Who Gets the Church? with Josh & Kristy Groce
Who gets the church?
“You can be forgiven of murder. You can be forgiven of infidelity. But divorce? It’s taboo. It’s like they avoid talking about it.”
It’s a great conversation today! Seth and Pete chat with Josh & Kristy Groce – the team behind The Perfectly Blended Podcast – about the challenges that arise for you before, during, and after your divorce in your relationship with your church. Why is divorce still such a taboo subject that many churches haven’t figured out how to navigate yet? As if blended families don’t already have enough to deal with in learning to survive this new world of theirs, they now have to also sort out the new attitude from the church and their own congregation. Josh & Kristy’s experience provides powerful insight into this complex topic. We chat about:
Why divorce is still seen as such a taboo in church
Learning to relate to your church post-divorce and reconciling that with your own beliefs
Rationalizing “commitment”
Balancing your divorce with your ex’s and your friends at your church
How to deal with the kids
On top of it all, Josh & Kristy talk about their coaching work helping newly blended families get past destructive marriage habits to build a stronger marriage and work through their own unique problems that arise from being divorce previously. They’re truly an inspiration. Tune in!
About Josh & Kristy
Josh & Kristy have experienced life in a way that has given them an opportunity to help others. Physical abuse. Emotional abuse. Sexual abuse. Attempting suicide. Alcohol addiction. Divorce. These are just a few of what these two have been through in life. They have taken these life lessons, plus more and combined it with the saving grace of Jesus. They have decided to honor God by pouring into couples that are going into or that are in their 2nd marriage or beyond.
Links & Notes
Got a question you want to ask on the show? Click here!
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Pete Wright:
Welcome to How To Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships from TruStory FM. Today, who keeps the church?
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show everybody. I'm Seth Nelson. As always, I'm here with my good friend, Pete Wright. Today we're talking about the most important relationships in many of our lives. Sure, we're counting the relationship with your spouse, your former spouse, your kids, yourself, and so on, but for many, this list includes the relationship with their church, church community, and their God. Josh and Kristy Groce offer expert second-marriage planning to help you conquer destructive past marriage habits to build the marriage you deserve. Josh and Kristy, welcome to the toaster.
Josh Groce:
Thanks a lot, guys. We really appreciate it. It's awesome being here.
Pete Wright:
Well, we're really glad you're here. We have a lot of things we could talk to you about and a lot of things that we want to talk to you about, but I think the most interesting one, and the thing that we haven't talked about on this show before is this, how divorce impacts your relationship with your church and how that happens. Before we started recording, Josh, you said, "We're living in it." I want to know what that's like, so let's talk about divorce and the church. I have kind of a loose framework of what I want to talk about, but I'm curious when you hear that question, where you go.
Josh Groce:
Well, instantly it's instant tension. I happen to be on staff at my local church, and with that, I'm the only person that's on staff. We're a medium-sized church of about 600 people. With that, I'm the only person on staff that's ever had an open addiction issue, and I'm a recovering alcoholic of 13 years, but also on top of that, I have something that is even more hush-hush. I've been divorced before and remarried.
Kristy Groce:
Sinner. He's the only sinner on staff.
Josh Groce:
I'm apparently the only sinner on staff.
Pete Wright:
You are the only sinner on staff and the fact that you both are able to openly joke about it is very telling.
Seth Nelson:
I'm Jewish, Josh, but if you want me to apply then you can have two sinners on staff.
Josh Groce:
Ah, there you go. We can build them up.
Pete Wright:
Why, because you're an attorney? Is that-
Seth Nelson:
Exactly, exactly.
Pete Wright:
I'm sorry, Seth interrupted you, Josh. Go ahead.
Josh Groce:
It's one of the things that's just never goes and is openly talked about. We don't even really have marriage classes at the church. It's really funny. We're more of an old Baptist style kind of reformed, new non-denom style of church. So with that, divorces are just never really talked about. I'm really good friends with my lead pastor of our church, and he's a great guy. He comes from a very strict upbringing, a very conservative style. Divorce is just one of those things. You can be forgiven of murder, you can be forgiven of infidelity, you can be forgiven of a lot of things, but divorce is just one of those things that's just like, eh, we just kind of really don't mess around with any of that. We don't really talk about it. It's not that they purposely don't talk about it in the sense, we're not talking about that. We just avoid it. The church avoids it.
Kristy Groce:
Well, it makes them uncomfortable to talk about. Celebrate Recovery, Josh and I are part of Celebrate Recovery at our church. It's different because people can walk into the church and say, "I used to be an alcoholic," but people can't walk in and say, "I used to be divorced." You're always divorced and a lot of pastors fear that because they don't want to feel like they're promoting divorce because someone that's in a second marriage is thriving and happy.
