What do you want to be known for? And what actions do you take to be seen in that light?
What lengths do you go to to avoid being misunderstood and viewed differently than what you want to be known for?
What drives what you want to be known for, and what are your choices to uphold your desired image or reputation?
Most of us have multiple internal agendas that shape our decisions and how we show up and are seen by others and ourselves. Our values, fears, and burdens, internally and externally, drive us.
When we place our worth and safety solely in the hands of others, we go to great lengths to hold on to how we want to be perceived. Lengths that too often leave a wake of chaos, abuse of power, manipulation, and betrayal–all to maintain the illusion of control.
We need more leaders who give us hope and reverence for humanity and others. These leaders do the work to build their capacity for discomfort so that they can lead with conviction, humility, and a deep sense of connectedness bigger than their personal ambitions or fears.
Joining us today is a guest who embodies the principles we discuss on this podcast. Dee Kelley is a leader who leads with love and compassion, demonstrating the power of these qualities in leadership. Our conversation with Dee is a reminder that compassion and empathy are not signs of weakness, but rather, tools for personal growth and resilience.
Selden “Dee” Kelley is a lifelong learner and a beacon of knowledge. With five degrees, his academic prowess is unmatched. He served 18 years as the Pastor of the First Church of the Nazarene in San Diego, demonstrating his deep understanding of faith and its intersection with personal development.
A driving force in his life is to help others discover the rich guidance that dream work can provide for their journey toward health and wholeness. He now helps people connect with the power of their dreams as a pathway toward new insight, better decision-making and improved creative thinking.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
- Why Dee wanted to open a conversation about the relationship between the LGTBQIA+ community and the church, and why he has no regrets despite the consequences
- How Dee came to realize that the things he feared in others were invitations for learning and growth
- Why we need to commit to having hard conversations even when we don’t know the outcome
- How a strong sense of values and identity apart from his position in the church softened the loss of his role and credentials
- How Dee’s case sits in the larger context of faith communities grappling with and declaring how they will relate to LGBTQIA+ communities
Learn more about Dee Kelley:
- Website
- Instagram: @drdeedreamscoach
Learn more about Rebecca:
Resources:
- The Daring Way™
- EP 02: How Self-Leadership Saves You From The Relentless Drive To Succeed with Dr. Richard Schwartz
- A Hope For Change
- Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, Matthew Walker
- Astrid
- Women Talking
Transcript:
[Inspirational Intro Music]
Dee Kelley: My struggle with leadership and power is that usually they take something that is personal and make it prescriptive for everyone. We then come to a conclusion that is prescriptive for everyone across the board as opposed to honoring the unique journey that people have that lead them to the places of conclusions and go, “Wow, I actually can see how you got to that. I don’t know that it fits for me, but I certainly appreciate how you got to that conclusion.” The true test of faith is to say, “Yeah, I don’t control that,” but that I trust that there is this spirit at work that molds and guides and that collectively we get to places that we could never get to individually.
Rebecca Ching: What do you want to be known for, and what do you do to be seen in that light? What lengths do you go to to avoid being misunderstood and seen differently than what you want to be known for? Now, for me, I’m most curious about what drives what you want to be known for and your choices to uphold your desired image or reputation. Some common drivers that I see in those I work with are values (professed and lived), our fears, integrity, burdens of shame, betrayals, wisdom earned from falls and failures, the desire to prove something, and the desire to belong and keep standing in our community.
Now, my training and experience continue to teach me that most of us navigate a multitude of internal agendas that drive and influence our decisions and, subsequently, how we show up and are seen by others and ourselves. But when our worth and safety are externalized and solely given to the hands of others, I see the lengths people go to to hold onto how they want to be perceived.
2:13
They often leave a wake of chaos and destruction, turning on themselves or abusing power, shutting down hard conversations, manipulating, betraying themselves or relationships all to maintain the illusion of control. And then there are leaders who choose differently and give us some hope, reminding us of the power of leading well while holding reverence for humanity in others. They do this imperfectly, but they understand that their worthiness never depreciates, and they don’t leave it all on the table for others to negotiate. They do this work day in and day out to build a capacity for discomfort so they can lead with conviction, humility, and a deep sense of connectedness with themselves and something bigger than their personal ambitions or fears.
I’m Rebecca Ching, and you’re listening to The Unburdened Leader, the show that goes deep with humans who navigate life’s challenges and lead in their own ways. Our goal is to learn how they address the burdens they carry, how they learn from them and become better and more impactful leaders of themselves and others.
There’s this exercise that certified Daring Way facilitators do in Brené Brown’s The Daring Way curriculum, and she also discusses it in her book The Daring Way, where we identify our ideal and unwanted identities. Simply put, in this exercise, you list these ideal identities that you want to be known for, and they’re pretty hyperbolic. And then you list the identities you fear being known for, and these are your unwanted identities. Brené notes that these unwanted identities help us identify our shame triggers, and we feel tension in that space between our ideal and our unwanted identities, which leads to a lot of efforting, masking, perfectionism, people pleasing, performing, over functioning all to maintain the vice grip of these ideal identities being seen and keeping our unwanted identities at bay.
4:26
When we build a life around our ideal identities that are also entrenched in our fear of our wanted identities being seen, we build an unsustainable life driven by shame that inevitably comes crashing down. But those who are not aware of how their ideal and unwanted identities are driving them live a life driven by shame and fear and make choices that seem extreme to the outside observer to uphold a desired narrative. It’s a lose-lose kind of life that many do not realize until it’s too late. It’s amazing and chilling what we do when we’re so invested in how we want to be seen and the extremes we go to to avoid being seen with certain identities. And this is where a lot of harm happens, especially when we see that some of our unwanted identities are simply human qualities weighed down with toxic moral meaning.
Often, our ideal identities reflect the cultural burdens of sexism, racism, individualism, and consumerism that Dick Schwartz talks about in an earlier Unburdened Leader podcast and also writes about in his work as founder of the Internal Family Systems model. So we feel these pressures internally but also externally. When maintaining our ideal identities and suppressing what we perceive as unwanted, we go to great lengths to avoid losing community and what we think could threaten our livelihood and reputation. We sacrifice boundaries and often our integrity while upholding the illusion of our ideal identities.
6:14
We keep our hearts from hardening from the vice grip of trying to keep up with our shame-fueled ideal identities and exiled unwanted identities when we’d lead with more compassion, love, and curiosity towards ourselves and others. It’s that simple and that hard. Contrary to what many believe, when you choose compassion and empathy towards yourself and others, it’s a subversive choice that releases the grip of shame.
Now, today’s Unburdened Leader conversation served as an important reminder to me of what I always say to my clients: when you show compassion and hold empathy towards yourself or someone you disagree with or who has harmed you, it does not mean you’re letting them off the hook or making excuses for yourself. You’re simply protecting your own heart. I see how hard it is for leaders to sacrifice non-agenda curiosity, compassion, empathy because they lack the capacity for vulnerability. Leaders who uphold their ideal identities and exile their unwanted identities infect culture, leading others to also exile these perceived unwanted identities in ways that end up dehumanizing and othering, which is abhorrent to me and just makes me angry. So when I came into this interview, I was ready to offload about how much — and I’m gonna be very eloquent here — how much people suck who do harm and the hypocrisy of hierarchies that my guest experienced firsthand. But fortunately, my guest is better than that, and for that I’m very grateful.
8:02
Now, I may be right about the points that I want to make in this interview that toxic leaders and systems need accountability, but my guest is someone that reminds me of the power of being so clear on who you are so that you can lead with love and compassion, and I’m not talking about #leadwithlove but the kind of love that leaves you with a lot to lose and you do it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.
Seldon Dee Kelley is a lifelong learner, holding five degrees in topics like religion, psychology, has got an MBA and a PhD in Industrial Psychological and Organizational Development. He served for 18 years as the pastor of the First Church of the Nazarene here in San Diego and held various leadership and administrative positions before becoming a pastor. He has a deep passion for learning and is fascinated with new ideas, perspectives, and unexplored paths. Dee has followed his dreams for 45 years and worked with others both one on one and in small groups for 15 years. A driving passion of his life is to help others discover the rich guidance that dream work can provide for their journey towards health and wholeness, and he now helps people connect with the power of their dreams as a pathway towards new insight, better decision making, and improved creative thinking.
Now, I want you to listen for when Dee talks about the importance of going into hard conversations with an open mind, ready to learn something instead of preparing for battle, already knowing the outcome for ourselves. (A little like the energy I was coming into this interview with.) [Laughs] And pay attention to when Dee talks about his concerns with leadership and power structures, when those in power take something personal and make it prescriptive for everyone. And notice when Dee talks about how losing his job was a great loss but it was not his identity.
10:08
Now, before I welcome our guest today, I just want to give a special shoutout to my amazing open door community. I appreciate you. And now I am so pleased to welcome Dee Kelley to The Unburdened Leader podcast.
Dee, welcome! Thank you so much for being here.
Dee Kelley: Thank you! It is great to be part of this. I love what you do, and the fact that I get to be part is a real honor.
Rebecca Ching: You and I have known each other — gosh, we moved into our neighborhood community in ‘09 and started attending the church that you pastored shortly after that for a long time. And so, this conversation feels personal and it feels important, and while, I guess particularly for the listeners, we’re talking about some very specific experiences and things that you said and experienced and did, I really want folks to be listening to the fact that this is really a microcosm of what we’re seeing in the world play out. This happens to be in a church setting but we see this in schools. We are seeing it in government and chairmandering, how people who can vote and who can’t vote to education so much more. And so, there’s a lot of important themes here that I’m excited for folks to hear.
I want to start off by jumping in.. In typical Unburdened Leader fashion, we jump in. We don’t start with easy breezy. We go deep, and I want you to share what it was like to be tried and convicted for heresy?
Dee Kelley: It really wasn’t anything I started out anticipating or that I thought was going to be part of my journey, and the process has, right now, been about a year and two months. So about a 14-month span that this has occurred, and it really just came to a conclusion about 3 ½, 4 weeks ago. And it started with an article that I wrote a year ago in February and was published and that essay, in essence, about a three-page essay (not that long at all) raised some concerns within the denominational tradition of which I’d been a part my whole life and led to, as you just indicated, a hearing where I was found guilty of teaching doctrine that was not in accordance with the faith tradition in which I grew up and where I held my ministerial credentials.
12:45
And so, because I’m part of a global denomination, I’m accountable to that larger group, not just the local church. What a delightful local church, fantastic in so many different ways, and as I’ve said many times, even if I wasn’t pastoring that church, it’s the church that I would love to attend and did attend before I became pastor. About 30 years ago, I attended there for about two-and-a-half years.
So it was quite a challenge to be caught up in a hearing that I didn’t really anticipate. I anticipated that there would be some consequences as a result of the essay that I wrote because I knew it would touch a cord that was kind of a hot button for many, many church denominations, not just Christian groups but other faith traditions as well. I just didn’t anticipate that it would head this direction when I wrote the essay.
Rebecca Ching: And the essay was titled “A Hope For Change.”
Dee Kelley: Correct.
Rebecca Ching: And why don’t you give me — just share a little bit about what you wrote and where the venue was. What was the high-level invitation in that essay that you wrote in this book?
14:07
Dee Kelley: The invitation was an invitation to conversation, and the target audience were those individuals who are part of the faith tradition in which I had held my credentials, and that is the Church of the Nazarene. It’s a denomination that’s about 120 years old, and it comes out of a combination of traditions, primarily The United Methodist Church but also the Holiness Revivals that took place in The United States a little over a century ago. And it was the faith tradition that both my sets of grandparents were part of, my parents, myself, and my wife’s faith tradition background as well. The topic was specifically about the LGBTQ+ community and their inclusion within our faith tradition, or I should probably say their lack of inclusion. Not that there was any prohibition on attendance or anything like that, but those who are practicing members of the queer community (and by that I would say it specifically is related to sexual practices of that community) were excluded from leadership, were excluded from being able to participate in the full life of the church, and none of that felt like it was a representation of the gospel that I read and understood and have for a long time had discussions about that in smaller settings, and this was an opportunity to write an essay that had a larger audience, and I think because of that, it generated a response that I was teaching doctrines outside of the church and therefore should have my credentials in ministry taken away and removed from any positions of leadership.
