Rohadi 0:16 How about that for Intro? Welcome friends. Season Six of the Faith in a Fresh Vibe podcast. I'm your host Rohadi coming at you from Treaty 7 lands in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. This season is all about deconstruction. I invite my friend, singer songwriter Drew Brown, and we take time, we recorded this over a month to share our story, to share our story and our experience navigating deconstruction in different kinds of churches, as leaders, as pastors, as worship leaders, we also offer a perspective here that's been, I think, missing from the conversation of deconstruction not going to venture on its validity. That much we already know. If you've been thrown into the process of deconstruction, that's a hard place to be. It's obscurity. obscurity means you look outside. And there's a bit of fear. You wonder if you're alone in this journey. Drew and I share our story to let you know that you're not you're not alone. But the journey that you're on a deconstruction has layers. And one of those bedrock layers is white supremacy. It's a tough word if it's a word you haven't ventured with haven't thought about that we contend that if we don't deal with the root problems in the formation of our Christian faith, then we're not going to be able to come out in new and reclaimed ways will end up replicating the problems we sought to escape to begin with. So without further ado, enough for me, we're gonna jump straight into the conversation. Enjoy this multiple part series with Drew Brown and myself. Find Drew online Spotify. The intro the outro they were all his songs. I think the best thing you could do is go and buy them You know what? DREW? Drew Brown 2:59 What man? Rohadi 3:00 You know what? I've been hearing a lot about this deconstruction Have you heard of this deconstruction? Drew Brown 3:10 Never heard about it. Is that a construction company? Rohadi 3:12 No... Drew Brown 3:13 Are we talking about Tonka Trucks what is? Rohadi 3:17 It's definitely not good, sir. Deconstruction...have you not been on the social medias? Yeah, exactly. That's right. A lot of white people are talking about deconstruction. And I'm wondering, did I miss something? And then I realised these guys are talking quite a bit about my experience in church culture, right. I'm like, wait a minute, right. I got something to say about that. You heard about this deconstruction. Drew Brown 3:52 I have man I have. It's everywhere. Everybody's it's hot right now. Right now. It's trending. Oh my gosh. Rohadi 4:00 I mean, it's been around for a while but I don't know. Maybe goes in waves is hot right now. It is. It is Instagram hot right now. All sorts of accounts. Right? The algo picks up deconstruction accounts. Drew Brown 4:12 Oh my gosh. It's as hot. It's a freakin brand right now. Oh, Rohadi 4:17 right. And that's a good one. Because brand means money. Drew Brown 4:20 Right? Exact Money, money, money, and people are trying to make that money. Rohadi 4:24 I gotta get on that. You know, I don't begrudge anybody who's trying to make a buck off this thing. But and this is what we'll contend and discuss in this deconstruction series, is I don't think certain voices can take people far enough along the journey of deconstruction. Drew Brown 4:44 That's good just to take oh, let's dig into that deeper. What do you mean by that? Rohadi 4:48 Well, I think that right now on deconstruction, and we'll take a step back here in a moment and talk about what do we mean by deconstruction? Right Tonka Trucks out If it's gotta go in the graphic, no, we can hear because I think it's just cultural in terms of contemporary church and by contemporary church, that means white church will use the ethnic moniker for all the other traditions. But if it's just the church and what the church's saying that means the white church, right, and in America, that's white evangelical. So you have these emerging voices, or old voices who have seen the light. And they are coming through with new materials of their process of realising what they had was abusive, or toxic or just not working. Right. And they are offering ways forward, which, I mean, if you're we were joking about this, Brian McLaren, with your 26th book on something unorthodox, yeah, deconstruction would that he doesn't use those words, maybe he does. Now. You have the theological persuasions there. And there's some teaching to go along with this, for sure. But if I were to pick on the primary voices, who are whom are white voices in this conversation, they can only take you so far. And if the roots of the problem are embedded in white supremacy, why people not going to get you out of it. Right. That's what I mean by can't take you far enough along the journey. That's so good. Maybe, maybe I'm not right. I mean, we can pump each other's tires here all day, Drew Brown 6:28 all day, all night. I mean, maybe I'm wrong. Like, I know, for me, when I went through my air quotes, deconstruction phase, and it was a while that was like, 2013 Rohadi 6:42 phase now. Drew Brown 