It's weird ground and biblically, there is a section of the Bible and I used to know it off the top of my head, I think it's in Timothy, but I could be wrong, that says a person can't be a deacon unless they've been married to the same woman, all of these things. The church is split on that. Some churches feel like it means you could only be married to one woman at that time, because back in that time men could be married to multiple women or they were married to hundreds of women. Other churches believe that it means he could only be married one time, so it's divided on that, too. The church is just divided on all of it, I think. It's just taboo.
Seth Nelson:
This is really interesting to me, especially coming from the Jewish faith, because, literally, the Torah, the five books of Moses, mentions divorce more than it mentions marriage.
Kristy Groce:
Wow.
Seth Nelson:
In the Jewish religion, when a couple gets married, they will sign a ketubah, which is a marriage contract, and it's actually fairly traditional to have it in English and in Hebrew where it's signed in your Hebrew name and your English name and a lot of young couples will get the ketubah and it will be beautifully drawn, like you see in the old ancient scripts where it's colorful and from medieval times when they were first writing and they had scribes. They'll frame it, and they'll put it up in the living room where it can be seen. It's usually a very beautiful document. Then when you get divorced you're like, "Now what do I do with this thing?"
Kristy Groce:
Yeah. My mom actually has her grandma's or something framed in her living room. I asked her one time, "What is this?" It's this huge piece of paper that is beautifully, it's shimmery and shiny. She's like, "Oh that was the marriage certificate." I'm like, "Oh my gosh."
Josh Groce:
And she's on her third now.
Kristy Groce:
That was my mom's grandma. Not my mom.
Josh Groce:
She's actually made hers into a flip book. It just keeps... It's a cartoon.
Pete Wright:
Well, it's fascinating, one, that I was able to restrain when Seth brought up, sensitively, the word ketubah, and I didn't insert prenuptial agreement, because I think that's what is normally decorated really nicely in your-
Seth Nelson:
Exactly. Exactly.
Pete Wright:
I think it's... You had a question, Seth?
Seth Nelson:
I did because here's what I'm thinking of, is I think of, no matter what religion you are, or if you decide not to be religious and you don't believe, but you go somewhere to meditate or there's a group of people that you are with, you go there for comfort. And then, if you get divorced and you go to church, and I'm just going to use church to describe all those categories that I just said today, because it's easier. You go to church and you're in the middle of a divorce proceeding or the divorce is over, but your former spouse is there and there's tension. You no longer have comfort, and then it's, in my synagogue there's one service at one time. In churches, sometimes there's numerous services at different times, but then you're like, "Well, I'll go to the 10 o'clock, not the nine o'clock."
Kristy Groce:
Right.
Seth Nelson:
And it gets, so how do you deal with that and how does that make you feel and does that maybe drive people to a different place to worship?
Josh Groce:
My opinion on this, I feel like the church just does a really poor job overall. Now, I'm not going to call out every church. I don't know every church. There's more than enough churches that I have no clue about, but overarching, I think the church just does a really poor job in loving people through the process of divorce. I know a lot of times what'll end up happening is the pastor will pull aside the couple that's struggling and they'll counsel them and in the counsel session, the pastor's assuming the counseling is going to help. It's going to be an effective thing because nine times out of 10, the pastor has no experience personally with divorce.
Kristy Groce:
Correct.
Josh Groce:
He assumes-
Kristy Groce:
Usually, yeah.
Josh Groce:
Typically, he assumes this is going to be effective. Now I've done my job, the divorce has now been, we don't have to worry about it.
Kristy Groce:
Stayed.
Josh Groce:
Yeah, it's going to be stayed and we're not going to worry about it and we're going to move on and everything's going to be great. And then, he realizes these people outside of marriage counseling decided to get a marriage or get divorced anyway, which now has this weird tension of disloyalty to the pastor, and I need to put a little extra pressure on them as a church leader to make sure that they don't do this wrong thing that I've already instructed them they're not supposed to do. Now, this causes us a large amount of tension in these people. Now, it's not even so much that the people, I think, don't want to stay at the church because they feel divided within the church. I think they feel the pressure from the church leadership that this has been so unacceptable that it's not even comfortable being here. Just like you were saying, Seth, about this comfort level, I don't really think it's from the church people though, in my opinion.
Kristy Groce:
Well, it's uncomfortable and it's not, but I do think it's uncomfortable for all the church people. We have many couples that we know that have... One of our best friends, him and his wife at the time, were extremely involved in their church. They were counseling by their pastor, all of this stuff, and we joke because his wife got to keep the church in the divorce and that's how he ended up at our church, and now he's remarried and everything else, but it is uncomfortable if you are a couple and you get super involved and you're helping in Awana and you're helping with Upwards and you're helping with all of these things and now you guys are getting divorced, it's awkward, no different than anywhere else for the people within the community of the church because they're like, who am I supposed to be friends with? Can I be friends with them and them? Then it starts causing tension from the lead pastor if he was counseling them, but also everyone else. Who are we doing life group with? Our life group, small groups, every other Sunday are with all married couples. If one of them got divorced, it would be like, can they not come anymore? I don't-
Josh Groce:
Take off the bowling shirt.
