Episode 3: What Are You Afraid Of?

In this conversation, Jo Hobbis and Christie Penner Worden explore the themes of fear, identity, and the complexities of navigating conversations around these topics. They discuss personal fears, the importance of curiosity, and the challenges of generational perspectives in identity discussions. The conversation emphasizes the need for inclusivity, understanding, and the role of listening in fostering meaningful dialogue. Ultimately, they reflect on the importance of offering the gospel without conditions and the necessity of self-reflection in understanding biases. This is a deep dive into The Me I Was Made To Be: Helping Christian Parents Navigate The Identity Conversation with Christie Penner Worden.

Transcript

Jo Hobbis (00:00)
Well, hey, Christie, it's great to be back here again with you looking fabulous. I should probably explain in case people aren't watching and they're just listening that Christie is wearing the most spectacular blouse with a big bow at the collar and it's all shiny and puff sleeves and it's just so Christie, I love it. love it. love it. Always with you.

Christie Penner Worden (00:03)
All right. Well, thank you.

More is more, as I like to say.

Jo Hobbis (00:26)
So  I've titled this episode, What Are You Afraid Of? But as I thought about asking you that question directly, it kind of occurred to me that there may be not actually much you're properly afraid of, like in a physical sense. Is there anything you're afraid of?

Christie Penner Worden (00:43)
Well, I've given this quite a bit of thought and I'm sure there must be something like there are times I get nervous, but that's different, right? Like some people are afraid of snakes. Well, I'm not afraid of snakes. I just don't understand them. I don't understand why they move that way or why they're not slimy. Like why are they dry? It's just not something I care to engage with, but I'm not afraid of them. just, I don't particularly prefer them.

And with spiders, I mean, I don't live in a place in the world where spiders are trying to kill me. So like, don't like them, but if we need to, you know, my arachnophobe child, if she has one in her room and I hear a particular screech from the bedroom, I know that I need a bit of tissue to help her rid her room of this, you know, life and death situation. But.

Even for my birthday this past year, I just asked for friends to give money towards me jumping out of a plane. So like, I'm not afraid of heights. I'm not afraid of water. Like I've been down in a deep grotto in Georgian Bay way north in Ontario. Like there's not a lot. I think probably people who have been with me in tight spaces, there's probably an itch.

of claustrophobia,  which just, I just don't get into tight spaces because I don't like, it's just not a great situation. So I might be claustrophobic, but I just choose not to test the theory. yeah, I don't, I don't know that I'm afraid, like it's, it's one of those, and I know that fears are really real for people and, really ⁓ frustrating. They can be really frustrating and they can really hinder. 

Jo Hobbis (02:23)
Yeah, that's fair. Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (02:38)
but I don't have any of the sort of typical fears that one might have. Not really, no, yeah.

Jo Hobbis (02:44)
Yeah, no phobias then. Okay, that's good. I think

I'm quite afraid of cliff edges. Like I'm not scared of heights. It's not the height. It's just the kind of the precariousness of being on the edge of a cliff. And where I live, there's loads of beautiful coastal walks. And I really love going for a long prayer walk on the coast, along the top of a cliff. But I always keep a very, very safe distance from the edge because I don't like the edge. Sometimes the path takes me bit too close to the edge. I don't like that.

Christie Penner Worden (02:50)
Okay?

Jo Hobbis (03:14)
And I do have a recollection that when we were on that retreat together in Croyde, we walked part of the same path actually, because it's a southwest coast path that goes all the way around Cornwall and Devon. And you were quite happily skipping along really uncomfortably close to the edge of a very, very high cliff. And I'm like, where's she gone? This is terrifying.

Christie Penner Worden (03:35)
Yes.

I think getting close to the edge like, I always want to know what's what I'm missing. Like the one I love the question, what's missing or who's missing, even in a leadership perspective or a learning perspective or or a job situation, like what are we missing? Like, I want to make sure that everyone's included or we haven't

 missed something that's going to get in our way later. And so there's just this curiosity. And I think it is, you know, likely quite unhealthy how close I get to the cliff, but I just want to know what could I see if I was a bird or what could I see if I was a squirrel? how would a different creature navigate this area? But there's quite a good reason why people aren't supposed to navigate close to the cliff, because I don't know what's...

I don't know what's  solid edge versus a crumbly edge. I don't actually know, but it's always been that way for me. I've had, you're not the only friend that's worried about me at the edge of cliffs I remember eating lunch, I was in opera school in Italy, which sounds way more fancy than it is, but we'll leave it at fancy.  And I was sitting on the edge of a fortress. I had gone to Siena for a day off and had got some, this was in the summer, so fresh, 

tomatoes or tomatoes, some people say, some olives and some just like crunchy bread, just gorgeous fresh bread. And I sat on the edge of the top of the fortress. There was a way to walk up to the edge of this wall. And I just sat on the edge of the wall and it was at the top of a hill, you know, in the Tuscan summer where I could just sort of see everything. And I think for me, that's what cliff edges do. It just gives me a different perspective. It gives me a different view. And so,

I, the desire to be safe is trumped by the desire to be curious or the impetus to be curious. So, so far, I haven't injured myself with my curiosity. And I did go cliff jumping and survived clearly for my birthday this year. So, yeah.

