This post is a continuation of a previous post "What is 'Church Hurt' and How do we Heal?"
We continue that conversation by digging deeper into what makes it so hard to get clear on church hurt for ourselves, let alone bring it up with others.
Disclaimer: I want to contribute to the conversation with a voice that is hopeful - to cultivate faith, potential, and creativity in how we live out our mission of being the Church. Based on the topic at hand, today's post may feel heavier than I would generally like. But any doctor, consultant, or repair tech, has to acknowledge the problems before attempting to craft solutions. That's what we're doing with this post, and the post before. Make sure to check out the next post, as we discuss possible solutions and ways to begin the healing process!
Craig Groeschel once said that sermons are like sitcoms. You can introduce tension, but only to the extent that you can solve the problem, resolve the tension, and have a happy ending within 30 minutes. I'd like to assume the best and say that's why church leaders explain church hurt in short, oversimplified, (often condescending) explanations that can easily be overcome with a sound byte. That sounds great from the stage, the screen, or on the church's social media accounts, but true church hurt isn't something that a one liner can resolve.
Today I want to focus on the tension a person feels when experiencing church hurt - the internal pressures to not acknowledge it, the confusion that makes it hard to communicate about, and the external pressures that may keep us from wanting to talk about it.
Reason 1: Slowing Down Doesn't Feel Like an Option
There's a lot of pressure in ministry, especially when it's your job, to just keep going. Roll with the punches. Just keep swimming. Like going hiking with a backpack on, adding large rocks to your backpack as you travel. You can handle a few, but eventually the weight of the baggage you're carrying is going to bring you to your knees, if you don't make the time to stop and unpack it.
Overlooking our pain or the weight that we carry doesn't make it go away. Trying to ignore it or bury it works for a while - at least we think. But as the saying goes, it's like trying to hold a beach ball underwater. It's a constant struggle and eventually it's going to come out sideways.
Being self aware takes time and intentionality. Being in touch with our own mental and emotional state takes time and intentionality. Identifying our pain and healing from it is a slow, painful, time-consuming process. And for most people in ministry... ain't nobody got time for that. We need more volunteers. We have that event to plan. We have content to create, and Sunday's always coming.
The excuse of busyness is always there as a reason why we don't slow down, become more self aware, and work toward health. Personally, I think we like to keep ourselves busy so that we don't have to slow down and feel our feelings. Instead, it's much easier to sweep our emotions under the rug and just keep going... until we can't, anymore.
Reason 2: You Don't Want To
Maybe busyness is the excuse we use, but the truth is that you just don't want to acknowledge the pain. Many of us (myself included) just flat out don't want to acknowledge vulnerability or see ourselves as susceptible to church hurt - let alone identify with it by putting a label on it.
Vulnerability is a great thing... ...for other people in the church to be :) We love it when other people acknowledge their weakness, and we quote 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 as important verses for people embrace their weakness and even boast in their weakness. But as leaders, we have a whole list of stated and unstated excuses and unrealistic expectations of ourselves.
Maybe acknowledging your baggage or trauma feels weak or immature to you. Maybe you're afraid of what can of worms you might open up, or how other people might see you. Maybe you're just too proud. For whatever reason, you may just be flat out resistant to the idea that you have church hurt.
Reason 3: Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is the internal turmoil that we feel when we hold two conflicting beliefs. This isn't an exhaustive list and not everyone feels these specific beliefs. But here are some examples of conflicting beliefs that might cause cognitive dissonance...
I need to be strong and endure. I can't afford to feel weak.
I love this place and I want to be here... why have so many people who I respect left it?
I'm all in for the mission of this church. I feel called to it. But this job is killing me or harming my family.
I'm starting to see how flawed this situation is, but I can't afford to lose my job.
Holding these conflicting beliefs cause huge amounts of internal tension, which leads to stress, confusion, doubt, and a whole host of negative thoughts and feelings. So instead of staying there, our minds find ways to still believe what we want to believe - to minimize or excuse deep flaws or inconsistencies in our worldview.