This wasn’t the first time I had spoken out. But I don’t think that it reached as large of an audience as this because this was a book that was published, targeted towards the Church of the Nazarene. It came out two months before, what in our denomination is called, the general assembly, which occurs every four years, and because of that I think it got more attention than it might otherwise have gotten.
16:38
Rebecca Ching: So a couple things. In this essay — and I feel like this is a really important point. There’s the issue around marrying everyone who wants to be married. But there’s this other piece where you wrote:
“In the current climate, public discourse seems to be less about learning and more about winning. I hope our church might continue to be a place where discourse is welcome. I hope we chart a course where disagreements are viewed as opportunities for learning and growth. We certainly disagree on how to embody the Gospel message when it comes to the LGBTQIA+ community. May this become a time for learning and growth.”
My understanding, Dee — and you’re calling it a hearing, but the way I heard about it was this was called a trial, which just felt so hyperbolic to me as someone who was not raised in a church. I come from a mixed-faith home. I went to membership class, but I did not end up joining this particular denomination but wanted to understand. But you were charged with heresy for publicly wanting a conversation, and I know there are some nuances here because everyone’s getting into manuals and memos and stuff that makes my brain kind of want to explode outside of the relationship. But for the purpose of you were convicted of heresy. You lost your credentials just like I would lose my clinical license. I wouldn’t be able to practice psychotherapy if I was convicted of something that led to an egregious error. So you lost the ability to do something you deeply love because — and correct this — but my understanding is because you wanted to have a public conversation about this. So fill in the gaps here, please.
18:28
Dee Kelley: You described it correctly. Actually the removal of my credentials carries a little more weightedness to it in that if your licensure was taken away you could still participate in certain types of roles that didn’t carry the moniker “therapist,” I believe.
Rebecca Ching: Mm. That’s true. That’s true.
Dee Kelley: In our church tradition, because I’m considered a “minister not in good standing,” I’m not allowed to take a role as a Sunday School teacher, a small group leader —
Rebecca Ching: Oh.
Dee Kelley: — a board member. I can’t be a delegate to an assembly. I can’t hold a position of responsibility as long as I’m in that state. So it carries some additional difficulties with it. Obviously, they can’t hurt me anymore. But if a Nazarene pastor were to put me in any of those kinds of positions, that pastor would have to face some issues related to having done that. And I would never want to put anybody in that position. So it kind of changes my ability to participate in the life of the church, which is not overly burdensome compared to what it feels to me like members of the queer community have faced over the years. Mine’s real small on the scale compared to that.
But it seems to me that as a church, we ought to be about the business of speaking up for those who feel like they’re on the margins, who feel like they don’t have safe space, and my understanding of scripture is that that’s the mission of the church.
20:08
And so, I don’t have any regrets taking that stand because it feels like that is the stand that is in keeping with our call when we have faith, as we proclaim, that leads us to a life of love.
So, yes, it resulted in a trial, a hearing. I appreciate you reading the quote from my essay. The piece that was actually taken as the heresy piece, using your language, though you’re not the only one. I think that the churches also use that language.
Rebecca Ching: Yes.
Dee Kelley: So you’re in company there that I soften but I don’t need to. As I heard one person describe, “There are a lot of people who agree that we ought to have good discussions. Dee’s problem,” as he was referring to me, “is that he actually said where he would fall in the discussion if we had that discussion.” Because in the essay I write that I am prohibited from joining two people of the same gender in marriage, and I simply said that I think those who desire to do that ought to be allowed to and that we ought to be able to bless marriages for two people who love one another and are willing to lay their life down on behalf of one another.
So in saying that, I was going against what has been stated by the leadership of the church as the current standard in practice for clergy, and I felt like it was well within my right to say I have abided by all of that but I don’t agree with it.
Rebecca Ching: Exactly, and let me pause you because I feel like this is such a microcosm that you walked us though that, for so many of us, it was exquisitely infuriating and painful and heartbreaking and hypocritical, which I want to touch on.
22:17
But I think a lot of people fear this, like, “I just want to say I disagree even though I’ll follow it. Can we have a conversation?” Just saying that they actually would prefer to go a different direction with a policy, with a rule, with a law that they get ostracized, they become heretics, they lose their community and their sense of belonging, and there’s something about this that feels very consistent with power and power over and who’s in charge of making these decisions.
You said you’ve had this belief for a long time. Walk me through how you first formulated your position on creating a welcoming and affirming place for all, not just LGBTQ+ people but everybody. How did you first formulate your position on this particular issue? How did you come about that?
Dee Kelley: I think, for me, there’s so much of all of our journey that goes back to our family of origin for any number of reason, and I was very fortunate to be raised in what I thought was a pretty healthy home (affirmation from my family members, good relationships with my sister and my parents). And raised within a pretty conservative faith tradition, they still held an openness that invited me into the conversation, which is pretty amazing. However, I think it’s natural for all of us to be affected by the opinions and ways of parents as being authoritative, whether they intended it or not. And I’m sure with my parents, in some ways, they were intending it to be authoritative and others there probably wasn’t quite a rigidness as I thought. I’ll give you a quick example.
24:13
Growing up, my family never went to movies, and it was kind of a cultural stance. I never went to a movie until a couple years into my marriage. So it was a long time before I went to a theatre. At the end of sixth grade, I went to a party at Brian Curtis’s house and went there, and we’re playing, and then I found out that his mom was gonna take all of the boys to a movie. I didn’t quite know what to do, so I said, “Could I call my mom?” Mrs. Curtis was wonderful, and she said, “Sure.”
So mom got on the phone, and I said, “Mom, all of the guys are going to a movie, and I don’t know what to do.” To my mom’s credit, her response was, “What would you like to do?” And it was incredibly empowering, and my response was, “I don’t think I want to go.” And she said, “Okay, put Mrs. Curtis on the line.” So she talked to Mrs. Curtis. I played with Brian’s older brother, pitch and catch back in the backyard, for an hour and a half while the other boys went off to a movie.
So I say that to say my parents were very conservative but there was this wonderful inclusion that was empowering to me. I say all of that to say that, as I grew older, I had pretty set ideas of what was right, what was wrong, who was in, who was out. The inclusion notion was not fostered wonderfully well. I lived and interacted with people who thought like I did or at least thought like my parents did, interacted in ways that were pretty guarded and protected. And I don’t think that it was really until I started graduate work that I started realizing, “Wow, there are a lot of different ways to look at the world, to look at experiences, to look at people.”
26:10
This awareness that because somebody’s different doesn’t mean that they’re wrong actually kind of came later in life, but I would also propose that it seems like for some people it never comes. But for me, this awareness of a worldview that could hold a lot of different perspectives became frightening and inviting all at the same time. So that began to translate into some of the faith components of my life journey, my business practices, my relationships, and realizing that the things that I feared in others were actually ways in which I needed to learn and grow, and that eventually became part of my understanding of my values system in my faith, and the Gospel message all of a sudden shifted for me to where this idea of Jesus as a pioneer of social justice, as a champion of the outsider was a perspective in reading that I don’t remember it being presented to me in studies and in teachings until I became aware of it and then I started hearing things in different ways and in new ways.
That began to transform my life, and the notion of the Gospel of love being one that spreads arms wide and works at getting rid of distrust and finding ways to trust, getting rid of boundary lines — not personal boundaries that are important but boundary lines of the judgements we make and finding ways to build bridges transformed my life, and I couldn’t then help but begin to change the way in which I interacted with others and taught others. It was an evolution for me.
28:11
Rebecca Ching: Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate your, also, focus saying we’re talking about the catalyst of what led to you leaving your role and making sure to note that the pain and the loss that you’ve experienced is real but there’s also a community of people who did not experience grace and love the way that you are desiring, and in fact, sadly have kept me way too busy in my clinical work. And even, I’m seeing it in my leadership work, the wounds that people have. The church wounds, the faith wounds, the spiritual abuse wounds (however people language that) influence so much how they lead themselves, lead others, and a lot of hurt. And looking from the outside in, people are okay with that. There’s this okay with othering and siloing.
I hear you speak, and that’s how you’ve taught us, how you’ve led us for so many years in moving through really hard conversations. Bringing it back to just your experience though, you came to speak at our Sunday School. I’ve talked about Sunday School here on the show. It’s a sacred, special place to me where so much gets stirred in me as I listen and learn, and you spoke to us early in the days of your suspension, and you said something that really stuck with me. You said that if they fired you they would prove your point. They would be proving your point. What was that point, Dee?
Dee Kelley: The point that we are reluctant to have hard conversations where we’ve not already determined what the outcome is supposed to be. And when I say we, I’m referring to the denominational tradition of which I was a part. So the essay had a target audience. The essay’s target audience for me was leadership within our church. District superintendents, general superintendents, lay leaders, those who are in positions of authority, those who carry weight to say not only can we enter into a conversation but can we enter into a conversation knowing that we have something to learn out of the conversation, or are we going into it to do battle, and we already know what the outcome is for ourselves, we’re only hoping that we can get the other person to see from our perspective and be convinced.
30:41
From that angle, I would simply say that the arguments that have presented to me about how wrong my posture is are not very convincing. I listen to them because they are arguments that I am very, very familiar with, and I don’t reject them because they don’t fit my paradigm, I hold them kind of at length because they remain unconvincing to me. And yet, I’m always intrigued to hear somebody use the same argument and see if there’s a different background to it or where they go from there, their justification, or — and I think this is really important — where they go to from their experience. Because I think a lot of us hold positions based on our experiences, and I would say that I think experiences often do justify positions. A traumatic experience validates why you feel a particular way about something, and I’m not gonna discount that. I want to hear how that has led to your conclusion that may be perfectly valid.
My struggle with leadership and power is that usually they take something that is personal and make it prescriptive for everyone. So we, then, come to a conclusion that is prescriptive for everyone across the board, as opposed to honoring the unique journey that people have that leads them to the places of conclusions and go, “Wow. I actually can see how you got to that. I don’t know that it fits for me, but I certainly appreciate how you got to that conclusion.”
32:32
Now, that doesn’t lead me to a place where I don’t think that there are any absolutes in life at all. I think that there are, but I think we probably overstate how many there are and how they are to be used. But I do think that something that is very true for you may not hold the same weightiness as it does for me because of different backgrounds, different experiences that lead us to the place we are. A long way to say that it proves my point that the rigidity that’s there for those who are typically in power is that the way in which you maintain that power is that you create paradigms that allow your viewpoint to be the one that always wins the conversation.
In the essay, I did say that there are times when it seems like power has allowed conversations but in very controlled ways. So they pick a committee that’s allowed to talk. They set a particular setting where it’s allowed to happen. And I think that the true test of faith is to say, “Yeah, I don’t control that. I encourage those with the grass roots, I encourage local pastors, local Sunday School classes or small groups to have those conversations, and I don’t even have to be present to guide how that conversation goes,” but that I trust that there is this spirit at work that molds and guides and that collectively we get to places that we could never get to individually.
[Inspirational Music]
34:20
Rebecca Ching: Leading is hard. Leading is also often controversial as you navigate staying aligned to your values, your mission, your boundaries. Navigating the inevitable controversy can challenge your confidence, clarity, and calm. I know you don’t mind making hard decisions but sometimes the stakes seem higher and can bring up echoes of old doubts and insecurities during times when you need to feel rock solid on your plan and action.
