Navigating Church Bewilderment
1Description
https://youtu.be/XKwF1N--a00
For more than two decades, Patrick and Mary DeMuth faithfully served as lay leaders at Lakepointe Church, a megachurch in the Dallas/Fort Worth area pastored by Josh Howerton. But as concerns about Howerton grew, Patrick and Mary found they could no longer stay in good conscience. And now, they’re dealing with the anger and grief so many so-called “church refugees” feel.
In this edition of The Roys Report (TRR), Mary DeMuth joins host Julie Roys to talk about navigating church bewilderment.
This is a condition more and more Christians are experiencing today, as scandal and corruption are increasingly seeping into the church. And if you caught the previous TRR podcast with Amanda Cunningham, you heard about many of the concerning issues at Lakepointe Church. This is the church where Mary and Patrick served for 23 years.
How do you deal with righteous anger? How do you navigate the grief? How much is okay to say, and what is gossip? How do you find another church home when you’re dealing with feelings of betrayal and lack of trust? How do you avoid getting in the same situation again?
These are crucial questions, which Mary—an internationally known author and a repeat speaker at our Restore Conference—admits she is wrestling with. And, as is so characteristic of Mary, she engages these questions with grace, wisdom, and a passion for truth and justice.
Sadly, many churches have created a culture where it's not okay to talk about leaving a toxic church. But as Mary explains in this podcast, the church won't get better until we talk about it. Believers must begin to evaluate and process the toxicity in churches—and how we can truly become the Body of Christ.
Mary has recently developed a Church Hurt Checklist to help people understand their situation and begin to process and articulate it. Download it free at marydemuth.com/churchhurt
Guests
Mary DeMuth
Mary DeMuth is an international speaker, podcaster, and author of over 40 books, fiction and nonfiction, including The Most Misunderstood Women of the Bible and We Too: How the Church Can Respond Redemptively to the Sexual Abuse Crisis. Mary lives in Texas with her husband of 30+ years and is mom to three adult children. Learn more at MaryDeMuth.com.
Show Transcript
Julie Roys: For more than two decades, Patrick and Mary DeMuth faithfully served as leaders at a megachurch in the Dallas Fort Worth area. But as concerns about the current pastor grew, they found they could no longer stay in good conscience. And now they’re dealing with the anger and grief so many so-called church refugees feel.
Julie Roys: Welcome to The Roy’s Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And today, Mary DeMuth joins me to talk about navigating church bewilderment. Sadly, this is an issue many Christians are dealing with, as abuse, scandal, and corruption increasingly seem to be seeping into the church.
Julie Roys: And if you caught our last podcast with Amanda Cunningham, you heard about many of the concerning issues at Lakepointe Church in the Dallas Fort Worth area, where Josh Howerton is Pastor. This is the church where Mary and Patrick served for 23 years. And if you missed our prior podcast, it was a real eye-opener and I encourage you to go back and listen to that.
Julie Roys: Today’s podcast is a sequel to my podcast with Amanda, but rather than exposing the issues at Lakepointe today, Mary is going to be discussing the aftermath of leaving. How do you deal with righteous anger? How do you navigate the grief? How do you know how much is okay to say? And what is gossip? And how do you find another church home when you’re dealing with feelings of betrayal and lack of trust? How do you avoid getting in the same situation again?
Julie Roys: These are crucial questions and ones that I know many of you are dealing with today. And so I’m so looking forward to diving into this topic with Mary DeMuth. But first I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Talbot Seminary and Marquardt of Barrington.
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Julie Roys: Again, joining me is Christian author and podcaster, Mary DeMuth, and many of Mary from her excellent books like We Too: Discussing the Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Church, and also her memoir, Thin Places. Mary also was a guest speaker at our last Restore Conference in 2022, and she’ll be speaking again at our Restore Conference in Phoenix in February in 2025. So we’re super looking forward to that.
Julie Roys: But she joins me now to talk about something that’s been a very painful process for both her and Patrick, and that is leaving her church of 23 years, Lakepointe Church there in the Dallas Fort Worth area. So Mary, Thank you so much for being willing to talk about what I know has been a really difficult journey.
Mary DeMuth: Thanks. I certainly prayed about this conversation and what I’ve noticed in this space is that a lot of people in the middle of it. are not articulating how they’re feeling because there’s this general pressure from churches that you leave that you aren’t supposed to say anything. And I think there’s a difference between, and we’ll talk about this, I’m sure, throughout this episode, but there’s a difference between leaving quietly and running around gossiping about things. Certainly, those are two different things.
Mary DeMuth: But I think what we’ve done is we’ve created a culture of silence; you can’t talk about it and literally we won’t get better unless we do talk about it. So that’s one reason why I am having this conversation today, because this is not a completed story. This is a messy story. I’m in the middle of it.
Mary DeMuth: I am heartbroken, and I don’t have all the answers. But I wanted to give word to those of you that may be in that same space, that may be hurting and don’t have words to say about it. And maybe I can articulate some of those things for you.
Julie Roys: And I so appreciate that. I find that people often are willing to talk about experiences years after the fact, when they’ve worked it all out and they can tie it all up in a neat bow and we can all go, Oh, that’s so nice. And here’s three ways that you can apply this message. But I knew you were going through a really painful thing that it was messy. You’ve been tweeting about it, or I should say posting on X.
Julie Roys: You’ve been very open and honest with your pain. And I really appreciate that. And I love the topic. You actually gave me the title for this, about navigating church bewilderment. And I love that word bewilderment because I feel like it really captures the confusion, the real disillusionment, and then the grief and the pain.
Julie Roys: All of these things bound up in one. And so we’re going to get to all that and unpack all of that. But I think to understand the depth of it for you and for Patrick, first I have to understand how deeply vested you were in this church. So talk about what this church has meant to you over more than two decades and the roles that you played in it and the community that you had.
Mary DeMuth: Yeah, we’ve been there for 23 years, and we immediately started serving the moment we landed there. And we also were the first non-IMB, it was an SBC church at the time, and we were the first non-IMB m
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