Healing What’s Within

• Guest Bios
• Show Transcript

https://youtu.be/v_OzUDcA3u0

If you’re like a lot of folks, you look put together on the outside. But inside, there’s a constant churn of unprocessed shame, anger, or grief. Little by little, you’re becoming disconnected from who you really are.

But professor, author and licensed therapist, Chuck DeGroat, says it doesn’t have to be this way. And on this podcast, he invites listeners to take the journey to true healing.

You may know Chuck as the author of his very popular 2020 book, When Narcissism Comes to Church. But in his newest book, Healing What’s Within, Chuck opens up about one of the most traumatic experiences of his life—when he got fired from his job at a church.

Chuck did what a lot of us do when we’re experiencing excruciating pain—he pushed it down and soldiered through. After all, he had a family to support and career to salvage.

But eventually, that trauma began to manifest in his body. And he found he could no longer ignore the pain—or rely on his means of coping. He had to confront the profound disconnection he felt from himself, from others, and from God. 

With the heart of a caring pastor and expertise of a licensed therapist, Chuck shows the way to hope and healing for the deep wounds within your soul.

Guests Chuck DeGroat

Chuck DeGroat is Professor of Pastoral Care and Christian Spirituality at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, and a faculty member of the Soul Care Institute. He is a therapist, speaker, consultant, pastor, and author of several books including When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community from Emotional and Spiritual Abuse. Chuck is married to Sara and has two daughters. Learn more at www.chuckdegroat.net

Show Transcript

SPEAKERSCHUCK DEGROAT, JULIE ROYS

JULIE ROYS  00:04If you’re like a lot of folks, you look really put together on the outside, but on the inside there’s this unprocessed shame, anger, or grief. Little by little, you’re becoming disconnected from who you really are. But my guest today says it doesn’t have to be that way. Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and joining me today is professor, author, and licensed therapist Chuck DeGroat. You may know Chuck is the author of his very popular 2020 book, When Narcissism Comes to Church, but in his newest book, Healing What’s Within, Chuck talks about one of the most traumatic experiences of his life when he got fired from his job at a church. And Chuck did what a lot of us do when we’re experiencing excruciating pain, he pushed it down and soldiered through. After all, he had a family to support and a career to salvage. But eventually that trauma began to manifest in his body, and he found he could no longer ignore the pain or rely on his means of coping. He had to confront the profound disconnection he felt from himself, from others and from God friends. If you’ve been through trauma and today you’re feeling not okay, this episode is for you, and I want you to know there is hope.

 

JULIE ROYS  01:21

I’m going to get to my interview with Chuck in just a moment. But first, I want to thank the sponsors of this podcast, the RESTORE Conference, and Marquardt of Barrington. If you’re someone who’s experienced church hurt or abuse, there are few places you can go to pursue healing. Similarly, if you’re an advocate, counselor or pastor, there are few conferences designed to equip you to minister to people traumatized in the church, but the RESTORE Conference, this February 7th and 8th in Phoenix, Arizona, is designed to do just that. Joining us will be leading abuse survivor advocates like Mary Demuth and Dr David Pooler, an expert in adult clergy sexual abuse. Also joining us will be Scott McKnight, author of A Church Called Tov, Diane Langberg, a psychologist and trauma expert, yours truly, and more. For more information, just go to RESTORE2025.com.

 

JULIE ROYS  02:15

Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there, Dan and Kurt Marquart, are men of integrity. To check them out just go to BUYACAR123.COM.

 

JULIE ROYS  02:42

Well, again, joining me today is Chuck DeGroat, a professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. He’s also the founding executive director of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program there at Western and he’s a licensed therapist, a spiritual director, and a faculty member with the Soul Care Institute, and he’s written several books, including his latest, Healing What’s Within. So Chuck, welcome. I’m just so thrilled you could join us. Thank you. It’s a privilege. Julie, well, and thanks so much for writing this book, which I believe it releases in just a few days. Are you excited?

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  03:17

I am excited. You know, I think this is my maybe six go around with writing, and so the anxiety and the pressure just isn’t what it used to be in terms of, will this succeed? But this is a book that came from a pretty deep place and is written for the folks who I’ve worked with over the years who have experienced trauma, the kind of trauma that imprints itself after the abuse, the harm. I’m hopeful for that, that it offers some pathway to healing, invitation to healing for folks.

 

JULIE ROYS  03:58

I think it will. It was a fantastic book. I know for me, I found so much of it relevant, so I really appreciate it, and I know so many people listening are in different states of healing from trauma, and so I really think this discussion is going to be exceptionally helpful for them. And I should mention too that we’re offering your book as a premium for anybody who donates to The Roys Report. So folks, if you want any info on that, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE and we’ll be really eager to get this book in your hands. But Chuck, as you mentioned, this book comes from a really personal place for you, and you reference it throughout the book that you got fired from a church, and that was a very traumatic experience. And you tell some of it in your book, you don’t tell a whole lot of it. Of course, the journalist in me wants to know more. So what can you tell us about that experience and how it impacted you?