6:43 Well, you know, I never had so hot right now. It was like 2013, I think it was 2014. And there wasn't a whole lot of like, that I knew of anyway, a whole lot of like content around that. I think the only thing that I had at the time is that a few months later, the liturgist became a thing. And they had their first podcast. And it was super helpful in terms of the faith part of my deconstruction. But for me, for me, the my process wasn't just, hey, my faith doesn't work anymore. It was that the church is broken. And I don't know how I fit anymore, whether I should fit into it anymore. I couldn't handle the racial justice I couldn't handle the homophobia couldn't handle like all these things. It was a fully like, all encompassing. This doesn't make sense. I don't know whether I should be a part of it. Because even as a person of colour, there's something about the church that's against me. Hmm. So it's like, and like, Have I been used in this agenda? Am I you know, how am I complicit in all this? How am I and so it was like a full like, holistically traumatic experience. And I was like, I don't, I can connect to this anymore. I was almost like a detachment as well as the deconstruction. Oh, that's a good word. And that was hard for me, because I'm a Jesus kid, man, I grew up. My whole life was aimed towards ministry, everything, everything, Rohadi 8:17 you're gonna lose something. Drew Brown 8:20 Go lose yourself. But it's weird, because that's, and that's fine. That's my story. But when I talk to people who have gone through their deconstruction, or who are going through, it's very, my gotta watch my words. It seems like it's this, there's nothing I can say, that won't sound really bad. And I think I remember I tweeted something about this before, where like, people sort of fake the construction. Usually, it's like, they're fighting against, like, purity culture. And that's it. And that's the only frame of reference and they're kind of working on it. And that's important to do to get it as well. It's, it's great. But I personally don't understand how you can only deconstruct that. I'm also working on the Sahjhan II and white supremacy and patriarchy and then the racism and like, one kind of leads the next one leads to the next in my in my head, from my perspective, they're all connected. Black people, they talk to you. It's like that one thing, and that's the thing. Which is fine. I just, there's a part of it's kind of like, it's specifically white people who do that any other person is a person of colour. They wind up doing a bit more of chipping away at that. Yeah. Breaking down the wall Rohadi 9:48 going deeper. Yeah. Yeah. They're all connected because they all have the same roots. Right? Right. They are embedded in the same foundation. in power, and power is something that takes time to divest from. Yes, and if you don't have the eyes to see, but the alertness, the alertness to the world around you in the ways that it subjugates marginalised people, whomever the marginalised might be, but it's usually around race, gender. Now it could include sexuality, you're not alert to the ways the foundations of power, designed to preserve it for certain people influence you, right? It's like, oh, my gosh, you are going to deconstruct, Drew, brown, deconstructing, and you're going to lose yourself. Or an old self, right? For a lot of people. That's not just the faith world that you're losing. You are going to be losing a concept of individuality as it relates into modern society to right. That sounds really philosophical. Yeah. That's big. You can't learn your way out of the shadows. Oh, my God, like all the books you can read? Drew Brown 11:12 Do that's, that's, that's the quote, man. That's the quote. Rohadi 11:15 I'll tweet that. Yeah, that's good. Hang on that we put on a t shirt. Maybe? How much do you think we could sell that for that? 2020 bucks. 20 bucks. 2020. American? Oh, definitely, man. For sure. Shipping, not included, was at the store. Drew Brown 11:28 Get that exvangelical money. Know what I'm saying? Rohadi 11:32 I've been trying to hit that hashtag. I don't know what's, I don't know what I'm missing. I don't think it's that big. But I know people are looking at it. But I chalk it up to race because I'm shallow like that. I don't understand what, but maybe if I put up some more pithy quotes, it can't learn your way out. That's right. Come on that. That's good. How many books? How many? What did that guy I don't even know I'm not gonna name drop, I'm not gonna look it up who wanted to put like a 12 week course or something together and charge a lot of money. And some people do do the work. And I don't know who that is. Some people do do the work, and they're creating, you know, important resources around deconstruction. So I'm not throwing around the baby with the bathwater here, but if you're going to throw down some 12 week course, that means just like this, okay, let's use this just like discipleship, which every white Evangelical Church is like, Oh, we got to make disciples, but