Jo Hobbis (05:47)
Wow, yes, of course you did. Amazing.

Definitely not on my 50th birthday list.

Christie Penner Worden (05:57)
I had people that came with me too. So we were everybody, my kids and a friend, we all did it and it was delightful and wild and I have the video to prove it. So it's really what it's all about.

Jo Hobbis (06:10)
Yeah.

Okay, then. So let's take this metaphorically then. How comfortable, how comfortable are you skipping close to the edge in the identity conversation?

Christie Penner Worden (06:17)
Yes.

I think.

I think I'm quite comfortable, but not because I've done the work necessarily. I mean, I think people would expect me to be quite comfortable at the edge because I wrote the book, but I think the opposite is quite true, actually. I found myself at the edge of this conversation before I meant to have it. And that felt quite dangerous. when I was, yeah, yeah. So

Jo Hobbis (06:53)
Explain that, explain that more.

Christie Penner Worden (06:57)
I was working with a curriculum company  and we had decided that the 

thesis, the real raison d'être of this  curriculum was going to be, I am a child of God, that piece of identity that's true for everybody. And we were going to build a theology, build a curriculum around some theological guideposts that would lead kids towards understanding their place in God's family. So I am loved, I am known, I am led, and how the Trinity fits into all of that. So it was...

It was this big project that I'd been working on, but what it led to was conversations about identity. If you're gonna say what a kid is, how do you get them there? And what are they hearing in the world about identity that maybe stands contrary to what it is that we want to know about who they are. And so as I did that research,  I would do workshops or breakout sessions at conferences around finding your identity in Jesus. And...

It was probably the second time that I did a breakout on identity that I first realized how dangerously close to the edge I was and how unprepared I was for the questions that everybody wishes I would just answer.  Questions about what's right or wrong. What does the Bible say about sexuality? What does the Bible say about identity? What does the Bible say about 

those who  make choices. And I have a huge caution in The Me I Was Made To Be around using the word choice, that how a person self identifies or has been identified medically or psychologically, there are all kinds of identifiers that we have. How they identify,  I wasn't necessarily prepared. 

And I'm still not prepared to say, well, that's not part of your identity, or that's not true about you, or that can't be true because the Bible says this. I think the spectrum of identifiers that we have today needs to be held gently and loosely, meaning if a person says that they are X, whatever it is that they are "choosing"

to say about who they are, our first assumption cannot be that they've made a choice or that they've made a choice to be ungodly. I think both of those things happen in the church where you've either made a choice to be something that the Bible disagrees with or you've literally made a choice to live outside of Kingdom values. And I don't think that's fair. And I do think that begins to

ascribe people to Samaria in our neighborhoods, in our communities, in our churches. And so  I'm willing to walk very close to the edge for those that are either accidentally or intentionally disqualified from the conversation based on who they say they are.

And so that idea again of who's missing or what am I missing or who can I not see leads me closer and closer to the edge  because there are people outside of the scope of this conversation or there are people we have not included in the conversation or there are people that we are talking on behalf of which is even riskier that I just think we need to be cautious. And so I'm willing to go close to the edge just to

just to loosen the grip on the conversation. And now that I come to think of it, if I'm afraid of anything, and especially when it comes to this conversation, I'm afraid of misspeaking on behalf of one of God's kids. I'm afraid of misrepresenting someone that I have no business representing or speaking on behalf of. I'm afraid of explaining or even mansplaining an identity that

Jo Hobbis (11:09)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (11:23)
I don't actually ascribe to, but just don't want them to be excluded. So in that desire to not leave anyone out, I also have to balance that with the permission to speak on someone's behalf or not. And that was a great and painful teacher through the speaking I was doing prior to the writing I was doing of  how people would come up and say,

boy, when I read the title of this, I thought you would be talking more about kids with disabilities, or I thought you'd be talking more about sexuality, or I thought you would answer the question around transgender. And I just didn't realize that I was, because I was willing to take on an identity conversation, I was supposed to come with an answer to a question that I wasn't even asking. And so there's, at the edge of that cliff are all kinds of questions that people are afraid to ask.

Jo Hobbis (12:10)
Mm-hmm.

Christie Penner Worden (12:17)
But when they decide that you're a safe person to ask with them, my invitation would be to sit down on the cliff, stop walking, because you will get dangerously close and someone will get hurt. But could you have a seat at the edge of the cliff and just be present rather than trying to navigate it and conquer it? I think we're trying to conquer this conversation more than just have the conversation.

Jo Hobbis (12:43)
Yeah, I think yeah, that's really true. That's really good. So in our in our previous chat, you spoke about your desire to honor people's fears without necessarily giving their fears the loudest voice in the room. That is a quote. And in chapter 12 of the book, you share a story about a man who spoke his fears out loud at a gathering where you were speaking.

