I always appreciate when a friend reaches out with concern or a heads up about walking into a bad church situation — especially when it concerns my family’s spiritual growth. 

What I DON’T like is when I notice a blatant double standard about the types of churches or people that get “whistleblown” on, and others that get a free pass because of their theological leaning or background. 

For example, many followers of John MacArthur are quick to jump all over charismatic preachers when they fail or teach poor doctrine but never call out their “godfather” for some pretty serious allegations within his ministry. 

The content below was originally paywalled.

2 years ago, when we were looking to settle into a new church home after a move 3 hours away, I posted some Instagram stories of our journey “touring” churches and celebrated the church we were in that Sunday. We really liked it, and we felt at home after visiting 7 different churches. We didn’t realize what lay below the surface… 

One of my posts drew a direct message from an acquaintance I’ve made through getting to know each other in similar ministry circles. He shared some concerns about the church we chose. He knew previous staff members that were a part of it, and had a lot of negative things to say about the lead pastor, his narccisitic behavior, and harmful leadership practices. 

I acknowledged the message, and appreciated where he was coming from. However, I also took it with a grain of salt – this person had been wounded (spiritually) by leaders in a similar leadership vein, so I did question how pure the allegations were. After talking to my wife about it, we agreed to  “proceed with caution” and we plugged in. We got very connected, and I even worked with them on social media and video stuff. 

After a year, we left the church, not because of the aforementioned narcissistic patterns, but mainly because of some concerns within the children ministry. Mainly, the church was growing too fast and could not handle the logistics of a healthy kids ministry very well. I let me concerns be made known to the proper leadership in the church, and we slowly began stepping back and searching for a new church. Although I could see some glimpses of unhealthy leadership, I did not personally experience any wounding or spiritual abuse there, and that was not at all why we left. 

We found a new home that worked amazingly well for our family and has been a breath of fresh air. It’s in a very different theological stream than our background, and offers a vibrant and healthy ministry to kids.

After some research into the background and story of this church, we learned that not that long ago, they went through a VERY MESSY scandal. They were previously a campus of a larger DFW church, and split off to become their own autonomous church in 2019. That’s not the messy part. The week the separation was implemented, which was planned and healthy, the lead pastor of the “new church”  was found out to have been involved in an extramarital affair with the worship pastor’s wife. It had happened years prior, but was discovered in the fall of 2019. Later in 2020, it was discovered that not only was it an affair, but that apparently the campus pastor, worship pastor, and their wives were living in a swingers lifestyle – and intentionally grooming members of the church to join them in their sexual escapades.

Horrible! A teaching pastor, leading services every week, and a worship pastor, leading in song every week, hiding some awful sinful activities. 

We knew this awful history, and we started attending the church despite it. Why?

It had been dealt with appropriately. The people responsible were removed from leadership, victims were heard out and empathized with, and the church made the issues known to the congregation. What was hidden had been brought to light and reckoned with. 

Here’s the rub. 

When we left the first church that my friend had warned me about, I followed up with him a year later to let him know our experience. I told him I could see maybe some glimpses of what his friends had experienced, but that was not our story there. 

We had a great conversation, and he ended it by asking what church we attended now. 

I told him, and he seemed happy for us. He told me he knew many people at that church, and that he had worked a lot with leadership there before it branched off from the larger church entity.  He spoke very positively of the church. 

Not a word of the scandal. No wrongdoing to warn us about, no leadership issues, no whistle to blow. Despite the fact that in reality, the abuse and sin that happened here was far worse than the allegations he had for our previous church. 

My mind wandered after that chat. 

I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a theological alliance – that it’s okay to overlook certain issues or not bring theem to light because the circle is different. It seems like it’s incredibly popular to crap all over charismatic churches right now – and part of that is correct; what’s happening at IHOP is a disaster and deserves to be called out and investigated.

Problem is, a lot of issues are happening in Baptist, Protestant, and Reformed circles now as well — but we tend to ignore or gloss over “our own”, don’t we? 

I recently began doing some research on changing the color on one of my vehicles using a vinyl wrap. I’m intimidated by doing it myself, but it’s very expensive to do it at a professional shop.

During COVID-19, I ramped up my website work for local businesses where we lived at the time, and I learned more about the vehicle wrap industry through one of my website clients at that time. I

I was proud of how that site came out, so I had an idea…I would find a local vehicle wrap shop, one that has a terrible website, and offer to trade them a new fully custom website in exchange for a new vehicle wrap.

According to some quotes and estimates I had, it would be about the same cost ($2500ish), so this seemed like a no-brainer.

I did some research in my community Facebook groups and found a guy that had a well-rated shop near me. I looked up his website.

Bingo! It sucked!

I called him up and pitched my idea.

“Hey Dave, my name is Luke, and I have a suburban I want to get a simple wrap on. What would your ballpark price be for that?”

He told me the price, and it lined up with what I thought.

“Great, man, thanks! Hey, a little bit of a different idea. I do websites and digital marketing for a living, and I want to propose a trade. I built an awesome website for a vehicle wrap company in Abilene a few years ago, and if you’re open to it, would you be interested in bartering – website for wrap?”

“Hmmm”

He though for a second.