Finding a coach who gets the nuances of your business and leading in our complex and polarized world can help you identify the blocks that keep you playing it safe and small. Leading today is not a fancy title or fluffy bragging rights. It is brave and bold work to stay the course when the future’s so unknown and the doubts and pains from the past keep showing up to shake things up. Internal emotional practices and systemic strategies are needed to keep the protector of cynicism at bay and foster a hope that is actionable and aligned.
When the stakes are high and you don’t want to lose focus, when you want to navigate inevitable conflict between your ears and with those you lead, when time is of the essence and you want to make hard decisions with confidence, curiosity, and clarity, then Unburdened Leader Coaching is for you and where you deepen the capacity to tolerate the vulnerability of change, innovation, and doing things differently than you were taught.
To start your Unburdened Leader Coaching process with me go to www.rebeccaching.com and book a free connection call. I can’t wait to hear from you!
[Inspirational Music]
36:07
Rebecca Ching: I want to circle back to the word heresy. I’ve really been hooked on this word, and I think part of it, why, is, I mean, that’s a big word, right? It feels like a big word. It’s very charged like, “Dee’s a heretic because he said he wanted this conversation, and if we had it, here’s where he would land in the conversation.” And I want to be delicate with this as much as I can, but I know this isn’t just within the Nazarene tradition but a lot of faith communities where people in positions of power have done a lot of harm and crossed a lot of real boundaries (harm to others, very inappropriate relationships, violence with words and actions), and those folks, often the trend is they’re looked at like, “Let’s rehabilitate them. Let’s love them up.” Where the damage is: lives are changed regardless, and we want to love up the perpetrator. And for you, you’re perpetrating, “I want a conversation, and I may disagree with what our values are in writing right now, but I want to have this conversation.” Yet when someone is a perpetrator of harm to somebody else (emotional, physical, sexual abuse, financial fraud, those kind of things), we love them up. There’s a lot more grace there than when it comes to — that’s something I haven’t been able to unhook from in terms of this heretic piece but the hypocrisy to me and the punishment type.
I’d really love for you to speak to that and help me have it all figured out please. [Laughs]
Dee Kelley: [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: Please make it all tidy! And I know that you won’t, but I’m just like this is what keeps me up when I think about this whole situation and the hypocrisy there. I’d love for you to speak to that also, but first, part one: what’s your understanding of heresy; and then part two: this kind of hypocritical approach to leaders that, you know, hold your leadership role even within the denomination but the ones that do different kinds of harm get a lot more love and grace.
38:30
Dee Kelley: A little bit of background probably is important for my particular heresy case. I can’t point to any particular document that has stated this, but it feels like at least within the North American version of the Church of the Nazarene, there’s been an understanding that doctrine is specifically related to what’s called our articles of faith and they have to do with our view of grace, our view of sin, our understanding of Jesus in the Trinity of God, those kinds of things that would traditionally be listed as doctrine. There are other portions of our church documents that have been the ways in which we respond to needs in the world and our views on social issues, and they have been in a different portion of our documents.
About a year ago, the general superintendent spoke about some of these other things actually being included as doctrine of our church, which was startling to many within the clergy, in particular, since clergy tend to deal with those things more than the laity of the church. So my challenge to the notion of marriage being only and forever between one man and one woman, my challenge to that would have been viewed, at least at one point in time, as being part of the special rules or the social statements that the church makes, part of our documents.
40:14
But because of that general superintendent ruling that broadened the scope of what we consider doctrines within the church, this then became what was, in terms of the hearing, the trial, a doctrinal issue, which felt like, for many, a change from what our church had been doing for many, many years. So that’s part of the context of this.
Rebecca Ching: Basically, to summarize, you’ve had these kinds of doctrines, and some folks got together and did some backdoor decisions and just said, “We’re gonna make it doctrine,” versus the spirit of the denomination where people talk about it and vote on it collectively.
Dee Kelley: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: Correct me if I missed anything there because I think that’s important here.
Dee Kelley: No, you’re absolutely right. In fact, that was part of my appeal was that the statement was because the general superintendents put out this memorandum that this is included as part of our doctrine. That’s part of the charge. And I said, “Well, our documents also state that the general assembly that meets every four years is the only body that establishes what is doctrine within our church.” And the general superintendents were rendering an opinion, which is very appropriate for them to do. A memorandum that would help us to understand the importance of these other things, which is very appropriate to do. But they are not the doctrinal establishing entity of the denomination. That appeal was not accepted for a variety of reasons, but yes, you stated it correctly.
So when, in this case, a person talks about heresy, which is what I was accused of doing, the definition of doctrine all of a sudden became larger in this trial, larger than most people ever thought it should be within our denomination. So it felt a little bit like the ground rules changed in the midst of the discussion.
42:17
So you then asked me kind of what’s behind that. I think that fear is but I don’t think that fear by itself causes the kind of behavior that screams at other voices or stops listening to people or refuses to have conversations. I think that when your identity gets wrapped up in certain pieces of belief or value, when you believe that it — or you feel inside, whether you know it consciously or not, that it’s part of what defines your identity, you protect it in a much more tenacious way.
And so, I feel like the leaders of the denomination of which I had been a part had so much identity wrapped up in this social issue that to entertain any conversation about it didn’t simply go against what they thought a tentative belief was, it actually went against identity. I think the ways in which they had dug in is more of a reflection of an identity that is tenuous, at best. Just, “I’ve believed something my whole life. What if that’s not true? Do I throw everything out?” Well, I’ve gotten into places in my journey where, no, I don’t throw everything out. I learn, and that’s one of my tenants of faith is that I’m called to continue to learn over and over again.
44:03
I think it’s this identity piece, both as an organizational system because organizations have their own personality, so I think it’s an identity piece for the organization. But I also think that that identity has been embraced by those in power, and not only would it be a loss of power but it would be a loss of identity. And if identity is that strong, you’ll fight tooth and nail to cling onto that which you think defines you. That’s why I’m not overwhelmed at the loss of my credential. I’m not overwhelmed at the loss of a job that I loved because they are valuable, wonderful, and I consider it a great loss, but it’s not my identity.
Rebecca Ching: What is your identity then?
Dee Kelley: My identity is wrapped up in the things that I value and that those things provide pillars of foundation for the things that I build on it, and those foundational pieces are not characteristics but just truths. I believe that there is a creator of all things. I believe that love is what we are called to do as humans. I believe that people are more important than things. I believe that I’ve been blessed with a vessel that contains my soul and that I ought to honor not only this vessel but the planet that allows this vessel to survive. I believe deeply that all people are loved by God and that I’m called to love and that includes being a champion for justice when I know what to do and can do. Those pillars, they evolve over time, but those pillars don’t change in the sense that I might come to know a characteristic that I think is true about God that gets challenged. I go, “Oh, okay,” but I haven’t changed that what helps me make best sense of the world in which I live is that there is a creator of this amazing universe in which we live.
46:32
So, anyway, that’s part of where my identity is. And I think maybe what’s really helpful for me is to slowly identify those things that aren’t my identity. So it used to be that my identity was wrapped up in my job and productivity through my job, and 25, 30 years ago when I lost a job, I was devastated. I mean, it just pulled the rug out from underneath me. My, was it difficult to recover from that, not because I lost a job but because my identity was wrapped up in what that job meant to me. So having a particular job taken away, yep, really sad. I loved what I did. I loved the people of the church that I was at, as evidenced by staying as long as I did. But it certainly didn’t define me in terms of who I am.
Rebecca Ching: That’s powerful. And so, I want to come back to this identity piece. I feel like you have a lot of grace and clarity on why you were met with so much pushback because the conversations you wanted to have you kind of saw, “Okay, here’s the backend. This is pushing at something so, so tender for folks.” Why do you think you did not receive grace with this conversation while others, like I mentioned, who would do harm like stealing from the church or hurting other people physically, emotionally, sexually, you know, they get a lot more grace and care for, not as much as those that they’ve perpetrated. This is the hypocrisy piece that I am stuck on and just thinking about where does that intersect with this piece that you’re talking about around identity.
48:21
I’m sure you thought about this. Like, “They’re coming at me. I just want to have a conversation. Yeah, this is a big issue for the church, an important one, and there’s been a lot of harm, a lot of things that get pushed under the rug.” And this is where I think a lot of folks looking outside in going, “You call that love? You call that leadership? You call that community? I want nothing to do with that.” I mean, I’m calling it hypocrisy. I don’t know what you would call it with how the same folks who were so committed to you losing your job would extend so much grace and love to others who, in my opinion, have done so much more harm.
Dee Kelley: I certainly go through the mental exercise of trying to make sense of things. That’s just part of my makeup. And so, I certainly turn over and over and over again questions like that. I will tell you part of where it has taken me, though I don’t know that it’s accurate, but those who are in denominational leadership certainly have observed over the course of the last 40 years and more intensely in the last 15 years the kind of struggles that other Christian faith-based denominations have gone through with major denominational splits. The Southern Baptist convention, the Presbyterian Church, the United Methodist Church is probably the most recent example of that. And I certainly was aware of all of those things, and part of my reason for writing that essay was to say, certainly, we can learn from this and find ways to have better conversations to take us forward instead of resulting in the kind of division that doesn’t speak well of what we claim in terms of the gospel message of unity.
50:31
I think that those in leadership saw my essay and my speaking out as maybe an opportunity to make a statement that we’ve already made our choice and those that disagree with our choice of how we’re going to handle the LGBTQIA+ community is one of kindness, embracing, but always taking a stance that here’s the boundary of behavior and you crossed that line, and we’re not pleased because God’s not pleased. That’s a shorthand statement of it.
I think that the deep commitment to try and navigate the waters that are inevitably coming make my individual case less concerning than the larger movement that it represents. And so, I think there is probably a sense of, yeah, we sacrifice maybe something of an individual who’s in a local church for the sake of a global church that we’re trying to navigate some of the future and avoid the chaotic disruption that dividing a denomination into three smaller denominations, we just watched it take place with United Methodist. So this is our way of navigating those waters is, and this is a quote of what I was told, “We’ve already determined our position, we just need to figure out our presentation.”
52:18
I’ve heard that more than once that leadership has already decided that our position on this social issue is firm. Now, how do we communicate it? What’s the PR strategy? What’s the — to state it more spiritually, what’s the discipleship strategy that allows people to understand this position as a biblical position, which I don’t think that it is.
So the less charitableness is actually, I think, postured by a greater charity to our church globally. If we come to the conclusion that those who have not agreed with the position that we’ve established need to find their role someplace outside of our denomination. And that is evidenced by the fact that twice I was asked to surrender my credentials voluntarily before it went to a trial or a hearing. And my response was, “Well, I don’t think I did anything wrong, so to surrender my credentials is to admit something that I don’t think is true.” And that was not what I think was anticipated because I carried it all the way through the judicial process, and in the final appeal up in the upper righthand corner of the two-and-a-half-page document that says, “Your appeal’s been denied, and we uphold the decision that you’re no longer clergy in good standing is case number 001.”
53:59
So I had been told that in our 120-year history this is the first time that somebody has carried a doctrinal issue all the way through the judicial process. So the process has been new to everyone. I don’t know if they’re satisfied with how it worked. There already have been some changes since my case, and my case just concluded three weeks ago. But I think it’s in part in an effort to say, “We’ve got a global responsibility to a church that’s worldwide, and this will give us a chance to confirm our position that we already know what our position is, and you fall outside of that.
Rebecca Ching: So I’m hearing, from a broader perspective, the institutional power. Looking back on that — I mean, this may seem like an odd question to a person of faith, but would you have done anything differently? Would you have done this sooner? Would you have started this sooner, more publicly, looking back, knowing what you know now? Is there anything that you would do differently in terms of this conversation?
