Three former pastors, Jean F. Larroux, III, Byron Yawn, and Tullian Tchividjian, gather for a heart-to-heart chat about the heavy stuff in life—like pain, heartbreak, and the awkward moments that come with trying to help someone in a rough spot. You know, when you wanna say the right thing, but all you can muster is a shrug and a ‘So, how about that weather?’ They get real about how sometimes, the best thing we can do is just sit with someone in their mess instead of throwing unsolicited advice like confetti. Why? Because advice can often feel like a giant boulder landing on someone who's already down! Instead, they emphasize the importance of just being present, showing up, and saying, 'Hey, I see you, I’m here, and you don’t have to pretend with me.' It’s all about grace, and they dive into how that grace is a lifeline for those of us who’ve taken a few wrong turns.

The trio shares their own stories of falling flat on their faces—think epic fails that would make for a juicy Netflix series. They laugh about how church culture can sometimes feel like a pressure cooker, where everyone feels they need to be on their best behavior. But here’s the kicker: the messier you are, the more you realize that’s where the grace flows. They remind us that grace isn’t just for the polished and perfect; it’s especially for the ones who feel like they’re spiraling. They talk about how vulnerability opens up real conversations, and how leaders who can admit their struggles create a safe space for others to do the same.

By the end of the episode, you’ll be feeling all the feels. They wrap it up with a reminder that our struggles and failures can be our greatest gifts to others. When we share our stories, we help others feel less alone. So, grab a cup of coffee, kick back, and let these misfit preachers remind you that it’s okay to be a hot mess. After all, we’re all just figuring it out together!

Takeaways:

• Sometimes, just being there for someone in pain is way better than giving advice.
• When life hits hard, our failures can actually turn into our greatest gifts for others.
• We often underestimate how sharing our struggles can help others feel less alone.
• Real grace means understanding that falling down can lead to falling into grace.

Chapters:

• 00:10 - Reflections at the Nightclub
• 02:10 - Creating a Culture of Honesty in Leadership
• 05:28 - The Importance of Confession in the Church
• 09:10 - The Weaponization of Hebrews: Finding Hope
• 11:27 - Healing Wounded Healers: Finding Redemption in Pain
• 18:36 - The Power of Struggles in Leadership

When somebody says to me, hey, listen, my pastor told me I should call you and talk about my marriage, I was like, oh, you must be really screwed up. And they always start laughing.

At a nightclub with my adult son to see a DJ that we wanted to see, an old friend who my kids knew. We know his wife, we know his kids was there that night, and I hadn't seen him in years.

And then I walked to the bar and I come back and they're like, dad, what's the deal with what's his face? And I said, why? It's like solo there making out with some girl. And I knew he was still married. I'm like, what? So we're driving home.

It's like 2:00 in the morning out 2:30 in the morning. And they're like, dad, what do you do with somebody like that? I responded to them and said something like this.

When someone is that close to the edge, they've already decided, and there is absolutely nothing you can do or say that will stop them. So your job is to stand at the bottom and be there when they fall. Period.

If you take your jumper analogy, right? So the guy that shows up to help the jumper is going. Jumping is wrong. If you jump, it will hurt you. We're not allowed to jump.

And the guy's like, yeah, I knew all that when I climbed on the ledge, right? If I can just make sure they know the law, then they won't. And the truth is standing at the bottom.

When you understand the gospel, you know that when Christians fall, they fall into grace, not out of it.

You're listening to the misfit preachers, Talia Chavigian, Jean Larue and Byron Yan from ProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing Jesus one podcast at a time. Now here are the misfits, and I will say this. I had that in the cowboy church that I went to.

I had that at Pat Thermer's church, Living Faith in Cape Coral that I went to. There are exceptions to the rule, and I would not be alive if it weren't for those exceptions.

Agree.

So I'm grateful for that. What I will say in terms of how do you create an environment, how do you create a culture where you can be free to tell the truth about yourself?

