Laura Barringer & Scot McKnight and Becoming an Agent of Tov

Laura Barringer and Scot McKnight are the authors of the new book A Church Called Tov and it is an important one. Today, Laura and Scot share their sorrow at the news that Bill Hybels had been sexually inappropriate with women over his career. The response from Willow Creek bothered both of them deeply because Laura attended Willow and Scot had listened to Hybels over the years. As someone who trains pastors, Scot was concerned with the damage the Willow scandal would do to his students. We talk about what tov means and how to create a culture of goodness in our churches. Laura and Scot’s stories remind us that pursuing goodness is essential to the Christian life.

Listen to Laura and Scot’s story today!

Stories Laura and Scot shared:

• The motivation for writing
• Whether or not spiritual abuse is unique to large, Chicago area churches
• Scot growing up in a world of “decisionism”
• Scot praying to be filled with the Holy Spirit and having a spiritual experience
• Scot going to major Christian publisher’s book stores in Grand Rapids
• Laura coming to terms with not having a “moment” of coming to faith
• How the news about Bill Hybels affected Laura
• How good preachers mediate Christ
• Scot reading outside his tradition and how reading the Gospels helped him
• Why Laura felt a responsibility to speak out
• How they found out about the scandal
• Developing skills of discernment
• The concept of tov in Scripture
• Becoming an agent of tov yourself

Great quotes from Laura and Scot:

I grew into the faith as I grew.

We need to develop skills of discernment to see people who will lead toward toxicity and people who will work toward tov. (Scot)

Tov is a master category for understanding the way we are to live before God.

Any notion that we remain worthless or useless type people is an exaggeration of the emphasis of the Bible…the emphasis in the Bible is you were a sinner… and now you have been called to walk in the new ways of righteousness, and justice, and peace, and love, and grace.

Resources we mentioned:

• Scot McKnight’s blog
• A Church Called Tov: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing by S
• The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others – 15th Anniversary Edition by Scot McKnight

Related episodes:

• Mary DeMuth and The Safest Place for Sexual Abuse Survivors
• Skye Jethani and Living Life with God
• Steve Simms and the Joy of Early Christianity