Episode 8: Identity and Integrity After Pain and Loss with Steve Carter
Aug 20, 2024
What do you do when you’ve given your life to a cause and calling, to have only to find yourself walking away?
Steve Carter was named as one of two successors to Bill Hybels at Willow Creek Community Church. When the allegations against Hybels broke national news, it all changed. Ultimately, Steve sided with the women who told their stories and resigned his position in protest.
In this week’s conversation, Steve shares about that decision, and how he made choices to pursue integrity, and to allow his own grief to shape, but not define him. He also shares his personal litmus test for recognizing when he is drifting from living with integrity, and how he recognizes living as his full, whole self with integrity.
Plus, we tease his session topic on “Building a Safe and Trustworthy Church” at the upcoming Broken to Beloved Conference on September 26.
download Episode Transcript 📄
Quotes 💬
I will say I’m a much deeper human and Christ follower, because I let the suffering shape me, not define me.
For people who are the wounded resistors, the people who have gone through church hurt and pain, I always want to say I’m sorry. I also will say that for any of you, the ability that you have to be able to hold space, you will through this become even safer, even healthier, if you let it.
I think integrity is really just saying I want to be a person of character, and I want to be a person who isn’t fractured and splintered and divided, but a person who is integrated, so that I can offer up maybe words, maybe a posture, maybe hold space, that can invite others to become integrated in a very disintegrated world.
Episode Resources and Links
- As Long As You Need by JS Park: at Bookshop.org | on Amazon
- Broken to Beloved Podcast: Episode 1: Navigating Toxic Systems and Maintaining Agency with Dr. Alison Cook
- I Shouldn't Feel This Way by Dr. Alison Cook: at Bookshop.org | on Amazon
- PIVOT: The Priorities, Practices, and Powers That Can Transform Your Church Into a Tov Culture: at Bookshop.org | on Amazon
- A Church Called TOV: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing: at Bookshop.org | on Amazon
- Continued Conversation with Heather Gargis
- Broken to Beloved Conference info and registration
- Broken to Beloved Gathering info and registration
Guest Spotlight
Steve is the bestselling author of The Thing Beneath the Thing, and the newly-released Grieve, Breathe, Receive, and hosts Craft and Character, a podcast devoted to empowering pastors and church communicators who want to work on their craft while learning to lead with character.
Pastorally, his passion is to bring the way of Jesus into everything he does. He describes his work as humbling and vulnerable—a soul-baring process that keeps him dependent, expectant, and grounded in Christ.
Steve serves as a teaching pastor at Forest City Church and regularly teaches at churches, conferences, and various businesses worldwide. He lives outside Chicago, Illinois, with his wife and two kids.
Website | Instagram | X/Twitter | Substack
Grieve, Breath, Receive on Bookshop.org | on Amazon
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