Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:07 Hey, Brian Phillips here. Welcome out to the grease house podcast. It's an honor to be here with you today. Recently I drove to Lake Geneva and I sat down with Dr. Ryan Ben Schermer, pastor Steve Casso, pastor Bob Linquist. And we worked through five episodes based around Ravi Zacharias and the recent scandal that has come to the light. So we, we sat down as brothers in Christ to, to learn and to extract the scripture lessons, the lessons that the Bible, the biblical worldview of how to actually guard ourselves from these types of scandals and these types of breakdowns inside of our character. So we don't gather together to judge or to point fingers. It's actually just to learn and, and, and to point out red flags. So this episode is based on the board of directors. How did the board of directors respond and how could they have actually maybe possibly helped Robbie through the years in his ministry? So enjoy this podcast. We're going to go right into the audio from the day we were in Lake Geneva. God bless you. And remember to always live upright
Speaker 1 00:01:26 Expedition, 44 here with grace ops and a little kingdom collaboration project, we are on a series having to do with Ravi Zacharias. And we started the series with the numb introduction, kind of setting the pace for where we're going to go. And at the end of that, we introduced the idea of wise counsel. So in this first part, we're going to spend some time really working through the problem of not getting wise counsel in one's life. So if you go to right now, if you go to Robbie's zacharias.com or whatever his website is, you will immediately be assaulted with a pop-up that will give you access to three, uh, PDFs. Um, and we have, um, we have two of the three here. One of them was an open letter and one of them is the report of independent investigation into sexual misconduct. Um, all three of the documents basically have kind of this, and I'm being a little bit pokey, uh, just for the purpose of us trying to get to the topic.
Speaker 1 00:02:30 Um, all three of the documents basically have this thing, which is, Hey, we, the board of Ravi Zacharias ministries, uh, really don't want to have any accountability. We don't really want anybody to Sue us and we don't want anybody to think that we're bad people. And so we're going to put all this stuff out. So people know like, Hey, we were just along for the ride and Robbie did some terrible stuff. So anyway, don't look over here at our lives. Just pay attention to how bad Robbie was. It looks like they're going to just keep going here. We know what's going to happen
Speaker 2 00:03:00 To our Z I M but like a lot of people are asking that question. There's been a few people that have been speakers for the ministry that have already resigned, but that's going to filter into this conversation too.
Speaker 1 00:03:10 Right? So the board, uh, the board goes through this statement and it was literally, uh, when, when, when Bob and I were talking about it on the home and drive up here, we weren't, it was so blatant that this was just perfectly annotated language by some random lawyer, that's released a statement that all these board members probably said, yep. That's a great statement that has all of this basically. And I know I'm probably reading way too deep into it, but basically they were just poor little victims of Robbie doing all this evil stuff. And here they were trying to be a good board and do some good leadership in this. But Robbie, I mean, it just had all these problems that just were on. And this is the part that absolutely gets in my crawl is that a, if you have a place as a counselor, whatever language that is a board member, um, leadership team, uh, best buddy, uh, covenant brother, uh, there, there's a ton of ways to define counselor, but if you have that place in someone's life, that demands responsibility. And number two, if you don't have those people in your life, you are setting yourself up for absolute destruction.
Speaker 2 00:04:31 Yeah. It's a really important place. The accountability. Right. And like Steve just said, as I read that originally, the first thing I saw was I'm going now, that's him and not off. We didn't see any of that for me, therein lies the problem. Yeah. What kind of brother am I being to? Any one of you guys, if I don't sniff something said something and we don't address it. Yeah. And honestly, I want you to address it in my life. And that's the word that the world really blows back against. And doesn't like, because we submit ourselves to each other in a godly way. Yeah. That board took a worldly perspective from a legal standpoint and said, Oh no, we didn't have anything to do with that. What is the better reaction from a board? I mean, this happens, the guy falls, what's the reaction from a board from, you know, looking at a biblical perspective.