Kristy Groce:
I don't know. I don't know. Usually, what I've seen with many divorced couples, there is always one person that usually ends up staying at the church and the other one, and it's usually... I've seen both. A man stays, the woman leaves or-
Josh Groce:
But it's a deeper root issue.
Kristy Groce:
... or the woman stays and the man-
Seth Nelson:
I've got a question on this though.
Kristy Groce:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Have you seen ever, a couple that gets divorced but is working it out? They're focused on their kids. They set their egos aside and they're like, our marriage didn't work, but it doesn't mean that we have to leave the church. If they say for example, "Well, who am I supposed to be friends with?" With both of us. You can invite us both. We're not going to have tension between us. We hope you won't have tension with us or do you think that the tension because there's tension between the spouses that are getting divorced or have been divorced, that now creates tension because no one wants two people in the room that are going to be stressing everybody else out.
Kristy Groce:
I think it's a little bit of both though because I think-
Josh Groce:
It starts-
Kristy Groce:
... church needs to love the people well. If the people within the church were... If this was a thing that was common and we all talked about it within the church and divorce is here. It's not going away, let's not pretend it's not out there, but if the church was educated, the bodies of the church were educated, if the pastors were more educated on how to love people through it, and then the couple, too, I think that would help. There is tension between the couple, but I think it would help.
Josh Groce:
But what I was going to say is, I think it starts off that way. I think it always starts off with good intentions and I think there is a little bit of, this is my land type of thing. I do believe that.
Kristy Groce:
Peeing everywhere, all over the pews.
Josh Groce:
Yeah, just everybody urinating everywhere.
Pete Wright:
[inaudible 00:11:40] ... mark is the church. Don't worry everybody. We're fine.
Seth Nelson:
Wow.
Kristy Groce:
This is my church. Sorry my scent is everywhere.
Josh Groce:
My church. Yeah, it's everywhere.
Seth Nelson:
That's a lot different in the Jewish religion.
Josh Groce:
She would win. She drinks a lot of water, so she would definitely win. I think it always starts off that way. I really do. I think people always start off with good intentions and then as time goes on, and you really start working through the legalities of things, which you're very familiar with, Seth, things start to get a little hairier than what they anticipated, and now all of a sudden-
Kristy Groce:
But the body of the church doesn't know how to respond to it either.
Josh Groce:
They don't know how to respond to it, but we also have-
Kristy Groce:
How many people have-
Josh Groce:
... leadership that is instructing them appropriately on that. The overarching purpose of the church is grace and love. Now, I know that's not all of what our faith teaches us, but that is a major portion of it.
Kristy Groce:
But how many people have come up to me, they forget that Josh and I are remarried sometimes because we came to this church married, we have four kids and so I think they forget. A lot of our friends within the church, the majority of them have been married, stayed married, are still married, and they'll be like, "Where's your kids? Why aren't your kids blah blah blah blah blah," and I'm like, "Oh, they're at their dad's," and they're like, "Oh," and it's like-
Pete Wright:
Oh, they get the head tilt.
Kristy Groce:
They don't know what to say. They don't know how to handle it, so I feel like if the church body was more educated on how to not make it awkward or what you could say, or maybe give them some questions that they can ask-
Josh Groce:
Pull my flip book.
Kristy Groce:
Something, because it makes them, they're awkward about it and then you feel awkward then. It's like, "It's okay. I'm divorced. You knew that."
Pete Wright:
I wonder how much of this, you talk about how the church is not interested in talking about it so openly because it runs into challenges with commitment and we created this marriage in this church. How could we possibly put our weight behind a broken part of it? But the church community too comes from this church family is made of people who self-select and maybe they come, too, because their belief system is in alignment with the relationship of marriage and not divorce. You can see, at least I can rationalize how that would be hard, not just for the leadership of the church, but for the church family itself to have to come to terms with the fact that this thing they once knew is no longer a thing that they can cope with, that they understand, and they have to figure out how to adapt, and that, it seems is slow.
Kristy Groce:
It makes it feel like from this side of it, it's an unforgivable sin. It's such a public thing going through a divorce and it's like someone can be watching pornography or gossiping or molesting children. That has came up in our church. All of these things, and it can be hidden for the most part unless something happens, but divorce really can't. Even alcoholism and things like that.
Seth Nelson:
Do you think that the reason it is a sin that doesn't get talked about or is the unforgivable sin is because it's a constant? Once you're divorced, you're divorced.
Kristy Groce:
Correct.
Seth Nelson:
That's in their face all the time. Even though you've remarried and you've committed, within the church again, let's say.
