Church Hurt—the Worst Kind of Hurt

My Church Hurt

(part 1)

“You’re not qualified to serve as an elder,” Jeff’s statement just kind of hung there. My heart seized up, my throat tightened, a sinking feeling wrenched the pit of my stomach.

“You’re not qualified, and we should both step down as elders, disband the church, and join Family Baptist Church, coming underneath the headship of their elders. I’ve spoken with a mentor, prayed about it, and Charity and I both feel like this would be for the best.”

Time froze. I didn’t know what to say. It was over. His matter-of-fact tone and neutral, almost pleasant expression betrayed the fact that this man, this brother of mine, was ripping my guts out of my chest and stomping them into the worn-out carpet of our dingy fellowship hall.

Without a word, I got up and walked away, into the sanctuary and fell to my face before the Lord and wept as if I had never wept before, bitter tears, tears of betrayal and despair. It was over. For only the second time in my life, I asked God to kill me, to call me home.

I don’t know how long I lay there, but God let me live. After a long time, I got up and walked outside to figure out what to do next.

Welcome to church hurt.

A Pervasive Hurt

If you’ve been in the church, you’ve likely been hurt by the church.

I talk to countless people who’ve been wounded by the church. Many have left the church altogether, confessing that the church drove them away by hurting them.

Someone said something hateful about you behind your back–gossip. Or Someone said something hateful to your face—reviling. Someone said something untrue about you–slander. Someone betrayed you. A close personal friend turned their back on you, sold you out to another.

Even worse, someone put their hands on you, wielding influence over you, sexually manipulating and maybe even sexually assaulting you. Maybe it happened to you as a teenager or an impressionable young adult, but it happened. You’re crushed and you can’t understand why God would allow this to happen and how someone in the church could ever do such a wicked deed.

Regrettably, I subjected my own daughter to church hurt. As adult converts, my wife and I jumped into church life with both feet. We were there literally every single time the door was open with our three daughters. Dutifully, we dispatched our oldest to the youth group, unbeknownst to us at the time, a haven for licentiousness. Our church was a gigantic Southern Baptist church with a moderately affluent membership. The youth group was as cliquey as it could’ve been. Our daughter had always been somewhat of a misfit, struggling to find her place, and the youth group wasn’t it. They ostracized her, talked bad about her, made her feel unwelcome. One particular time, I walked over to the youth building to find her literally sitting on the floor in the back of the room while the other gleeful youth frolicked about. Her exclusion was palpable and visible. Still, we sent her. She’s been distant from the church ever since and I hope that she can forgive me for forcing this church hurt upon her.

But you know what I’m talking about.

The Pain of Church Hurt

“Et tu, Brute,” Julius Caesar gasped as he lay dying, recognizing his assassin, his friend Brutus. “And you, Brutus,” or “even you, Brutus?” expressing the dismay at being betrayed by a dear friend. Though this quote is from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and there is no record of the historical Caesar uttering such a phrase, you understand the sentiment.

The church is beautiful, the tangible and visible expression of the collective individual salvation of men. The church is a grace, a blessing. The church is the hands and feet of Christ in the local community. It is the bride of Christ, magnificent in its splendor, breaching borders and boundaries, spanning cultures and continents.

I love my brothers-and-sisters-in-Christ and cannot imagine my life without the church. The church is to bear one another’s burdens, support one another, be there for one another. As Paul writes,

If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. (1 Corinthians 12:26)

But, it’s painful when it’s ugly.

When an enemy punches me in the face, it hurts, but I can manage. I expect it. When a brother punches me in the face, betrayal exacerbates the pain. This man should not be the one punching me in the face.

My Church Hurt (part 2)

I walked outside, still in a daze and did the only thing I could think of, I called my bride. And right there, in my hour of need, the Lord sent me the grace of the unconditional love and support of a great woman of God. “It’s over,” I groaned as she answered the phone.

“What? Baby, what are you talking about?”

“It’s over. I’m not qualified. Jeff said we should disband the church.”

“Baby, come home, right now. Come home. I tried to tell you about him. I knew it. Don’t listen to this nonsense. You are a great man of God, the leader of this church. Come home, and let’s talk.” So, I went. Her righteous indignation began to stir my spirit. Was there still hope?

We went immediately to see my mentor and home-church pastor who quickly cleared his schedule for us. An hour later, as we sat in his office, I asked him point-blank, “Brother, if I’m not qualified to lead this church, please, please tell me.” He assured me that he would.

It was my previous porn addiction, that was the issue. I had been a lifelong pornography addict, but the Lord had healed me from that addiction four years prior when, under the prompting of the Holy Spirit, I confessed it to my wife. He healed me through obedience to His word, and I will never stop proclaiming the glorious riches of His grace. I talk openly about it because it’s highly likely you are a consumer of pornography, and I want everyone to know that God is good, and that God heals, and that it is possible to not look at pornography.

I confessed it to the elders, fulling expecting and willing to be asked to step down. They didn’t. They chose to keep me on board. Should they have? I don’t know. Maybe not, but as my mentor pointed out in our meeting, “We don’t get to make that decision. They did!”

I had been obedient to the Spirit in confessing, had been granted true repentance, and yes, my wife and I were still, even four years later, wrestling with the impacts, but we were truly in new and uncharted territory, in a good way. Slowly, ever so slowly, I began to regain my senses. My grief began to fade, glimmers of hope emerged.

We headed home.

The very next day, I sat looking at my Bible—I had to preach in two days—and did the only thing I could think of, I prayed and then picked it up and began to go over my sermon, to preach, to the walls of my bedroom where I wrote all of my sermons at a little desk, and as I preached, the Holy Spirit of God stirred up a fire in the pit of my soul. I was a preacher of the word of God! A fallible and sinful preacher, but a preacher nonetheless, and no man could take that from me. My spirit soared.