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  04:57

You know, I was 33 at the time in 2003 and I felt like it’s over, I’m done. And I do know that word got out, I’m this pastor attempted to sort of blacklist me. And so I went through a lot of these things that I hear today when I work with pastors, frankly, right? And I think the challenging thing about that is a lot was going on inside of me, and I talk some about this, but I was also a pastor and a therapist, and people looked at me and they said, Oh, you’re handling this so well. We’re so proud of you. When the reality was is that I was a mess, and I really needed someone to say, you must be overwhelmed, exhausted, angry, confused, and I didn’t really have that. So I sort of put my head down and pushed forward and that actually magnified the trauma, because we know that trauma compounds in aloneness when we’re in isolation, which eventually led, as I talk about, to a 2012 hospitalization. But that’s what a lot of us do, and I knew better to some extent. I was a therapist. I had some of the tools, and yet, so many of us who go through situations like that feel isolated. We didn’t have The Roys Report back then, and really very little advocacy, right? And so I’m heartened today that people can tell their stories, that there is advocacy, not for everyone, obviously, right? But I mean, some people still find themselves alone and isolated in these things. But the book, in a sense, is reflection, and I have chosen in the past not to center my own story, but I was encouraged by the publisher, like there are parts of this that I think you need to write  for the readers this time.

 

JULIE ROYS  06:53

This what is so I think difficult for folks who experience religious trauma is that often accompanying their religious trauma is being cut off from your religious community, from your faith community, and so you are so incredibly alone. Like you get fired from your job, you can retreat to your church, right? You get fired from your church, and you are so so alone.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  07:20

You don’t want to go into the grocery store, the local grocery store, if you’re seeing someone, right? ,

 

JULIE ROYS  07:25

It’s tough. It is so so tough. And I’ve experienced that, and I know probably the majority of people listening to this podcast have experienced it. So this is going to be so incredibly relevant. So in your book, you take us to Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve just sinned, and God comes to them in the garden, and he asks them three questions. And these three questions become sort of the outline for your book. And the first question is, where are you? Can you explain why this question is such an important question for those who are experiencing trauma to consider?

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  08:02

Just to back up for a minute. It felt to me really important to tell this story in a way that highlighted God’s kindness, God’s presence. Because the story right before that is of this slithering serpent that sort of sidles up to Adam and Eve and asks the question, Did God really say? and really what I’d say is, he targets the hearts of Adam and Eve. He deceives them. He harms them. It’s a story of wounding, harm, deceit, abuse. So some of your listeners, a lot of your listeners’ stories are right there in that story, and with that, with that harm, with that deceit, with those questions, with the confusion, can I can I trust God? Can I trust what God has put in me, worth, belonging, goodness, purpose, all these good things? Do I have to go it on my own? And so that’s where the story begins. And I think that’s where I found myself too. I guess I’m on my own. I’m not sure that I can trust you God. I feel so much shame and self-contempt myself. I guess I’m on my own. And for so many of us who are survivors of abuse, spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and more neglect and other forms of harm, there are profound questions. One of those big questions is, where is God in the midst of it? And oftentimes because our abusers sometimes sound so much like God and come in sort of a spiritual cloak or robe or whatever, we can sort of conflate our abuser with God. And so it’s stunning to me that from the very beginning, God moves toward Adam and Eve, who are clearly in a sympathetic nervous system storm, who are covering up and running away, hiding all the stuff right that I do with a kind where are you? And God is out on his walk, the walk that God would take with Adam and Eve every day, like I miss you, and so there’s this immediate movement of kindness. And I know for every survivor of abuse, that first movement toward them, that first person who’s kind, who believes, who listens and believes right, is so important. So I really do see something, finding my way back to the story has helped me recover my own sense of God’s kindness and mercy in the midst of pain and harm.

 

JULIE ROYS  10:29

It’s interesting, and this is kind of sad, but I’ve never revisited God with Adam and Eve in the garden and thought of it as  like you’re saying, sort of a curiosity and a sadness, but also an invitation. I think I’ve often thought of it, and maybe this says something as kind of a gotcha moment. And that’s how I felt about it. But I love the way that you say, this is an invitation, yet one that a lot of us don’t take. So talk about that and why we tend to suffer in this isolation, not just because of our situation, but also because of our own choices.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  11:16

Yeah, yeah. The reality is, I think it’s a story of disconnection, right? Adam and Eve find themselves East of Eden, and they’re going it on their own, and God is moving toward them. But as is often the case for a lot of us who’ve experienced harm, we’re sort of hunkering down, moving away and for many of us, we live in habitual, what I call habitual disconnection and self-protection for years. I always think I should have known better. I was a trained therapist in a really good orientation, relational orientation toward therapy, where I had some good, vulnerable friendships. I was a pastor who’s now out of ministry, obviously for a season, but I had started teaching in a counseling program during that time, so I had counselors around me, and yet, at the same time, I was living in a kind of habitual disconnection. And what’s scary, Julie, is I could, this is scary to say out loud. I could look the part and dress the part. I could invite people on silent retreats. I could offer them an invitation to relationship, to vulnerability, all the while, like I’m doubling down. That’s the part of it that I think for those of us who, even those of us who think we’re on a good journey, a self-aware journey, to realize how we can hide from ourselves and hide from other people. When I did finally find another job in ministry in San Francisco, the way I went in, like I went in with this kind of fierce determination to do it well. I’m gonna do this so well that there’d never, ever be an opportunity for them to say, well, I’m not entirely sure what I think about Chuck or we’re not sure whether we want him here, and that eventually took its toll on my body. You know, Bessel van der Kolk wrote that best-selling book, The Body Keeps the Score, and my body kept the score, and I end up in a hospital in Mexico while on vacation, thinking that I needed a routine gallbladder surgery. But they go in and they discover that my body is septic, and what the doctor eventually said to me, through a translator, was, we don’t see this in 40-year-olds. We see this in 60–70-year-olds, what’s going on inside of you. So, my body had absorbed and hadn’t metabolized and worked through the trauma, and it sort of pushed it down or repressed it, right? And it became the storm within me.

