and being changed to be more Christ -like and to really adhere to and follow the Bible.

Right.

I subscribe to a church newsletter or church news site and unfortunately every single day I get a report that some other church leader has either committed some kind of abuse on a member or there's spiritual abuse going on with the way they're teaching or they're leading. you starting to see now, you just talked about churches who are dealing with those issues in their church being very, very transparent about this is what happened.

We're here for those people who've been impacted. Please come and talk to us, and we're going to be here for you as a church. And I think that's a really good move and shift from let's remove the situation or the problem person, pastor, whatever that may be, and let's just pretend nothing happened and nothing about the way the church operates ever changes. You have to change the processes to protect people from this kind of thing in your congregation. So I like what you had to say about.

be very open and honest, very transparent about it, and also be very supportive of the people that have been impacted by what's happened.

So I'm curious. This is my favorite question to ask my guests, but I'm changing a little bit. It used to be what you want your legacy to be. But now my question is, who are you pouring into to be a legacy?

it's definitely my children. You know, I know that there are things that I learned that weren't right. And I want to undo some of those things. But I also know that there were some great, amazing things that I learned at these different churches that I also want to share with my kids. You know, I think our legacy is the next generation.

And so I also like to do interviews like this. I want to talk about it and interface. I think the other thing that is really helpful is when you're leaving a bad experience and you're going to a new church, letting that new leadership know where you came from because they can't help you. Not only can they not help you, but

then you can't be a mentor for someone else who's been there. You know, I think if we all put on these pretty faces of this is where we are now and we never share about our past or what we've been through or what God has led us through, then how can we make connections for people to help them to grow? You know, if I can share that this has been a part of my story and how I've seen God change me and change

the churches that I was a part of, then that can encourage someone else in their struggle and their journey. I think that's why books are written, you know? I think that's why people have this passion to share because they want to influence and have that be a part of their legacy. So that's what I hope happens. I want to be an encouragement that, yes, detangle, but we don't have to deconstruct and never rebuild. Let's rebuild what we're

deconstructing on God's Word and on the truth.

That's good. As you wrap this conversation up and it's been a phenomenal conversation, what key takeaways do you want to leave with my audience?

Yeah. Well, I think that's just it. Detangling, deconstructing, that is good. I think everybody should go through that time of what do I really believe? What was I told? What was I taught? What was I raised with? And then what is that foundational truth? You know, that's what I want people to walk away from, that it's okay. It's okay to question God, to ask him for the answers, but then wait to hear the answer from him.

be in the word and figure that out. And then also not to isolate. It's so easy when we are hurt to hide out in the corner and be that puppy that was hurt and so we're over here. And then when someone tries to help us, we bite at them.

Right.

It's hard when you've been wounded not to take on that, will wound others now because I have a hurt. But in humility, just asking God to help heal that wound and then help us to then be wound healers and people that seek to help others that were like where we were.

I love that. Trey, thanks so much for coming out and sharing your story and giving us such hope to know that there is healing on the other side. And a reminder to the church that, yeah, you're not perfect. You're not going to always do things right. You may hurt people, but it's best to own up to that and grow from that and learn from it so that you change the things that are hurtful and you make sure that you protect the flock that God has blessed you with.

Yes.

people of God.

Well, and I think too, I'm not standing here as a perfectly whole, totally wound free person now. I'm still in process. I'm still learning. I'm still like, ooh, why did that? that triggered a response in me. Okay, what do I need to work through now? And so to think that maybe there's also a falseness out there, an idea of like, and now I will never deal with that again. I don't know that that's true, Keith.

Right.

Right.

I think that we're always going to be processing, working through, will there be a time of healing? Yes, in heaven forever. And I think that even in some situations, there will be a time of complete healing. But if you're being triggered, or if something is sticking in you to know, okay, now I have to deal with this part of it. You know what I mean?

Yeah, exactly. Thanks for that. That's a great reminder. Well, blessings on your journey and thank you so much for sharing your story with my audience.

Yes, thanks for letting me share. really have appreciated and just your heart to share the perspective of someone that's gone through the abuse. And it's not my desire to give a list of names or the accusations, but really to be a part of that conversation of what do we do now and how can we heal and how can the Lord make these changes and show himself to be faithful. Thanks again.

Yeah, it's all about building bridges,

Exactly.

That's right. Thanks so much.