Speaker 0 00:05:22 Well, I think you get in a lot of trouble when you just try to do everything by the law. You're just trying to protect yourself. I mean, you can get really kind of backed into a corner. I think biblically, the hardest thing to do is to just be totally transparent and to be honest with that's what the world needs right now, the world just needs to just, let's all ate together over this. Like, Hey, as a board, we, we overlooked some red flags too, you know? Cause when you, that's the, there's a delicate balance. I planted at a church 14 years ago and there's a delicate balance of power, you know, cause absolute power corrupts. And so I don't think I should have absolute power and I don't think that the board or whatever way you govern should have absolute power. So I think for me, at least I think the best way to do is just rip the bandaid off and let it out and just hurt together. And whatever comes comes, if you get sued, you get sued. If you lose everything, you lose everything. But that honors
Speaker 2 00:06:14 It's kingdom thinking over worldly. Thank you. Yes. Because we're not being drawn into a worldly thought process as brothers, we're staying in a kingdom relationship. Yeah. So we're allowing him to work through this relationship and to this relationship as brothers. And what it seems to me in this Robby thing is that it's a very world that the reactions, everything are very worldly, this isn't kingdom things, right?
Speaker 1 00:06:39 One of the things that I want to kind of delve into too is, um, Hey, you legitimately have those people in your life. And so let me kind of define those people. And you can answer the question out there, average listener watcher. Um, you actually have people that are real Christians, authentic, genuine, godly, mature Christians. So because a lot of times the people that we have in our lives that we get counsel from, so to say are just pals. They're just friends. And they, they like the same beer. Or we talk about the same television show or we, you know, that is not what we are talking about. We're when you form a board, I have a board for Steve castle ministries and these two of these guys are on my board. I specifically picked guys, obviously not only did I have relationship with them and they are covenant brothers, but I spit, I picked people on purpose that are really pokey. Why was I on a backhoe? Bridal, bridal, get on my P's and Q's without a problem. Hey, roll. What's going on with the thing and stuff. Same thing with Ryan. Hey man, how's your life? How'd you get back to every time I talked to Ryan, Hey, what can I pray with you about how you and Kay, how's the family? How's the ministry. I want guys in my life that are going to be asking the deep questions.
Speaker 2 00:07:54 Even if it's hard, even if it looks like a fight on the front side.
Speaker 1 00:07:58 So here's the thing. We think that it is good or godly for us to avoid difficult conversations. It is literally antichrist to avoid difficult conversations. We should be appreciating the fact that we have people in our life that are grown up enough to have a difficult conversation with us and then give us the end result, counsel it from the kingdom of God perspective, not to beat us up, not to condemn us. Not just shame is not to guilt us, but to literally hold us accountable for what God says that you are and living in the righteousness that you were created to live in,
Speaker 2 00:08:33 We're gonna have spinoffs all the way through this, but one of them is I hear this theologically all the time that like, Oh, I'm not sure I want you to teach that to my church because that might open the door for them to, you know, think about this or that or whatever. But they might think,
Speaker 1 00:08:47 You might think back to the batteries.
Speaker 2 00:08:50 Most of our churches have stopped thinking yes, deeply in the scripture. And boy, sometimes when you ruffle the
Speaker 3 00:08:56 Feathers, that's where intimacy is found. And that means absolutely your wife with your brothers and Christ with God, get out of the box on those issues. And that only comes by thinking things through and then allowing him to breed into that. And I say this from the pulpit pretty often alive. You want to make, if you wanted someone to quit your church, ask them about their marriage, ask them about their parenting, ask them about their finances. You are just absolutely not allowed as a pastor of a church, literally a person that hopefully you believe that your pastor is placed in your life by God for God. Yeah. And he's not allowed to talk to you about your marriage. Talk to you about your sexuality. Talk to you about your finances.
Speaker 0 00:09:38 Hey, justice Warren, on my way here. Uh, right before I left to come here, I was dealing with an issue that I'd want to address personally with this guy. A man's man kind of guy gave his life to Christ a couple months ago, but he's living with his girl. Right. And I hadn't gotten around and talked to him about it yet. And I was like, well, that'll calm as I've been in, we just can't get together. So I'm like, I'm just going to text him. I'm going to text it to him. Cause he seems to like that. And I did. I went right through the front door. I'm like bro, boom, boom, boom, laid it out. And it was real nice and kind about it. But I'm like, you're having problems. Cause you've got this back gaping door open to this. The enemy could come in to torment you.