Dee Kelley: I love the question, not because I have a great answer but because I think that that is part of the process of learning is reflecting on what’s happened. Would you do something differently if so? Not only would you but the why behind it. But part of my answer to that is I feel like I didn’t do things along the way. So I could go back 45 years, and there was a denominational publication that came out in a — the target audience was youth pastors, and I was a youth pastor at the time. The article was about the gay community. And so, 45 years ago the language was very different, and the issues, the ways in which the straight community talked about it was very different. But I felt like the article itself, which was to try and help youth pastors deal with that within the context of their youth ministry, contained corporal generalizations and statements that had no foundation in research.
56:16
So even as a punk kid, and now I’m just a punk adult, but as a punk kid reading this article, I knew something was off. And I wrote a nine-page letter to the editor and the author saying, “I just think the way you’ve postured this is wrong. This is not a reflection of the community, and it makes assumptions that don’t seem to be based in fact.” My wife has contended that they have always had that letter in the file somewhere in the Church of the Nazarene waiting for an opportunity.
So that was the start of a journey of, when opportunities would arise, to speak out. And my viewpoints have evolved over time, and I remember thinking at one point in time that is marriage the right definition for same-sex couples, or is civil ceremony the more appropriate response? How does it fit within the context of faith traditions? So, I mean, we grow and learn over time, and particularly when there’s no inherent invested interest in some aspect, you can let it lay dormant for a while, and I don’t have skin in the game in terms of a family member or something like that, but I have friendships and observe how people are treated, and it forces me to speak up when those opportunities arise. I’ve written pieces before. I’ve had conversations in my office many, many times trying to help families and work with individuals. And it just so happened that I had somebody who reached out to me and said he was putting together a book and would like me to write an essay. I’d only met him one time, and I put it off and put it off and put it off, and I wrote it the day before it was due.
58:10
So it’s a long way to say would I do anything differently? I think I was taking the opportunities as they came and just trying to deal with the local community and the local church, the local part of San Diego that I lived in. When I had opportunities and workshops, I’d speak out and a couple times was asked to leave workshops. This one apparently hit a cord at a time when leadership was feeling like they needed to take a stand. So, no, I don’t regret. There’s a bit of regret about the pain that the church has had to go through and the people that’ve been part of my family, particularly for Katie, leaving a house we’d been in for 18 years and finding a new neighborhood and figuring out what’s next.
So I’ve learned from some of those things, certainly through those many conversations. But I feel like I was trying to take the opportunities as they came, starting at least 45 years ago, maybe before that.
Rebecca Ching: What do you say to those listening who have their own wounds from whether it’s a faith community, from how their family taught them about God or whatever, what their guiding principles were, or their church experience? What do you say to those who are carrying those hurts, particularly those in the LGBTQ+ community?
Dee Kelley: Yeah, first is I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the systems of which I’d been a part. Whether I was directly engaged or not, I’ve had a lifetime of being part of systems that have not been kind, not been loving, not been just.
1:00:06
And I wish I knew better how to be an agent of change in some of those areas after. I’m sorry that you have had those experiences. I think the next piece is you’re not alone. Don’t feel like you’re isolated. Find places to tell your story. Find places that initially feel safe before you try and exhibit the courage to tell your story in places that are less safe. I love that the A in LGBTQIA+ is most typically referring to allies. Find allies that love and care and hold you with grace and patience. And when the pain or he hurt or the trauma exposes anger and fear and grief, that there are people where you can be honest about those emotions and share them, and that individuals that can hold that with you and actually express it with you, and I hope I’m one of those at times who can participate in that for people.
And then recognize that having experienced some of those things, if the opportunity arises, gives you an opportunity to speak into individuals and systems and say, “No, this is my story, and my story matters,” and allow the storytelling to be transformative of our world because we need transformational stories. They make us better because they expose us at our worst. [Laughs] And I think that was a nervous laugh because they’re hard to do.
1:02:17
Rebecca Ching: They are, especially when there are so many folks with institutional and role and status power that want us not to tell our stories.
Dee Kelley: Absolutely. I had somebody three days ago who is now going through his own trial, a fellow clergyperson, and the statement from power was, “Don’t tell anybody.”
Rebecca Ching: Oh, heck no.
Dee Kelley: In other words: we’re going to persuade you to keep you quiet. And through my process, numerous times I was confronted about, “Yeah, we aren’t talking because we just need to protect Dee in this process.” And my response always was — and this isn’t true for everyone, I know that. But for me it was, “Oh, no, no. I’d just assume the whole thing would be transparent. You can ask me any question about anything, and I’m happy to talk about it, and if there’s a boundary that’s crossed, I’m comfortable with my own health and boundaries to know when that is and to derive, but you don’t need to derive for me.”
And so, he was speaking out and saying, “No, I can’t keep silent about this story.”
Rebecca Ching: That’s awesome. Is he 0002, [Laughs] or is it something else?
Dee Kelley: No, I actually think that’s probably the case. Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: Oh, my gosh.
Dee Kelley: But his trial hasn’t started. As I’ve said, they have already enacted at least one shift in how this process unfolds. So it may take even longer than the 14 months that mine took. So I don’t know when it will reach that point of a formal hearing, but it’s in the offering soon for him.
Rebecca Ching: Yeah, let’s make some noise. What are you doing with your time and energy now, and how does it feel to start something new?
1:04:04
Dee Kelley: There’s a lot of new things that are taking place. A new grandbaby that just came into the world, which is wonderful. A new place to live, which is downtown. I’m looking out over part of the city right now, which is so nice. And new vocational endeavors. I’ve had an interest through all of my educational pursuits and through all of my journey and dreams. It started when I had a recurring dream that came back when I was in college, and I went to a therapist and was needing help, and the therapist’s response — and I don’t blame him because there’s so little training on this particular aspect, but his response was, “Okay, let’s work on helping you not remember your dreams.” And I walked away thinking something’s really not right about that. And I don’t know why inwardly I felt it was wrong but I knew that it was wrong.
And I had a friend who put me in contact with somebody else, and it has started this 46-year journey of examining the biological, neurological, psychological, spiritual aspect of dreams. And so, I’m launching a new practice. I’ve already launched. I’ve done this with individuals for about 15 years and small groups for about 14 years and find such great joy in helping people discover where dreams can take you in your personal growth, in self-awareness and identity formation and understanding the unconscious and the shadow side of our life.
So I’ve got a practice. My website is www.inyourdreams.coach. There’s an Instagram following that contains thoughts on dreams that I post periodically, and it is fun, and I’m looking forward to where it takes me!
1:06:05
Rebecca Ching: Well, we’ll make sure to link to all of that, and I know many people who’ve benefited from your small groups on this topic and have really found incredible connections and peace and curiosity about their life that often we’re taught to exile, and you’re like, “Nah, let’s befriend it.” So that’s such a core value of mine when our system has those curiosities. I just had some funny dreams recently. I’m like, “I wonder what Dee would think about that!” But that’s another conversation, Dee.
Before we wrap up, I ask my guests some quickfire questions, so are you ready?
Dee Kelley: I think so.
Rebecca Ching: [Laughs] You’re like, “Okay.” What are you reading right now?
Dee Kelley: There are very few books that I read again. There are a few. One of those was The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I read it in high school, read it again a couple times after that. A current book that I have read multiple times, I just find it as kind of a really important work on sleep, is one by Matthew Walker called Why We Sleep.
Rebecca Ching: Mm.
Dee Kelley: And it’s just an outstanding look at revaluing the importance — he’s a neuroscientist, and he gets into the details of biologically what’s taken place. I just think it’s one of the best books on sleep I’ve ever read.
Rebecca Ching: What song are you playing on repeat?
Dee Kelley: [Laughs] I am a person of the — high school and college was all in the seventies. So I still love to go back and listen to Earth, Wind & Fire and The Spinners and James Taylor and Tony Bennett who spans multiple decades just because I like jazz as well. So anyway, those are some of the people I play over and over again.
Rebecca Ching: What is the best TV show or movie that you have seen recently?
Dee Kelley: Can I give one of each?
Rebecca Ching: Of course.
Dee Kelley: There’s a TV series that’s on PBS called Astrid, and you have to be okay with subtitles because it’s a French series, but wow, really, really good. The movie, one that affected me recently that I watched is entitled Women Talking, and it’s —
Rebecca Ching: Oh, my gosh. Yes.
Dee Kelley: Have you seen that one?
Rebecca Ching: Powerful, yeah.
Dee Kelley: Yeah, it’s so poignant. So poignant.
1:08:43
Rebecca Ching: So well done. I know you said you’re a seventies guy but I’m an eighties gal. What is your favorite eighties piece of pop culture, and if you don’t have any, then I’d love to hear your seventies, at least to add onto the seventies things you shared.
Dee Kelley: [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: If you have an eighties favorite piece, maybe it’s — I think it’s fluorescent hot pink clothing, right? That’s your jam? [Laughs]
Dee Kelley: Yeah, that’s right. It certainly started in the seventies, but bellbottoms were still going in the early eighties a little bit, so…
Rebecca Ching: Dee, do you have pictures? Do you have documentation of this?
Dee Kelley: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have red and white plaid bell bottoms with platform shoes.
Rebecca Ching: Stop.
Dee Kelley: Oh, yeah.
Rebecca Ching: Stop! Okay, I need to see this.
Dee Kelley: [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: Okay, Dee, what is your mantra right now?
Dee Kelley: One that I’ve been trying to live into for a while, and I still have so much work to do, is these three statements: let my body talk, let my heart feel, and let my mind grow. And if I can pull those three things together, I feel like I’ll be a better person.
Rebecca Ching: Wow, using those for sure. This may feel redundant, but what’s an unpopular opinion that you hold?
1:10:06
Dee Kelley: [Laughs] Oh, other than the one that we were talking about for an hour? Sure.
Rebecca Ching: Yeah, yeah. Even though it should be popular. That’s my opinion. But yes, I hear you.
Dee Kelley: You know, it’s interesting, though, the way you positioned this whole conversation at the beginning. It feels like in this current culture every opinion you hold is unpopular with some group.
Rebecca Ching: Mm-hmm.
Dee Kelley: And the world has shrunk enough that it feels like you’re subject to criticism all the time. But here’s one that I think goes against the grain. I have a love for the business climate, business environment, and I’ve used this one for a long, long time, and that is if you’ve given me an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay then we’re even at the end of the day. And the context in which I use that is when I’m recruiting new employees. Often, new employees get the mantra of, “What’re you gonna bring to this company? Can you commit to two years? Can you commit to five years,” all that kind of stuff. And I love to cast vision for where an organization is going. But I also recognize that people need to look out for their own best health and their interest and their journey. And so, I tell them, “As far as I’m concerned, if you come in and only work for me but at the end of the day you’ve given me a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay, I’m gonna be in your corner if you tell me, ‘This job isn’t for me,’ or that you’ve got a new opportunity you weren’t expecting because I believe in you and you need to do what you need to do.” So at the end of each day, at the end of each week, has it been a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay? We’re even. You make the decisions you need to make for your own health. The organization will survive. We’ll figure it out. That’s what we’re paid to do.
1:12:01
Rebecca Ching: Who or what inspires you to be a better leader and human?
Dee Kelley: I certainly could go through the list of family members first that have been incredibly inspiring to me and certainly some friends, authors. I know this sounds maybe like it’s tied into my vocational journey, but I feel like the life of Jesus we often hear through the lens of other people’s interpretations. And I think when I came to consider, “Okay, I need to set aside family of origin ideas, teachers, professors, I wonder if I just read those words that he spoke and learn from kind of the raw material, how that might change me,” and I just feel like that’s been transformational to look at the human interactions of Christ, and that process has been dramatically transformational.
Rebecca Ching: Thank you so much for making time for this conversation. I’m really excited for folks to get to know you and understand why so many people have been deeply impacted by you and your leadership, your care, and we need more of it in the world. We’re gonna make sure to link to all of your new endeavors on the show, which I’m really excited about. But thank you so much, Dee. I appreciate you and the impact you’ve had, not only on my life and my family’s life but our community and beyond. So thanks for coming on the show!
Dee Kelley: Thank you! It’s been great to be with you.
