Welcome to the Deconstructionist podcast. I'm your host John Williamson, and last time Tom and Adi Wazink shared the early part of their story, pastoring within the

Vineyard Movement, wrestling with inclusion, and finding themselves at odds with the institution

they helped build. Today, in part two, we talk about what came next. The pain of losing

spiritual family, the hard conversations, and the slow, meaningful work of finding faith again,

on their own terms. Also, don't forget to check out their new book, Sanctuary, Quaring a Church

in the Heartland, available anywhere you find your books. And one more thing. If you missed it last

week, stick around at the end of this episode for a song that felt especially right for this moment.

It was written and performed by Q Jones, the worship leader at my church, about his own experiences.

With his permission, I'm sharing it here because it's the perfect note to end on.

Let's get into it. Here's part two of my conversation with Tom and

Adi Wausen. John was young and driven with a heart of gold. I think that's what makes you guys

such a good pairing though, is you both come at it from a very different angle, you know?

Yeah.

So I'll just be quick.

I went into the Jesus stories, and I don't know why I hadn't seen it before.

We try to tamp down the meaningfulness of things, right, when it doesn't conform to what we

want it to say.

But it was just everywhere.

It wasn't just one obscure story.

Every single story, Jesus was seeking out

explicitly and intentionally and publicly the one reviled by the religious crowd, by the

religious leaders, and going to that one and saying, I champion you, I exalt you, I'm coming

...