Most of the time it happens automatically. Subconsciously, our minds and hearts hate the tension of internal conflict, so they resolve it for us. That might look like justification, minimizing, excusing, willfully forgetting or overlooking things we know to be true, "prioritizing other things," blame shifting, victim shaming, or many other potential forms.
It's amazing the hoops that our minds will jump through to resolve cognitive dissonance. Unfortunately, the coping mechanisms we use to resolve conflict only work so well. And we can only jump through so many hoops before we start to become disoriented. We may start to FEEL that something is wrong that we can’t put our finger on, before we can see it clearly and understand why.
I would say that I felt deep, gut-level angst for close to 2 years before I felt the clear direction from God that it was time to leave full-time ministry. It's been about another 2 years since I walked away from that ministry position. I would say I spent 12-18 months regularly processing and trying to make sense of what happened and what I was supposed to do about it.
I still haven't fully resolved the tension, and I don't know that I ever will. I share that to say 1) maybe you’re in that lengthy process, too. I get why it feels complicated and confusing. And 2) this process takes time. You don’t have to rush it or put pressure to find a finish line on a certain timeframe.
If you love the church and want to be a part of the solutions to the problems you're seeing, but you're feeling a deep, gut level angst that is hard to explain... it may be because you've subconsciously jumped through some hoops, which is making it hard to see clearly. This isn't true of everyone, but it may be worthy of prayer and consideration.
Reason 4: There May Not Be a Villain in the Story
Humans are naturally story-driven beings. We find comfort and clarity in stories. And when we experience trauma, confusion, or disorientation, one of the ways that we commonly try to take back control and find clarity is to tell a story. Most of the time, stories have heros, villains, and victims. It can be comforting to try to make sense of your situation by writing a story in your mind - placing yourself and the other people in your situation into those categories to try to make sense of them.
We are fighting a spiritual battle, not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). Sometimes there is a clear human in the story who functions as a villain, as well. But not all church hurt comes from the hand of an immoral villain who is lurking in the shadows with evil intentions and a hairless cat. Many times (maybe the majority of the times), church hurt comes at the hands of well-intentioned people who think they're doing the right thing.
In my own journey, I think that was one of the most disorienting parts of trying to name and heal from my own church hurt. I believed that the people responsible believed with all their hearts that they were following Jesus and working hard to do what they felt like He was calling them to do.
And yet, I still felt chewed up and spit out by the machine of the church.
There is a word that I found freeing and clarifying in my journey: NEGLIGENCE. A dictionary definition for negligence is, "failure to use reasonable care, resulting in damage or injury to another."
It is possible for you to have experienced hurt at the hands of people who had great intentions. And maybe they should have known better or done better, but they didn't. Wounding caused by negligence instead of willful abuse is still wounding.
Human villains and evil intentions are not a prerequisite for what you've experienced. And the absence of them doesn't excuse the pain of what you've gone through.
Reason 5: Social Pressure and Fear of Loss
Tribalism is so rampant in the Church - implicit or explicit messages of who to listen to without question and who is wrong that can't be trusted. Even in our local churches, there are terms that are often subtly weaponized to distinguish the good guys and bad guys. Terms like unity, trust, alignment - being "all in." The last things we want our spiritual community or leadership to say about us would be terms like discontent, questioning, doubting, mistrusting, or out of alignment. Conformity, obedience, and trust in leadership are such high values in our church hierarchies.
But what if I start to have doubts? What if I have questions about why we do what we do? What is the right avenue for me to bring my doubts about our discipleship model? Our church structure? Or God-forbid, our leaders?
If I start asking questions, am I going to lose trust? Lose friends? Lose my job?
When we place such a high value on conformity, it discourages critical thought and questioning. Not only does that stifle creativity, innovation, and improvement - it stifles healthy questioning and processing of what we're experiencing. It pushes people toward wearing a mask, rather than being real.