we got to be better at the site. Let's go to discipleship. Well, it's leadership summit. Yeah, but let's do discipleship things. It's like the weakest component of your church's discipleship, man. And we have reduced discipleship to 12 week courses just come to the class and think and so that you have a better way of processing in your mind how you should live out a Christian ethic. But that's not an embodied posture whatsoever. Right. So how do you live out something in a shift this deconstruction as a shift to the way that you embody life and being and the formation that will point you into a new way? Yeah, if all you're doing is reading a couple of books, or taking a 12 week course, need more? Oh, my gosh, well, maybe that's not right. No, not more, and I was going to exhaust people we need deeper than that. There it is. I'm better, Drew Brown 13:16 too. It's good. It's good. Rohadi 13:19 Let's talk about deconstruction and what we mean. Okay, that's good. We talked about this, and we're like, Okay, let's start off with some dictionary. No, I looked into the evangelical dictionary of theology. Under deconstruction. Yeah, it wasn't there. Oh, I think we can shape and form and define deconstruction. And not to say that we are the defining factors by no means but perhaps we have different ideas of what deconstruction is. I'm curious to know, What do you mean by deconstruction? Drew Brown 13:53 For me, and, man, I know that we're gonna get some hate mail over this, but for me, it's, Rohadi 14:00 I hope it's mail. Yeah. Like, you know, you made it right. Drew Brown 14:05 It is, it is looking critically at kind of whatever the case might be it for this conversation, we'll talk about faith. So we're looking critically at Faith and removing all the things that will simply say just don't seem right in that cause pain to ourselves and to others that gets in the way of what a faith life should be with Jesus way actually is. It's looking at those things and then removing it from your your worldview and from your actions, which is easier said than done. And it takes a lot well, I would imagine it would take a lot of time and a lot of efforts and a lot of pain and a lot of therapy I would assume to do that properly. So yeah, it's essentially looking at a brick wall and and chopping it down brick by brick. But here's where we'll get the hate mail in my from my point of view, deconstruction happens in order to build something new, not to rebuild. You know me not to like, hey, let's build back up my Christian faith. No, no, no, necessarily. But to build something new to replace it with something else, it's not just smash the wall and walk away. Instead, it will do that. And that's fine. But for me, I think there's something I don't say more healthy, that's really harsh, but something different, we're healing, in terms of like, replacing that wall with something better with something that's built on love and hope, something that is built from justice. And something that's just like health, it's a healthy approach to whatever you might replace, like, what if it's a faith thing, great. If it's like a lifestyle choice, great. It was just like to, but I think it needs something needs to be placed there. That's good. opposite of what you just deconstructed, hopefully will show up there at some point in time. That feels like a proper definition of deconstruction, which I'm sure some people won't like. Rohadi 16:05 And And the ironic part is when we, and this is within the faith context, a Christian context that you can build into something new, that embodies this Christian ethic centred around the teachings and the person of Jesus and wind up with something very different than the church you grew up with. Right? That that the Christian faith, the Jesus faith actually has the answers of what is good. Yes. Yeah. If you want to reclaim them, yes. Drew Brown 16:38 And I'll be honest, so I went through my faith extraction. I was like, I want to burn everything down. Rohadi 16:43 Every church natural. Drew Brown 16:46 Just destroy it. You know, I mean, just. Rohadi 16:48 We'll put a disclaimer there. He didn't really mean literally burned down. You never know. Drew Brown 16:56 But you never know. That's right. And I realised, no, it's not like, Jesus isn't the issue right here. My issue was not with Christ. No, not at all. Actually, Rohadi 17:08 well, my Jesus is my issue is white Jesus. Drew Brown 17:11 Oh, no, he doesn't exist. There is no white Jesus. That's a lie. It's a lie from the pit of hell. I don't know who made that cartoon character up. But I don't believe in that nonsense. Rohadi 17:21 You're in the white Jesus care of Paul. I mean, there's tears freshly conditioned, California, Jesus blue eyes slightly in profile. The beard is nice eating airline just Drew Brown 17:30 slightly. That's why he looks good. It's a handsome little devil. Rohadi 17:33 It's you know your thing. Drew Brown 17:37 White Jesus, we pray to you little baby white Jesus, Speaker 3 17:42 dear Lord, baby Jesus, or as our brothers