In a culture where identity is defined by the approval of peers and culture rather than authority, what is that doing to our souls? We talk with Tim Glemkowski, Director of Strategy at the Archdiocese of Denver as well as a speaker and author, about addressing shame with identity by better understanding we are fathered by God and the implications of that on how we share the Gospel. We talk about a way of life and how we get to freedom here and now. The Important Things: 3:00 - We’re moving from a guilt-based culture to a shame-based culture. When we sin and feel that disconnect in ourselves, we feel like something is wrong with us instead of there is something that we need to rid ourselves of. 5:45 - To understand our culture, we have to understand shame. We have to understand sin has an objective impact on us, no matter whether we understand that it is sin or not. 8:00 - Our point of approval and definition of identity has shifted. We don’t need approval to be happy but believe we can do it on our own. We’re casting off these institutions and authority figures and yet, we still feel unsettled because the human heart is always made for God. 10:56 - When we don’t submit to an authority or believe in a divine order, we’re left with chaos. We’re looking around looking for answers rather than looking up. When we define our happiness and purpose, and it’s not fulfilling, there is then something wrong with me 13:12 - How does this shift the way we talk about the Kerygma? Shame culture still has a beautiful, hopeful answer in the Gospel. Shame culture requires us to go deeper than just confession of sin but understanding that we had a relationship with a perfect father that was broken. The message becomes more about who you are to Christ rather than purely the sin. 16:14 - the principles are timeless but the conversation speaks more to what they are experiencing. Even the original disciples talked about sin in a modern convention to relate to the people they were speaking to. 18:00 - In sin, we become captive and it breaks us down. And we’re not even aware of it. The cross is him coming back for us. This is how he fights for his children. The message is you matter more than your shame, more than you can even imagine. And the Catholic notion of response changes me in my nature and core, not just that my sin gets wiped away. 22:30 - We’re a generation so broken by fathers but we need the fatherhood to be healed. Living under his authority and freedom from being a child. 23:05 - Who is the central character of this story? A father who comes looking for his children. Jesus’s life is revealing the Father. 27:07 - When we talk about freedom, we talk about not having to whiteknuckle our faith and not sinning. There’s a way to live with God where you aren’t just efforting the whole things. There is freedom when you live in the radical confidence of the father’s love for you. 31:30 - How do we live this out as brothers and sisters in Christ? There used to be orders that led this but now is the age of the laity and it requires a radical new form of holiness, in community, that leads to mission. 51:14 - We have to rewire our mindset of why we’re doing what we’re doing. We have to think differently to then implement best practices. 55 - Finding the balance between letting the spirit lead and having program structure. How can we think through the different variables? SHOW NOTES We talk about how we communicate the gospel in a world that is moving from guilt culture to shame culture. We address Fatherhood, living in complete confidence that we are loved, and how we allow others in our life to experience that. The principles of the gospel are always the same, but now we need to look at it through the eyes of those who haven’t experienced it yet. What are they experiencing? What are they searching for that Jesus can satisfy? We have to fight shame culture with identity which means understanding who we are as children of God. Part of communicating the gospel is living a way of life that exemplifies the power, transformation, and unity of being in the family of God. QUOTES “We need a way of talking about sin that actually responds to a shame vs. guilt culture.” - Tim “When we recognize, I’m still super empty and doing all this and trying to live really well is not satisfying me; if we’re the arbiter of that, we’re also responsible for that too so then I am wrong, there must be something wrong with me.” - Tim “We’ve been taken from our father’s house and what he’s doing when he is hanging on the cross is him getting his world back.” - Tim It’s not just, my sin gets wiped away but to my very core, loved in my unloveliness, I actually become something lovable.” - Tim “We’re a culture that is so let down by our fathers that we want to reject the authority of the Father, thinking that’s the source of the problem but it’s broken fathers. We need that fatherhood. ...