Rebecca Ching: Before you go, I want to make sure you take away some of the important wisdom Dee shared in this Unburdened Leader conversation.
1:14:06
Dee talked about the power of holding curiosity in hard conversations and the dangers of taking something personal and making it a generalized prescriptive for all people, and he also noted what happens when you take a stand and that stand challenges the identities of others and how it could bring out a fear response. That was pretty relentless. And when we lead by fear, we lose our footing on our values and our ability to hold empathy, compassion, and curiosity.
So I’m curious, after listening to this conversation, are you aware of your ideal and unwanted identities? How do you balance curiosity and a hard conversation when you feel strongly about your perspective? I know this is one I will continue to be rumbling with until I breathe my last breath. And how do you speak up to power over, especially when the stakes are high for you but also those who are being harmed?
I wish we saw more leaders amplified in the news or on social media who’ve been treated unjustly but also simultaneously hold compassion for those who harmed them while striving for accountability. Yes, righteous anger, when unexpressed, not metabolized, and unwitnessed can turn to toxic anger and then fuel the vice grip of our ideal and unwanted identities. We’ve got some choices. We can get sucked into performing and upholding our ideal identities while hiding the parts of us we exile and fear, or we can choose love, healing, and curiosity, and this is the ongoing work of an Unburdened Leader.
[Inspirational Music]
Thank you so much for joining this episode of The Unburdened Leader. You can find this episode, show notes, and free Unburdened Leader resources, along with ways to work with me at www.rebeccaching.com. And this episode was produced by the incredible team at Yellow House Media!
[Inspirational Music]
[Inspirational Intro Music]
Dee Kelley: My struggle with leadership and power is that usually they take something that is personal and make it prescriptive for everyone. We then come to a conclusion that is prescriptive for everyone across the board as opposed to honoring the unique journey that people have that lead them to the places of conclusions and go, “Wow, I actually can see how you got to that. I don’t know that it fits for me, but I certainly appreciate how you got to that conclusion.” The true test of faith is to say, “Yeah, I don’t control that,” but that I trust that there is this spirit at work that molds and guides and that collectively we get to places that we could never get to individually.
Rebecca Ching: What do you want to be known for, and what do you do to be seen in that light? What lengths do you go to to avoid being misunderstood and seen differently than what you want to be known for? Now, for me, I’m most curious about what drives what you want to be known for and your choices to uphold your desired image or reputation. Some common drivers that I see in those I work with are values (professed and lived), our fears, integrity, burdens of shame, betrayals, wisdom earned from falls and failures, the desire to prove something, and the desire to belong and keep standing in our community.
Now, my training and experience continue to teach me that most of us navigate a multitude of internal agendas that drive and influence our decisions and, subsequently, how we show up and are seen by others and ourselves. But when our worth and safety are externalized and solely given to the hands of others, I see the lengths people go to to hold onto how they want to be perceived.
2:13
They often leave a wake of chaos and destruction, turning on themselves or abusing power, shutting down hard conversations, manipulating, betraying themselves or relationships all to maintain the illusion of control. And then there are leaders who choose differently and give us some hope, reminding us of the power of leading well while holding reverence for humanity in others. They do this imperfectly, but they understand that their worthiness never depreciates, and they don’t leave it all on the table for others to negotiate. They do this work day in and day out to build a capacity for discomfort so they can lead with conviction, humility, and a deep sense of connectedness with themselves and something bigger than their personal ambitions or fears.
I’m Rebecca Ching, and you’re listening to The Unburdened Leader, the show that goes deep with humans who navigate life’s challenges and lead in their own ways. Our goal is to learn how they address the burdens they carry, how they learn from them and become better and more impactful leaders of themselves and others.
There’s this exercise that certified Daring Way facilitators do in Brené Brown’s The Daring Way curriculum, and she also discusses it in her book The Daring Way, where we identify our ideal and unwanted identities. Simply put, in this exercise, you list these ideal identities that you want to be known for, and they’re pretty hyperbolic. And then you list the identities you fear being known for, and these are your unwanted identities. Brené notes that these unwanted identities help us identify our shame triggers, and we feel tension in that space between our ideal and our unwanted identities, which leads to a lot of efforting, masking, perfectionism, people pleasing, performing, over functioning all to maintain the vice grip of these ideal identities being seen and keeping our unwanted identities at bay.
4:26
When we build a life around our ideal identities that are also entrenched in our fear of our wanted identities being seen, we build an unsustainable life driven by shame that inevitably comes crashing down. But those who are not aware of how their ideal and unwanted identities are driving them live a life driven by shame and fear and make choices that seem extreme to the outside observer to uphold a desired narrative. It’s a lose-lose kind of life that many do not realize until it’s too late. It’s amazing and chilling what we do when we’re so invested in how we want to be seen and the extremes we go to to avoid being seen with certain identities. And this is where a lot of harm happens, especially when we see that some of our unwanted identities are simply human qualities weighed down with toxic moral meaning.
Often, our ideal identities reflect the cultural burdens of sexism, racism, individualism, and consumerism that Dick Schwartz talks about in an earlier Unburdened Leader podcast and also writes about in his work as founder of the Internal Family Systems model. So we feel these pressures internally but also externally. When maintaining our ideal identities and suppressing what we perceive as unwanted, we go to great lengths to avoid losing community and what we think could threaten our livelihood and reputation. We sacrifice boundaries and often our integrity while upholding the illusion of our ideal identities.
6:14
We keep our hearts from hardening from the vice grip of trying to keep up with our shame-fueled ideal identities and exiled unwanted identities when we’d lead with more compassion, love, and curiosity towards ourselves and others. It’s that simple and that hard. Contrary to what many believe, when you choose compassion and empathy towards yourself and others, it’s a subversive choice that releases the grip of shame.
Now, today’s Unburdened Leader conversation served as an important reminder to me of what I always say to my clients: when you show compassion and hold empathy towards yourself or someone you disagree with or who has harmed you, it does not mean you’re letting them off the hook or making excuses for yourself. You’re simply protecting your own heart. I see how hard it is for leaders to sacrifice non-agenda curiosity, compassion, empathy because they lack the capacity for vulnerability. Leaders who uphold their ideal identities and exile their unwanted identities infect culture, leading others to also exile these perceived unwanted identities in ways that end up dehumanizing and othering, which is abhorrent to me and just makes me angry. So when I came into this interview, I was ready to offload about how much — and I’m gonna be very eloquent here — how much people suck who do harm and the hypocrisy of hierarchies that my guest experienced firsthand. But fortunately, my guest is better than that, and for that I’m very grateful.
8:02
Now, I may be right about the points that I want to make in this interview that toxic leaders and systems need accountability, but my guest is someone that reminds me of the power of being so clear on who you are so that you can lead with love and compassion, and I’m not talking about #leadwithlove but the kind of love that leaves you with a lot to lose and you do it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.
Seldon Dee Kelley is a lifelong learner, holding five degrees in topics like religion, psychology, has got an MBA and a PhD in Industrial Psychological and Organizational Development. He served for 18 years as the pastor of the First Church of the Nazarene here in San Diego and held various leadership and administrative positions before becoming a pastor. He has a deep passion for learning and is fascinated with new ideas, perspectives, and unexplored paths. Dee has followed his dreams for 45 years and worked with others both one on one and in small groups for 15 years. A driving passion of his life is to help others discover the rich guidance that dream work can provide for their journey towards health and wholeness, and he now helps people connect with the power of their dreams as a pathway towards new insight, better decision making, and improved creative thinking.
Now, I want you to listen for when Dee talks about the importance of going into hard conversations with an open mind, ready to learn something instead of preparing for battle, already knowing the outcome for ourselves. (A little like the energy I was coming into this interview with.) [Laughs] And pay attention to when Dee talks about his concerns with leadership and power structures, when those in power take something personal and make it prescriptive for everyone. And notice when Dee talks about how losing his job was a great loss but it was not his identity.
10:08
Now, before I welcome our guest today, I just want to give a special shoutout to my amazing open door community. I appreciate you. And now I am so pleased to welcome Dee Kelley to The Unburdened Leader podcast.
Dee, welcome! Thank you so much for being here.
Dee Kelley: Thank you! It is great to be part of this. I love what you do, and the fact that I get to be part is a real honor.
Rebecca Ching: You and I have known each other — gosh, we moved into our neighborhood community in ‘09 and started attending the church that you pastored shortly after that for a long time. And so, this conversation feels personal and it feels important, and while, I guess particularly for the listeners, we’re talking about some very specific experiences and things that you said and experienced and did, I really want folks to be listening to the fact that this is really a microcosm of what we’re seeing in the world play out. This happens to be in a church setting but we see this in schools. We are seeing it in government and chairmandering, how people who can vote and who can’t vote to education so much more. And so, there’s a lot of important themes here that I’m excited for folks to hear.
I want to start off by jumping in.. In typical Unburdened Leader fashion, we jump in. We don’t start with easy breezy. We go deep, and I want you to share what it was like to be tried and convicted for heresy?
Dee Kelley: It really wasn’t anything I started out anticipating or that I thought was going to be part of my journey, and the process has, right now, been about a year and two months. So about a 14-month span that this has occurred, and it really just came to a conclusion about 3 ½, 4 weeks ago. And it started with an article that I wrote a year ago in February and was published and that essay, in essence, about a three-page essay (not that long at all) raised some concerns within the denominational tradition of which I’d been a part my whole life and led to, as you just indicated, a hearing where I was found guilty of teaching doctrine that was not in accordance with the faith tradition in which I grew up and where I held my ministerial credentials.
12:45
And so, because I’m part of a global denomination, I’m accountable to that larger group, not just the local church. What a delightful local church, fantastic in so many different ways, and as I’ve said many times, even if I wasn’t pastoring that church, it’s the church that I would love to attend and did attend before I became pastor. About 30 years ago, I attended there for about two-and-a-half years.
So it was quite a challenge to be caught up in a hearing that I didn’t really anticipate. I anticipated that there would be some consequences as a result of the essay that I wrote because I knew it would touch a cord that was kind of a hot button for many, many church denominations, not just Christian groups but other faith traditions as well. I just didn’t anticipate that it would head this direction when I wrote the essay.
Rebecca Ching: And the essay was titled “A Hope For Change.”
Dee Kelley: Correct.
Rebecca Ching: And why don’t you give me — just share a little bit about what you wrote and where the venue was. What was the high-level invitation in that essay that you wrote in this book?
14:07
Dee Kelley: The invitation was an invitation to conversation, and the target audience were those individuals who are part of the faith tradition in which I had held my credentials, and that is the Church of the Nazarene. It’s a denomination that’s about 120 years old, and it comes out of a combination of traditions, primarily The United Methodist Church but also the Holiness Revivals that took place in The United States a little over a century ago. And it was the faith tradition that both my sets of grandparents were part of, my parents, myself, and my wife’s faith tradition background as well. The topic was specifically about the LGBTQ+ community and their inclusion within our faith tradition, or I should probably say their lack of inclusion. Not that there was any prohibition on attendance or anything like that, but those who are practicing members of the queer community (and by that I would say it specifically is related to sexual practices of that community) were excluded from leadership, were excluded from being able to participate in the full life of the church, and none of that felt like it was a representation of the gospel that I read and understood and have for a long time had discussions about that in smaller settings, and this was an opportunity to write an essay that had a larger audience, and I think because of that, it generated a response that I was teaching doctrines outside of the church and therefore should have my credentials in ministry taken away and removed from any positions of leadership.
This wasn’t the first time I had spoken out. But I don’t think that it reached as large of an audience as this because this was a book that was published, targeted towards the Church of the Nazarene. It came out two months before, what in our denomination is called, the general assembly, which occurs every four years, and because of that I think it got more attention than it might otherwise have gotten.