Christie Penner Worden (12:55)
Mm-hmm.

Jo Hobbis (13:10)
So I'd love to know in your experience, what are the most common fears around this conversation?

Christie Penner Worden (13:20)
The most common fear, I would say, it would be singular for the most common fear would be that we get it wrong.  And that conversation with that gentleman,  the Holy Spirit deposited so generously and succinctly into my mind when this gentleman was really struggling with where I was pushing.

I was asking him to come to the edge of the cliff and sit down with me and he was quite fine to be on the path several kilometers behind me. We were not, we were parallel but certainly not within conversational distance. It would be like shouting to someone who's across the cliff and he, the things I can tell you about him is he is a godly man, he is a faithful man, he is a

a generous man to the church. is not, you know, the truth can be more than one thing. This was also a man that was terribly afraid of having this conversation. And the question the Holy Spirit deposited into me when I saw just how frustrated he was getting with my,  it's not inability,  my refusal really to answer very specific questions.

I just looked at him and I stopped and I said, what are you afraid of?

And the first thing he said was the first thing most people say when I ask that question in this context is I'm afraid of getting it wrong. Okay, what happens if you get it wrong? There's a series of questions that we can ask to get people closer and closer to the thing that they're most afraid of. And it's usually, it's usually a heart string that you're pulling on that is making them entirely uncomfortable. And so as I pushed down this path of what are you afraid of?

What will happen if that happens? So what are you afraid of? I'm afraid we'll get it wrong. What happens if you get it wrong? Because I'm standing at the front with this knowledge that we serve a very gracious God. And you've probably already got 12 things wrong today. So you can't really be afraid of getting it wrong because that's part of our humanity. Because if you know a good God, a loving God, a generous God, a forgiving God, then you do know that you can screw up.

and still be loved and found in his presence, in God's presence, you will not lose touch with the Holy Spirit simply because you've made a mistake. So you can't really be afraid of getting it wrong, otherwise your theology of who God is goes out the window. And I didn't say all that, but I knew that that can't actually be what you're afraid of because you're not perfect in this conversation or any other conversation.

that you're going to make mistakes. You might offend people. You might be offended. Your feelings will get hurt. You may give the wrong answer and need to ask forgiveness or apologize. So you can't really be afraid of getting it wrong because we'd never leave our houses. We'd never actually engage in theological discord with one another if that's really what we were afraid of. And as I pushed, and then what, and then what, and then what, with this man, okay, so if you get it wrong, what happens? Okay, if that happens, what happens? And he...

slammed his fists down on the table where he was sitting and rose to his feet and said, I am afraid that if we get this wrong, if we land in the wrong place in this conversation, God will remove blessing from this church.

And I welled up with tears on his behalf in that moment because I thought, well, that is terrifying.

If you believe in a God that will withhold, not just withhold, but remove blessing from his family, that's terrifying. If you're afraid that you won't hear from God again, or that somehow the church will fall apart if we get it wrong, or that people will leave, which they do over this topic, do, church splits have been happening for years over disagreement. And

To that I would say again and again and again, our choice is to walk in unity with one another, whether we agree or not. And that is extremely challenging, but it is the call on our ministries and on our walk with Jesus. Jesus disagreed with many people, including his friends, including his disciples, when they would challenge him and say, well, there is no grocery store open to feed all these people. What do want us to do to feed them?

they would have these antagonizing conversations where Jesus would almost embarrassingly simplistically answer, tell them to sit down or tell them to, you know, ask them what they already have or what do we have to work with. He was quite simplistic in his answers. I think when we are at a place of disagreement, the invitation is to not let us cause our unity to be fractured. And that

is a real fear because we have seen churches over and over and over, especially in the last five years where the media gets ahold of the stories, churches break. They break down, which is kind of like, actually, it's not kind of like, it's exactly like when a family falls apart, when family members no longer talk to each other. Yeah. No, go ahead.

Jo Hobbis (18:50)
I was going

bring it back down to a family level. we're thinking about parents having conversations with kids, those parents are the middle generation, aren't they? They'd likely got parents themselves who may hold wildly different views.

Christie Penner Worden (19:10)
Yes.

Yes.

Jo Hobbis (19:19)
to the children that you're talking to. And so how do you reconcile those two, that generational pull between grandparents who love their grandchildren, but have very set views about how things should be, and our kids are starting to talk differently. What do we do?

Christie Penner Worden (19:43)
Well, I think for that middle generation, for the parent who has parents and is parenting, there's a few things that we really need to be mindful of. One thing that I've learned, ⁓ not just because I'm one of those people that still has parents and  am translating for my kids sometimes, I think we have to...

have a more charitable assumption for the older generations. That while some of them will pound their fists and say, I'm afraid God will remove blessing. I think actually once we've been able to articulate that fear, or let's say a grandparent is, I'm afraid that child is not following Jesus because of what they're saying. These are really real life altering fears.  I think those are the...