 

JULIE ROYS  13:48

Hearing you describe it, I didn’t realize in the book that this event happened in 2003, the hospitalization was 2012; we’re talking nine years of this festering inside of you. And you’re right. I think we’re starting to get a little more aware of how important our bodies are and taking care of our body that this is what God’s given us to incarnate, to live in this world. But we do often do such a bad job of it, but it is our dashboard. And you talk about the idea of our body being a house, and we can either live at home in our house, we can either relax in our house. Or you talk about different states, sympathetic storm, or a dorsal fog. Those were somewhat new terms for me because I don’t live in the mental health world. Talk about that.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  14:44

So, this was the really important turn for me. After I wrote this book on narcissism in the church that came out in 2020, and there are a number of folks, Diane Langberg, Wade Mullen, Scott McKnight, Laura Barringer, together. We were all, by the way, really, for one another. And it was a kind of a season where you’ve played a prominent role in bringing these conversation to light in a variety of ways, centering these stories of survivors. These books that talk about these various dynamics, and people at Astoria to write some sort of follow up to it? Or I said, I don’t really have a follow up to that, but I’m mindful that abuse is what happens to you, but trauma is what happens within you. And I had to go on a particular kind of healing journey. So what I wanted to do is write a book that speaks to that healing journey. And the reality is, is that two people could go through the same experience of harm, which is to say, they could serve on a staff with an abusive pastor but process it very differently. The trauma can look very different. One with care and some practices and things like that can come away very resilient. Another might isolate and self-medicate and come out even more traumatized.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  16:07

So part of what I’m inviting people to do is to notice number one, when I call the dashboard their feelings. This is the work of folks in the religious trauma arena, paying attention to your thoughts, your feelings, your body, your behaviors. And as you said a little earlier, interpersonal interactions and relationships, you know. So I’m not going to the grocery store anymore because I’m afraid that I’m going to run into some of the leaders in the church. It’s really important to point to, but as I get a sense in my work of what’s happening on this dashboard. So I’m working with someone, and they identify 7 or 10 or 15 things, some of them yellow, some of them red on the dashboard. Like red, meaning a glaring warning light. Those are often indicators of what’s happening beneath the surface in the engine that we call the autonomic nervous system. And the two main areas there that I like to refer to as number one sympathetic the sympathetic nervous system, which I call storm, the sympathetic storm within, where you go into perpetual fight or flight, or even a kind of fawning appeasement that we often see survivors of abuse go into. Like this kind of people pleasing, or what I call fine. So there are four F’s, fight, flight, fawn and fine. Fine being this kind of desperate, clinging to someone, help, help, help. I don’t know what to do. And we can live here. I lived in this kind of sympathetic storm for years. When that gets to be too much, we go into fog, which is to say our bodies are like this is just too much. I can’t do it anymore. I need to shut down. And for some of us, and I did this as well, we start to self-medicate. It’s too much. I feel like too much anxiety in my body, but when I have that glass of wine or two at night or three or five, that seems to make it go away. Or when I lose myself in shows or shopping or pornography or whatever the case may be. When we self-medicate, we get sucked into this dorsal place in our nervous system, this parasympathetic place that I call fog. And frankly, a lot of the folks that I work with who are survivors of abuse of some kind, are on this hamster wheel of sympathetic storm and dorsal fog, and they can’t get off. And so the invitation, as you pointed to, is to come home. God gave us this resource of this kind of home place in our nervous system, where we can feel grounded and connected and alive and aware in ourselves. But so many of us live far from home, as I say, and so the book is an invitation back to home, back to connection with ourselves, with others, with God. I can talk more about that inner resource. But as you know, because you work with so many survivors, and I do too, many of us find ourselves for days, weeks, and even years, on that hamster wheel of storm and fog.

 

JULIE ROYS  19:01

Oh, we do but I have seen and have witnessed that kind of coming home. I went on a hiking trip this summer with two survivors who have become incredibly dear to me, and it was just so beautiful, because I think all of us had come to this home, and were in such a really good place, not that we’ve arrived. I don’t think this side of heaven we ever arrive, but it’s just so beautiful to witness and to be in. I think when you can be together and share and feel that home together even. I mean, it’s such a beautiful, beautiful gift. But I’ll find at the same time, like the fight the fly, I mean, that stuff, man, I can get triggered on social media and I’m in fight mode. Man, oh my gosh, I’m right there, and I’m just like, Wait, what am I doing? Or I’ll have a friend be like, Julie, what are you doing? And I’ll be like, all right, all right, because it’s there’s certain things that can trigger you and just pull you back.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  20:04

Yeah. You’re right, you know? And I think what’s beautiful is that God designed us, not just spiritually, but physiologically, to experience what I call the physiological still waters and green pastures within. You can come to a place of such connection with God, with others, with your own self, because the healing from trauma is about reconnection with yourself. You know, these thoughts, these emotions that we talked about, these body sensations. People who’ve been traumatized will say, I I’ll ask them how they’re feeling, and they’ll say, I don’t know how I’m feeling, I guess I’m just mad. I just want things to change, and we get disconnected from these inner experiences.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  20:47

So part of the work that I do in the room is inviting them to pay attention once again. Oh, I’m so much more angry than Oh, but I’m ashamed too that I never did anything or said anything. I was at that church for 10 years, and I knew that the senior pastor was so harmful, and so now there’s shame, and I’m feeling it my body. I’ve had these stomach pains for years, and I thought that I  just needed to change my diet, you know? And I noticed that I came in the back door of the church, not the front door, because I didn’t want to see the senior pastor. Like we could live in this space for years and years, all the while disconnected from what’s really going on within.