I've seen and felt the pressure within churches, especially church staffs, to not question, not step on toes - just keep smiling, praising the church and its leaders, do your job, and keep up the status quo.
It can be scary to feel like you're stepping out of line with that paradigm. It can incite fear of what you might lose - respect, prestige, social standing, relationships, opportunities, money - especially for people whose jobs and paychecks depend on their alignment to the mission and systems of the church.
Reason 6: Your Normal Support System Doesn't Get It
You can't do life alone. We all need people around us to support us, pray for us, be our sounding boards and voices of wisdom. We tell people to do it all the time - get into circles, go to your small group, talk to voices of wisdom in your life.
Here's the problem... they probably just don't get it. Unless they’ve been in lock step with you all along, (and maybe even still), they’re probably in a very different place than you.
On my journey, I took the steps I would normally take in life to lean on my support system, but the responses were different this time. When I would talk about questions, doubts, experiences I had had, things that I thought the church needed to address - instead of leaning in and supporting me, people leaned away. I started to find that being vulnerable and open about what I was dealing with wasn't drawing people in, it was turning people away.
I don't blame them... I probably would have had a similar response before I had gone through it myself. What I was saying was hard to hear, and I was probably creating cognitive dissonance in them, too.
What I had hoped would lead to more support and tighter community was actually leading to isolation and feeling like I was alone. That nobody understood or cared where I was coming from. That they would rather stay happy inside the system that I felt had chewed me up and spit me out.
That alone was a painful realization. I started to sense a growing divide with people who I loved dearly, and thought I was doing life with. At times, it even created tension in my marriage, as we saw the situation and processed it so differently. I sensed that some of those closest relationships were growing colder, and we had less and less in common.
I think deep down I knew it would happen, and that’s why I tried to keep the lid on my real thoughts for so long.
So then where do you turn, when your unchurched friends (if you have any), can’t relate and don’t care? And your churched friends can’t or won’t relate and aren’t equipped with their normal sound bytes of wisdom? Who helps you make sense of what you’re thinking when you don’t have your normal sounding boards to help you make sense of things?
No one is made to handle this type of pressure on their own, but there just aren’t many people or resources available to help you at this critical moment in your life and walk with Jesus.
So I could see two ditches that it would be very easy to fall into.
On one side, you could just stop talking about it, go back to burying it, start smiling again, and fake it. Stay put inside the institution, or go back to another church, if you walked away. Bury your true self under layers of inauthenticity, platitudes, and loyalty to the institution.
On the other hand, you stay true to who you are, but lose faith in the church, and potentially Jesus. Walk away from spiritual community. Just work on your own individual walk with Jesus, or don’t. Seek community in other places, or keep your distance from people in general, after what you’ve experienced.
I don’t believe that either one of those ditches are a healthy response. But it’s not clear for most people what other alternatives there are. That’s one of the reasons why I started writing here. Because I wanted to find another way. A healthier response, where we can still walk with others and spiritual community, without having to deny what we’ve experienced in the church. To work together to find a more faithful way forward, and to help others at that critical moment of decision in their walk with Jesus.
I pray that these posts and resources help you see that you’re not alone. Other people see what you see and have experienced similar things. That there are other ways of thinking about spiritual community, and healing from the pain that you’ve experienced. It is possible to find healing and restoration. And I believe that God is changing the paradigm for his church in America. I want us to be a part of creating better, healthier, more fruitful ways of being the church, together.
Starting the Healing Process
I’m sure we could keep listing off reasons why it’s hard to talk about Church hurt. And maybe we will in a future post. But for now, let’s start to lift our eyes up and look at some ideas for how we can try to cultivate healing in our process
Let us know in the comments how this post hit you. Maybe share with a friend you think this might help. And check out the next post on ideas for starting the healing process!
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