to the south call you. Hey, Zeus, still Drew Brown 17:48 my favourite prayer of all time. Rohadi 17:51 deconstruction? Drew Brown 17:52 Yeah, how about you, man? How about you? Rohadi 17:55 Well, you know what you went first. And I'm just going to add some pieces to it a cheat that way. I think that it is either a divestment or a decolonizing. from something that seeks to make you less whole. That it strips away aspects of your humanity, it demands a certain piece of assimilation, meaning you have to give up a piece of yourself in order to belong. Whereas Jesus does call for transformation that said, bring your whole self because your image bearing self has been made very good. Bring that. And together, let's participate and be transformed into a new way of being. And so you're staring at the wall, tearing it down. I like your I like your nuanced rebuild. That's, that's a good nuance. Because I don't think you can deconstruct out. That's not true. You can, yeah, you can you can deconstruct and then leave it there, which a lot of people have done and they leave the faith. That's, that's an option. Yeah, totally. That's an option. And you may not have any other option. That's, I think that there's another level, I think there's a deeper level, I think there's another part of the journey that says, although you've rejected all these things, and it totally makes sense that all the aspects are pulled away from your humanity and the humanity of all others are not Jesus traits, that there are options out there for you to venture hopefully with some friends chasing the same unto better and to build into something that is life giving. I'm in for it. I mean, that's hard. That's hard. That's and that's often a lonely enterprise. Yes, it is. Yes, especially want to talk about white supremacy. You want to talk about the way white supremacy whiteness intercedes into aspects of Christian theology basically shapes and form Every aspect of Western or European or white Eurocentric Christianity? You got to contend with whiteness and white supremacy, right? You got to divest yourself from that you have to decolonize Oh, Drew Brown 20:13 this is the thing Rohadi 20:14 exactly on to something deeper. That's the other piece. That's my piece is that you can do all that, but unto something deeper as well. That's, that's the other hard part. Drew Brown 20:27 Mm hmm. That makes that makes sense to me. That makes sense to me. And so I'm always curious about like, people's journey. Like that side of it all. Yeah, like, what do they? Because, okay, I mean, okay, well, let's, let's talk about Twitter, because Twitter is both the thorn in my side, but also my lover. So I'm a huge, huge fan of that tweet, tweet. I hear people always talking about what they're throwing in the trash, what they're leaving behind what they hate, what they wouldn't burn down in terms of deconstruction be exponential colon. And it's all good stuff. It's all stuff. I'm like, Yeah, I fives to you, I get it. But what I longed to hear is exactly what what, what we're both saying. It's kind of okay, what's on the other side of that. And like you said, there's nothing wrong with burning it down and walking away. Oh, my gosh, totally. That's kind of where I was for a while. I'm like, I'm out of here. Burn that burn that bridge. Rohadi 21:24 That's a normal, totally piece of the journey. Drew Brown 21:28 But I'm really curious about like, people's competition around what happens on the other side of that. And I mean, maybe it's just me looking for a happy ending? I don't know. But I feel like those things, I would love to hear more of that kind of like, wow, that sucked. But look, the beauty I found here, I look at, look at how this is healing. Look at the justice work I'm doing within my own heart. And in my community. I think that I think that speaks way louder than Let's burn this down. Rohadi 22:00 It's harder. I'm writing a book on that. When he mentioned that I don't have answers on on to that. I wonder if it's time though. It's, I'm not suggesting that we're onto something new here that's never been thought of before. But we are in our age and our unique cultural moment in our place, and space and geography and neighbourhood and city. And I wonder if we just need another 10 years before those voices start to emerge and tell us more stories, because those stories have already been told. But they're, they're few and far between. harder to find. And I wonder if if we just wait another? Wait, wait, wait 10 years, and another 10 years that we'll hear more of those stories of people who did find, but I think you're right, in that the vast majority of people it's easier to just walk away. Yeah. And not replace it. Yeah. Like just done was Sunday find life at book club, or CrossFit? Or nothing? Yeah, you know, just get and and that compared to being having your soul sucked from you? Could be the answer that you need in the season. Right? I wonder how much of it is actually tied to the way we grew up. versus say folks who have not had to contend with