The only way that I know how to do that is to go first, like we've talked about.

Yeah, you can. You confess in your humanity, in your context, are fired, and then go start another church.

You lead. You lead with your Humanity. You don't lead with your best foot forward. You lead with your bedhead.

You lead with that, and you keep leading with that so that nobody in the church ever wonders whether you are better than they are. And I don't think there are. And it's not about. It's one thing to say, yeah, I'm a sinner. It's another thing to confess your sins.

Those are two very, very different things.

That is a very, very true statement.

Yes. And until a leader is ready. And I'm not talking about being indiscriminate, Okay?

I mean, my gosh, we're not talking about vomiting on everybody every Sunday.

And we're also going back to our operating assumption. We don't believe everybody is on the precipice.

No, but I don't think you even have to be on the precipice to have something embarrassing to confess. How you. What you think about your. Your, you know, this person in your church.

I struggle with anxiety. I've been trapped in depression. My marriage is important.

Here I am. I'm. I'm supposed to be the guy teaching you about faith in God. And I'm scared shitless that we're not to make budget this month.

What kind of faith is that? Like, I did. My faith is weak. It is God's faithfulness that is strong. I mean, I talk about the need to pray or read your Bible. I don't.

I barely do that except to prepare sermons. That's an embarrassing confession. I talk about idolatry, man. Part of me. Part of the motivation for me to preach is to.

Is so that you guys will think I'm a good preacher, so that I'll feel more important. Like those kinds of confessions. I'm not talking about, dude. I'm. I'm, you know, I have a secret lover. I.

I'm talking about just the basic stuff of humanity.

Yeah. Or the pastor. Just go back what you said.

The pastor who's out there that is struggling, that his platform hasn't risen or his name hasn't risen above the level of the bulletin every Sunday. And he looks around at success and he goes, what am I doing?

Right. Exactly. And why does that bother you? Start talking about that stuff? Dig deep and talk about that stuff.

Why are you so quick to assess your kids or your wife? Do you. The people closest to you, feel like you love them and accept them no matter what, or do they feel like they have to perform for you?

Blah, blah. I mean, start confessing that stuff. Just the basic stuff. The stuff that I Confess isn't like, guys, I mean, I am on the brink of robbing a bank.

It's not that.

It's just I don't need to do that because I have enough material inside my own heart on an ongoing basis that I can just talk about me, my life, my struggle. And I.

You know, I think for pastors in particular, the best way for you to show your people the best parts of God is to show them some of the worst parts of you, and we're afraid to do that. And the reason.

And this is the question that I wanted to pose, why are churches, like, why has church, for instance, the Christian community become the scariest rather than the safest place for fallen people to fall down and broken people to break down? Why is that? Now, I know there are historical reasons, sociological reasons. I'm talking about just practically why. What's the reason for that?

I would say answering it from reverse. When you see the church most alive in the history of revivals, where that is broken out, it always goes in tandem with the confession.

The reckless confession of horrific sin.

Yeah.

Always.

Yeah.

And so if. If the church is not in revival. Right. So we just chase it backwards. If we're actually not in revival, what is the missing out?

And the thing that drives that in revival is. Is the free, unadulterated offer of grace.

Right.

And. And people throw themselves and all of their junk.

And yet you and I believed that.

Yep.

And we still do.

Yep.

We believe that still kept secrets.

Oh.

So, I mean, I wrote books on this stuff.

Yep.

And I wasn't the kind of guy that was like, watch me. I'm the guy. I'm a moral example. I never was that guy. I was. I was talking about my own weaknesses, talking about this.

I mean, one of the reasons people listened to me and read my books was because I was the guy saying, I'm the worst guy. I know. But I still had secrets and did not feel safe sharing anything with anybody of importance in the Amen. Why?

Let me answer your question.

All right.

Let me give you my run at it.

All right.

I listened to the podcast Soul Boom.

Soul what?

Soul Boom, I think is the name.

Okay, what's the last word?

Boom.

Boom.