16:38
Rebecca Ching: So a couple things. In this essay — and I feel like this is a really important point. There’s the issue around marrying everyone who wants to be married. But there’s this other piece where you wrote:
“In the current climate, public discourse seems to be less about learning and more about winning. I hope our church might continue to be a place where discourse is welcome. I hope we chart a course where disagreements are viewed as opportunities for learning and growth. We certainly disagree on how to embody the Gospel message when it comes to the LGBTQIA+ community. May this become a time for learning and growth.”
My understanding, Dee — and you’re calling it a hearing, but the way I heard about it was this was called a trial, which just felt so hyperbolic to me as someone who was not raised in a church. I come from a mixed-faith home. I went to membership class, but I did not end up joining this particular denomination but wanted to understand. But you were charged with heresy for publicly wanting a conversation, and I know there are some nuances here because everyone’s getting into manuals and memos and stuff that makes my brain kind of want to explode outside of the relationship. But for the purpose of you were convicted of heresy. You lost your credentials just like I would lose my clinical license. I wouldn’t be able to practice psychotherapy if I was convicted of something that led to an egregious error. So you lost the ability to do something you deeply love because — and correct this — but my understanding is because you wanted to have a public conversation about this. So fill in the gaps here, please.
18:28
Dee Kelley: You described it correctly. Actually the removal of my credentials carries a little more weightedness to it in that if your licensure was taken away you could still participate in certain types of roles that didn’t carry the moniker “therapist,” I believe.
Rebecca Ching: Mm. That’s true. That’s true.
Dee Kelley: In our church tradition, because I’m considered a “minister not in good standing,” I’m not allowed to take a role as a Sunday School teacher, a small group leader —
Rebecca Ching: Oh.
Dee Kelley: — a board member. I can’t be a delegate to an assembly. I can’t hold a position of responsibility as long as I’m in that state. So it carries some additional difficulties with it. Obviously, they can’t hurt me anymore. But if a Nazarene pastor were to put me in any of those kinds of positions, that pastor would have to face some issues related to having done that. And I would never want to put anybody in that position. So it kind of changes my ability to participate in the life of the church, which is not overly burdensome compared to what it feels to me like members of the queer community have faced over the years. Mine’s real small on the scale compared to that.
But it seems to me that as a church, we ought to be about the business of speaking up for those who feel like they’re on the margins, who feel like they don’t have safe space, and my understanding of scripture is that that’s the mission of the church.
20:08
And so, I don’t have any regrets taking that stand because it feels like that is the stand that is in keeping with our call when we have faith, as we proclaim, that leads us to a life of love.
So, yes, it resulted in a trial, a hearing. I appreciate you reading the quote from my essay. The piece that was actually taken as the heresy piece, using your language, though you’re not the only one. I think that the churches also use that language.
Rebecca Ching: Yes.
Dee Kelley: So you’re in company there that I soften but I don’t need to. As I heard one person describe, “There are a lot of people who agree that we ought to have good discussions. Dee’s problem,” as he was referring to me, “is that he actually said where he would fall in the discussion if we had that discussion.” Because in the essay I write that I am prohibited from joining two people of the same gender in marriage, and I simply said that I think those who desire to do that ought to be allowed to and that we ought to be able to bless marriages for two people who love one another and are willing to lay their life down on behalf of one another.
So in saying that, I was going against what has been stated by the leadership of the church as the current standard in practice for clergy, and I felt like it was well within my right to say I have abided by all of that but I don’t agree with it.
Rebecca Ching: Exactly, and let me pause you because I feel like this is such a microcosm that you walked us though that, for so many of us, it was exquisitely infuriating and painful and heartbreaking and hypocritical, which I want to touch on.
22:17
But I think a lot of people fear this, like, “I just want to say I disagree even though I’ll follow it. Can we have a conversation?” Just saying that they actually would prefer to go a different direction with a policy, with a rule, with a law that they get ostracized, they become heretics, they lose their community and their sense of belonging, and there’s something about this that feels very consistent with power and power over and who’s in charge of making these decisions.
You said you’ve had this belief for a long time. Walk me through how you first formulated your position on creating a welcoming and affirming place for all, not just LGBTQ+ people but everybody. How did you first formulate your position on this particular issue? How did you come about that?
Dee Kelley: I think, for me, there’s so much of all of our journey that goes back to our family of origin for any number of reason, and I was very fortunate to be raised in what I thought was a pretty healthy home (affirmation from my family members, good relationships with my sister and my parents). And raised within a pretty conservative faith tradition, they still held an openness that invited me into the conversation, which is pretty amazing. However, I think it’s natural for all of us to be affected by the opinions and ways of parents as being authoritative, whether they intended it or not. And I’m sure with my parents, in some ways, they were intending it to be authoritative and others there probably wasn’t quite a rigidness as I thought. I’ll give you a quick example.
24:13
Growing up, my family never went to movies, and it was kind of a cultural stance. I never went to a movie until a couple years into my marriage. So it was a long time before I went to a theatre. At the end of sixth grade, I went to a party at Brian Curtis’s house and went there, and we’re playing, and then I found out that his mom was gonna take all of the boys to a movie. I didn’t quite know what to do, so I said, “Could I call my mom?” Mrs. Curtis was wonderful, and she said, “Sure.”
So mom got on the phone, and I said, “Mom, all of the guys are going to a movie, and I don’t know what to do.” To my mom’s credit, her response was, “What would you like to do?” And it was incredibly empowering, and my response was, “I don’t think I want to go.” And she said, “Okay, put Mrs. Curtis on the line.” So she talked to Mrs. Curtis. I played with Brian’s older brother, pitch and catch back in the backyard, for an hour and a half while the other boys went off to a movie.
So I say that to say my parents were very conservative but there was this wonderful inclusion that was empowering to me. I say all of that to say that, as I grew older, I had pretty set ideas of what was right, what was wrong, who was in, who was out. The inclusion notion was not fostered wonderfully well. I lived and interacted with people who thought like I did or at least thought like my parents did, interacted in ways that were pretty guarded and protected. And I don’t think that it was really until I started graduate work that I started realizing, “Wow, there are a lot of different ways to look at the world, to look at experiences, to look at people.”
26:10
This awareness that because somebody’s different doesn’t mean that they’re wrong actually kind of came later in life, but I would also propose that it seems like for some people it never comes. But for me, this awareness of a worldview that could hold a lot of different perspectives became frightening and inviting all at the same time. So that began to translate into some of the faith components of my life journey, my business practices, my relationships, and realizing that the things that I feared in others were actually ways in which I needed to learn and grow, and that eventually became part of my understanding of my values system in my faith, and the Gospel message all of a sudden shifted for me to where this idea of Jesus as a pioneer of social justice, as a champion of the outsider was a perspective in reading that I don’t remember it being presented to me in studies and in teachings until I became aware of it and then I started hearing things in different ways and in new ways.
That began to transform my life, and the notion of the Gospel of love being one that spreads arms wide and works at getting rid of distrust and finding ways to trust, getting rid of boundary lines — not personal boundaries that are important but boundary lines of the judgements we make and finding ways to build bridges transformed my life, and I couldn’t then help but begin to change the way in which I interacted with others and taught others. It was an evolution for me.
28:11
Rebecca Ching: Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate your, also, focus saying we’re talking about the catalyst of what led to you leaving your role and making sure to note that the pain and the loss that you’ve experienced is real but there’s also a community of people who did not experience grace and love the way that you are desiring, and in fact, sadly have kept me way too busy in my clinical work. And even, I’m seeing it in my leadership work, the wounds that people have. The church wounds, the faith wounds, the spiritual abuse wounds (however people language that) influence so much how they lead themselves, lead others, and a lot of hurt. And looking from the outside in, people are okay with that. There’s this okay with othering and siloing.
I hear you speak, and that’s how you’ve taught us, how you’ve led us for so many years in moving through really hard conversations. Bringing it back to just your experience though, you came to speak at our Sunday School. I’ve talked about Sunday School here on the show. It’s a sacred, special place to me where so much gets stirred in me as I listen and learn, and you spoke to us early in the days of your suspension, and you said something that really stuck with me. You said that if they fired you they would prove your point. They would be proving your point. What was that point, Dee?
Dee Kelley: The point that we are reluctant to have hard conversations where we’ve not already determined what the outcome is supposed to be. And when I say we, I’m referring to the denominational tradition of which I was a part. So the essay had a target audience. The essay’s target audience for me was leadership within our church. District superintendents, general superintendents, lay leaders, those who are in positions of authority, those who carry weight to say not only can we enter into a conversation but can we enter into a conversation knowing that we have something to learn out of the conversation, or are we going into it to do battle, and we already know what the outcome is for ourselves, we’re only hoping that we can get the other person to see from our perspective and be convinced.
30:41
From that angle, I would simply say that the arguments that have presented to me about how wrong my posture is are not very convincing. I listen to them because they are arguments that I am very, very familiar with, and I don’t reject them because they don’t fit my paradigm, I hold them kind of at length because they remain unconvincing to me. And yet, I’m always intrigued to hear somebody use the same argument and see if there’s a different background to it or where they go from there, their justification, or — and I think this is really important — where they go to from their experience. Because I think a lot of us hold positions based on our experiences, and I would say that I think experiences often do justify positions. A traumatic experience validates why you feel a particular way about something, and I’m not gonna discount that. I want to hear how that has led to your conclusion that may be perfectly valid.
My struggle with leadership and power is that usually they take something that is personal and make it prescriptive for everyone. So we, then, come to a conclusion that is prescriptive for everyone across the board, as opposed to honoring the unique journey that people have that leads them to the places of conclusions and go, “Wow. I actually can see how you got to that. I don’t know that it fits for me, but I certainly appreciate how you got to that conclusion.”
32:32
Now, that doesn’t lead me to a place where I don’t think that there are any absolutes in life at all. I think that there are, but I think we probably overstate how many there are and how they are to be used. But I do think that something that is very true for you may not hold the same weightiness as it does for me because of different backgrounds, different experiences that lead us to the place we are. A long way to say that it proves my point that the rigidity that’s there for those who are typically in power is that the way in which you maintain that power is that you create paradigms that allow your viewpoint to be the one that always wins the conversation.
In the essay, I did say that there are times when it seems like power has allowed conversations but in very controlled ways. So they pick a committee that’s allowed to talk. They set a particular setting where it’s allowed to happen. And I think that the true test of faith is to say, “Yeah, I don’t control that. I encourage those with the grass roots, I encourage local pastors, local Sunday School classes or small groups to have those conversations, and I don’t even have to be present to guide how that conversation goes,” but that I trust that there is this spirit at work that molds and guides and that collectively we get to places that we could never get to individually.
[Inspirational Music]
34:20
Rebecca Ching: Leading is hard. Leading is also often controversial as you navigate staying aligned to your values, your mission, your boundaries. Navigating the inevitable controversy can challenge your confidence, clarity, and calm. I know you don’t mind making hard decisions but sometimes the stakes seem higher and can bring up echoes of old doubts and insecurities during times when you need to feel rock solid on your plan and action.
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[Inspirational Music]
36:07
Rebecca Ching: I want to circle back to the word heresy. I’ve really been hooked on this word, and I think part of it, why, is, I mean, that’s a big word, right? It feels like a big word. It’s very charged like, “Dee’s a heretic because he said he wanted this conversation, and if we had it, here’s where he would land in the conversation.” And I want to be delicate with this as much as I can, but I know this isn’t just within the Nazarene tradition but a lot of faith communities where people in positions of power have done a lot of harm and crossed a lot of real boundaries (harm to others, very inappropriate relationships, violence with words and actions), and those folks, often the trend is they’re looked at like, “Let’s rehabilitate them. Let’s love them up.” Where the damage is: lives are changed regardless, and we want to love up the perpetrator. And for you, you’re perpetrating, “I want a conversation, and I may disagree with what our values are in writing right now, but I want to have this conversation.” Yet when someone is a perpetrator of harm to somebody else (emotional, physical, sexual abuse, financial fraud, those kind of things), we love them up. There’s a lot more grace there than when it comes to — that’s something I haven’t been able to unhook from in terms of this heretic piece but the hypocrisy to me and the punishment type.