pulling themselves out of white church formation, like indigenous or institutional black? Right traditions, some Eastern or Coptic or Ethiopian Orthodox traditions that have never had to divest themselves out of whiteness already have a place I didn't include every ethnic congregation example in that because I think a lot of ethnic congregations Chinese Korean, some Indian look and adopt white church practices more so than create their own Yep. But we do have traditions in black church traditions and some indigenous traditions where there are answers of what this thing can look like or previews of those who have gone before and have lived out different ways of being out of resistance usually. But I wonder how much of our questions right now and this is why it fits into that hashtag X evangelical is because we came out of that Yeah, we were formed in Well for me it was white evangelicalism started off white charismatic didn't really name it as as such with speaking in tongues and me just reading my picture Bible comic book colour inserts in the wasn't the Pew mean, you know, I'm saying I do and then move quickly into even Joe because I'm running mill evangelicalism for almost 20 years, and all the way up until I my deconstruction starts to happen just before seminary. I went to seminary and then I never kind of looked back yeah fair enough but that formation is there but I'm not sure if that was similar to your yeah formation upbringing Drew Brown 25:23 close I think I started off in black church which is great you know full screaming from the you know from the pulpit you know, the choir everything you know, it's just like three hour long services just you know, everything all of it all a little bit, and then went right from that into white Evangelical, which was quite the quite the twist of the neck and then went from there into deeper into like, charismatic ish. So yeah, I've been and then I went to the mainline and did the Anglican thing for a while. So yeah, it's definitely it's it was in my blood, it's in my blood. And I definitely noticed a massive change whenever I did sort of jump back into black church for a season where it's like, for a weekend here or a month here for whatever the case might be. I can definitely feel the not just the cultural stuff in terms of like, I'm surrounded by my people, not just that, but even the way they even talked about Christ even the way they some some churches were definitely leaning more into what is it called? I forgot prosperity gospel. Some are leading to that were others was leading into how can we just be better neighbours. And it was such a huge difference between black church a and black church beat I thought I was like, wow, this is interesting. You can see kind of where a certain doctors were. They they learned from their white counterparts. Like, like, Okay, if we be bigger and better, we should be like this. If we want to be rooted in the neighbourhood, we should be like this. So that was really interesting. But yeah, I have definitely lots of scars. My back from the white Evangelical Church and lots of learnings, lots of groanings. And yeah, because of that, I have a lot to go through and removed from my system. Rohadi 27:18 Do you think it hurt you? Drew Brown 27:21 Yeah, yeah, definitely. For sure. And maybe more importantly, I let it hurt me. I was all in. I was gonna be even know though. I was gonna be worse. No, I didn't realise what's going on. But uh, but I knew I knew I wanted to climb this sounds bad. I want to climb the ladder, if you know what I'm saying. Rohadi 27:36 Well, I mean, dude, how many doubleword I can see one in the background. One of 26 Double Ward's D Brown. Drew Brown 27:49 I wanted to know if I care about fame, but I want to kind of be the best I could be, which is kind of stupid to say. Just feels like you're an artist though. Right? Rohadi 28:03 You don't just produce just cuz I produce your best work right? And hidden. It's different for a musician in the sense that you have a stage as well. That's part of the presence right? I got it. Yeah. It was right for a while though, don't you think? Oh, I had some good times. Like it was you need and this isn't for everyone. But there needs to be an alertness or an awareness I'm using those terms instead of pulling from black church tradition of using woke ism. Right. So they woke moment. Don't want to take that. The same concepts around alertness and awareness. Like that was just right. You don't know a different way necessarily. Although it may out for me at least. There was always a weird points, like always weird moments go into an all white church. There's always a weird racist moment. Every so often that forget the microaggressions right. There's always like, clearly, so tell me how you eat with your hands. It's like Mother Oh my god are you talking about? But it was right. Theologically speaking it was right. Like as a kid growing up and it didn't last long. But I read most all the the rapture books really left behind? Yes. I think it probably died for me when