Okay. Boom. And they had boob.

Jean, calm down.

They had.

I heard boob.

You are a boob man.

They had an American church historian on there, and this lady who had written all these books and the moderator, leader of the podcast is asking her questions about the American Christian church, and she has written tons of book on church history, has been in her position in this institution for decades and decades and decades. And he asked her a very insightful question.

He said, in all of your research and in everything that you've observed and all that you've learned and all that you've taught and all that you've written, what is the one single lesson you've come away with about the American Christian church? And the American Christian church is obsessed with winners.

Yeah. Which.

And there is no place for losers.

Right. Yeah.

So therefore, can't be weak, can't be broken. Can't.

That's absolutely.

Do you remember what was said to me? We just wish you were better.

Yeah.

And I think to your quote earlier with the McShane quote, you know, my congregation's greatest need is my own personal holiness. I actually. I actually think to get it, you go, my congregation's greatest need is imputed holiness.

Yeah.

Stop trying to get it.

Yeah. So without holiness, no one will see. The Lord isn't talking about your holiness.

Well, not the one I got to offer.

Not talking about my holiness. Not talking about your holiness. It's Jesus's holiness that gets us in, not ours.

The simple answer to the weaponization of Hebrews, chapter 12 is this. What people completely forget in context is that the whole chapter is about hope. It's a whole thing is don't worry.

Right.

Right. And you get to that section, it's like, life is going to be rough. Right. It's going to be difficult. You're going to get sharpened through the process.

So hold on. God has you.

Right?

It's not meant to scare no anyone.

Or create a bunch of pietistic people who actually believe they're pulling it off.

Well, with anyone inside, as long as you lower the.

I don't. I shouldn't exactly. I shouldn't even go here, man. I just shouldn't even.

Well, that's fine, but listen, I'll start.

Not 70 minutes.

Okay, I will. Let me say this, though, for the people. And this is what I think we want people to hear.

And that is that your greatest failures, the dirt under your nails, the failure on your resume, will be your greatest gift to people. They will be the things that you learn when you're at rock bottom. The empathy that develops, the wisdom, the.

Even as I was talking about in a previous episode, I'm a different guy than I used to be. I think I'm easier to live with. I'm more free. I don't care nearly as much about the things I used to care about.

I would have learned none of that I wouldn't have been set free from any of that stuff had I not crashed and burned and bottomed out. And in the introduction to my book, Carnage and Grace, well placed this episode.

Brought to you by Tully and Chaviki.

There's a small part of the introduction where I say I wanted to do something with my regrets, hopefully something that matters, something that might be helpful, redemptive for me, yes. But also possibly for you.

I've learned that our pains, whether self induced or caused by others or both, can be redeeming if they are harnessed to help others find. Healing wounded healers is the way that Henry Nouwen talked about it. You know, leading with a limp.

Yeah.

When I. When I was in ministry, our church went through a major split. Right. Moved it from pietistic fundamentalist church to.

Do more, try harder, get better, reformed.

Confessional, grace centered church, you know, it moved as I got comfortable in my own skin. It's inevitable. I had a complete, overwhelming, paralyzing episode of acute anxiety.

Not in a moment, but over months, six months trapped in it, couldn't tell anybody about it. And then I broke down and it happened. Make it through the split, get back in leadership in the pulpit, go to therapy, work on myself.

When I came back, the elders of that church so owned their responsibility in that for not noticing things and not treating me like a true friend, that they completely changed their approach to leadership in caring for leadership. There were elders assigned for the compassionate care of elders.

Things like go to the wives themselves and really literally just ask them what they need. What do you need? What pressure's on your. What would take anxiety away? Where could we provide some leaves, relief? And they were very animated.

Mandatory therapy for the entire staff. Part of the package now. Mandatory sabbaticals for any pastor who's been there within three years.

And every three years you get one for four months, everything paid. Therapy's in there. We'll give you a vacation as well.