That is actually the vulnerability it takes for the beginning of a different conversation. Because once we know what we're afraid of, then we can work it through. Then I know what button not to push to aggravate you. But it leads me to ask different questions. Okay, so where biblically does it say that God will remove blessing? What is it biblically that we are going to walk through together? And I think being able to answer as the middle generation, I don't know.

I don't actually know. It's why I'm having this conversation. It's why I'm talking to my kids about this. What I know to be true about my kid is that they're using this language, this language, this language, whatever it is, even if it's on behalf of their friends. It might not be your child that is struggling with their identity, whether it's gender, ability,  racialization,  sexism. There are lots of ways that our kids will struggle or push or

self-identify, where they really just want to be known for who they see themselves to be without being told, well, that can't be true, or that's a sin. Coming down with, like in the old Looney Tunes, like a piano landing on your head. This is not the way to have that conversation. And so I would say for that parent that's navigating it, you're being pulled into different directions. And remember, that's the place where hope can begin to thrive is in the tension of that pull.

Jo Hobbis (21:55)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (22:10)
But I would say the conversation with your own parents, if you're a grownup,  needs to be bathed in questions and asking parents for patience. Like, can you be patient with me as I parent my child through this? Are you open to seeing it differently? Are you open to being wrong? And those can be scary questions to ask of your parents.

 And the older we get, more like for better or worse, we realize our parents are just people as well. And I don't mean just people, but they will have made mistakes and you get to let them off the hook as you begin to make mistakes as a parent yourself. Your relationship with them gets to shift. But I think a grandparent in my experience and not just with my own grandparents, but in churches where you're ministering to grandparents and parents alike, even in kids ministry, 

They just so deeply adore their grandkids in a way that you didn't experience as their child, that I think it's almost safer to have these tricky conversations in a neutral space. Like, okay, here's what our kids are navigating. Here are the words, here's the language, here's what identity means to our kids today, your grandkids. How do you feel about that?  Is there something you need to know?

What have you read about it? Where are you landing on this? Because that will inform how safe your kids are with their grandparents, first of all. And maybe this isn't a conversation they're ready to have. And maybe this isn't a conversation that we should be having as a family yet. But I really believe in the growth mindset. Adding the word yet to the end of something that isn't fully formed yet is important. That we might not be ready to have that conversation yet.

when your baby is brand new and we don't need to ascribe any values to that baby's identity other than they are perfectly, wonderfully, joyfully, squishily made and completely dependent on us for what comes next. It might be a great time to start the conversations around why, for example, millennial parents choose earth tones for baby clothes. Why do they not want you to buy blue or pink? Because that's a real thing.

Jo Hobbis (24:11)
haha

Christie Penner Worden (24:29)
What happened to gender reveal parties? Well, if you think about it, they're quite messy. If we're going to be open to how kids today are navigating these conversations, a gender reveal party is quite the opposite of the ethic of today's new parent. And so they're in this really sort of...

Jo Hobbis (24:48)
Mmm.

Christie Penner Worden (24:52)
you know, sand papery rub of a place of, but I thought that would be really fun to find out if it's a boy or a girl, but what does that actually mean? And what am I unintentionally saddling this baby with? And so today's parents are navigating decisions even while they're pregnant that I didn't think about. Now I didn't find out what the sex of my babies was. ⁓

Jo Hobbis (25:05)
Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (25:19)
And I think there's a big difference, as you would learn from the language in my book, there's a big difference between a child's sex versus a child's gender. And now what? Like what happens when grandma or grandpa or the extended family wants to throw a gender reveal party and we say, actually, that's not a thing we want to do. We're happy to tell you what sex our baby is,  or we don't want to tell you what sex our baby is. And so there's all these new pinch points that are coming as we learn more and as we hold the conversation.

Jo Hobbis (25:26)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Christie Penner Worden (25:48)
conversation looser and looser. And we're not so  tight-fisted about what these words mean.  So I think as a parent raising a child who's learning language in the classroom perhaps or on the playground,  or is just exposed to different media around identity, conversations are just much better steeped in questions than

coming assuming that you have the answer. What would happen if we assumed kids had answered answers to our questions? Are we willing to be humble enough to be the learner instead of the leader in that conversation? And can we be the learner in a conversation with our parents such that we might get to a place where I got to with that sweet man and was able to say what are you afraid of? And when he said, I'm afraid that God would remove blessing from

this church, I bet he also would be afraid that if he has a child that identifies outside of what he believes is biblically appropriate, he would be afraid that that child, that grandchild, that family member would remove, they would have blessing removed from their life. It's very personal. And so I think the more comfortable we are with difficult questions, the closer to the edge we can walk with

others in this conversation. But just like I've said multiple times, and I say it definitely more than once in the book, it might be an opportunity or an invitation to sit down at that cliff before trying to walk any further.

Jo Hobbis (27:34)
Yeah. Yeah. So you had this conversation lots of times before you actually put it in print. Did it feel different actually putting it in print? And was that more scary or less scary? Or how did that feel?

Christie Penner Worden (27:40)
Mm-hmm.