 

JULIE ROYS  21:27

And it’s such a terrible place to live. But the invitation is there. Second question that God asks in the garden is, who told you? What’s the significance of that question?

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  21:42

This is a question that invites us to go a bit deeper and to look at our own stories. And as I’ve done this work, and I get into some attachment theory in this section, I get into how we begin to pay attention to those emotions and bodily sensations and other things that lead us to the depths of our own stories. But the reality is that, as I do this work, and for me as well, so many of us who found our way into abusive systems, found our way there for some reasons that are related to our family of origin. Like we learn to neglect ourselves in particular ways, disown our needs in particular kinds of ways, to take abuse or harm in ways that we didn’t even realize that it was happening to us. And we learned not to trust our gut instincts that would say, get out of this! This is harmful to you. This is hurtful to you. So we learn to cut ourselves off. This is often the tougher work  when you’re doing this kind of recovery work for survivors in particular, there’s that first place of sort of figure out, like, where am I and what choices do I need to make right now for my own, perhaps even my own safety, and for the first steps of my own healing. But invariably, we have to go to that deeper level to ask, so how did I end up there in the first place, and why? And often this, as you know, because you talk to so many survivors, that comes with so much shame, like I did it. I made this choice. I’m the one. I’m responsible. I should have known better. When the reality is, I’m working with a man this week, and I said, but these are the waters you’ve been swimming in your whole life. Like you’ve only known murky waters and fish that bite, you know? And so, of course, you’re going to find your way to a church where you’re swimming in murky waters and senior pastors who bite.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  23:43

So we’re trying to lead people to a place of greater self-compassion and experience of God’s compassion. Because I believe God is so thoroughly for those who’ve been victimized. I think that’s really clear in Scripture. God is for those of you who’ve been hurt, harmed, betrayed, manipulated, abused. But it can be really hard when you learned at a very early age, well, it must have been my fault. I must be responsible for this. And so we get back into our stories. Who told you? is an invitation into our stories.

 

JULIE ROYS  23:44

And that’s especially true for victims of clergy sexual abuse, especially adult clergy sexual abuse, because they were groomed and manipulated. And it bothers me so much when we publish stories on these and they’re like, well, she was 25 she should have known better, despite the fact he was twice her age and her spiritual authority. It’s so twisted and wicked. And instead of listening to these condemning voices, you encourage people to have this as you say it, and that the art of redemptive remembering. What do you mean by that?

 

24:59

Yeah. I’ll talk about that in a second. Just one thing that you queued up a thought for me. So many of these women in particular, who’ve experienced clergy sexual abuse are in this fog state, this dorsal state, this parasympathetic nervous system state, because that’s what they learned. And so their bodies, they learned to shut down. They weren’t even aware, and so they weren’t complicit. They weren’t asking for it. Their body simply shut down. I know. I mean, I’ve worked with probably hundreds now, of women who’ve experienced something like this, who forget. I mean, literally, the hippocampus goes offline. There’s no narrative memory, and so there’s no capacity to, in the moment say, this isn’t a good choice. I’m not going to make this. It’s not about that at all. The body shuts down. And so there’s a place of, I think again, tremendous compassion. And then when we come to this place of redemptive remembering, I think this is about finding our way to a better story, a story of a God who cares for us and who whispers worth and belonging and purpose over us. Now, this happens in the work, I mean, I will work with clients who are like, I don’t want to talk about God at all, and we’re not talking about the Bible. Don’t bring up any scripture. It doesn’t feel safe, it doesn’t feel good, and that’s okay.

 

26:27

So, anyone who’s listening right now, I just want to affirm that if that’s where you are and that kind of language feels scary or unsafe, that’s okay. I do think part of this redemptive remembering, at least the way I tell this story, is there are these whispers of goodness that if you listen well and listen carefully throughout scripture, that I will never leave you nor forsake you. Nothing can separate you from my love. I long for my face to shine upon you, and I long to be gracious to you. You are always with me, and everything I have is yours. Like God’s heart is for those who’ve been targeted, harmed, abused, betrayed, manipulated. Now that may take a while. I remember sitting with a woman who she’s given me permission to tell this story about. I of course, won’t say her name, but four years in, no sense of God, you know. And I live in West Michigan, where you live in Chicago, right? And it can be very bleak in the winter here, the sun doesn’t come out for months at a time, it feels like, and we’re sitting in my office, it’s midday, and she said, I have no sense that God will ever show up again. And on this bleakest of days, a light radiates through my window. The sun comes out, and she feels it. It shines right on her, and she feels the warmth of it, and she begins to cry. She begins to bawl, right? And she’s like, he does see me! So there are moments like that that you can’t strategize or orchestrate. There are just simply moments of times where people who are survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and where we do rediscover the God who wants us to redemptively remember that,  before anything harmful happened to us, he declared us worthy and good, that we belong, that we’re loved, that there’s a purpose, that that’s first.

 

JULIE ROYS  28:35

As you’re talking I can’t help but think of the RESTORE Conference that we do which really was born out of just seeing so many casualties of church hurt and abuse. And one of the decisions we had to make was whether to, do we include scripture? Do we include worship? Do we include prayer? I mean, some of these things. And my feeling was, well, how can we not? Yes, these things have been re symbolized in a very awful way. We need to, though, recapture the true symbols of what they mean and, how can we talk about healing and not be connected to the source of our healing? And one of the things that we have always done is end with communion, because we are dismembered in a sense; we’re cut off from ourselves, we’re or cut off from each other or cut off from God.