“You know, that sounds like a great idea, and I’m always open to bartering. Truth is, right now I have a website I’m okay with, so I’m just going to keep it as is. I have a guy that maintains it for me so I’m not looking to change things up. But if you just want to pay outright, I’ll wrap your car no problem”

I was shocked. The website was so bad.

“Okay. Thanks man! I’ll let you know”

I hung up in disbelief, almost offended that he would legitmately believe his site was OK.

My guess is that Dave spends so much time with vehicles and vinyl that he doesn’t look up much to see what’s happened in the website world since 2010.

I wonder if I have had any blind spots or things I stuck to that sucked.

Here’s his site homepage:

Social media is a strange wasteland of filtered, curated, and manicured content.

I signed up for Twitter in 2011. Instagram in 2012. Facebook somewhere before that.

I’ve used various platforms for various reasons. I’ve even been building an email list for the past 8 years.

In all the time of social media, I have felt two strong pulls when posting, creating, or sharing content – that I now see as false realities:

1. Filter Everything

I can’t just share what’s on my mind. I have to be cognizant of people’s feelings, of what a future potential employer would think, and work hard to not get canceled – especially now. People need to see that my life and my family are perfect – that what you see is what you get – a great leader and a strong family man. I’m a thought leader, so I need to be positioned in a place that shows me as the expert (whoops, my inner monologue is showing.

2. Everything has to make sense or fit your niche.

On paper, I’m a creative digital marketing expert with a strong career, and have a ministry background. Everything I produce should fit in that box, right?

What do I do with leadership principles I’m testing out? I’m not John Maxwell!

What about cooking? I love to cook, and I allowed to write about that?

I write books often, in various topics for various audiences. Who hears about that?

Do I divide my content by network? Gen Z’s on Insta, Millenials and Boomers on FB, and hope to catch all on my emails?

I sitll play with Lego, write about hot takes, wonder about pop culture…and much more that has felt like social media homelessness.

This is where substack comes in.

It will be home to all the content types that I want to write about – thought leadership, family life, marketing, ministry, cooking – it’s all here. I don’t have to make it make sense for one of my “perceived audiences”.

It also answers a third question:

3. You can’t overshare or create division online

I have a lot of stories that I’ve processed in my life and have learned a lot from.

There are approximately 1789 notes on my phone from ideas, stories, lessons, and more. Most of them remain on my phone because I lack time to articulate them properly.

However…some of them remain unpublished because public forums like Facebook or X are not a great place to dialogue about divisive or strongly opinionated topics.

The idea of paywalled content makes it easier to share ideas that remain for a select few who care – and not get caught up in those who want to make noise online with no real vested interest.

The free tier will get subjects similar to what I already write about, and I’ll reserve the paid tier for these more exclusive topics, like:

• What I saw in AdvoCare 2012-2017

• What types of people I’ll never work with again as a marketer and why

• the time I pissed off the worship leader at our church

• lack of financial integrity in many parachurch ministries and what we can do about it

• hacks to write and publish your own books without paying thousands

• things I hate about church culture

• things I hate about corporate culture

• …and more spicy takes to come

If you follow the Marvel scene at all, you may have noticed that there is somewhat of a negative connotation in Hollywood when it comes to Marvel movies. The more artistic and poetic actors and directors have made negative comments about the type of movies that MArvel creates are not “true art” – that the team behind them is just trying to grab as much cash as they can and missing the true art of moviemaking.

One actor who has made comments in the past is Ethan Hawke. He’s an American actor, director, and novelist best known for his portrayals of cerebral sensitive men. He was never extremely cricitial of Marvel, but he did make a few comments in the past.

In 2022, he came out as the main antagonist in the Disney+ Marvel series, Moon Night. Recently, an article came out about what motivated Ethan to become a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Turns out, it was a conversation with his daughter Maya, who you probably know as the character Robin from Stranger Things (friend of Steve Harrington), that changed his mind.

Here’s an excerpt from the article from comicbook.com

A large reason as to why Hawke joined the MCU comes courtesy of his daughter, the breakout star of Netflix’s Stranger Things. According to Ethan, his daughter was the person to convince him to join the Marvel world and make it his own.

“Maya would say to me, ‘Why are you sitting on the outside and telling everyone their sandbox is bad? Why don’t you go into their sandbox, play with them, and show them what you have to offer?'” the actor said in a recent interview with IndieWire. “I said to Oscar Isaac, ‘We’ve got to go play in Marvel’s sandbox and try to do what we do. We don’t have to change Marvel. We just want to show them what we’re capable of doing and see if they find it interesting.’ So we had a lot of rehearsals and worked on things a lot. We had a really good experience.”

And he did bring some interesting things to the show. Moon Knight was a unique and captivating storyline in the Marvel world, because of Ethan’s contributions.

I absolutely love the advice from Maya: Why are you sitting on the outside and telling everyone their sandbox is bad?

The first thing I thought of when I read that is the local church – particularly the hordes of young people who are “deconstructing”, or making a hobby of critiquing and criticizing how the church is done.

Leaving the sandbox and telling everyone how horrible it is doesn’t;t do any good. I get it, the Church at large has some issues. But what if instead of taking the time to vomit all over it, why don’t we go play and see what we have to offer?

There are plenty of Youtubers, Podcasters, and Documentarians who are sitting on the outside making a mockery or bringing critiques to the table. Let’s commit to jumping in the sandbox and bringing what we have to offer, rather than pointing out the issues.