I mean, I might well have up with tears remembering that moment. I wasn't afraid to do it because I had been called to it and I am stubbornly obedient. And if I know that God has asked me to do something, you can't really talk me out of it unless there is like an intercessory team that is saying, God did not say that, do not do that. If I have I have prayer support people, including you Jo, in my life.

Jo Hobbis (28:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (28:23)
If

I have people say something who love Jesus just as much as I do, but it's in contradiction to what I think I'm hearing, then I might press pause. But otherwise, I'm quite stubborn in my obedience to God. And there was a moment where I needed to sob. I just needed to cry. And it was when I finally released my manuscript, because when it didn't live on my Google Drive anymore.

my private personal Google Drive, when it no longer lived exclusively on my computer or under my access, I have never felt more vulnerable than in that moment. And the fear for me was, what if I got it wrong? What if I get this wrong? What damage am I going to do? What have I set people up for? What have I set myself up for? How is this going to

impact people groups that we already have not been kind to in the church? What if I misspeak on behalf of a people group that I am not part of? What if I misrepresent what it is that Jesus really wants for us as a church? What if I confuse people, which I think confusion is one of the enemy's most powerful weapons, but what if I confuse people more than I help people?

And so I absolutely cried myself to sleep that night knowing that I can't get it back. It no longer lives inside my body. And I've done what I've been asked to do. I couldn't reconcile the what if I get it wrong? And if you read the reviews on Goodreads or on Amazon, it's not a five star review across the the spectrum.

And the primary reason is I don't answer the questions that people just want a yes or no to. I don't say that this is what the Bible says you should think, believe or say, because I just believe in the mystery of God and I just believe in the divinity of God that's beyond our full comprehension. I say what I believe. I've been invited to say. Not my opinion on a subject.

Jo Hobbis (30:22)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (30:46)
And those are two very different things.

Jo Hobbis (30:48)
But I think that's the whole point, isn't it? You weren't offering to answer all the questions. You were just invited to start the conversation. And that's why we're here. And we're here because I am also stubbornly obedient and I've been pestering you for this for months.

Christie Penner Worden (30:50)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And I think ⁓ the tagline on the book is more important than the title. The title sounds quite decided The Me I Was Made To Be. It sounds very much like there's a decision being made like that it's very clear. But the tagline is I have to look at it because it's sitting right here, Helping Christian Parents Navigate the Identity Conversation. It's more of

a map through a pilgrimage, than it is, here's all the questions your kids are gonna ask and here's the right way to answer them. Here are three options. This is not a multiple choice exam.

Jo Hobbis (31:44)
Yeah. But

yeah, and I think people are like, if anyone's disappointed, that's what's disappointing, isn't it? Because we all want a manual, we all want a manual with our kids. Like, I wish my kids had been born with a manual. But that's not how parenting is. That isn't what it's like.

Christie Penner Worden (31:51)
Yes.

Yes. Yeah, well, no, and

you would need a different one for each kid because it's so...

Jo Hobbis (32:04)
I know, isn't that annoying? Because like when you've done the first one you think, cool

I know what I'm doing and then you have another one and they're completely different and you've got to start again.

Christie Penner Worden (32:12)
Right.

And that and you have two boys and you're saying that I thought the reason my second was different to parent was because I had a girl and then a boy. But then I went on to have a third. And I realized you get one of each, regardless of what sex they are, regardless of what gender they are, regardless, they they're their own uniquely and wonderfully made puzzle. And the puzzle with our children.

Jo Hobbis (32:22)
Yeah.

Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (32:41)
actually doesn't come with a lid of the box because the only one who can see the fully finished technicolor version of that child is Jesus. We didn't get the lid of the box when we were handed the baby and we don't get all the pieces to the puzzle when they're born and it's equally frustrating as it is glorious because at some point we have to release our children to expose their identity to us rather than us saying right well this piece fits right here

Jo Hobbis (32:48)
Hmm.

You

Christie Penner Worden (33:11)
And I don't know why it doesn't fit for you the way it did for the others, but that's where it goes. So I'm sorry if there's a pinch for you. I'm sorry that it doesn't feel comfortable for you, but that's where this piece goes. And when we get heavy handed with theology, that's what we do. We cram puzzle pieces into spaces that are ill-fitting. And it's not okay to do that. It's not okay to impose our values and our theology.

It's okay to have an ideology and a theology for yourself. It's not okay to expect that to be adopted by others just because you've read scripture one way. And I think what led me to that place of it's okay to land in different places was when I did a long  wrestling match, shall we say.

Jo Hobbis (33:55)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (34:09)
with Jesus on Samaria. the question about Samaria came to me while I was climbing a cliff. just to make you feel better about it all, Jo, I'll take cliffs at all angles, not just from curling my toes over the edge, not just from winding a path around them, not just jumping off of them into beautiful water.

Christie Penner Worden (34:38)
But I've also found myself at a bottom of a cliff knowing that somehow I've arrived at a place that the only way I can get back is by climbing out.