 

29:35

Trauma dismembers us. I mean, it fractures us, right? And so the God who is dismembered, so to speak, and who suffered, remembers u in communion, which I love. We’re invited to remember, but oftentimes we think about that as like this, we’re supposed to remember something that happened back then like a cognitive exercise, yeah. I’ve had profound experiences myself and my own remembering, the fractured parts of me. I think in some ways, for me now, there’s no place safer than to be in the presence of the one who was dismembered and remembered the one who suffered and died and was raised. There’s something about that where I can feel whole again in that space. I felt that same way as I was writing this. You know, there are going to be people who may not be able to read this or need to put it down because I’m using this god language. You’re singing songs and praying prayers and offering communion. But I think we both believe that it’s a place where people can be remembered.

 

JULIE ROYS  30:39

Yeah, absolutely. And I just, I’ve always loved the table, because, to me, that is where all of it comes together. We come together as Christ bodied, and we’re one with him and we celebrate that oneness. And it’s just so crucially important. And probably one of the favorite things that was ever posted on social media was after our last RESTORE Conference, somebody posted their communion cup and said, This is the first time I’ve taken communion in six years, and yes, I’m keeping this cup. And that just that meant so much to me. But to hear that, and to hear that kind of healing, just beautiful.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  31:21

Oh, I love that. That’s so beautiful. Yeah.

 

JULIE ROYS  31:21

Well, let’s talk about the third question, that God comes and says to you, and he says, Have you eaten from the tree?

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  31:34

So, I’ve been teaching on these questions for years, and that was one that I sort of puzzled on, because God seemed to ask two very open-ended questions, and then we come to this third one, and there’s an obvious answer. Like, Yes, I did eat from this tree. And so a number of years ago, probably 10-12 years ago, I was sitting with it, and I had this sense that God is really curious about where we take our hunger and thirst, I think. And the same God who’s curious about where we take our hunger and thirst, and Jesus came and asked over and over again, what are you hungry for? What are you thirsty for? What do you want? What do you need? And it was like those light bulb moments where it goes off, and it’s like, oh yeah, God is just curious about where we’ve gone with our hunger, because God wants us to come to the table just like we were talking about.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  32:24

So for anyone who has gone to pornography or shopping or gambling or an eating disorder or some sort of religious addiction or whatever the case may be, that there’s always something underneath. There’s a hunger and thirst that we’re trying to address., through these choices that we make, through these ways of coping. Part of my job, part of our job as healers, is to get curious about the wounds underneath. Oftentimes there is unaddressed trauma back there. And you know this,  I started working in the late 90s with women who’d been harmed in the church, and which led me into the work with abusive pastors, narcissistic pastors. I started getting into assessment work with church planters and pastors. And so I started doing assessments in the early 2000s and when I first started working with narcissistic pastors, I was like, This is terrible. They are bullies.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  32:24

And I think maybe a more popularized version of that question may be, How are you coping? How are you self-medicating? Where are you going to numb? I do think that, oftentimes in Christian subcultures, the approach that question is to target the thing that we’re doing, the way that we’re coping, the place that we took our hunger and to say, there it is! That bad thing that you’re doing! That’s just awful, and you have to stop doing it! Where, God, I think, is actually curious about, like, what’s stirring underneath? I’m curious about where this came from.

 

JULIE ROYS  34:08

That’s quite the job. I must say, I’m not sure I could do that.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  34:12

We could talk about stories, the stories of the narcissistic pastors who would park in like, reserve parking for the President of the seminary that I worked at. They felt so entitled and grandiose the way they walk in. As I begin getting curious about the wound beneath, I realized, Oh, you’re using people, you’re harming, you’re platforming yourself. You’re, doing all these things that you and I have seen in spades because of all these unaddressed wounds underneath. You’re just a little boy who’s scared, wounded. Now, very few of them actually are willing to do the work of exploring the wounds underneath, because there’s just too much to lose. You know, I don’t want to lose my platform and my power and my authority. But when people are able to go there, whether it’s the narcissistic pastor or the person addicted to shopping or the person with the eating disorder, when they’re willing to explore the wounds underneath and then to get to the deeper longings that I think the communion table represents, that’s really beautiful, and I think that’s when we find ourselves remembered and reconnected in the deepest ways.

 

JULIE ROYS  35:28

I love some of your counseling sessions that you give us a window to. I think I’d really like you as a therapist. I remember one in particular you talk about a woman who was in an adulterous relationship, and you asked her, I don’t know the exact question, but something basically, what were you longing for? And she says, to be loved, to be loved. And your response was something to the effect of, well, of course, who wouldn’t want that? And she was so shocked by that that it really is, I mean, we have legitimate desires and to affirm the desire, to affirm the hunger, and yet, it’s like we go to the broken cisterns that scripture talks about, right? We go to these things where they can’t satisfy. I mean, we should know better, right? We’re Christians, even you said for yourself you knew better. Why do we do this?

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  36:29

Yea. It’s interesting in that story. I mean, this is a woman who’s also caught up, and I don’t flesh the story out in death, but caught up in systemic and structural misogyny. I would say, in a system  where there’s very little worth as a woman to be able to speak or even lead in a system like this. And she was in a relationship where she wasn’t seen, known, valued in those ways as well, right? So she found in the presence of this other man who she had this affair with, someone who really saw and valued her. And you know, back then, I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time. I just knew that every single man that she sat down with, confronted her, and told her that she was an adulteress and that she was all the words I won’t say them, but all I knew was that that’s not the way. And I was a kid. I was 31-32 and I sit down, and I asked her, can you look at me? You know, because she obviously in shame, her eyes were down, and I just said, What did you want? What were you longing for? And she starts to tear up, and she said, I just wanted to be seen and known. I haven’t felt that in years.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  37:41

Now in the midst of that, I’m not saying, Well, of course, have as many affairs as you want. That’s fine. That’s not my point at all. It is to get to the deeper story of how she’s been missed. And turns out as we began to do some work together, she grew up in a family, very sort of hierarchical, authoritarian family, women should be seen and not heard. She grew up with those messages. So to be valued, to be seen, felt so good. There was a long journey for her out of that harmful system, right? Into health and healing, but it certainly wasn’t going to come through shame. And so she found a better way, I hope, through that, but I see that in Jesus, what do you long for? What are you hungry for? What are you thirsty for? A God who didn’t shame us, but whose kindness leads us to repentance.