I’d really love for you to speak to that and help me have it all figured out please. [Laughs]
Dee Kelley: [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: Please make it all tidy! And I know that you won’t, but I’m just like this is what keeps me up when I think about this whole situation and the hypocrisy there. I’d love for you to speak to that also, but first, part one: what’s your understanding of heresy; and then part two: this kind of hypocritical approach to leaders that, you know, hold your leadership role even within the denomination but the ones that do different kinds of harm get a lot more love and grace.
38:30
Dee Kelley: A little bit of background probably is important for my particular heresy case. I can’t point to any particular document that has stated this, but it feels like at least within the North American version of the Church of the Nazarene, there’s been an understanding that doctrine is specifically related to what’s called our articles of faith and they have to do with our view of grace, our view of sin, our understanding of Jesus in the Trinity of God, those kinds of things that would traditionally be listed as doctrine. There are other portions of our church documents that have been the ways in which we respond to needs in the world and our views on social issues, and they have been in a different portion of our documents.
About a year ago, the general superintendent spoke about some of these other things actually being included as doctrine of our church, which was startling to many within the clergy, in particular, since clergy tend to deal with those things more than the laity of the church. So my challenge to the notion of marriage being only and forever between one man and one woman, my challenge to that would have been viewed, at least at one point in time, as being part of the special rules or the social statements that the church makes, part of our documents.
40:14
But because of that general superintendent ruling that broadened the scope of what we consider doctrines within the church, this then became what was, in terms of the hearing, the trial, a doctrinal issue, which felt like, for many, a change from what our church had been doing for many, many years. So that’s part of the context of this.
Rebecca Ching: Basically, to summarize, you’ve had these kinds of doctrines, and some folks got together and did some backdoor decisions and just said, “We’re gonna make it doctrine,” versus the spirit of the denomination where people talk about it and vote on it collectively.
Dee Kelley: Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: Correct me if I missed anything there because I think that’s important here.
Dee Kelley: No, you’re absolutely right. In fact, that was part of my appeal was that the statement was because the general superintendents put out this memorandum that this is included as part of our doctrine. That’s part of the charge. And I said, “Well, our documents also state that the general assembly that meets every four years is the only body that establishes what is doctrine within our church.” And the general superintendents were rendering an opinion, which is very appropriate for them to do. A memorandum that would help us to understand the importance of these other things, which is very appropriate to do. But they are not the doctrinal establishing entity of the denomination. That appeal was not accepted for a variety of reasons, but yes, you stated it correctly.
So when, in this case, a person talks about heresy, which is what I was accused of doing, the definition of doctrine all of a sudden became larger in this trial, larger than most people ever thought it should be within our denomination. So it felt a little bit like the ground rules changed in the midst of the discussion.
42:17
So you then asked me kind of what’s behind that. I think that fear is but I don’t think that fear by itself causes the kind of behavior that screams at other voices or stops listening to people or refuses to have conversations. I think that when your identity gets wrapped up in certain pieces of belief or value, when you believe that it — or you feel inside, whether you know it consciously or not, that it’s part of what defines your identity, you protect it in a much more tenacious way.
And so, I feel like the leaders of the denomination of which I had been a part had so much identity wrapped up in this social issue that to entertain any conversation about it didn’t simply go against what they thought a tentative belief was, it actually went against identity. I think the ways in which they had dug in is more of a reflection of an identity that is tenuous, at best. Just, “I’ve believed something my whole life. What if that’s not true? Do I throw everything out?” Well, I’ve gotten into places in my journey where, no, I don’t throw everything out. I learn, and that’s one of my tenants of faith is that I’m called to continue to learn over and over again.
44:03
I think it’s this identity piece, both as an organizational system because organizations have their own personality, so I think it’s an identity piece for the organization. But I also think that that identity has been embraced by those in power, and not only would it be a loss of power but it would be a loss of identity. And if identity is that strong, you’ll fight tooth and nail to cling onto that which you think defines you. That’s why I’m not overwhelmed at the loss of my credential. I’m not overwhelmed at the loss of a job that I loved because they are valuable, wonderful, and I consider it a great loss, but it’s not my identity.
Rebecca Ching: What is your identity then?
Dee Kelley: My identity is wrapped up in the things that I value and that those things provide pillars of foundation for the things that I build on it, and those foundational pieces are not characteristics but just truths. I believe that there is a creator of all things. I believe that love is what we are called to do as humans. I believe that people are more important than things. I believe that I’ve been blessed with a vessel that contains my soul and that I ought to honor not only this vessel but the planet that allows this vessel to survive. I believe deeply that all people are loved by God and that I’m called to love and that includes being a champion for justice when I know what to do and can do. Those pillars, they evolve over time, but those pillars don’t change in the sense that I might come to know a characteristic that I think is true about God that gets challenged. I go, “Oh, okay,” but I haven’t changed that what helps me make best sense of the world in which I live is that there is a creator of this amazing universe in which we live.
46:32
So, anyway, that’s part of where my identity is. And I think maybe what’s really helpful for me is to slowly identify those things that aren’t my identity. So it used to be that my identity was wrapped up in my job and productivity through my job, and 25, 30 years ago when I lost a job, I was devastated. I mean, it just pulled the rug out from underneath me. My, was it difficult to recover from that, not because I lost a job but because my identity was wrapped up in what that job meant to me. So having a particular job taken away, yep, really sad. I loved what I did. I loved the people of the church that I was at, as evidenced by staying as long as I did. But it certainly didn’t define me in terms of who I am.
Rebecca Ching: That’s powerful. And so, I want to come back to this identity piece. I feel like you have a lot of grace and clarity on why you were met with so much pushback because the conversations you wanted to have you kind of saw, “Okay, here’s the backend. This is pushing at something so, so tender for folks.” Why do you think you did not receive grace with this conversation while others, like I mentioned, who would do harm like stealing from the church or hurting other people physically, emotionally, sexually, you know, they get a lot more grace and care for, not as much as those that they’ve perpetrated. This is the hypocrisy piece that I am stuck on and just thinking about where does that intersect with this piece that you’re talking about around identity.
48:21
I’m sure you thought about this. Like, “They’re coming at me. I just want to have a conversation. Yeah, this is a big issue for the church, an important one, and there’s been a lot of harm, a lot of things that get pushed under the rug.” And this is where I think a lot of folks looking outside in going, “You call that love? You call that leadership? You call that community? I want nothing to do with that.” I mean, I’m calling it hypocrisy. I don’t know what you would call it with how the same folks who were so committed to you losing your job would extend so much grace and love to others who, in my opinion, have done so much more harm.
Dee Kelley: I certainly go through the mental exercise of trying to make sense of things. That’s just part of my makeup. And so, I certainly turn over and over and over again questions like that. I will tell you part of where it has taken me, though I don’t know that it’s accurate, but those who are in denominational leadership certainly have observed over the course of the last 40 years and more intensely in the last 15 years the kind of struggles that other Christian faith-based denominations have gone through with major denominational splits. The Southern Baptist convention, the Presbyterian Church, the United Methodist Church is probably the most recent example of that. And I certainly was aware of all of those things, and part of my reason for writing that essay was to say, certainly, we can learn from this and find ways to have better conversations to take us forward instead of resulting in the kind of division that doesn’t speak well of what we claim in terms of the gospel message of unity.
50:31
I think that those in leadership saw my essay and my speaking out as maybe an opportunity to make a statement that we’ve already made our choice and those that disagree with our choice of how we’re going to handle the LGBTQIA+ community is one of kindness, embracing, but always taking a stance that here’s the boundary of behavior and you crossed that line, and we’re not pleased because God’s not pleased. That’s a shorthand statement of it.
I think that the deep commitment to try and navigate the waters that are inevitably coming make my individual case less concerning than the larger movement that it represents. And so, I think there is probably a sense of, yeah, we sacrifice maybe something of an individual who’s in a local church for the sake of a global church that we’re trying to navigate some of the future and avoid the chaotic disruption that dividing a denomination into three smaller denominations, we just watched it take place with United Methodist. So this is our way of navigating those waters is, and this is a quote of what I was told, “We’ve already determined our position, we just need to figure out our presentation.”
52:18
I’ve heard that more than once that leadership has already decided that our position on this social issue is firm. Now, how do we communicate it? What’s the PR strategy? What’s the — to state it more spiritually, what’s the discipleship strategy that allows people to understand this position as a biblical position, which I don’t think that it is.
So the less charitableness is actually, I think, postured by a greater charity to our church globally. If we come to the conclusion that those who have not agreed with the position that we’ve established need to find their role someplace outside of our denomination. And that is evidenced by the fact that twice I was asked to surrender my credentials voluntarily before it went to a trial or a hearing. And my response was, “Well, I don’t think I did anything wrong, so to surrender my credentials is to admit something that I don’t think is true.” And that was not what I think was anticipated because I carried it all the way through the judicial process, and in the final appeal up in the upper righthand corner of the two-and-a-half-page document that says, “Your appeal’s been denied, and we uphold the decision that you’re no longer clergy in good standing is case number 001.”
53:59
So I had been told that in our 120-year history this is the first time that somebody has carried a doctrinal issue all the way through the judicial process. So the process has been new to everyone. I don’t know if they’re satisfied with how it worked. There already have been some changes since my case, and my case just concluded three weeks ago. But I think it’s in part in an effort to say, “We’ve got a global responsibility to a church that’s worldwide, and this will give us a chance to confirm our position that we already know what our position is, and you fall outside of that.
Rebecca Ching: So I’m hearing, from a broader perspective, the institutional power. Looking back on that — I mean, this may seem like an odd question to a person of faith, but would you have done anything differently? Would you have done this sooner? Would you have started this sooner, more publicly, looking back, knowing what you know now? Is there anything that you would do differently in terms of this conversation?
Dee Kelley: I love the question, not because I have a great answer but because I think that that is part of the process of learning is reflecting on what’s happened. Would you do something differently if so? Not only would you but the why behind it. But part of my answer to that is I feel like I didn’t do things along the way. So I could go back 45 years, and there was a denominational publication that came out in a — the target audience was youth pastors, and I was a youth pastor at the time. The article was about the gay community. And so, 45 years ago the language was very different, and the issues, the ways in which the straight community talked about it was very different. But I felt like the article itself, which was to try and help youth pastors deal with that within the context of their youth ministry, contained corporal generalizations and statements that had no foundation in research.
56:16
So even as a punk kid, and now I’m just a punk adult, but as a punk kid reading this article, I knew something was off. And I wrote a nine-page letter to the editor and the author saying, “I just think the way you’ve postured this is wrong. This is not a reflection of the community, and it makes assumptions that don’t seem to be based in fact.” My wife has contended that they have always had that letter in the file somewhere in the Church of the Nazarene waiting for an opportunity.
So that was the start of a journey of, when opportunities would arise, to speak out. And my viewpoints have evolved over time, and I remember thinking at one point in time that is marriage the right definition for same-sex couples, or is civil ceremony the more appropriate response? How does it fit within the context of faith traditions? So, I mean, we grow and learn over time, and particularly when there’s no inherent invested interest in some aspect, you can let it lay dormant for a while, and I don’t have skin in the game in terms of a family member or something like that, but I have friendships and observe how people are treated, and it forces me to speak up when those opportunities arise. I’ve written pieces before. I’ve had conversations in my office many, many times trying to help families and work with individuals. And it just so happened that I had somebody who reached out to me and said he was putting together a book and would like me to write an essay. I’d only met him one time, and I put it off and put it off and put it off, and I wrote it the day before it was due.