We'll send you and your wife away, we'll get you in group therapy so you can talk to people about all these things. There was such an urgency because of what happened to me, which was horrific. It was horrific.

Never want to go through it again, that these men got it. I mean, they totally got it.

They were the most compassionate, gracious people because they believed the avatar that I was putting out, this guy's above it. He's a good communicator, he's leading a strong church and blah, blah, blah, and he has all the answers and all those kind of Things. And then they.

When I fell down, they went, he is just like me.

Yeah.

He's a human being who could stand the weight of this sort of thing. And for the last five years that I was there, before I resigned, to go do other things. Elder meetings were my group.

Those dudes crushed it, and I love them for it to this day. We would meet a little bit of administration. We would share highs and lows and talk about Christ and what we were doing.

And then the last hour and a half, they would go into my office, flip open one of those stools that's also a hidden container, pull out a fifth of bourbon that we bought cases of, shut it, light the fire in the back, light the cigars, talk and be friends.

Yeah.

And I want to tell you something. The net effect was not just that it blessed me. Those.

Those dudes became true elders that weren't tangled in the things that most elders get tangled in, administration and decisions. All they wanted to do was make sure that what happened to me never happened to anybody else in the congregate.

Yeah.

It was. It was an incredible gift.

That's rare.

It was an incredible.

There are a lot of guys who will hear this, men or women, if they're in pastoral leadership, and go, damn it, I want that.

Yeah.

There's. It's not with. It's not within 100 miles.

So. So let me deliver a message to any elder that might be listening that doesn't want this to happen to their leader because they want them healthy.

Yeah.

Email us.

Yeah.

I will send you a plan. I will get on a phone with you. I will talk to your. So somebody on social media attacked me yesterday and said, who wants any of this?

My response immediately was a little punchy. The person who wouldn't darken the door of your church.

Yeah.

But I will tell you this. I do know who wants it. I tell you who wants it.

Is that board that hears this message and has no idea how to prevent that sort of pain from happening in their past life. If there's a compassionate one there.

There is a specific strategy and plan that can be put in place that will revive the soul of your pastor and keep him healthy. Be more concerned with him or her as a human than you are in their role.

Because if you don't, you're going to offset their identity and identify them and what they're doing, not who they are.

And I absolutely believe that. Completely agree. Butter. I just. I think that. I think, as I said before, lowering our anthropology. I'm not saying you.

I'M saying people in general lowering their anthropology, expecting sinners to sin. You can put all of the preventative maintenance pieces in place and you're still going to see crashing and burning all around you.

And to not be shocked by it, to expect it's one reason why I told you guys Paul's all My friend never blinked when he was walking through the valley of the shadow of death with me. And things got a lot worse before they got better. And every time it got worse, I was convinced he was going to walk away. He's bailing.

And the reason he didn't is because he understood the human condition well enough to have a very low anthropology. He expected liars to lie. He expected, you know, deceivers to deceive. He expected broken people to break down.

So none of my shocked him, which kept him by my side.

Speaking of amending my answer, I'll do that later because we need to land this plane and I could go on and on and hopefully it's left at least a curious mind in the pastors and the non pastors and the leaders out there that they could care for this. There's no perfect solution, but at the end of the day we do, we do love them. This, this particular episode comes from the most sincere place.

And I will just simply add one final thing and that is do not, and I hope anybody who's listening to this, pastor or not human, do not underestimate the power of your struggles in helping other people. So when someone shares their successes with me, I may feel temporarily inspired.

But when someone shares their failures with me, I feel less alone in this world. And I think we radically underestimate the power of weakness and failure and struggle in you in helping people who need help.

That's vaguely, that's vaguely biblical in my mind.

Can I give an email address as we close pastorsisfitpreachers.com email us church Boards Pastors. We will be a resource to you.

We'll be your vault. Yes, thanks for listening.

You've been listening to the Misfit preachers like subscribe and share more grace centered resources@prodigalpodcasts.com that's prodigal P R O D I G A L podcasts with an s dot com.