Kristy Groce:
Yep.
Seth Nelson:
That, oh, but they're divorced. It's not like, hey, I'm a recovering alcoholic and I've been sober for this long and I go to my meetings and I fight that battle every day and I'm here at church. I appreciate all your support. Sometimes the divorced person will say, "Yeah, I'm divorced. It's one of the best things I did," and that is going to now be in conflict with the teachings.
Kristy Groce:
Yes, correct.
Josh Groce:
That actually makes me uncomfortable, you saying that, and that's the funny thing about this. I've been in the church community now for a long time and for Seth, for you to say, "I've gotten a divorce. It's one of the best things I ever did." It's almost like that's blasphemy within the church. For you to have an open conversation and be able to say that. It makes you feel dirty, which it isn't though. Sometimes it's mega justify the reasons why you had to get divorced. The Bible justifies divorce on certain things, but we still feel dirty hearing it, which means that it's just very uneducated within the church and we are advocates for it, and it still makes me feel uncomfortable when you say it. It's crazy.
Pete Wright:
That is a fascinating embodiment of this conflict, of the conflict that clearly, you are living in that it makes you feel uncomfortable, and yet would you agree that your divorce led to great things? Wasn't it a good thing?
Kristy Groce:
The best things.
Josh Groce:
The best things.
Kristy Groce:
I wouldn't be making the money I'm making now. Not to make it financially, but I wouldn't be where I'm in today in my career. I wouldn't be as healthy and healed from all past trauma of my childhood. If I would've stayed married to that person, I wouldn't have been a better mom. I would've been a worse mom and everything about my divorce, it's the hardest decision I've ever made because I grew up in the church, but it is the best decision that I could have made. I should have never gotten married to begin with, and that's hard to say because I don't want my kids to ever feel like I don't want them because I got married and they are the best things that came out of it.
Seth Nelson:
I ask that to clients all the time is, oh my god, it was such a mistake getting married. I said, "I hear what you're saying, but sitting here today with your two children, knowing where you are today in the hell you are about to go through in this divorce, would you do it all over again because you have your kids?" and everyone says, "Yeah, they're amazing."
Kristy Groce:
Yeah, for sure.
Seth Nelson:
I actually answered, "No," to that question because my kid's a pain but-
Kristy Groce:
Yeah, right.
Seth Nelson:
Nope, wouldn't do it. I don't-
Pete Wright:
You've met the-
Seth Nelson:
Never liked the kid.
Pete Wright:
You've met the kid, right? You agree.
Seth Nelson:
He's like, I'm rolling the dice.
Pete Wright:
I'm a darn ATM machine.
Josh Groce:
That's right.
Pete Wright:
I don't know what's going on here, but I think it's very fascinating to me that we have two people that are heavily involved in the church that, and I'm not trying to be judgemental here, or it's going to sound judgemental, so maybe I am. You identify as Christians and not what I would say, a Sunday Christian or a Jew that only goes during the high holy days. You try to live it every day.
Josh Groce:
Yup.
Kristy Groce:
Right.
Pete Wright:
You appreciate that you make mistakes. We're not judging others, but when it's that much ingrained in who you are as part of your core being and how you identify, then to be there and have this experience that you went through in the past, kind of be the scarlet letter that is there, but we can't talk about is heartbreaking to me.
Kristy Groce:
It is.
Josh Groce:
It is heartbreaking.
Kristy Groce:
It is. I just had breakfast with the pastor's wife, I don't know, three or four weeks ago and there a lady on Facebook that we're friends with. They're one of the ones that you're Facebook friends with but you're not really friends with them, and she posted this YouTube video that she had posted four years ago and it has an unbelievable amount of likes and watches, and she's saying about how if you've gotten divorced and you're remarried, it's biblical to divorce your current spouse. You need to go back to your original spouse because you're committing adultery every day. All of these things, and I started crying when I was talking to the pastor's wife about it because I'm like, it's just so hurtful to hear that kind of judgment, not from everyone, but that can be out there.
Someone actually telling other people out in the universe, in the world, that if you're remarried I should divorce him and go back to the emotional damaging, awful human being that my ex-spouse was, and we were awful together. It wasn't that we were good together. She said, "No, you should be honoring the husband that you currently have," and I get all that, but there's that constant question when we want to be so much of what God wants us to be of, I'm so sorry I got divorced, I'm so sorry I got married. I would never want to go back to that person, but I am so sorry that I ever got married to begin with, to go through a divorce because I know that God would not have wanted me. We talk about that all the time, to get a divorce.
Seth Nelson:
Can we back up a little bit because I'm aware of a lot of people that are involved in the church that have to meet with the pastor before they get married.
Kristy Groce:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
I've never ever heard of one of those couples going and the pastor saying, "Don't do this."