I saw the first Kirk Cameron movie. I'm like Kirk Cameron did what? This is hot trash. Yes. Yes. Actually died for me when I saw the kids versions two and realise this is just making a lot of people scared of it. It's predatory. based on fear. Yes. But for snapshots in time growing up. This was right. Right. I voted conservative in my first election. Federal election, right. That was just right, man. Remember that we were fighting gay marriage. Drew Brown 29:54 Oh my god. Rohadi 29:55 Do you remember you remember this? Like this country was going to fall apart? Yeah, this is So this is what, almost 25 years ago? Yep, yep. How many years? Well, I'm not that old. Or am I think you are now, was that Drew Brown 30:10 20 years ago? Late 90s. Right. Rohadi 30:12 late 90s, early 2000s. Yeah. You know, what? Country didn't fall apart? So that stuff was right. You know, and there needed to be a peeling back of the layers to say the same, right. Right. Was there a moment? Or would you say it was an accumulation? a tipping point, where you're like, just wait a tick. Yeah. Drew Brown 30:40 You know what, like, I even though I was trying to kind of like, you know, whatever, climb the ladder. A big part of the reason why I was trying to do that, because I never felt at home. At all, in church in the church worlds never felt at home. Never, Rohadi 30:55 never, not once you never felt you fully belong, right? Drew Brown 30:59 Right. And so a big part of my try to belong was like, hey, that can be really awesome. And then this area, then hey, maybe I'll find my place in this world. Right? So that alone was kind of like, I don't fit in something's not right. And even the way how people would talk about it, you know, like, I had a lot of queer friends because it was in the artistic world, not just in the church that but also in the mainstream. Like, I did lots of clubs and bars. And, you know, I'll do like I was in the orchestra pet for you now for productions. And so I have a tonne of queer friends, and a tonne of closeted queer friends in, in the church world. And it always bugged me the way how churches and myself looked at queerness. Feels like that's not right. And why am I okay with us? But never sat right with me. And so you see all these things? And so it's kind of doesn't make any sense. Oh, that doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make any sense. This isn't making sense. Even the word that I read, I don't know, this lot of stuff. I don't really think this is you know, so I was carrying a lot of doubts, a lot of questions for most of my life. But then it all came to a head was kind of like, I need to stop ignoring these doubts and ignore these questions. I need to figure this out. And I was able to see the darkness in me, I won't say darkness, I was able to see that. There was a bunch of missing puzzle pieces in me that I was like, I need to figure out why it's missing. Why I'm how dark I was like, like, I'm looking for something. I'm looking for validation. I'm looking for some strange sense of community or Rohadi 32:51 not even strange, just a sense of community rights. Drew Brown 32:55 And I was like, Okay, so why don't I have it? Why and why am I starving for it in this way? Oh, wait a minute. That's what so so yeah, it was definitely like a tumbleweed kind of thing where it was like growing as a avalanche. Maybe that's a better metaphor. Sometimes growing growing, but then yeah, for some reason, somehow everything snapped. And it became just Yeah, Rohadi 33:17 yeah. couldn't avoid it. Yeah, that that avalanche coming at you. It was common, slick little pieces, little snowballs you through different places on the mountain. And as they're going down, they're growing and growing and growing. And they all came together and you're like, I'm either along for the ride. Or it's going to kill me. That's exactly it. And it sweeps you right off the mountain. Drew Brown 33:38 Here it is. Any fall down to your inevitable death. singing the lyrics how he loves us all the way down? Rohadi 33:45 Oh my god. There must be freedom somewhere in here. I thought this was a happy song. Oh, we know we're happy. So that's it, man. I like to belonging peace. You know. And and I'd want to acknowledge this piece is as I as I process all the different snowballs that were my alertness. I'll get to that in a sec. But one of the things I never end right we never contended with was patriarchy. Oh my gosh, that the opportunities that I was afforded, despite being run up against white supremacy or the vestiges of whiteness, within the leadership structures of churches. I never contend with Patriot I was giving opportunities that I never would have been given if I was a woman to woman leader in evangelical is just not a thing, right? I mean, you gotta you got to acknowledge that that's not my story. I didn't contend with that. I was actually granted this intersection of privilege at the same time of of fighting some other ones. Good So I don't I don't even know what it looks like to be a white woman, obviously, and