Healing from Perfectionism: Ed Kilbourne and Philip Amerson on Changing Church Culture

Philip Amerson [00:00:00]:

Greetings again, Phil Amersonwith the To Be and Do Bot podcast. And we're continuing our time talking with Ed Kilburn. Ed is, wow, a friend for many, many years. He counts among his friendships and persons. He shared the platform with folks like Phil Gulley and Marcus Borg, Phyllis Tickle and Bishop Marianne Bud. How did you get from being a missionary kid to sharing a platform with folks like that?

Ed Kilbourne [00:00:38]:

Oh, Phil, one day at a time. It just, it kind of, it kind of certainly was not a known path. Back when we were fumbling around Asbury College and Seminary, back in our pre Christian days, we, we, we were just doing the next thing that, the next thing that was out there, kind of, kind of following in other, other people's footsteps. But as far as, as far as ending up in doing where what I'm doing, I just have been very fortunate in the people that have you among them have found, found me to be a useful resource. And so they. I was brought in alongside. I was not brought in as, and I'm thankful in my life as the feature or as a, as a primary celebrity personality. I was, I was, I was good at making other people look good and building a story and a context around them for, for events and for retreats and in worship services and, and, and so people found that useful and, and then they started paying me to do it.

Ed Kilbourne [00:01:53]:

And so, but a missionary kid, all, all, all of us that grow up in, in, in the circumstances of even a preacher's kid, but a missionary kid in particular, you learn to entertain yourself. We entered, we, we were very, very, very much about creating our own fun. And so I, early on, long before other people were picking the guitar and singing, I was, I was starting to do that. So when I arrived at Asbury, I was pretty much the only person that could play four chords on the guitar. So I became a big deal for, for no reason at all. Just because a lack of, a lack of talent around me made me look, look good.

Philip Amerson [00:02:40]:

Well, you're, you're of course being modest about your family legacy, distinguished folks in early missions work in China and in Korea. Your dad dean of seminary or president of seminary, I believe. Yeah. So, you know, I think I, like you had a lot of baggage I was carrying on my back when I arrived at Asbury and I just didn't know it until I got there. And I thought what is this.

Ed Kilbourne [00:03:18]:

What.

Philip Amerson [00:03:18]:

Is this perfectionist stuff?

Ed Kilbourne [00:03:22]:

Well, you're lucky you figured it out then. I didn't figure out until I was 10 years out of there. Yeah.

Philip Amerson [00:03:28]:

So it has Been. It has been a journey. And recently it feels what they call evangelicalism today. Yeah. It's still rigid and narrow. And they worship the Bible, at least their interpretation of the Bible more than. More than anything else. But it's in some tangible ways different.

Philip Amerson [00:03:57]:

There's a meaner spirit when I look at it, a need to do harm to others that I don't quite remember. I remember that there was exclusivism and I remember that gay people were being bashed and people who dared to drink or smoke or for goodness sakes, have premarital sex. They were going to hell. But I don't remember the kind of need, the fascist, authoritarian need that I see among many who call themselves evangelical today.

Ed Kilbourne [00:04:37]:

My Facebook post today said they raised their hands to Jesus and bend their knee to Trump. That's why I left the church many years ago. And I call myself a believer because I am. But I don't even use the word Christian. I would be honored if somebody else used the word Christian in describing my behavior. But I don't use as a functional title. And certainly not evangelical.

Philip Amerson [00:05:08]:

Yeah. That.

Ed Kilbourne [00:05:09]:

It's a hard journey because you're kind of leaving a family that you love. So it's not an easy thing. It's not like you just one day just skip out the door and you're happy and you're smiling. It's a brokenness because it was your home and it's what you knew. But it's a long way in the rear view mirror now. Yep.

Philip Amerson [00:05:35]:

You know, that's interesting you say that because every now and then, but rarely I think of the words alma mater, the mother of my soul. And I realize I don't have one, that I. I'm not comfortable any longer with that tradition. It's not the mother of my soul. And it's okay. I'm jealous of others that have good experiences with their universities and now. Now can go back and embrace and celebrate it. But it's.

Philip Amerson [00:06:10]:

It's just not where I am.

Ed Kilbourne [00:06:12]:

Yeah. And if you forget that, all you have to do is meet somebody who is still in that culture from your past and try to have a conversation with them. And you. You realize that you. It's a foreign country. Like I like my song says it must. We're talking about Jesus, but it must have been a different Jesus. You must be talking about a different, different Jesus.

Ed Kilbourne [00:06:37]:

The one that. I know that story came out. That story came out of a reunion at Asbury. I went back to Asbury for a reunion. I don't know how Many years ago. And somebody was saying, you remember. You remember John Phillips? I said, oh, yeah, yeah, I knew John Phillips. He was a really, really close friend of mine.

Ed Kilbourne [00:06:53]:

You remember when we went over to Nicholasville and he had to register for the draft and he. And, oh, no, he was getting his driver's license and he had to sit up on some books because he couldn't see. Look. I said, well, wait a. Wait a minute. Sit up on some books. John. John Phillips was like six foot four.