Kristy Groce:
Right. Our pastor actually is pretty good at it. If he-
Seth Nelson:
Okay.
Pete Wright:
At saying, "Don't do this,"?
Kristy Groce:
Yeah, if he doesn't-
Pete Wright:
He'll throw a flag on the field?
Kristy Groce:
... feel like they should get married, he will not marry them. He will not. He will say, "I'm really-"
Seth Nelson:
Good for him.
Kristy Groce:
"I'm really sorry, but I'm not going to be the one that marries you because I don't think you should get married," and of course, they usually do. They just find somebody else to do, like Josh. He can marry people, so they can find somebody like Josh offline and say, "Hey-"
Josh Groce:
Yeah, I'll marry anybody.
Kristy Groce:
"I'll pay you $200."
Josh Groce:
That's what my wife's saying right here.
Kristy Groce:
No.
Josh Groce:
Selling me out. Make it right.
Seth Nelson:
Josh. Josh, how much do you cost? Because I'm engaged, man. We're in the-
Josh Groce:
200,000.
Kristy Groce:
No.
Seth Nelson:
200,000, okay. All right, but that comes with what? Okay.
Josh Groce:
Whatever you want.
Kristy Groce:
Colonoscopy and everything.
Pete Wright:
There we go. Get it back.
Seth Nelson:
That's right. That's right.
Josh Groce:
Let's just talk about it.
Seth Nelson:
I thought the 200 grand came with your house. It might be a good deal, but maybe not. I don't know.
Josh Groce:
That's not a good deal. That's not a good deal.
Seth Nelson:
That's an interesting point that you have a pastor that will meet with people and talk with them and say, "I won't marry you," and maybe discuss the reasons why and then, that's a really fascinating thing because I've never heard of that. I've always heard of the pastor, they go through it and then ultimately, they get married.
Josh Groce:
That's typical. That's typical.
Kristy Groce:
Yeah. Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Right.
Josh Groce:
Yeah. Now, we also have real quick, we have our pastor sometimes though, too, if we have people that come to the church and they're living together, not married. They call that living in sin. So he is just like, "Yeah, we need to get you guys married." And I feel like that also is kind of the same thing. Maybe they should-
Kristy Groce:
Pressure to get married.
Josh Groce:
How about maybe, let's not work on getting married. Maybe we work on moving apart first and then let's work on maybe being the right people to get married. I feel like it's six half dozen or the other. I don't know, it just feels like that's all the same. There's an agenda nonetheless, is I feel like is what the church is. It's like, let's just get some people married and then it's okay, but it's not setting them up for-
Kristy Groce:
Well, I'm not going to use this... Maybe I shouldn't use this as an example, but I am going to use this as an example. So there was a guy, stop me if you don't want me to share this. There was a guy in our church that was a deacon and there was a married couple being counseled within the church, and they had gotten permission that they could get divorced biblically. It was going to be okay, but then it came out that the deacon and this wife who was still married, were seeing each other. Everyone got booted out of the church. The wife and then the deacon, but now those two people, she's gotten a divorce and now that deacon and that person have gotten married and now it's like, "Well, they should be allowed to come back to the church because they're married now," and I'm like, what?
Josh Groce:
They are allowing them to come back.
Kristy Groce:
I'm like, what? Just this piece of paper makes it to where? It's just stuff like that.
Seth Nelson:
Okay, but you just said something very interesting because I'm engaged. I've been dating my fiance for 12 years.
Kristy Groce:
Oh yeah.
Seth Nelson:
I was not the one slowing down getting married. She was, and to her credit, I think if we would've gotten married early on when I want to get married, it might not have last. We are much better now, but she would always say, "It's just a piece of paper," and to me it's not. It's a different kind of level of commitment. To me, not to her. I went to counseling on this. She's like, "Well, I don't understand why you need to get married," and finally I just said, "It's in my DNA." I can't explain my DNA. I've done it. I've done the hard work. I've tried to explain it and then we get engaged and the amount of outpouring of happiness and how people treat us and how people view us is dramatically different.
Pete Wright:
Oh yeah, I'm sure.
Seth Nelson:
And she's annoyed. She's like, I've been committed to you in a long term relationship very early on in our relationship and why is it now that we're saying we're getting married, do people treat us differently? I said-
Kristy Groce:
[inaudible 00:24:40] ruin it.
Seth Nelson:
"Because they've got the same DNA that I've got," but she would say to that, "I was permanent before. Why did I need a piece of paper?" It's an interesting dynamic that we do treat people differently based on how they define their relationship and whether that definition lines up with what our belief system is.
Pete Wright:
Definitely.
Kristy Groce:
Having sex out of wedlock was the biggest thing. Now it's just like, oh okay, well, she got divorced and that's legal and we had given her permission to get divorced and the deacon she was sleeping with out of wedlock, well, now they're married and so, they should be allowed to come back to the church, and I'm like, okay.