And of course I was alone and of course there is no cell service in a gorge. Like this is not a place where you should find yourself alone, but it didn't for whatever reason, all the reasons, it didn't bother me or scare me. I just thought, well, right. My car's up there and I'm down here. And I am not a fan of retracing my steps because I've already learned that bit and I just have to get out now. What's the fun in

Jo Hobbis (35:15)
Yeah, where's the fun in that? Where's the fun in that?

Christie Penner Worden (35:19)
that? Exactly! So I find myself at a dead end and I'm in the gorge and to one side is the river has run too deep at this point to cross over to the other side. There are no stepping stones so the only way out is up. Now that's never true. There's always more than one way out but at this particular juncture I chose to climb. 

Jo Hobbis (35:42)
That's because you were on your own and there was no one to tell you not to.

Christie Penner Worden (35:48)
Yes, because no one, so and I can tell you you're absolutely right because I went and did that hike. I asked  a local friend if she wanted to see where the chapter about Samaria came from and we were actually in Elora in this beautiful little town that has this gorgeous trail and river and cliffs and you know warning signs everywhere that  immediately when there's a warning sign it's like I can't read English.

Jo Hobbis (36:01)
He

Christie Penner Worden (36:17)
for me, like I just, I don't care nearly enough about warning signs.  I did get a ticket for trespassing when I was cliff jumping on my birthday because I did not see the, no, I did see the warning sign and I didn't care. I did see the warning sign and I didn't care where I ended up. do as I say, not as I do, I guess is what I mean by that. But I found that when God has something particularly heavy,

Jo Hobbis (36:17)
haha

Christie Penner Worden (36:46)
to talk me through, the Holy Spirit takes me to a place where I can't write it down. Meaning, I'd like to have a conversation with you, Christie, and I know you'll get fast at typing or journaling if I don't busy your hands. So there was part of this that felt like it was a holy moment because I knew what I was doing, but I also knew that

the kids would wonder if I didn't come home for dinner that night, where I had ended up in this journey. They knew I had taken a personal day from work to go and write. I had taken time and I had isolated myself for good reason. And as I began to scale this cliff up and was holding on by a tree branch that shot out sideways from the cliff, rather than going straight, because of course you can't grow straight out of a cliff.

That would be growing straight out of the top, it grew out this way. So, and I'm testing to see, is this tree alive? Is it going to hold my weight? Like, what am I going to hurt if I land from here? All these questions, not unlike the questions that that dear man at that workshop was asking. Like, are we scaling a cliff that's too dangerous? Is the risk too great for the conversation we're trying to have? As I began scaling that cliff,

Jo Hobbis (38:01)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (38:15)
I asked the Holy Spirit, what's the deal with Samaria? That was the question that came to mind because I had just asked, okay, Jesus, why are we here? What do you want to talk about? Because you obviously have my time and my attention because I can't write anything down and I need both of my hands right now. ⁓ And the Holy Spirit began running through all the numerous stories of Samaritans.

Jo Hobbis (38:21)
Ha ha!

Christie Penner Worden (38:44)
that show up in scripture. And the irony, I was full of giggles by the time I got to the top, not just because I made it. And I had to like scale under some barbed wire fence because I was not supposed to be here when I got to the top. But what I came to and the chapter, the section of the chapter I wrote in fact about Samaria was that we talk about the woman at the well.

being a Samaritan, that the well is actually in Samaria, Jacob's well, that Jacob way, way back thousands of years earlier was led to build is in Samaria. Imagine the gift of that, that this holy moment, this holy place that Jacob had pulled Israel around, had gathered the tribes around in unity is now in a place that no Jewish person will walk through. Like just think of the irony, the conundrum of this well, the source.

of water, clean water that the women would walk to to collect for their families for the day was in the middle of a place that the Jewish women, that the pure Jewish women would never go to to get water because of where it was. In a town where the ceremonially clean Jewish men would not walk through, because if you walk through Samaria, then you have to go be made clean again. You are not fit for temple.

So what is it about Samaria? Well, Samaria is a place,  I use the term mudbloods for all the Harry Potter fans.  These are people that had  married or intermarried with others during the years of exile, of course.  So they weren't "pure Jews" by decree of the Sanhedrin, let's say, by decree of

the very Orthodox, Sanhedrin, Levite,  Jews. And so, as I asked Jesus about Samaria and about these stories of Samaritans, I wondered how it could be that these people were so ceremonially unclean, but that he could tell the story of the Good Samaritan and ask us to go and do the same as the one we're not supposed to be like. Do you know what I mean?

Jo Hobbis (41:07)
Mm. Yeah, yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (41:08)
The

Samaritan woman is rejected. The Samaritan man is a devout follower of Torah and that Samaritan takes in the man in the ditch that's been left for dead by whom? By all the other tribes. He's been stepped over because if you touch someone who's bleeding now you're ceremonially unclean. Well, the Samaritan didn't have that to fear because they themselves understood what it was like to be rejected and took on

Jo Hobbis (41:24)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (41:38)
the mercy of God to care for that man so much so that he put his funds forward, his money forward to make sure that that man was nursed back to health. And Jesus says, go and be like him, go and do like him. How absolutely confusing for the man of law, the lawyer of Jewish, the Jewish lawyer.

who would be very committed to Leviticus, to Torah, to all the things that the Jewish people were committed to in order to remain ceremonial and clean, go and do what the Samaritan did. So how is it that we can tell both stories and yet still land in a place where Samaria is somewhere we shouldn't go?

