Church Hurt and Friends
What do you do when your friends continue to attend the church that did you dirty?
Church hurt isn’t a new thing. In fact, it has sadly become such a common trigger phrase that you likely won’t meet someone new trying out your church who hasn’t experienced some form of it. We can be quick to judge others’ church hurt based on how we have experienced church hurt ourselves. We can disqualify others’ pain and what they went through, especially if it doesn’t line up with how we would label it, had we been the one in their situation. Regardless, church hurt is real and is far too common.
The short of church hurt is when those attending, serving at, or working for a church are emotionally, mentally, spiritually, or physically damaged by those attending, serving at, or working for the church. Church hurt happens when those who should be trustworthy and caring are the opposite, to the very people they are called to shepherd and care for.
Personally, I have now experienced this at two churches in a row. The first, I worked at for six years. The second, I worked at for three years. In both instances, after being forced out, I realized the fallout was worse than the initial action — especially when it feels like I was pushed out the back door rather than being honored for the work I’d done for the church in my time there. In both instances, I have friends who vehemently disagreed with the actions done to me; friends who have had major issues with the way things were handled after the fact. I both have had friends who decided to leave the church — with the situations that happened to me being the final straw for them in a series of red flags that had been revealed over the course of time in the church — and I have had friends who don’t even consider leaving the church.
Of course, for the friends who don’t leave, I understand. Who wants to start over looking for a new church? I’ll say it: church shopping sucks. When you finally find community at a church, it’s a gift. This is part of what is can be so painful in these situations.
When you experience hurt with a church, after doing the hard work of building a community, it’s easy to feel like an outcast in that same community. Church hurt always affects friendships within the church. In mine and my husband Chad’s experiences, some friends have supported us, have asked us honest questions, have invited us into their homes and created room for our experience and pain to take up space. From some friends though, we haven’t heard a peep. We have been removed from their lives, without a word, because of what we’re guessing is a human capacity not able hold in tandem keeping their lead pastor and church community while investing in a friendship with us.
Even with the friends who have remained friends with us, it’s just different now. There’s this uncomfortable elephant in the room at all times, holding the immovable fact that either we all no longer have a church home because of what happened, or that one side of the friendship remains at the institution that caused the other side of the friendship harm. And since no friendship should be based off where church attendance is, there’s often an unspoken fight to maintain the friendship, despite the elephant. It’s an inner war for me sometimes to be around friends still attending the church and to hear about things going on there that remind me of the dysfunction I endured. It’s like, you don’t wanna tell those friends not to talk about church stuff around you, because you don’t want what happened to you to have enough power over your relationships to change them. You don’t want the leader who did you wrong to have any sort of “upper hand,” in that, now, not only has he single-handedly ripped away your community of a physical church, but now the effects of what he did are weaving their way into your friendships that remain.
But it does change things. It’s not that I believe I should be so important to everyone that my pain will call forth such a response of empathy from others. In fact, I often feel guilty for feeling any pain whatsoever that my friends still attend the church and choose to trust a leader who can do what he did to me.
But it still hurts.
Have you been here?
So what do we do?
I have 3 suggestions.
1.) SURRENDER
Surrender to the Lord.
The Lord told me about a week before my unexpected termination that He would be taking me through a season of being misunderstood and learning His contentment in the midst of it. After I was terminated, there was no immediate announcement, and eventually only a small mention was made in a church email that only a few attendees read. The likelihood that the church thinks I left is a broad misunderstanding that I have to re-surrender to the Lord over and over again.
In continuing to lay down at the feet of Jesus the frustration, pain, and anger we feel, we can work through them and operate in self-reflection so as not to remain there. One of my favorite ways of doing this is writing in my prayer journal to the Lord how I’m feeling, how this or that situation made me feel, and let myself be okay with not being okay. This spiritual discipline helps me honor my emotions while not allowing them to sit on the throne of my heart. Instead, I’m letting God be in control over them. For every pain I feel, I write a truth of God’s Word to go with it. Not only is this stirring up my faith, it’s allowing the duality of my situation to exist, which helps me heal.