Josh Groce:
We had a whole meeting about it. Our whole staff meeting just was on that this week about them.
Kristy Groce:
I didn't know that, so that's just weird that I brought that up.
Pete Wright:
To me, it speaks to this changing nature of cultural expectations of what their church family is going to do for them and their relationship with this word commitment. The other word that is coming up a lot right now as I've got teenager college student, is fluidity, that binary choices or binary options are getting fewer and further and further between. Maybe that commitment out of wedlock is to this new generation, an antiquated ideal, and yet, the church might serve those same people in very different ways. They don't need the church to talk to them about their relationship. They need the church for other kinds of support. I bring all this up because, Josh, in the beginning of the show you said, and forgive me when I start lying or correct me when I start lying. Forgive me, then correct me. You said something along the lines of, "I don't think the church does a good job of loving people through the entire process." Is that a fair recitation?
Josh Groce:
No, it's absolutely true. Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Okay. I adore that because I think it really represents that changing nature, the fluid nature of the relationships that people need with their church and the fact that maybe relationships, having the conversation teaching the church body how to have the conversation in a more fluid way might help adapt to these relationships that are completely different than we've ever had before. There's evolution happening outside in our relationships that we're having to adapt to inside this church family that are running into conflict.
Josh Groce:
I feel like people are biblically illiterate, and I'm being honest when I say this. I think 90% of the church is biblically illiterate and we're told that we're supposed to live our lives according to the word of God. The way that our society treats church is the word of God is when we go to church on a Sunday and we listen to the pa pastor teach it to us for an hour. With that now, we have to now go by emotions and the way that we handle people, instead of going by the facts of the way that the Bible tells us we're supposed to handle people and instead, we just follow the lead of what other people do. So if we have some of the older people which we are called are wise, which aren't always wise, have a certain viewpoint.
You guys were mentioning earlier, this judge feeling not so fluid and they feel like, okay, I need to follow their lead because the way they're handling it apparently is more biblical, which is absolutely untrue because if we really pay attention to the way faith works, it's not based off of the law of the Bible as much as it's based off of the relationship with Christ. That's our belief. If you really pay attention more to that and really dive in and understand what the Bible's trying to teach us instead of follow the lead of the congregation, now we have a better understanding of how to be fluid and be more loving and caring individually with people and stop living in fear.
Kristy Groce:
Well, and a lot of it, too, is a lot of the Bible, and people don't like to talk about this, but some of the Bible, not all of it, but some of it is left up to interpretation or what it was at that time because you can go look at Theologians and Apologetics, people that actually way more intelligent than me about the Bible, study it way more in depth. They're split on some of the things in the Bible. Some of them say, "Nope, it's absolutely proof and truth that it means this," and some are saying, "Nope, it's absolutely proof..." and I went to our pastor, one of the pastors is, what is he? He's going to school for-
Josh Groce:
Yeah, he's going to have a doctorate.
Kristy Groce:
... a doctorate in Bible. I went to him about some of these things and he is very honest about it. He goes, "No, it's split. There is no hundred percent concrete, this is what this means, in this specific passage." He's like, "It's actually split in the Christian community that are some that believe this and some that believe this."
Seth Nelson:
A lot of the reason for that is because the Bible's made up of words. Words have definitions and they have different meanings, and sometimes one word can mean one thing to one person and one thing to the other. Sometimes, the more you try to define something, you create more confusion, and here's my example on this. You have a child and an adult. Then we're like, well wait a minute, what do you do with those adolescent type people? Okay, now we have adolescents. So now there is, when does a child become an adolescent? When does an adolescent become an adult? Before we just had one gap, child, adult. We filled that gap. Now we have two. So as you start to define things, you might create more specificity for a specific group, but more ambiguity between that group and other groups, and that happens all the time in drafting legal documents, documents that are written, so I see that over and over again and I'm like, hm, let's be careful, and that's the problem when you are also trying to understand what a text means, and it was written how many years ago?
Pete Wright:
We need to talk about the holidays and divorce, Seth. It is a stressful time for families, especially when alcohol is involved and our friends at Soberlink want to help. What do they want to do?
Seth Nelson:
They've teamed up with me and other divorce and family law experts to provide information you didn't know that could provide peace of mind during the holidays. Pete, eggnog. People are drinking it. It has alcohol in it.
Pete Wright:
People are drinking it. It is a culture of booze. At the holidays, culture of booze.
Seth Nelson:
Absolutely, and for those who haven't heard, Soberlink is the solution if you're going through a divorce and have a custody case involving alcohol. Pete, tell them what it does.