Philip Amerson [00:07:11]:

Four or five? Yeah.

Ed Kilbourne [00:07:12]:

No, no, the John Phillips, he was this little guy. He's about five foot one. I said, oh, it must have been a different John, Philip. Okay, okay, it's a different John. And then I moved that analogy over to people talking about Jesus. So they said, do you know Jesus? My song opened, so you know, my. My. A stranger stopped me on the.

Ed Kilbourne [00:07:34]:

Friend stopped me on the street and said, friend, do you know Jesus? I surprised him when I said, I'm sure I do. Then he handed me his Bible and he showed me where to look and how to pray and what to do to find the truth. When I tried to talk, he wouldn't listen. When I wouldn't pray, he shook his head. So I gave him back his Bible and I just hugged him because I don't think he understood a word I said. There. You think it must have been. I think it must have been a different Jesus than the one I met when I was just a child.

Ed Kilbourne [00:08:02]:

And whenever I do a Facebook post, there's some old fan of mine saying, you know, you had a. Somebody had a song about that. Yeah, it was called A Different Jesus. I can't remember the guy. He was a folkie from the 60s.

Philip Amerson [00:08:20]:

We've talked. We've talked about our journey, but I think our journey is one that has been taken, I'll dare say, by millions of people.

Ed Kilbourne [00:08:29]:

People, obviously, Rachel Held Evans. Rachel Held Evans Journey, among others. But reading her story is so much. Is so parallel. I mean, many people have made journeys like that. I mean, but because of her deep evangelical fundamentalist roots, she speaks of being torn up. You know, being torn and being broken and. And the amount of pain that it was to move out as opposed to.

Ed Kilbourne [00:09:02]:

I enjoyed some of the freedom because I moved to a ski town in Colorado and was living my best life. You know, I experienced my freedom in other ways, but people with better, more tender hearts than me. It's tough to not have those roots and have that grounding anymore, or at least a foundation.

Philip Amerson [00:09:26]:

Yeah, well. And I know one of the things you're doing now that helps. Many like us are adult vacation church schools. Tell us a bit about how they came about and what your role is there.

Ed Kilbourne [00:09:44]:

A lot of my stories begin with, well, there was a church down in Mississippi or Alabama or somewhere that invited me to come. So this church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi calls me up and says, we'd like you to come and do a senior adult vacation Bible school. I said, I've been in this business a long time. That's one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. I mean, I mean, it's not going to work and I don't like to be a part of something that's just not going to work because I just didn't see it. You know, I remembered vacation Bible school. Yeah. When we were growing up, we all did.

Ed Kilbourne [00:10:22]:

And I've been working with senior adults and I was just trying to picture it. And then as my story goes, they offered me money, A considerable sum. Just come down here and for three days or four days we'll gather each morning from 10 to 12 and you tell your stories and sing your songs. I said, well, I can, I can do that. And I was at a point in my life when, when my stories were stronger than my songs as my voice has evolved over the years. So I went down there and the first time, first day we did it, I had about 50 senior adults just staring at their tables in a room and I did. Did a few songs, did a few stories and some of them looked up and some of them smile and you know, I'm really describing exactly how it happened. They just slowly went, oh.

Ed Kilbourne [00:11:22]:

And I did it. I did two things. I did it. I treated them as adults. I did adult humor. I don't mean blue humor, but I mean, it had some satire, it had some subtlety to it. It had a Garrison Keeler esque style to it. They've been treated more like kindergarteners and most senior adults have been.

Ed Kilbourne [00:11:44]:

Yeah. They went home and invited their friends and the next day we probably had 70 or 80 people. On Wednesday morning, they remembered that there was a nursing home a couple of blocks away that had a bus and they loaded them up. A lot of wheelchairs and one actual hospital bed rolled into the back of the place. That, that last Wednesday at the end, my third day, that room looked. Looked like some kind of a mental ward. I mean, it was a. It was a hodgepodge of people.

Ed Kilbourne [00:12:19]:

But it changed my life. I found out what I had been preparing to do all my life and it wasn't to Lead worship. It wasn't to do concerts for teenagers. It was to take my best stories and get away with doing progressive theology because I put them in stories. If you do it in sermons, you're going to get, you're going to get crucified. But I put it in stories. So they didn't. They just thought, you know, I don't know what he said, but, boy, wasn't that a good story.

Ed Kilbourne [00:12:47]:

I love his stories, you know. So I was able to do progressive theology. And then of course, my wife had a network of Christian educators from her work over the years that she contacted and it went viral. It went all over the country. And we started booking from that one. We've done a hundred over the past 10 years. We've done 12 to 15 every year. Four day events start off with worship and a concert on Sunday, which is what I've been doing for years.

Ed Kilbourne [00:13:19]:

I've done a lot for you, Phil. Thank you very much for, for putting me up there. And. And then on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday mornings from 10 until 12, sitting around tables, 50 to 80 people, sometimes 100, they come and they slowly get. They slowly get it. They don't come knowing what they're going to have because nobody knows. When you say vacation Bible school, they don't know what it is. Are we going to, you know, we're going to dress up in costumes and have a parade.