Speaker 0 00:10:08 And he liked it. He was like, Oh, that's why I liked you. You just say it like it is. And so the council, he likes the council that I was giving him. And that's one of the things that in my own life, I, from a young year, you know, I'm in serving Christ for 25 years and really early on in my Christ or early days of development, I saw the scripture in Proverbs, but with my own eyes and it says for by wise counsel, you can wage your war. And in abundance of counselors, there is victory. And I just got busy on that scripture going. And it's like what Steve was saying earlier. I had to diligently work to put that the right counsel in my life because it doesn't automatically happen. Especially in a fatherless generation. Like we're now I had to seek out friends and father types.
Speaker 0 00:10:47 And a lot of times I hung out with older men that I thought knew how to find God. They knew God, they were successful at some type of measure in their life. Whether it was being a good father, a good husband, a good business leader. I wanted those guys saw, even when I was in my early twenties, I'd be going to breakfast with those guys. I'd be getting up at five in the morning, beating this guy before he went to work, letting them pour into my life. And that's just been something I've always had three to five of those types of people in my life. So that it's not the kind of car driver, the kind of house I buy or the kind of clothes I wear. But the big life decisions should I marry this girl? Should I move? And plant a church is crazy. And by this wise counsel, I've let them speak into it. Pray over it with me, like you're saying, Hey, we're going to pray with you about wise counsel. We'll do that. How can I engage with you in prayer? Then, then they get to speak into it. They're not telling you what to do. They're helping confirm the war you're supposed to wait.
Speaker 3 00:11:35 No, this is what I love about this is you're preaching it. This is gray SOPs. This is what you, this organization. We started out with Proverbs 11, 14. Let's let's get back to that. What does it say? So there's two, there's two statements in Proverbs, one in Proverbs, 11, 14, and one in Proverbs, 26, 24, six.
Speaker 1 00:11:54 That Brian was just talking about both these statements and with, after a semi-colon that, uh, in the multitude of counselors, there's great safety. And so you need to understand that if you don't have this. So, so quickly go back to the fact that how do you define counselor? It's not friend. They could be your friends, but it's not friends. Brian literally sought out people that weren't necessarily his friend type, but they had, uh, they had effectiveness. They had godliness, they had maturity in certain areas and they also had enough co-owners to speak into his life and not be worried about what had happened. And here's the thing. If your life, if all you have in your life is friends. Yes. Men, people who are just like you that think like you talk like you walk like you and some of your life is completely out of bounds.
Speaker 1 00:12:42 Then you don't have any counselors, go get some counselors. And so in a multitude of counselors. So the more of those people that you end up having in your life, hopefully you, as you mature, you realize you need more of them. The more that you have in your life. And the more transparent you are with those people, the less opportunities you have to have failures and falls in your life. So in Proverbs 11, it says that a people that were there when you have counselors that you won't fall and then Brian's usage of it in 26, four is that in order to wage a war, you need to have a multidrug counselor. So if you look at both of the applications to having a multitude of counselors, it's the one, it's the singular application of you not falling and you not failing, but then there's also the successful part of you going out and waging your war, taking your, your divine destiny, taking your purpose and being successful in accomplishing things in life. So this is stopping you from being successful and accomplishing, and this is how you are going to be successful and accomplish it. And they both drill back to the same exact thing, a multitude of godly, moral, right? Just divinely, implanted people in your life as a multitude to speak into who you are.
Speaker 0 00:13:56 And it's not counselors for counselor sake, it's counselor for war sake, the war that God wants to use your life energy towards. This is the counselors counselors with Robbie. You think about the enemy and the demonic forces that were coming against him to find the cracks inside of his own soul, to, to, to lay out their own strongholds. So you think about now he's passed and you think about the legacy of what's happened, right? Whereas if some of these things could have been opened up and some of the wise counsel that maybe turn their head or, or he's a powerful guy, or we'll just, we'll overlook that we won't ask those questions. I mean, those are the mistakes that I think the board of directors made. Um, ultimately they were, I guess, weak men. They, they weren't strong narratives where they chosen for that very purpose because they were weak men. And how we actually do a disservice, given the opportunity to speak into another brother's life when we don't do it. Yeah. From the scriptures
Speaker 3 00:14:52 And with all truth and authority, doesn't it? You love of course. Yes. So you guys have been hitting on something that the verse kind of says where there is no counsel. And we talked about our world kind of applying that to council to this is what that looks like from a worldly spec perspective, but that's not the godly perspective. And sometimes you read this first to say vision, the, the Hebrew word is caused zone. And what that meant was it was this idea that the prophets would bring to somebody's obscene from God's eyes. And that's really the importance here is that when brothers come beside you, like it's, it's crazy to me that most pastors in a church don't have profits that hold them accountable today. You know, no one can speak to them. And that's the problem with this Robbie thing that happened is no one could come to his terms to let God speak. And so when you read these verses like Proverbs 11, 14, and 1522 and Isaiah 47 13, and the list goes on and on the idea where there is no vision is that it's none of God's vision that you're not letting a brother open the door and let the light into your life to see God's word.