58:10
So it’s a long way to say would I do anything differently? I think I was taking the opportunities as they came and just trying to deal with the local community and the local church, the local part of San Diego that I lived in. When I had opportunities and workshops, I’d speak out and a couple times was asked to leave workshops. This one apparently hit a cord at a time when leadership was feeling like they needed to take a stand. So, no, I don’t regret. There’s a bit of regret about the pain that the church has had to go through and the people that’ve been part of my family, particularly for Katie, leaving a house we’d been in for 18 years and finding a new neighborhood and figuring out what’s next.
So I’ve learned from some of those things, certainly through those many conversations. But I feel like I was trying to take the opportunities as they came, starting at least 45 years ago, maybe before that.
Rebecca Ching: What do you say to those listening who have their own wounds from whether it’s a faith community, from how their family taught them about God or whatever, what their guiding principles were, or their church experience? What do you say to those who are carrying those hurts, particularly those in the LGBTQ+ community?
Dee Kelley: Yeah, first is I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the systems of which I’d been a part. Whether I was directly engaged or not, I’ve had a lifetime of being part of systems that have not been kind, not been loving, not been just.
1:00:06
And I wish I knew better how to be an agent of change in some of those areas after. I’m sorry that you have had those experiences. I think the next piece is you’re not alone. Don’t feel like you’re isolated. Find places to tell your story. Find places that initially feel safe before you try and exhibit the courage to tell your story in places that are less safe. I love that the A in LGBTQIA+ is most typically referring to allies. Find allies that love and care and hold you with grace and patience. And when the pain or he hurt or the trauma exposes anger and fear and grief, that there are people where you can be honest about those emotions and share them, and that individuals that can hold that with you and actually express it with you, and I hope I’m one of those at times who can participate in that for people.
And then recognize that having experienced some of those things, if the opportunity arises, gives you an opportunity to speak into individuals and systems and say, “No, this is my story, and my story matters,” and allow the storytelling to be transformative of our world because we need transformational stories. They make us better because they expose us at our worst. [Laughs] And I think that was a nervous laugh because they’re hard to do.
1:02:17
Rebecca Ching: They are, especially when there are so many folks with institutional and role and status power that want us not to tell our stories.
Dee Kelley: Absolutely. I had somebody three days ago who is now going through his own trial, a fellow clergyperson, and the statement from power was, “Don’t tell anybody.”
Rebecca Ching: Oh, heck no.
Dee Kelley: In other words: we’re going to persuade you to keep you quiet. And through my process, numerous times I was confronted about, “Yeah, we aren’t talking because we just need to protect Dee in this process.” And my response always was — and this isn’t true for everyone, I know that. But for me it was, “Oh, no, no. I’d just assume the whole thing would be transparent. You can ask me any question about anything, and I’m happy to talk about it, and if there’s a boundary that’s crossed, I’m comfortable with my own health and boundaries to know when that is and to derive, but you don’t need to derive for me.”
And so, he was speaking out and saying, “No, I can’t keep silent about this story.”
Rebecca Ching: That’s awesome. Is he 0002, [Laughs] or is it something else?
Dee Kelley: No, I actually think that’s probably the case. Yeah.
Rebecca Ching: Oh, my gosh.
Dee Kelley: But his trial hasn’t started. As I’ve said, they have already enacted at least one shift in how this process unfolds. So it may take even longer than the 14 months that mine took. So I don’t know when it will reach that point of a formal hearing, but it’s in the offering soon for him.
Rebecca Ching: Yeah, let’s make some noise. What are you doing with your time and energy now, and how does it feel to start something new?
1:04:04
Dee Kelley: There’s a lot of new things that are taking place. A new grandbaby that just came into the world, which is wonderful. A new place to live, which is downtown. I’m looking out over part of the city right now, which is so nice. And new vocational endeavors. I’ve had an interest through all of my educational pursuits and through all of my journey and dreams. It started when I had a recurring dream that came back when I was in college, and I went to a therapist and was needing help, and the therapist’s response — and I don’t blame him because there’s so little training on this particular aspect, but his response was, “Okay, let’s work on helping you not remember your dreams.” And I walked away thinking something’s really not right about that. And I don’t know why inwardly I felt it was wrong but I knew that it was wrong.
And I had a friend who put me in contact with somebody else, and it has started this 46-year journey of examining the biological, neurological, psychological, spiritual aspect of dreams. And so, I’m launching a new practice. I’ve already launched. I’ve done this with individuals for about 15 years and small groups for about 14 years and find such great joy in helping people discover where dreams can take you in your personal growth, in self-awareness and identity formation and understanding the unconscious and the shadow side of our life.
So I’ve got a practice. My website is www.inyourdreams.coach. There’s an Instagram following that contains thoughts on dreams that I post periodically, and it is fun, and I’m looking forward to where it takes me!
1:06:05
Rebecca Ching: Well, we’ll make sure to link to all of that, and I know many people who’ve benefited from your small groups on this topic and have really found incredible connections and peace and curiosity about their life that often we’re taught to exile, and you’re like, “Nah, let’s befriend it.” So that’s such a core value of mine when our system has those curiosities. I just had some funny dreams recently. I’m like, “I wonder what Dee would think about that!” But that’s another conversation, Dee.
Before we wrap up, I ask my guests some quickfire questions, so are you ready?
Dee Kelley: I think so.
Rebecca Ching: [Laughs] You’re like, “Okay.” What are you reading right now?
Dee Kelley: There are very few books that I read again. There are a few. One of those was The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I read it in high school, read it again a couple times after that. A current book that I have read multiple times, I just find it as kind of a really important work on sleep, is one by Matthew Walker called Why We Sleep.
Rebecca Ching: Mm.
Dee Kelley: And it’s just an outstanding look at revaluing the importance — he’s a neuroscientist, and he gets into the details of biologically what’s taken place. I just think it’s one of the best books on sleep I’ve ever read.
Rebecca Ching: What song are you playing on repeat?
Dee Kelley: [Laughs] I am a person of the — high school and college was all in the seventies. So I still love to go back and listen to Earth, Wind & Fire and The Spinners and James Taylor and Tony Bennett who spans multiple decades just because I like jazz as well. So anyway, those are some of the people I play over and over again.
Rebecca Ching: What is the best TV show or movie that you have seen recently?
Dee Kelley: Can I give one of each?
Rebecca Ching: Of course.
Dee Kelley: There’s a TV series that’s on PBS called Astrid, and you have to be okay with subtitles because it’s a French series, but wow, really, really good. The movie, one that affected me recently that I watched is entitled Women Talking, and it’s —
Rebecca Ching: Oh, my gosh. Yes.
Dee Kelley: Have you seen that one?
Rebecca Ching: Powerful, yeah.
Dee Kelley: Yeah, it’s so poignant. So poignant.
1:08:43
Rebecca Ching: So well done. I know you said you’re a seventies guy but I’m an eighties gal. What is your favorite eighties piece of pop culture, and if you don’t have any, then I’d love to hear your seventies, at least to add onto the seventies things you shared.
Dee Kelley: [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: If you have an eighties favorite piece, maybe it’s — I think it’s fluorescent hot pink clothing, right? That’s your jam? [Laughs]
Dee Kelley: Yeah, that’s right. It certainly started in the seventies, but bellbottoms were still going in the early eighties a little bit, so…
Rebecca Ching: Dee, do you have pictures? Do you have documentation of this?
Dee Kelley: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have red and white plaid bell bottoms with platform shoes.
Rebecca Ching: Stop.
Dee Kelley: Oh, yeah.
Rebecca Ching: Stop! Okay, I need to see this.
Dee Kelley: [Laughs]
Rebecca Ching: Okay, Dee, what is your mantra right now?
Dee Kelley: One that I’ve been trying to live into for a while, and I still have so much work to do, is these three statements: let my body talk, let my heart feel, and let my mind grow. And if I can pull those three things together, I feel like I’ll be a better person.
Rebecca Ching: Wow, using those for sure. This may feel redundant, but what’s an unpopular opinion that you hold?
1:10:06
Dee Kelley: [Laughs] Oh, other than the one that we were talking about for an hour? Sure.
Rebecca Ching: Yeah, yeah. Even though it should be popular. That’s my opinion. But yes, I hear you.
Dee Kelley: You know, it’s interesting, though, the way you positioned this whole conversation at the beginning. It feels like in this current culture every opinion you hold is unpopular with some group.
Rebecca Ching: Mm-hmm.
Dee Kelley: And the world has shrunk enough that it feels like you’re subject to criticism all the time. But here’s one that I think goes against the grain. I have a love for the business climate, business environment, and I’ve used this one for a long, long time, and that is if you’ve given me an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay then we’re even at the end of the day. And the context in which I use that is when I’m recruiting new employees. Often, new employees get the mantra of, “What’re you gonna bring to this company? Can you commit to two years? Can you commit to five years,” all that kind of stuff. And I love to cast vision for where an organization is going. But I also recognize that people need to look out for their own best health and their interest and their journey. And so, I tell them, “As far as I’m concerned, if you come in and only work for me but at the end of the day you’ve given me a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay, I’m gonna be in your corner if you tell me, ‘This job isn’t for me,’ or that you’ve got a new opportunity you weren’t expecting because I believe in you and you need to do what you need to do.” So at the end of each day, at the end of each week, has it been a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay? We’re even. You make the decisions you need to make for your own health. The organization will survive. We’ll figure it out. That’s what we’re paid to do.
1:12:01
Rebecca Ching: Who or what inspires you to be a better leader and human?
Dee Kelley: I certainly could go through the list of family members first that have been incredibly inspiring to me and certainly some friends, authors. I know this sounds maybe like it’s tied into my vocational journey, but I feel like the life of Jesus we often hear through the lens of other people’s interpretations. And I think when I came to consider, “Okay, I need to set aside family of origin ideas, teachers, professors, I wonder if I just read those words that he spoke and learn from kind of the raw material, how that might change me,” and I just feel like that’s been transformational to look at the human interactions of Christ, and that process has been dramatically transformational.
Rebecca Ching: Thank you so much for making time for this conversation. I’m really excited for folks to get to know you and understand why so many people have been deeply impacted by you and your leadership, your care, and we need more of it in the world. We’re gonna make sure to link to all of your new endeavors on the show, which I’m really excited about. But thank you so much, Dee. I appreciate you and the impact you’ve had, not only on my life and my family’s life but our community and beyond. So thanks for coming on the show!
Dee Kelley: Thank you! It’s been great to be with you.
Rebecca Ching: Before you go, I want to make sure you take away some of the important wisdom Dee shared in this Unburdened Leader conversation.
1:14:06
Dee talked about the power of holding curiosity in hard conversations and the dangers of taking something personal and making it a generalized prescriptive for all people, and he also noted what happens when you take a stand and that stand challenges the identities of others and how it could bring out a fear response. That was pretty relentless. And when we lead by fear, we lose our footing on our values and our ability to hold empathy, compassion, and curiosity.
So I’m curious, after listening to this conversation, are you aware of your ideal and unwanted identities? How do you balance curiosity and a hard conversation when you feel strongly about your perspective? I know this is one I will continue to be rumbling with until I breathe my last breath. And how do you speak up to power over, especially when the stakes are high for you but also those who are being harmed?
I wish we saw more leaders amplified in the news or on social media who’ve been treated unjustly but also simultaneously hold compassion for those who harmed them while striving for accountability. Yes, righteous anger, when unexpressed, not metabolized, and unwitnessed can turn to toxic anger and then fuel the vice grip of our ideal and unwanted identities. We’ve got some choices. We can get sucked into performing and upholding our ideal identities while hiding the parts of us we exile and fear, or we can choose love, healing, and curiosity, and this is the ongoing work of an Unburdened Leader.
[Inspirational Music]
Thank you so much for joining this episode of The Unburdened Leader. You can find this episode, show notes, and free Unburdened Leader resources, along with ways to work with me at www.rebeccaching.com. And this episode was produced by the incredible team at Yellow House Media!
[Inspirational Music]
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