 

JULIE ROYS  38:44

Exactly. And that’s exactly how he was with the woman at the well, it’s exactly how he was with the woman caught in adultery. He says, Go and sin no more, but in there, there’s that understanding, that being seen, that love, that’s always there. And I have to read a quote from CS Lewis, because as I was reading this section, it just really impacted me. Like this kept coming back to me, and it’s from the Weight of Glory, which is like one of my favorite. A sermon I believe that he gave, and he writes, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are halfhearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.

 

JULIE ROYS  39:39

So much God offers us, and yet we go to these others, these counterfeits. And I can just say, as someone who’s walked with the Lord now, ooh, 50 some years now, became a believer, very young. But I am just so grateful that even before I faced some of my more recent, traumatic things that I had learned that so much of sin is an escape from legitimate suffering, is an escape, is a means of trying to get something that we legitimately want,  that we go to those counterfeits. And so I’ve experienced the real, but you do have to sit in there, in that healing process. You have to face your addictions. You have to face the ways that you’ve coped that are not helpful. You have to face your shadows. And for you, it was interesting. You didn’t spell this out in that much detail. But for you, there was, as you put it, a religious addiction, a workaholism. I can relate to the workaholism. I might be able to relate to the religious addiction if I understood it better. I might have that too. But can you describe that and how you were able to come out of that?

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  41:07

I think first that quote by C.S. Lewis,  it flies in the face of purity culture. And these system structures, institutions, mental models that shut down desire, shut down bodies and emotions that keep people in harmful situations, people who are like, I shouldn’t want anymore. I shouldn’t expect any more. This is fine, right? So I think as we find our way back to the depth of our own hearts, like Jesus was not afraid of that question, and it kind of almost feels scandalous, but it wasn’t an invitation to sin, right? It was an invitation back to the depth of our own hearts, but I think  there are these counterfeit places that we go,  these empty cisterns, right? And some of them are religious, you know; some of them look very spiritual. I think I’m thinking of my own story as a pastor,  as someone who led people on spiritual retreats, for instance, right? Or we had a Fellows program, so I worked with a lot of 20 and 30 somethings who were in the city of San Francisco. And we were talking about what it looks like to be faithful followers of Jesus in the city of San Francisco. And I think a lot of people would say Chuck was such a sincere, faithful, devoted, thoughtful pastor. And I think in many ways that was a false self that I was living out of, as I put my head down and I was determined to just kind of make it, just to kind of push through and push the trauma down. Now again, it’s sort of embarrassing to say out loud. And that doesn’t mean that everything that I did was bad. I’ve looked back, I’ve talked to people, I’ve asked, Have I harmed someone? Did I harm someone in that season? Right? One of the questions that I’ve asked more than any other in all my work is, how did you experience me? with the invitation for people to name places where they felt confused or manipulated. But at the same time I think for a lot of us who have experienced this, there is that sense of, Well, I really threw myself into like I wasn’t doing those bad things that the Church describes. I wasn’t looking at pornography and I wasn’t having an affair. I was showing up to work early and putting in my long days as a good pastor and preaching sermons and leading liturgies, and all the while feeling pretty alone and unknown and invulnerable. And all the while, my body keeping the score.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  41:12

And in the midst of that, I think it was an extended dark night of the soul, like it really felt like God had gone away. I think I’m sort of ashamed that I didn’t just name that. I talked to a therapist, of course, but I mean, in my desperation just to name like, I don’t know where you are God, but the reality is, is that, and this is the case, this is why I think I can identify with a lot of these pastors who I don’t lose my job. I already know the experience of losing my job. I kind of like the role and the authority that I have, and within this system,  I kind of like being in this role where these 20 and 30 somethings that this church see me  as a wise sage. Well, the hospital blew all that up and showed me just how unhealthy I was. And I think sometimes those are graces. You and I have seen a lot of pastors over the years fall who don’t take that as an opportunity to say, let me step away actually, and let me do my work. Like I’ve got more work to do. There are a lot of us, I think, who are self-aware, but who are still duping ourselves. And that’s what’s scary I think.

 

JULIE ROYS  45:01

You talk about even the necessity of vulnerability in working through this stuff. Although I have to say it’s scary to be vulnerable in a lot of these systems. I know I have been just raked over the coals for being vulnerable that I just like, now I’m like, boy, I won’t do that again. It’s really hard for a lot of us who have been burned, where you’re just like, to find those safe spaces, but you have to, have to find that safe spaces to be vulnerable to work through this.