processing the abuse, spiritual abuse, the harm of patriarchy throughout this whole process that looks different, you got to find, maybe you do buy all those books to process through that. And and I don't know what it looks like to to trust again to roll into community in coming out of that context and to try to trust again, don't know, Drew Brown 35:27 right. Or growing up I saw many, many women, speakers and pastors and leaders. And I never even knew there was an issue. I'm like, oh, no, she's preaching. She's, she's preaching the storm. She's amazing. You know, she used to, but then I realised Oh, leave it. Oh, oh, wait, it's not. It's way deeper than that. It's way said she was like, it's just, yeah, I never understood. I never understood me, my mom. My mom was in the medical field. So she was like, a, like, for a while ago, Vice President of a hospital for a long time and, and I when I was in high school, she served disclosed a lot of her stories. She never wanted to burden me with this the craziness of being a black woman in a white man's territory. And I'm like, Mom, you're like, you're like the second from the top. What do you mean? She's like, No, like, Okay, son, let me educate you. Right here comes and I was like, wait a minute, this stuff. I assumed, I foolishly assumed because I was surrounded by strong, powerful women that know things were kind of good and equal. She's like, No, kiddo. No, no. Is it better now? Sure. Question, Mark. You know, I mean, maybe, but it's just as bad now, as ever has been. And at that point, I was like, okay, and it is framed. I was so naive. I was so naive when I was a teenager man, so naive. I framed a lot of what I saw in churches, and it made me understand Oh, right. Like even tokenism when it comes to, you know, having a female on stage. Yeah, that's right. Feminists. Rohadi 37:17 There's no way to use that word. No. No way. Drew Brown 37:21 No way. Yeah. Yeah. So it's. So yeah, there's a whole other narrative and a painful one that I just I just don't know. And I've never come across. I haven't experienced myself because I mean, I'm a dude. And I'm hearing these stories. I'm hearing these horrible stories and seeing now actually, what it looks like in some of the other churches in my neighbourhood, which I want. This problem is huge. And I feel Milton, Rohadi 37:51 right. Oh, dude. Okay, man, in Calgary, wild west here we have as our freedoms. Oh my gosh, and death. Yeah, lots of deaths. Drew Brown 38:06 Yeah, man, smash the patriarchy. Rohadi 38:10 I value your story on belonging because I think that's just trying to fit in trying to have a safe life giving space not just safe, but life giving space where you're, you're with family and, and you can just grow in a slow way together. I long for those places I've never fit in. I can't fit into any ethnic churches, there are no multi ethnic churches in this part of the world. There's never been a sense I've always had, like, you know, white churches, at least will feign belonging right for you, so long as you do and assimilate the right and say the right things, right. But when you're clearly don't fit in complexion, there's always something that's telling you you're not okay, in your own skin. Right. So I've never had the belonging piece. And when I reflect back, I think part of the reason why I'm a church planter and have created churches and spaces is so I can have a place to belong. Isn't that a weird, sad story? And write, and you'd think that'd be attractive for other people like me, but it's it's whatever. I think most people aren't asking these questions. Maybe that's too cynical. That's to come on, Drew cynical. But what I identified early on, and this was kind of the marker for me, was the church's incompetence of connecting with people who don't look like it. So I thought it was a problem of mission, right? Hence, all the mission stuff. I was doing church planning stuff I was doing, like I'm built to be the lead pastor in a traditional sense. A lot of unlearning there, and so I can play that game. And so at that, listen, I had died. Ignosi the problem that is true the churches, churches are racially segregated, full stop. By and large, multi ethnic ones are the exception to the rule. It's very rare to see churches and and the reason why they're like that there's a couple, but the primary one is that minority folks racialized minorities have never been permitted for belonging in white churches. So that's why we have this segregation happening. So I was thinking that the reason why on the concepts purely around mission, the reason why the church can't connect with people who don't believe like it, is because they still dwell in an inherited power position in the neighbourhood, assuming people will come to them for the answers to all of life's questions, assuming that they know the stories of the church, you know, know the stories of the Bible, they're just lapsed Christians, actually, churches and evangelicals, ironically, are among the worst can't connect with people who don't