Pete Wright:
Well, it is a device. It's a little device. It's a breathalyzer type device and you put it in your mouth and you blow on it and it takes a picture. It's got facial recognition of you, so it knows that it's you that are blowing the device at the time you are blowing it. If you are falsely accused of alcohol use or are you concerned about your child's safety because of the other parent's alcohol use, this Soberlink device is going to help you collect the data you need to support your case in court. Soberlink works hard to keep children safe offering remote alcohol monitoring system that is the gold standard because of this technology. You love it.
Seth Nelson:
I know what people are thinking. I'm not an alcoholic. Why do I have to prove anything? That's a common thing that I hear while I'm representing clients, and here's what I tell them is, "When you have an independent third party verification, that's very persuasive to a judge, and the reason you have to prove it is because when you're being accused of something, it's human nature, even for judges to sometimes assume maybe that is true. We believe the negative." Yeah, they'll have to put on evidence and they'll say all these bad things about you. You can get rid of all those problems and all those accusations by blowing in a device and showing, I am not drinking when I have care, custody, and control of the children and therefore, I should be able to spend quality time with them even during the holidays.
Pete Wright:
Especially during the holidays, and you can get Soberlink's free guide for the upcoming holiday season. You can request it today at www.soberlink.com/toaster. Thank you to Soberlink for sponsoring this show.
I look at this and I think, God, church family, the church is large, work so hard to provide clothes to the cold and food for the hungry, and here, a person comes to the church whose relationship is broken and the church has no answer for that need, no substantive answer for that need. The answer is, we can't talk about that out loud. Do you have shoes? Because I can get you some shoes if your feet are cold. Do you need an energy bar? Because I've got those right here. I can give you that right now, but I cannot talk to you about your divorce. So I then have to turn to your work as marriage coaches together working on this second marriage piece, given this sort of ideology that you carry on this other side of your lives with the church. How do you help people to build a positive, healthy second marriage? My assumption is you're working with people in and out of the church on this work, but I'll let you talk about it.
Josh Groce:
The main goal, something that we did. We have a podcast, we started a couple years ago, and our very first episode was how to bridge the Christian gap, and that's exactly what this is. Us being marriage coaches in this space isn't just marriage coaches to have a healthier marriage, even though ultimately, that's the root of what we're trying to do. What we're trying to do is tap into an untapped source of people that doesn't really have somebody to support them, which is exactly what you're leading to. We think to ourselves, and we've always been the people to fight for people that have a hard time fighting for themselves. Kristy has had an absolute horrible upbringing and has become an absolute warrior of a woman in her life, and I'm the same, so we believe, we don't mind taking the heat, standing in the front with the shield taking the bullets, to stand up for something that we know needs support.
That's why we want to step into this and try and support people within the church. It is hard. Our own church did not... We're having our second annual marriage event just for blended families coming up in November, and this is our second annual one held at our church, and I had to get almost in a screening match with my pastor last year to be able to have it at our church, more on a fundamental basis. It's like, you don't understand, and I know you're telling you, you understand, but I'm not here to support divorce, buddy. It's not what I'm doing. I'm here to support people that's been in divorce. There's a big difference. We want to fight for those people that feel already defeated that they can't win at this game.
Kristy Groce:
Well, and for me, this has been an incredible journey thus far and it's only the beginning, that we have found, his name is Ron Diehl. He is extremely intelligent. He's a therapist. He's a Christian. He has basically become just niched into the step family industry. He calls it smart step families, and he does it through Family Life. He's been in it for almost 30 years-
Josh Groce:
30 years.
Kristy Groce:
... now. He helps blended families. He has been a huge support of us and for us. Also, Jay and Laura Laffoon, who are big around Michigan, they are nuclear marriage based, but they call themselves edutainers. So they do educational things about marriage, but they're fun and they're fun-loving, and her sister has been in a blended family, Laura's sister has been in a blended family now for 27 years and they're actually sending her to our event to be on our panel we're going to have, but it's special, near and dear to their heart because it touches them. They're not blended, but her sibling is. They've been a huge support for us, too. We started it with guns ablazing, but along the way we have really found people that, and Jay and Laura are huge in their faith, they're Christians, to come alongside of us and help us and support us and make sure... We don't know everything. We do not even, we're not close to knowing everything.
Seth Nelson:
Josh doesn't know much at all.
Josh Groce:
I have her.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Seth Nelson:
Josh, I had this conversation just the other day with my fiance. I said, "I don't need Google. I got you."
Josh Groce:
You're just arm candy, okay? That's all I am.
Seth Nelson:
That's right, and the credit card.
Josh Groce:
Right, right.
Seth Nelson:
But here's a point that I would like to make and it's actually a conversation that I had with my fiance very early on in our relationship, and it was actually something that she told me later, she thought, this guy has sh- I'm trying not to cuss to be respectful of you guys, because I know-
Kristy Groce:
Aw, thanks.