 

JULIE ROYS  45:43

There’s a quote that you quote in your book of Thomas Merton, which is really, really good, and I know that probably a lot of people are facing this right now, because you talk about when you were in the midst of your trauma, you would try to reach out to God, and you didn’t feel like he was there. I think we’ve all had that dark night of the soul where we just feel like you are in this alone. God is not there. And he writes, If we set out into this darkness, we have to meet these inexorable forces. We will have to face fears and doubts. We will have to call into question the whole structure of our spiritual life. We’ll have to make a new evaluation of our motives, for belief, for love, for self-commitment to the invisible God. And when I read that, I thought of all the folks right now, and I will say,  I’m in a house church now, which thank God he gave me a safe place, and  I think we’re all kind of working through, I don’t know if I call it deconstruction, because it’s more like reconstruction. But I guess maybe you have to deconstruct or reconstruct. But we’re all evaluating things that we have accepted as true or as normative, and now we’re going, I don’t know if I’m really by that. Is that a lot of what he’s talking about? Because we see so many people going through this deconstruction process, and it’s often shamed by religious leaders. And yet, how can we not when we’ve been so thoroughly,  disappointed and hurt?

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  47:25

Yeah, I think oftentimes, when we talk about those processes, whether you want to call them Dark Knights or deconstruction and reconstruction, there are multiple levels right. There are the things that we believe for a long time that we’re wrestling with. I’m not sure that I can believe that anymore. There are spiritual things that we’re wrestling with in the midst of that, the things that used to feel good to us. I remember trying to pick up books that were really sweet to me in one season of life, and them just falling flat, you know? But  I think he’s also talking about psychological forces. They’re buried pain and buried shame and buried anger. A lot of it for me was, I think I buried a lot of that stuff in 2004-2005 because I wanted to find my way back into some sort of role in the church. I was teaching in a seminary, and I thought maybe I’d get a job in a seminary. I was eventually invited back into the church.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  48:25

But then the reality was in the in the church that I was at out in San Francisco, I started being invited to speak at church planter conferences because of the psychological assessment work that I was doing. So then I felt like, well, I have to be the one who’s put together because I’m the psychological assessor. I’m the one. And I remember I got to be on stage with like Tim Keller and I thought, well, I don’t want to lose any of this.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  48:52

So the reality is, is that I was doing the very same thing that I name in all kinds of other places and that I work with, and all kinds of other pastors now, and I had to reckon with all that, right? So those inexorable forces that he talks about,  there are things that I had to name about my own shame, my own self-doubt, my own anger, my own inadequacy, and my decision was to step away from that place in that platform. We moved to the Midwest. I took a job as a junior professor at a very not well-known seminary, and sort of I felt like part of the repentance for me, I had to certainly step into my own inner work to deal with some of that inside. But it was to some degree, stepping away from that place that has such a tug, because when we have power, we don’t want to lose that power, right? And so we stay in those places. And sometimes I think it’s the way of Jesus to forego power,  to give it away and to leave and to find your way to a place where you can finally deal with all those questions, the intellectual questions, the spiritual questions, the psychological questions that I was avoiding. I’m not talking about everyone else I was avoiding in my own heart.

 

JULIE ROYS  50:14

And you were able to do that because your ministry was no longer your idol.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  50:18

Yeah, that’s a really good summary of it right there. It was such an idol that as idols often go, I was terrified to step away thinking I’ve already lost a ministry role once. Now I don’t only have a ministry role. I’m starting to get, like a national reputation for being someone who works with church planters and does good psychological assessments. I kind of like being the guy who looks and dresses the part of the wise sage who knows how to point out what’s wrong with everyone else. And there it is. There’s the idol. And you know, it’s an idol when you’re terrified to step away from it, because it’ll cost you so much.

 

JULIE ROYS  51:06

Yeah, although I would say in my work, I would say that idolatry is at the root of so much of the reporting that I have to do, or at the sin going buried for so long because the people who can speak out are afraid if they do, it will impact their ministry in some way, and it’s just no way to live. It really isn’t.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  51:30

it’s exhausting. It’s a lonely place. Yeah, you’re living with a lot of lies. But it’s remarkable to me. I’m curious what you think of this. Can I ask you a question?

 

JULIE ROYS  51:44

Sure, yeah.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  51:46

it seems to me that we’ve had this opportunity over the last, let’s just say 4,5,6,7 years – MeToo, and Church Too – and books written the reckonings happening. Your work, exposing, naming, and yet to see the number of pastors who are doubling down, and to see that sort of movement become entrenched. I was so hopeful that it might lead to some humility and a growing self-awareness, but to see that there’s actually sort of a real doubling down happening, not just individually, but systemically. Are you seeing some of that too?

 

JULIE ROYS  52:26

Oh 100%. I mean, what I found is, by the time the sin of a leader gets to me, they have taken, usually, people take every avenue they possibly can. They’ll go to their elders. They’ll get gas lit; they’ll get shamed. They’ll get kicked out of their church. Whatever it was, but they tried, they usually try to address it through the legitimate ways that they’ve been told this is how you’re supposed to do it. It always kills me when people say, I Timothy 5:20. For the elder who persists in sin, you’re to publicly exposed, so that others may stand in fear. And people obviously say that was really written just to the church. You’re misapplying that. And I’m like, well, the church would do its job, if it were doing I Timothy 5:20 I wouldn’t have to do my job.

 

JULIE ROYS  53:10

So by the time the sin gets to me, that leader is so hardened in their unrepentance, and they have done it for so long. It reminds me, quite frankly, of Romans, I, where God gives us over to our sin, and they are at that point, that really, really dangerous point. And this is why, I don’t presume to know someone’s eternal, whether or not they’re really saved. But I will say that when I see what’s happening, if I were in their shoes, I would be very fearful  for where I am at with the Lord and what’s going to happen. Because, yeah,  it is sad that there is such hardness of heart. I mean, reminds me of Pharaoh, right?

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  53:54

Yeah. It’s discouraging, yeah, to see this happening so broadly, especially with all the work, all the work and all the opportunity. I’ve noticed that even with pastors I’ve worked with, you’ve had so much opportunity. People have literally given you so many opportunities to step away and do your work, and you’re still going to resist, double down, recreate your ministry somewhere else. It’s so discouraging.