You don't want to be the Samaritan woman at the well, but you do want to be the Good Samaritan. And so I believe in that moment as, as we piece together all of the stories of Samaria that Jesus tells and all the times he walks through it and says to his disciples, don't you walk through it? That'll just get messy. I will walk through it. I'll meet you on the other side. All of that to say this gospel is for everyone. It's for everyone. And

You might have to go to them because they haven't heard it yet. You have withheld the gospel. You have withheld the good news from this people group that lives in a very particular plot of land that you don't walk through and you won't worship with. And it's where we send people that we just don't feel are fit for temple.

Jo Hobbis (43:04)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (43:24)
Does that not sound like some of the people groups we don't know how to navigate life with in the church today? We not have Samaritans among us. And they're not Samaritans because that's how Jesus sees them. They're Samaritans because that's how we've seen them. That's how we've treated them. And yet we still want to be the Good Samaritan. We want to have it both ways. We want the pat on the back for doing the right thing for the person that's living in poverty. But we definitely don't

Jo Hobbis (43:30)
Mm. Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Christie Penner Worden (43:52)
want to welcome someone,  whether it's that your building is not accessible to someone in a wheelchair or someone who is transgender comes and tells you that they're transgender and you're not sure how to tell them that, well, you can come and be here, but you can't really participate and you're going to have to not be who you say you are in order to stay. And that's an extreme example. Both are extreme examples, but both are real examples that happen today.

Jo Hobbis (44:14)
Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (44:22)
And

so I think we really need to stop, especially when we get into these conversations, whether it's with our parents as the middle or with our kids, who have you decided is a Samaritan? Where in your community have you decided is Samaria, the places you avoid? And you might avoid for good cause, they might not be safe. But how are we going to get the gospel to the Samaritan today?

Jo Hobbis (44:35)
Mm. Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (44:51)
Are we willing to be bold in our faith and trust that Jesus will work out the details? If Jesus could sit with the woman who had five husbands and ask for a drink and then also offer her living water, what is our invitation? What does it look like to do the same today in our neighborhoods, in the places we've called Samaria? What does that look like? What do we have to give up?

in our white privilege and what do we have to avoid in a white savior complex?

Jo Hobbis (45:28)
Mm. Yeah, well, that's what I was coming to is that idea that we've, you sort of march in as the big savior, like, here I've got, I've got great news for you. ⁓ yeah, that feels, that feels really wrong. It feels really wrong.

Christie Penner Worden (45:46)
And

we often walk in with, I've got great news for you, but. Like, we're gonna hook you and we're gonna reel you in and we're gonna convince you of this very loving God with this very beautiful Jesus, with this incredibly generous Holy Spirit. And then we're gonna add a but caveat to it. You can have it all for the low, low price of giving up your identity. And I just don't think

Jo Hobbis (45:52)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm. I-

Right. Yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (46:16)
that we have the right to decide what order the Holy Spirit wants to deal with each person. Because what do I still need to give up in order to come clean to Jesus? What do I need to repent for in order to stay in good relationship with Jesus? What do I need to be talking to the Holy Spirit about every single day? Where does my bias still live?

Jo Hobbis (46:24)
Mm, yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (46:40)
Where am I discounting or disqualifying people from the gospel? Where are the places I refuse to go? Because there are places that others see as Samaria that I will go. I don't care. I'm quite happy to.  But there are also places  that I need the Lord to reveal to me that I am withholding the gospel from intentionally because I don't want to. Not because I shouldn't, but because I don't want to. And that is privilege.

That is privilege. I think one of the stories that likely best frames that conundrum for our listener is the places in the book where I talk about our trip to the Philippines. Back in 2015 when I went with a team, including my whole family, when we went to the Philippines and I went, expectant that I had something to offer. And of course, what I thought I had to offer was the gospel.

Jo Hobbis (47:25)
yeah.

Christie Penner Worden (47:39)
And I will tell you in all of the grossness, in all of the hideousness of the thoughts behind that is, because how would these people end up in this situation if they had Jesus? Enter the prosperity gospel. A gospel that I knew well and I knew was wrong, but I knew I had embodied in some way. To think that this deeply poor community was poor because they needed Jesus?

Jo Hobbis (47:53)
Mm-hmm.

Christie Penner Worden (48:09)
What in the world? We have no evidence that that's true. We have no evidence that Jesus goes and heals someone who's sick. then like, the goal isn't to make people wealthy. The goal is for them to walk with Jesus. And I was broken in the Philippines because what I realized is they knew an intimacy with Jesus that I had never personally experienced because of their...