2.) FORGIVENESS
In surrender, forgiveness is vital — of yourself, in mistakes you may have made in your hurt, and of others. Also important is to remember that even those who have done you wrong are image bearers of God, and so, are worthy of honor.
Oof. That does not feel good to sit with toward the person who has positioned themself as my enemy. But it’s true. May we never forget that every person we encounter in this life, no matter how big a fool they may act, was created in the likeness of God. Which means we gotta surrender our selfish desires to make right the wrongs others do toward us and toward others. We’ve gotta surrender justice into the hands of the Lord, while being discerning with the Holy Spirit for what and where and how we move toward His justice for others.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean that relationships go back to the way they were before. It means we leave room for others to be human and not perfect. As unfortunate as it is, this means they are allowed to do us wrong. And we are allowed to be hurt, and to also forgive, because Christ first forgave us.
We don’t need to be kept in a prison of church hurt, with those who wronged us proudly or unknowingly holding the keys to our freedom. Church hurt can be part of our story, while not defining our story. You are strong enough to move past church hurt, because “greater is He Who is in you than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) Because of the One Who no church is a perfect representation of, you can forgive anyone and everyone.
God has given you everything you need to do so. The choice is up to you.
3.) ATTACK THE HURT
I’ve had to sit with the Holy Spirit and ask myself the questions, Why do these things, like friends remaining at the church, bother me? Why am I actually hurt? Is it because I’m believing the lie that my worth is somehow attached to these things or people, like others not “choosing” me over the leader or church that hurt me? Once I realized the lies I was believing in my hurt and where those lies were coming from, I asked the Lord to help me give people more credit than that: that their capacity to love me well doesn’t depend on where they go to church or whose pastoral leadership they’re under — and same for the other way around. If either way does depend on that, it might not be a friendship worth further investing in beyond a clarifying conversation anyway.
Why else am I actually hurt? Because it somewhat feels like the toxic leader of the church wins if the church doesn’t lose people. Left up to me? The leader of the church who did me wrong would be taught a lesson. Everyone would leave who has an issue with how he went about things, lest he never see the err of his ways nor learn from them and change before something worse happens to more people in the church. Left to me? Everyone would know the truth about what I went through, so as to warn them of the dangerous havoc that wolves in sheep’s clothing can wreak. Everyone would realize the church is no longer a healthy place for them either if that leader is still in place over them. My silent screams of “Don’t fall for it!” would be both discerned and heeded. Because, “if they only knew,” right?
But these are neither realistic nor helpful thoughts to linger on. The painful reality is, even when people do “know” only a fraction of the un-health they continue stepping into every Sunday, it’s not enough for them to then choose another place to worship on Sundays. Those people need community too. Also people are not to follow the person leading the church, but are to follow Christ. Since no person is perfect, no church is perfect. Which means, what has hurt me may not have hurt someone else in the same way. What may to me seem like a reason to leave the church may not be the right choice for someone else to leave.
Plus, vengeance is the Lord’s (Romans 12:19). Not mine.
So, in attacking the hurt and where it’s really coming from, I surrender my wanting God to be God in the way that I want Him to be in this situation. The Lord will run His Church how He sees fit ~ mistakes and broken people and all. God is able to work through the mistakes of people to still minister to those within the church. The Lord is gracious and kind with me. So I allow that for others, even those who have wronged me.
In this way, the wrong and hurtful leader doesn’t win. God wins. Which means I win.
Be real with what you feel. Be real with what you need. Don’t silence yourself just because the church or leader tried to. If anyone should be your advocate to you, it’s you. Don’t allow your pain and what you went through to become an idol that dictates what you do and how you respond. Forgive the sinful nature that comes out in others just how you would want to be, and forgive yourself. You have the strength of the Lord to sift through the pain down to what’s really going on. Seek therapy and talk to someone if that will help you process. Remember that the King of Kings is greater than anything we face and will work for your good what the enemy meant for evil.
Yes, even your church hurt.
What a God, huh?
Rooting you on in your healing journey! I’d love to hear from you if you found this useful. Connect with me online at @adaezenoelle or leave me a comment below to share your story!