Speaker 1 00:16:04 And, and this is, I I've actually felt this way for a long, long time. I haven't put language to it like I'm about to do right now, but everybody should live their lives as if they were a corporation. And what I mean by that is that obviously you have a mission. You have a vision in your life, a purpose, a divine destiny, and you should have this board set up in your life to help you make those big decisions, hold you accountable for the finances. Um, make sure that that things are going the direction based upon the mission and the vision and what we've come to. And I've personally experienced this where I've been asked to be on people's boards, um, for different ministries and, and even some of them, if I named them, everyone out there, you would recognize these large, massive, um, organizations that I've been on on their boards up where I, I understand biblically what I'm called to be as a counselor, as a person from a, from a kingdom perspective.
Speaker 1 00:16:55 And my job is to speak into this based upon how God sees things in God's word is, and how the spirit of God is interpreting things. And what's going on in some of those people's lives and they I've been rejected. I've been shut down. I've actually removed myself now at I think four different boards because they just wanted some cool dude on there. And this happens a time in not only churches, but it happens in large and large businesses where they're just asking big name, people, popular people that got some cool things going on. Hey, come be on my board because your big name, Brian Philips, to being a part of my board, it's going to make my administry just explode. We're even worse. A paycheck, right? And there is that where people literally on boards, how much, how much are you going to pay me to be a board member? Well, here's the thing. I don't want someone popular and I don't want you doing it for money. So Hey, Brian, will you be on my board? I'm going to be transparent with you. I want you to tell me what to do. If I'm missing it in some area. I want you to tell me that maybe my decision is not a good decision, and I want you to do that without threat of money or without threat of losing our friendship. In fact, it's going to
Speaker 2 00:18:02 You time, treasure and Tamra stay between the guard rails on this journey. We're on board. Isn't that an employee right there. They're your employees. Now it's weird, but we should,
Speaker 1 00:18:17 There should be a vested interest in it. So if you asked me to be on your board, Hey, you better make sure that I'm going to tell you crap, that you don't want to hear. And you're going to have to be okay with that. But B we also get to celebrate together. So if you're, let's say you're a corporation, you invite me on your board and we have a great victory and we have a $3 million profit that year because we did a great job of it. Well then, yeah, I'm expecting to celebrate with you. You're buying me a trip to Tahiti for my wife, and we're going to go there and have a great time. And it's going to be on your paycheck, but I am not working for you because Jesus specifically said this, that when you hire a shepherd, he'll flee in adversity and the Wolf will devour the sheep. And there is 800 churches that have hired shepherds. And so when a pandemic comes, God forbid, they fled and they sat on their couch and did Facebook live television.
Speaker 2 00:19:05 This is great. Yeah, I'll be an unmasked in a huge way.
Speaker 1 00:19:11 Get some counselors, get some literal, godly counselors in your personal life, run your life like a corporation, but also in your, those of you that are out there, that own businesses, you might want to fire your whole board and take this conversation into consideration. Those of you that are out there in ministry full-time or part-time, whatever your board is, it better have these contexts. Otherwise you are setting yourself up for a Ravi Zacharias. I'm God of my own life. I can do whatever I want and I'm going to hide it. And I got some people that if I ever get sued, they're getting sued too. So I ain't going to have to be accountable for everything you need to make these things happen in your life today.