Jo Hobbis (48:22)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (48:37)
And their life literally depended on Jesus from day to day, sometimes hour to hour. They were living in a part of the world where autoimmune diseases that we wouldn't be diagnosed with until middle age. They just don't pop up in children. I met a 12 year old girl with lupus. Lupus is not a children's disease for the most part. It generally comes later in life.

I sat with a woman and held her 10 day old baby boy who died the next day simply because nourishment was not readily available and she was unable to provide for that baby in a way that would keep him alive through his most vulnerable days. Those people needed food, they needed clean water, they needed shoes, they needed access to education, they needed help

nursing their babies. They needed people to care for their other children so that they could pay attention to the newborn. There were so many things that those children and families and moms needed. But I have no doubt they were all intimately in relationship with Jesus already. That was incredible. It wasn't just humbling, it was humiliating.

I learned how to worship with my whole body and my whole dependency from children that were being raised by these parents, from children that they didn't know they needed anything. They didn't know they were lacking anything. We even went so far as to cook beautiful lavish meals for these 65 kids that we took to tree houses and held camp. We thought it was cool, right? Like we thought we're


Christie Penner Worden (50:28)
camp. And it was cool for us because I've never run a camp in a tree house before. But we had a team that cooked healthy, balanced meals for these kids, including protein, which is not easy to come by when you're living in the slums behind the dump. All they wanted was a pie plate full of rice, because they knew that would fill their belly. They didn't. Why would they trust us to feed them differently? They didn't know if that would feed them. They didn't know if that would

make them full, and they certainly didn't know if they would like it. They definitely knew that they could eat a pie place, heaped with rice and not feel hungry again until later. Well, that's, that's our ignorance, not theirs. They didn't have nutrition education. They didn't, who were we to cook our food and say, it's delicious, you should try it. There were all sorts of things we learned about what our white savior complex looked like in that space.

Jo Hobbis (51:20)
Hmm.

Christie Penner Worden (51:27)
and how I definitely embarrassingly thought I was charging my way into Samaria. I definitely needed forgiveness and needed to repent and needed Jesus to meet with me so that I had any business even sitting with them. What I had to learn from what they had to offer was far greater than what I brought with me.

Jo Hobbis (51:47)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (51:54)
What I did leave was my suitcase full of clothes. What we left was leftovers that they could cook later. What we did is buy lots of bags of rice because that's clearly the answer to that problem without nutrition training. So I think deciding who is a Samaritan and what I have to offer Samaria is something we need to set aside.

Jo Hobbis (51:58)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (52:24)
in order to hear from Jesus about who's missing from the conversation and what do they need. Because I was convinced they needed Jesus and I am now quite convinced that they surely know him well. But they do need school supplies, they do need water, they do need a blanket to sleep with at night, they do need walls that aren't made of cardboard. And so,

Jo Hobbis (52:29)
Mm. Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (52:53)
All of that story, not just in the book, but now is an invitation to really self-reflect on who have I disqualified from the gospel or who have I qualified for the gospel that may already know Jesus and need something different from you. What if they just need friendship from you? What if they just need prayer? What if they just need someone who will welcome them without judgment? What if they already have Jesus?

Jo Hobbis (53:19)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Christie Penner Worden (53:22)
And

you just don't understand the order with which Jesus and the Holy Spirit are dealing with their stuff. I'm not interested in someone else telling me what I need to get right with Jesus. I do want people to tell me. I do want to be corrected. I do want exhortation in my life, but I don't like it. And especially when someone agrees with the Holy Spirit, what the Holy Spirit has been telling me I need to work on. Well, that's really annoying. It's really annoying.

Jo Hobbis (53:41)
haha

really annoying.

Christie Penner Worden (53:52)
But that can only come out of relationship. We don't get to tell whole people groups or whole neighborhoods or individuals that this is what the Lord wants to deliver you from, or this is what the Lord wants to do for you, or you can come and we can meet if. We have no business giving caveats unless we're willing to sit with caveats in our own life. And so building relationship

Jo Hobbis (54:10)
Mm.

Christie Penner Worden (54:19)
with the Samaritan is more about me becoming the me I was made to be by being more and more like Jesus than it is about the other person becoming less who they say they are.

Jo Hobbis (54:35)
I think we should leave it there. Thank you so much for your honesty. And I love how your eyes fill with tears when you say things. So yeah, thanks.

Christie Penner Worden (54:46)
I'm sorry to

everyone. That one's going to land like a piano on the head for some. And I'm sorry. But, but I'm not sorry I did it

Jo Hobbis (54:52)
Well.

[laugh]

Christie Penner Worden (54:59)
This is that place. This is that place that I came to when the book began to live outside of my body. I'm not sorry it lives outside of my body, but I am sorry for the work it invites us to because it's hard and it's painful and it can be confusing. So friends, for those of you that find yourself in that painful place, just know that we're praying for you. We're praying for you in all the ways that this conversation is hard.

But we're also praying for you in all the ways that this conversation is life-giving and welcoming and invitational. And we hope that you experience at least in equal measure both of those things.

Jo Hobbis (55:42)
Thank you, Christie

Christie Penner Worden (55:43)
Thank you, Jo.