CNLP 775 | When Church Members Break Your Heart and Your Trust: Sharon Hodde Miller on Resilience and Speaking Into the Culture
The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
Carey Nieuwhof
4.8 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2025
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sharon Hodde Miller discusses entering ministry with idealism that is crushed when people break your heart and leave your church.
Plus, she discusses how to keep your heart engaged, learning to fight cynicism, and how to know when to speak into culture and when to keep silent.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What felt really dicey was this issue of, am I going to be rejected again? Or people |
| 0:09.1 | going to walk away from me again? Like, is it worth opening myself up to the people in my church? |
| 0:15.2 | And landing in a place of realizing, in fact, there is only one safe person that is Jesus. And so if I'm trying to |
| 0:25.7 | find people who will never hurt me, I'm going to be looking for them for the rest of my life. |
| 0:34.6 | Welcome to the Carrie Newhoff Leadership Podcast. It's Kerry here. |
| 0:37.8 | I hope our time together helps you thrive in life and leadership. |
| 0:40.5 | Well, today we talk about what happens when church members break your heart and your trust. |
| 0:46.3 | Sharon Hottie Miller joins us to talk about resilience and how to know when to speak into the culture. |
| 0:52.6 | So I think you're really going to enjoy it. |
| 0:54.0 | If you're new here, |
| 0:54.7 | welcome. Delighted you're here. Please hit the follow button. You will never miss a thing. |
| 0:59.0 | And we love having conversations with you. If you're looking for show notes, we have those |
| 1:02.6 | in my Art of Leadership Academy. Enjoying absolutely free at the art of leadership academy.com. |
| 1:08.7 | You get a whole lot more. There's over, well, 14,000 church leaders in there, |
| 1:12.5 | and we connect and we have meaningful discussions. Would love to see you in there. And it's almost |
| 1:18.3 | Christmas. So maybe it's time to catch up on some listening to. If you follow, you'll get all |
| 1:22.4 | of our episodes and you can do that. Just catch up a little bit over the break. I know that's |
| 1:27.1 | something I like to do. |
| 1:28.3 | Hey, Sharon Hottie Miller has a doctorate and loves to lead Bright City Church in Durham, North |
| 1:33.5 | Carolina, which she co-founded with her husband, Ike. She's the author of several books, including |
| 1:38.7 | free of me, Nice, The Cost of Control and Gazing at God. She is the co-host of the Resilient Pastor |
| 1:45.1 | podcast and has been a regular contributor to Hermannutics, Propel, and she reads truth |
... |
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