Speaker 3 00:19:47 Now we're going to get here, but this also speaks into marriage, your, your, your marriage partner, we just did a whole weekend talking about this, but your marriage partners should be your covenant partner. They shouldn't be your number one accountability agents seen into the eyes of God into your life,
Speaker 1 00:20:07 Right? And this is probably one of the most rejected persons in our lives. The average person out there with your spouse, the last person you want to tell you that there's something going on in your life. That's not good. Is your spouse. Like, all they're supposed to do is tell you how amazing you are, how lovely you are and how much they like you. Like your new, sexy pants. All you want is all the good stuff. Which the amazing part is if there's anybody that really knows, probably what's going on in your soul, in your life, that is the person they sleep with. You, they hear you talk. They know what you do during the course of your day. That that should be the first person that you go to. And you say like for me, Hey honey, um, is there, what do you think about this aspect of my life? Do you think I'm actually hitting it in, in God's opinion here? Or is this just Steve being Steve? Is this just carnal Steve being carnal, Steve? Or do you actually think from your godly perspective, from the fact that we're intimate together, do you actually believe that this is really God and I'm on the right track? Good stuff. Dangerous place to be yes.
Speaker 3 00:21:08 Now there's one thing I want to leave with you. Our next film, we're going to talk about red flags and there's a lot of border board of directors, red flags. They should have known this was coming. They got to say they did know something was going on. Right? We talked about your wife, your wife knows your red flags here. And that's your first line of defense. Spiritually is to be in that covenant union with your wife. So that when something you can't see, because you've got the blinders of sin and depravity and everything else on this, that she sees it. But then if it gets past her, you've got a second line and a third line and a fourth line of defense to go with there. Now I want to line this up. One of the problems that we're having this discussion, the main problem that we're having this discussion goes back to thousands of years before us. And you look at the first time this happened in the garden and you go, ironically, there's some same words going on for what happened in the garden is that, is, that is that Eve was deceived. She, she allowed herself to, for the enemy to come in and to get a foothold. And
Speaker 1 00:22:15 Maybe there were red flags, maybe Adam and Eve,
Speaker 3 00:22:17 Adam should've said, Hey baby, what's going on here? You know, we don't, we don't have that part of the story, but the next film, we're going to talk about red flags, but let's just finish before we get to that film on as let let's just go back to, let's say Steve castle minister, your gray SOPs. Brian's got a board going on there too. What, what are some feelings as a board in terms of red flags and how do you handle that?
Speaker 1 00:22:45 Uh, Brian touched on something that's important. There should be no singular point of absolute power. Um, and I know a ton of pastors, obviously I deal in ministry. I know a ton of pastors that really honestly think that they're just above the law. Yeah. Everything, they, everything, they say everything that was the Robbie thing going on. That's exactly the wrong unapproachable. That was the David thing. You guys remember, we're referenced David through this. That was the David thing. Hey, I'm going to do my own thing. What are you going to do? I'm the King. And in those days, King slash spiritual leader, it's kind of like King of England, King of England was the King of the church. He was the King of the nation. He was the King. What are you going to do? Well, you're going to have an American revolution because obviously it ain't right, that's it it's bloodshed.
Speaker 1 00:23:27 And so there's a bunch of people out there. And, and not even you, you don't have to be a minister or some corporate business leader. You could be just an individual. And if you sit on the throne and nobody has the right to literally challenge you and hold you accountable, then that means you have absolute power, which corrupts. Absolutely. Which is the quote that Brian used. So the first thing I'd say is any place that has absolute power has the ability to absolutely corrupt. And you could be that first and primary place if you don't have this going on. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:24:03 And I would say it's important to structure these things. Like none of us do it perfectly, you know, take inventory of your board, take inventory of like the personality types to the types of people are on your board, get the right mix or get some coaching. There's a lot of good coaching out there on how to establish boards. And I'm not going to say I do it perfectly. I made a lot of rookie mistakes back in my, I had to Google, what is the board meeting when I started searching, but I kind of want to bring this thought out because this is, we're talking about plurality and we're talking about Robbie's board and we're, I don't know these men. So I can't say they're absolutely absolutely weak men, but that's my opinion of them in this instance is that there's a lot of like red flags of weakness where it should have been handled differently.