know the stories. So there's a there's an incompetence there, that at best at best, even evangelical churches can only really attract lapsed Christians into the fold. They can transfer Christians they can have babies or they can have Christian immigrants. Already church people come in that's that's just sort of how churches hold tight. Yep, right. Few grow. Right. And few have competency around connecting with people. And and which is really a question of use the word evangelism. How do you tell a gospel story in a language that people who have never known Jesus never known church could comprehend? These were the questions I was asking, because I saw the belonging pieces being broken. Yes. What I didn't do and it probably took me not quite 10 years, probably took me another five, to realise that the deconstruction around mission was actually only the surface level. And that below, there were bigger aspects of power surrounding white supremacy and patriarchy. And then we come all the way into 2021. And, and that's where we're, hmm, those are the those are the foundation's white supremacy, patriarchy. That's it, man. And they all got to contend with that even so Rumour has it after going through all of the process of deconstruction, and hats off to you good, buddy. Well, you you waited, you waited, this is this is a signal of health. D brown isn't a signal of health. You have come back into a church role. So a process of deconstruction, even saying dare I say, did you ever say I'm never going back and then I never gone back who go back to get their ass whipped once more. Drew Brown 43:04 Exactly. Oh, this guy me. And so on Rohadi 43:07 one hand people like no drew what you got to do. And all that kind of stuff. And I'm I'm kind of like, man, if you can find like a healthy space to do the things that you're loving. Called do that. Right. Are the rumours true? JRuby? Drew Brown 43:28 Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah. I for some reason I've learned I tweet the other day. I can't remember. I think I said I deconstructed myself right back into. Rohadi 43:38 Yeah, yeah, I wonder if that's actually a healthy, that's actually a healthy rhythm. Like to come to deconstruct back into something, not the same thing. But something right, is a pathway. That's a pathway, Drew Brown 43:55 I guess, I suppose it is. Its coolness, I still feel like I'm a part of my my portfolio is sort of managing music. And now I'm looking at all the songs that we sing together as a community and running it through my filter of you being this deconstructed guy who doesn't believe in Yeah, yes. Right. Yeah. And he wants to you know, manage you know, pronouns and wants to man like I want. I want to sort of get rid of too much the the blood language like this things and I'm like, I don't I don't think we need to be all about this here. I think we can find other songs or other language to use to kind of say and sing the things we want to sing. I never really I remember I always used to say I'm sure I heard from some other like white worship leader. Whatever I used to say for last 20 years. I would say like the songs that we sing today will be our theology tomorrow. And I'm writing um, Holding fast to that, like, that's even more important to me now than it was 20 years ago. And so I want to make sure the songs we sing are really, really grounded in what? who Christ really is. And what this what this path that we're on really means for us as we fight against these powers and principalities to white supremacy and patriarchy and right. We destroy the stuff. Yeah, anyway. But yeah, here I am. I'm back in in church rule, I'm not sure why. I'm still a bit jaded. Still a bit angry. But even in those two spots, it's my goal is to not yell at people or to you know, like this up in some sort of weird defence mechanism or retaliate retaliation. And so I just want to like love people better as I lead them in maybe it's a new way of doing search new that sounds so a new way you know what I'm saying? Got a new way but new for them. way of doing church I'm doing Jesus way Rohadi 46:08 reimagined. Oh, I Drew Brown 46:09 hate that word Rohadi 46:10 so much. No, okay. Not not reimagined Drew Brown 46:13 every leader, every church leader, every church, every ministry leader, every ministry whenever they use that word is never really reimagining just like a rebrand you I mean, and so for me, I'm like no, I think it really is we're not reimagining anything for me I'm like man what a rematch or something let's let's totally like break it let's deconstruct it, break it down and build something new. Not just rebranded not like hey, let's let's do this differently. Instead of doing like, four songs, just do fi reimagined like no man, Rohadi 46:48 let's instead of 10am Let's do seven p Exactly. And drop up voices like it is like, let's get a rapper Drew Brown 46:58 that they're really multicultural. Rohadi 47:00 Pregnant, pause, Drew Brown 47:02 go. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, church job. Save me Black Jesus.