Have you ever had the feeling that your life, what people see, and the reality of your heart are so far apart it is like you are wearing a mask.

Chris Archuleta was faking his spirituality as a pastor, so much so, that his family didn’t even know. This went on for years, until through a series of painful events, God helped him take that mask off. He shares with us that painful, but healing process, and how His loving God captured his heart, and restored him back to ministry.

Lk 9:23- “And he said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me’.”

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Topics Shared:

LEARNING TO LIVE A DOUBLE LIFE

He thought his ethnicity was ‘christian’

Intense Biblical upbringing

Traumatic event caused deep hostility as a teen

Mean kid, who picked on others, fights

Great academics

Living a double life, rule following at home trouble at school

Pretending to be perfect

HIS MASK COMES OFF

Changed at a teen retreat

Baseball player

Dad started a church, his brother was the youth pastor

Maybe I am next

Reading for his own, and starting speaking publicly 

Out of his comfort zone, classic introvert

Nervous to speak, hiding his shyness (chewed gum)

Compromising his faith in a relationship 

Let go as a pastor

Married

Fired from a bunch of jobs

Became a phony and a fake as a pastor and worship leader 

His wife didn’t even know

The spirit had left him and he didn’t even know it

Combining church ministry with his family was a train wreck

Family relationships were strained

VULNERABILITY & TRANSFORMATION

Parenting changed him, his daughter is his world  and his son is his heart.

Suicidal low and a call that changed him.

The death of a godly man and the birth of another.

Vulnerability with a pastor that reached out.

The mask comes off

Restored as a pastor

Links:

Your Church Friends Podcast 

-Website

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Chris Quotes:

“My marriage, all of the faking and the phoniness, I couldn’t do it and I snapped. We were now arguing all of the time. I  couldn’t carry the weight I was carrying. I couldn’t do the things that I was doing. I couldn’t fake it any more, and I felt that I was letting everyone down.”

“My prayers in public, you couldn’t tell that I was not praying at all. When I was praying at churches or leadership meetings, you just couldn’t tell because I had gotten so good at faking it. 

And I had gotten really good at burying the feeling of being a phony. And I was getting away with it. And that is the part that scared me the most.”

“That was probably my biggest mistake in ministry, that I thought I was the guy shouldering everything  went into His strengths.God. . I never went into His grace and love to power me through it. II never said. ’God this is your ministry. It was mine. I personalized it so much, that I never gave it to God. So when it started crumbling, it was me. I fell apart. It was my mistake. And then I got angry at God.  I became your classic prodigal son older brother. But what about me, and I became very angry at God.”  

“You have to get the mask off, and the easiest way is accountability. God didn’t design us to be alone. If you look at animals in nature, the one the lion gets is the animal that is by itself. The enemy comes after us when we are alone.”

“The biggest struggle in the church today is the lack of authenticity. If hypocrisy at its root is a lie, authenticity is the truth.  If we were just more truthful at church.  If we could just remove the facades of ‘God is good all the time which isn’t a lie, but yeah ‘life sucks, life hurts, I am struggling with this, to find someone to be honest with, and to be honest with God.”

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