Speaker 0 00:24:43 Should it shouldn't have come to this type of train wreck in the headlines. But when, when King David sinned against Israel and he repents and Psalm 51, he actually goes on and he says in the very, towards the very end of it, he says something very powerful. He said, he's repenting his sin before God. And then at the very end, he says, and do good design. And I think we all have to remember that our sin affects it affects the ripple effect, right? Like if, if I'm carrying hidden sin, it's affecting you guys. You don't even know what it is. It's a supernatural thing. That's affecting regions and States and nations. And you know,
Speaker 1 00:25:19 That brought him back was Nathan. And you look at David and you go, if he had a board, Nathan was on the board there. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:25:25 Create a board member. Yeah. Great story.
Speaker 1 00:25:29 And remember the context of why we're making those videos, this, this guy, this great leader in the body of Christ had all of this garbage going on behind the scenes and nobody had the opportunity or the right. So to say, and this, this includes his own wife. He was married. You know, she had to know stuff was going on. The board had to know stuff was going on, but nobody either had the, had the intestinal fortitude to go to him and hold them accountable. Or they didn't have the rights
Speaker 0 00:25:58 About the money we run boards. Right. Like, just think about when millions of dollars are pouring through it. You can look at their culture like, Oh, that's a sign of God's blessing, you know, is it?
Speaker 2 00:26:08 Yeah. Well, the other part is that that plied became glaringly obvious, like many of these men of God that have had issues and fallen, right. Because it's this isn't new news. So it's that struggle with staying in humility that only brothers, only those you walk with and transparency can point out in your journey, ID, aboard your mates, whatever that looks like. Right.
Speaker 1 00:26:33 Yeah. So I didn't know if you're in prior, arrogancy the clear one of the clearest examples is when someone else comes up and they say something's wrong and you immediately defend yourself. Right. People don't actually want to be right. As in righteous, people just want to be justified. Yeah. Just tell me what it's right for me to be justified. Well, I don't, uh, you know, we were talking about Robbie had a, had a physical condition, uh, major pain in his back. That was called something strange. And so the way that he had to deal with it was getting professional massages, which I don't even want to go there because I don't want to be not making that film. I'm just saying, if you have a disease that specifically needs you to have professional massages, uh, not a disease, that's a sin, but we'll, we'll do something.
Speaker 1 00:27:20 So anyway, so he used this disease as the justification for him having things out of alignment. And then all these people in his life were like, uh, okay. I, I guess so. And it costs you how much money to have a personal Massoud who's follow you around on the airplanes and you have to live in a hotel room and having a Susan's come up every night to your hotel room. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I guess that's okay. No, you need somebody in your life to say, are you freaking retard? Like, what is wrong with you? This is not cuddling. You're not allowed to do that. And by retard, I'm not making fun of a people, but there's actual spiritual retardation that people get into. And that's what I'm talking about. I need to be, I need someone to come into my life and say, Steve, are you for real, you do not need a, uh, a million dollar studio.
Speaker 1 00:28:08 So you can shoot YouTube videos with Ryan venture that had a garage and a power way. And you need that. People be able to come into your life and say you for real, one of the things that, uh, I'd say, we all say is that an isolated Christian has a defeated Christian. And that's, that's one of the major, major brothers where Robbie was. He had all these isolation areas, multiple cell phones, little, little secret things going on. And I got to tell you all these other people at least had some suspicion. And when you isolate any area of your life, let me say it this way, you don't hide things that are godly. If you're hiding something out there right now, you're hiding some person on your phone. If you're hiding some, uh, some place on your computer, if you're hiding someplace in your, in your basement to do the thing and the stuff you don't hide, things that are godly, right. Is that a righteous? Good? You always put things in the dark that, you know, are dark, dark things, go in dark places and light things go in light places. And that's what the job of these people in your life should be.
Speaker 3 00:29:14 And we use the thing all the time. I'm going to put that in the back of my mind is if it's not there. So think about these things that we're talking about, thinking about the council, the vision, the eyes of God, into your life. And what's interesting is every time we see this word in the scripture and it's a lot in the scripture, it takes on the idea of obedience and Allegiant living set apart to be Holy. And that seems to be the major problem with the Robbie
Speaker 2 00:29:42 Thing is somebody that's supposed to be set apart as a life mission failed because it started in turned into something that was actually exactly opposite of what he set out to accomplish. And he, God bless you.