I called Jeff and requested his presence at the church the next day where I officially removed him as an elder and informed him that we would not be disbanding the church any time soon and he was welcome to leave and join Family Baptist Church, but that I would continue to preach the Gospel message right where I was until the Lord saw fit to remove me.

He acknowledged, we prayed, and he announced that he and his family were leaving the church effective immediately.

A Survey of Hurt

I surveyed a social media group for pastors and church leaders. “What is the most hurtful thing a church member has done or said to you?” There were 184 responses, responses that left me numb.

- My daughter colored her hair purple one time. One of the ladies called her a slut.

- Last week, I was called an “evil coward who is unfit to lead the church” because I asked a small group of people to be more gracious in disagreement. That was followed up by a “millennial snowflake” jab.

- Pastor, could I give you some money for a suit? That way, you'd look like a real pastor.

- A family joined our church shortly after their 16-year-old son was killed in a car wreck. On the anniversary of his death the husband was so distraught that he killed himself. The first words of “comfort” the preacher said to the grieving wife were, “You know he’s in hell now,” She never came back.

- Maybe not most painful, but definitely hurt: after a revival meeting, an attendee (and former member) asking the revival preacher if he could come and be the preacher...while I'm standing right next to him.

- A deacon asked another deacon, "When do you think was the last time you heard a ‘spirit led’ sermon? Because I can tell you that you haven't heard one at this church for a while."

- I had a lady say, "Pastor, that was your best sermon yet. You know you get better and better every week. You know before you know it you won't be half bad." She was serious when she said it.

- “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and get more involved,” the head pastor’s wife at our former church told me while I was dealing with severe postpartum depression/anxiety that led to borderline psychosis.

- "There are plenty of dead churches around here looking for another corpse if you want to go somewhere else." - said after this person attacked my wife

- My 11-year-old son attempted suicide. When I reluctantly shared this with the deacon executive team, the vice-chairman said, “My wife and I knew there was something wrong with that brat.”

These were just a sampling of the more egregious responses, but they betrayed the collective heart of men seeking to minister to and care for those who hurt them greatly. Their grief was palpable. Every year, thousands of pastors walk away from ministry. Do you not think that wounds inflicted by the sheep contribute to the exodus of shepherds?

My Church Hurt (part 3)

Sunday was tough.

I summoned the men of the church before service and informed them of what had transpired. They were shocked. I’ll not soon forget the sight of Mr. Nigel, my bear-of-a-man deacon openly weeping at our brother’s departure.

I preached that day with a fire, a vigor that perhaps had been lacking. As service ended, I afforded Jeff the opportunity to address the congregation, reading a prepared and screened statement. I sat nearby at the ready, poised to pounce if he veered off script. I had a brachial stun to his carotid artery preplanned. He’d go down like tissue paper, I was sure. He stayed in bounds.

Afterward, our entire congregation gathered around him and his family, laid hands on him, and prayed the Lord’s hand of blessing upon him. He walked out that day—my brother, my friend, my co-laborer in the faith—he walked out, and I have not seen or heard from him since, over two years later.

He got in one last jab, over social media. No one else noticed, just me. That may have been what hurt most. I typed up a heated response…and in a moment of wisdom, deleted it.

Following the service, I fled to the playground outside the fellowship hall. I turned and beheld perhaps the most wondrous sight I’d ever seen, the congregation following me. Silently, they approached me and gathered around me and began to love on me as I wept, words of affirmation, the warmth of their embrace. They wept with me, grieving my grief, mourning that which had been broken. In that instant, the most beautiful moment of my ministerial life, God began to heal up the festering sore on my soul, the tears of the saints watering my dried-up spirit.

I am wrecked by His grace

Fallout

I love the sovereignty of God. I lived it through this church hurt.

You’ve been hurt, maybe you’re still living it, maybe you’re still in the whirlwind, head spinning, wondering when it’ll stop, when the pain will end. Dear brother, dear sister, know this. Every single thing that happens was decreed from before the foundation of the world to afford the believer two things: 1) the opportunity to bring glory to God and 2) the opportunity to become more like Christ.

Three things happened:

1. On a whim, I enrolled in a master’s level preaching course at Southern Seminary, some saw-sharpening. Here, the great expositors of God’s word from the past fanned my Gospel passions to heretofore unseen heights. I no longer maintain a single shred of doubt. I am one thing, a preacher of the word of God, and forever I’ll proclaim the riches of His glorious grace.

2. My wife and I truly cleaved. She ministered to me in my greatest hour of need and since this time, we’ve drawn ever closer. I can truly say that we share intimacy now. How do I know? She testified to that very fact just this year as we gave OUR testimony at a marriage event concerning my pornography addiction and the Lord’s grace in healing us.

3. My love and trust of the Lord grows without bounds. Our congregation continues to steadily grow, in spirit and in number. He has dispatched not one elder to replace Jeff, but five, along with three deacons, great men of God whom I love and cherish greatly.

He is faithful and true.

I wonder about Jeff sometimes. Does he ever think about me, our church? Does he miss us? Does he regret anything? At times, my heart yearns for justice, for vindication. I want him to know how wrong he was and how much he hurt me, but then I dismiss these feelings and offer up some prayers. I pray that he finds all that he is looking for. I used to fantasize about that brachial stun, if I ever saw him again, but now, I’d probably just give him a hug and tell him that I love him and missed him and that I pray the Lord has been good to him.

You see, I never would’ve chosen this hurt, but I can see His hand all over it, and often, pain is our greatest tutor.