Ed Kilbourne [00:13:48]:

What are we going to do at a vacation Bible school? So they don't know. My music's good, My humor is good. I'm both a humorist and a theologian. I say I'm a humorist. If they laugh and if they don't laugh, I'm a theologian. I haven't, I have them either way, you know.

Philip Amerson [00:14:09]:

That's right.

Ed Kilbourne [00:14:10]:

Then they get a little bit of both. And it does. As we used to say back in the day, it blesses their hearts. And when you do that, they say, now, when you come back next year. I said, what are you talking about? I just did everything I know how to do for this event. They said, oh, no, no, we're going to do it next year. And then after the second year, I came back and did it. They said, now, when you come back next year.

Ed Kilbourne [00:14:36]:

So we have three now vacation Bible schools in most every place we've been. They've taken over a period of three or four years. They'll take all three of them. And in the third one, Kathleen does, she's a retreat leader and a, a really good women's retreat leader. So she does a, an Hour as part of the program. And it's a. It's a very frustrating thing to have her up in front of people because she's. She's very simple.

Ed Kilbourne [00:15:05]:

She's a Sunday school teacher. She has no music. She has no humor. And I have been at this for 60 years. I'm a big deal. I know how to manipulate an audience. I can. I can.

Ed Kilbourne [00:15:20]:

I've got my jokes, I got my songs. You know, I know what I'm doing. And I'll do my hour at the beginning, and she'll do her hour at the end, and they'll say. They'll come up and more. This happened many times, Phil. They come up and say, ed, I have been a fan of yours for years. I love your stories, I love your songs, and you're just as good as you ever were. And I'm just kind of basking in that compliment.

Ed Kilbourne [00:15:43]:

Then they say, but that Kathleen.

Ed Kilbourne [00:15:48]:

She is so good.

Ed Kilbourne [00:15:51]:

And I'm saying, what the hell? And I had to sit there and watch and see what she did was intimate. It was. It connected, and it was simple, and it was moving. And she cried every time she got. You know, when she got moved by something or. Well, people thought that was wonderful, you know, because she was in. She'd forgotten. You know, I'm a performer.

Ed Kilbourne [00:16:18]:

I never forget what I'm doing. And she. She had just flowed. So now our VBS3 is. Is the most popular. We want that Kathleen to come back. It used to be a big deal, but that's the story, and it has grown and it has done well. But I am coming down to the last few years that I can actually.

Ed Kilbourne [00:16:40]:

You got to drive, and you got to set up and tear down equipment. I'll be able to sing and tell stories, but driving and setting up and tearing down equipment. I tell people I sing for free, but I charge a ton.

Philip Amerson [00:16:54]:

A lot.

Ed Kilbourne [00:16:57]:

Set up and tear down.

Philip Amerson [00:16:59]:

So have you got. So are you set up there to do another song for us?

Ed Kilbourne [00:17:03]:

I've got one here. I've got a folder over here on my desk, Phil, that you're gonna have to dig out one day because you're on the list. It's a folder that says celebration, and it's the plans for my funeral. And every once in a while, I'll get it out, and I'll add a poem or I'll add a song or I'll add a name. And some of the names have changed over the years of people that I. That I. That I want to be notified. But someday it's going to happen.

Ed Kilbourne [00:17:38]:

And somebody's going to say, well, Ed had a file on his desk that said celebrate. Said celebration. And you're going to have to get it out because I'm. I'm going to have to miss it by about four or five days. Sorry about that. That's just the way I'm presuming.

Philip Amerson [00:17:54]:

I'll be around.

Ed Kilbourne [00:17:55]:

Oh, you will. You're way younger than I am. And anyway, the instructions. The instructions on one of the sheets in there says that this song has. Has to be. Has to be included. Here we go.

Ed Kilbourne [00:18:18]:

When it's all been said done? There is just one thing that matters. Did I do my best to live for truth? Did I live my life for you?

Ed Kilbourne [00:18:40]:

When it's all been said and done?

Ed Kilbourne [00:18:47]:

All my treasures will mean nothing? Only what I've done for love's reward will stand the test of time. Lord, your mercy is so great? That you look beyond my weakness? Finding purest gold in miry clay? Making sinners into saints? And I will always sing your praise? Here on earth and ever after? For you've shown us heavens our true home. When it's all been said and done? You're my life? When life is gone.

Ed Kilbourne [00:20:03]:

There you go, the piece from the great fled.

Philip Amerson [00:20:07]:

Well, when it's all said and done, you've brought us home to the value of living now in relationship. And we're going to post how folks can find out about adult vacation, church, school. So if they're really lucky, they'll get to hear Kathleen.

Ed Kilbourne [00:20:26]:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Philip Amerson [00:20:29]:

Be well, my brother.

Ed Kilbourne [00:20:31]:

And you too, my brother.

Philip Amerson [00:20:33]:

Yeah, talk soon.