 

JULIE ROYS  54:19

It reminds me of Dave and Betsy Corning, who were long time elders. Well, he was a longtime elder. Dave Corning at Harvest Bible chapel with James McDonald. They talked about how  James was offered grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. You know, they got him, I think, Henry Cloud, to be as his psychiatrist or his therapist to kind of work through this stuff. They were constantly trying to help him deal with and again, he didn’t want that. I mean, in the end, that’s not really what he what he chose or what he wanted.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  54:53

I’ve had people Julie like come literally fly here with this sort of, this sense of, like, I really want to sit down and talk to you about where I’m at, what’s going on, and I want to learn how to be more self-aware. And by the way, can I take a selfie and hold up your narcissism book and go back? This has happened multiple times now, and now I’m starting to pick up on it. But the first few times I was like, Oh, well,  how beautiful is that? And they really want to grow  and then I would hear from church staff members saying, Oh no, he just came back and doubled down, and now is using this to silence us. The insidious. It’s almost like it’s getting darker in some ways, and more insidious.

 

JULIE ROYS  55:39

There’s a reason it’s called the narrow path. Few find it, yeah, it is a hard row, but there’s so much at the same time I would say, what does that the verse about the way of the Transgressor is hard and the alternative is so much harder. You and your book talking about our longing to be home, and truly, I mean, in this life, we’re never fully home. We live in the here, but the not yet. Talk about the home we can experience now that so many of us don’t embrace.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  56:22

I really do think this is so important for the communities that you and I are engaged in, for survivors, for those of us who are doing the work, to know that this isn’t just a spiritual journey. This is a physiological journey. I think the two go hand in hand, that when God invites us to the still waters and the green pastures, that there is a physiological analogy, so to speak, within us; a place within that God has designed our ventral vagal system, that home part of our nervous system where we can experience grounding and connection and reunion and joy and delight. And I think a lot of people have some kind of experience of this, like, oh, maybe it was a camp in eighth grade, or maybe it was as recent as yesterday. You know, when you’re reading scripture, whatever it is, like those moments where it’s like, Oh, I know. I know those moments I feel really grounded. I feel like my butt is in the chair, and God is near, and I can breathe. I’m actually breathing because a lot of the time I’m holding my breath because I’m reading all these tweets.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  57:29

But I’m feeling some sense of joy and connection and vulnerability, and I want to say part of the work that we need to do, particularly for those of us who are what Henry Nouwen called the wounded healers, is to find our way home regularly, to find our way to practices, to find our way to communities that invite us there, that cultivate this lived experience of calm and curiosity and compassion and connection. So that we can do the work in a way that’s sustainable and resilient. This is as you and I were talking about before we started, it’s really wearying work. And when I sit with people and they tell me a story, like, I can go into fight and flight pretty quickly. Let’s do something about, let’s leave right now and take it and just breathe, Chuck, just come back home. I’ve got to do this. And particularly, I think about the work that you do, but you and I are connected to  there’s this vast networks.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  58:33

There are a lot of people who are doing this work that have no platform, but they’re doing it quietly and beautifully and under the radar and yet it takes a toll. So it’s this invitation back to this place we call home of grounding, of reconnection. This is where I think Paul’s prayer in Ephesians that we would be rooted and grounded in love, strengthened in the spirit. This is what it’s all about for us to do the work over the long term.

 

JULIE ROYS  59:05

Well, Chuck, thank you. This has been just a phenomenal conversation. I feel very much like your kindred spirit and have felt that for a while. But this was just really, really wonderful. And I absolutely loved your book, and going to be recommending it to everyone. Thank you so much.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  59:25

Thanks Julie. I hope you know this, because I know you get some hate mail every now and then. You are an inspiration, your courage, your compassion, and so, yeah, keep up the good work. Thank you.

 

JULIE ROYS  59:40

You know what I almost feel like for those listening, could you just offer a prayer or a blessing for them? For all of us?

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  59:49

Yeah. So, I mean, I love the old, ironic blessing. You know where God there’s this longing for God to make God’s face to shine upon us, because so many of us who are survivors or cut off from any sense of intimacy or vulnerability, so may I pray that prayer, I guess, to end,.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  1:00:10

Father, Son, and Spirit, bless and keep and make your face to shine upon every listener right now. Be gracious to them. Let your countenance upon them. All the places, the stormy places, the foggy places within, where they feel disconnected from themselves and from you and from others, where they feel alone and isolated, where they’re just holding on for dear life. Give them your peace in Jesus name, Amen.

 

JULIE ROYS  1:00:43

Amen. Thank you again, Chuck.

 

CHUCK DEGROAT  1:00:46

Thank you Julie,

 

JULIE ROYS  1:00:51

And thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and just a quick reminder that Chuck’s book, Healing What’s Within, is our premium for anyone who donates $30 or more to The Roys Report this month. And if you’ve benefited from this podcast, I promise you you’re going to love Chuck’s book. So if you’d like to support our work and get a copy of Healing What’s Within, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, I really want to encourage you to come to the RESTORE Conference this February in Phoenix. We work really hard to keep costs as low as possible to make this conference available to anyone who needs it. There’s even scholarship money available if even the early bird conference rate is too much. The point is, we really want you to come and take advantage of this incredible healing experience. For more information, go to RESTORE2025.COM. And lastly, please be sure to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Spotify, or YouTube, that way you’ll never miss any of these episodes. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review, and then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content again. Thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you are blessed and encouraged.

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