Seth Nelson:
On your show, I'm not very good at it. Pete's like, you're so really holding back. I didn't even realize that this was one of the things that she found very attractive and said, "This guy has his stuff together," and the conversation went... I said something about, "Oh yeah, Kai's with his mom and her boyfriend or something like that," and she said, "Well, how do you feel about that?" She kind of opened up the conversation and I just said, "You can't have too many people that love your kid," and that's what a blended family if done right is about. If you're talking about the church in a remarriage, I just brought someone in that loves my child and will be a role model and a mentor in a positive way. What's wrong with that? The answer has to be nothing, but for the fact that the way you got there is getting divorced.
Pete Wright:
Shouldn't the church family represent everything aspirational about what you just said, Seth? To Josh's point, if we're not afraid to say the hard things, one of the hard things is, we have to love people through the whole process. I love that so much.
Josh Groce:
With people when they come into the church, we just want to say, "Okay, get into the swim of the rest of the herd here. Just get running with the rest of the herd," and that's just so unfair because blended families, step families, we have very unique problems, very unique problems. Kristy mentioned earlier, our kids can only come every other Sunday. Well, we have a camp point thing that kids get to earn camp points when they show up at church and they get to use these to pay for camp or whatever, and it's like, why are my kids only get half the points? It's not their fault, and the church doesn't adapt to change these things. It's just, jump in and run with the herd, and that's just an insensitive way to handle these families.
Kristy Groce:
That's already then, teaching the kids to kind of be, they're different, just from coming from a blended family.
Seth Nelson:
Pete, we've talked about this on our show. The kindergarten teacher knows every kid that's divorced because on a Friday that kid is bringing a bigger bag that's going to sit in the corner and go to a different house.
Josh Groce:
So true.
Seth Nelson:
That's exactly what you just point out. Why do they have to be "different" in that aspect? Why? And your point is, it's never the kid's fault.
Kristy Groce:
Right.
Josh Groce:
Never.
Seth Nelson:
It's never the kid's fault.
Josh Groce:
But they wear the burden.
Kristy Groce:
Make it a hundred percent of the Sundays, that's what him and I have talked about, make it that they get a hundred percent of the points of the Sundays they can come. If they can come every other Sunday, they should get double the points for that Sunday, whatever the camp points are, and if they don't come, they don't get their points just like everybody else, but they only can come every other week.
Josh Groce:
But the church ignores it, was really the whole point. It just ignores it. Just, well, that's fine. We'll figure it out.
Kristy Groce:
Our youngest is 18 now, so I'm like, well, we're beyond that. No one cares.
Seth Nelson:
Where do you guys live again?
Kristy Groce:
Michigan.
Josh Groce:
We live near Flint, Michigan is where we live.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. Because I'm like, I'm ready to get on the plane and come do a round table with you guys at your church, but we're going to have to wait until the spring.
Pete Wright:
Well, you guys, one, you're fantastic. Thank you so much for coming and sharing your wisdom and being willing to have this kind of a conversation on the show. It is, again, it is new for our show, but I am sure that there are people of a whole spectrum of belief systems and affiliations who are listening to this and just appreciate that this kind of conversation is happening and that it's up to people like you and like them to push these issues forward and love each other through the whole process. It's fantastic. Where do you want to send people? We'll send them to Josh and Kristy, but is there something you want to have people look for specifically? What are you plugging right now?
Josh Groce:
If you send everybody to joshandkristy.com. It's Kristy with a K and a Y, and right at the very top, if we give them a special code, we can give them a free ticket to our event. We would be willing to do that.
Pete Wright:
Fantastic. That's very nice.
Seth Nelson:
We'll put it in the show notes.
Pete Wright:
We'll put that in the show notes. Thank you so much. We'll put that link in the show notes. Check it out. Our huge thanks for you both for doing this. Thank you so much.
Kristy Groce:
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Josh Groce:
So much.
Seth Nelson:
Let me tell you, Pete, I was on their show.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
They're a much better guest on our show. All right? I told them at the end of their show, you might not want to air this one, but I appreciate your time.
Josh Groce:
Oh, don't sell yourself-
Kristy Groce:
I liked what you had to say.
Josh Groce:
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Very unique.
Kristy Groce:
I said, I thought you guys were saying, how to split a toaster, like you've had to actually split a toaster in a divorce, so I thought that was interesting.
Josh Groce:
Yeah, that's great.
Seth Nelson:
If you only knew.
Pete Wright:
If you only knew, right?
Josh Groce:
All right, cheers.
Pete Wright:
Thank you so much. On behalf of our fantastic guest, Josh and Kristy Groce. We also have Seth Nelson. You know him. He's America's favorite divorce attorney. I'm Pete Wright. We'll catch you next week right here on How to Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships.
Outro:
Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce and Family Law with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, How To Split a Toaster is not intended to, nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce and Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to practice law in Florida.
