Grace and Bearing Witness: An Examination of Church Hurt

Have you ever wondered what the line is between being gracious and being honest? 

When we have experiences where something has been done to us that is hurtful...wrong...how can we share our stories while not throwing the other party under the bus? 

It is never my intention to hurt anyone. And at the same time, it is sometimes necessary to share our stories, even if someone else plays a role in it that isn't very flattering. How can I share my story honestly while still being gracious to everyone involved? 

My experience of church started at birth. My parents were church planters in a South American country at the time of my birth. I grew up in the church. My parents moved on to pastor a church in what became my hometown, where I grew up from Kindergarten to Grade 12. My earliest memories of church were of safety. Of family. Of friends. Of a loving God and of beauty and of peace.

I went on to marry a pastor straight out of Bible college. My first married experience of church was fairly different. We were in a community where we knew nobody. Though there were many lovely people in that community - many of whom are still friends - the church experience was one of feeling alienated and judged. It took a long time to work our way in. I would argue that we never really did that very well. To be sure, not everything on our end was done perfectly (we were 19 and 22 when we started there). But we trusted the church leadership as people older than us with more experience and didn't realize that our experience could have been better. We parted ways after four years, not recognizing at that time just how much those years would affect us going forward.

In our second pastoring community, we were in an amazing church - we are still friends with many of the people from there. The leadership within the church was solid, and we felt supported. Here is where we started to recognize some of the trauma and unhealth of our first pastoring experience. We would get tense whenever Nathan went into meetings and it only dawned on us a couple years in what was going on. After our first church being so fickle, I was never sure if Nathan would have received a threat that his job was on the line or that it had been pulled out from under us if there was a disagreement. I would ask Nathan after almost every board meeting if he still had a job. This second church was so good about supporting us and having our backs...fighting for us and standing with us. The church wasn't perfect. We had a hard time making our way into it socially as well. But as far as a place to work, it was amazing, and we started to learn that church leadership can be trusted after all.

We are now living in our third pastoring community. We were intrigued about the pastoral opportunity here for years before we actually applied. We weren't looking for a change when we first heard about the job. But to our surprise, the opportunity was still there a couple years later when we were ready to apply. They hadn't found the right person yet. The position was for someone to give leadership to a new way of being the church in a brand new faith community that was being formed. Nathan has always been a dreamer, someone who loves to think about the possibilities, and we had both been longing for change in the way of doing church for many years. Long story short, we applied, were offered the job, and moved to start the position a few months later.

Old trauma kept rearing its head in this new position, and I would often ask Nathan after meetings if he still had a job, especially if the meeting went late. He always assured me that he did, and talked about the support of the other pastors and church leadership. Our experiences in our previous community and in this one were starting to heal my distrust of church leadership, slowly but surely. Threats of firing and constantly being blindsided weren't the norm, and it was refreshing to be experiencing something different. We spent three beautiful years working with our faith community to give shape to something new, to contribute to the team, and growing in love and faith together. 

Enter the fourth year of ministry here. A long-time pastor resigned, at which point a transitional pastor was hired to help the church find a healthy place from which to hire a new lead pastor. While grieving the loss of our former pastor, we were hopeful about what was to come too. Our community was thriving and growing, and we had no plans to leave. We were still just getting started! 

Very quickly, it became apparent that what we thought was going to be a healing, supportive presence in the transitional pastor was actually more of a "pastor of change". While I, personally, was not in many of the meetings with him, I heard that he came in like a bit of a steamroller. Things were going to be done his way, and they were going to change fast. A program of transformation was being implemented, and you either needed to get in line, or get out of the way. There was no room for questions, no room for opinions, no room for leadership. Submission was the name of the game. 

Add to all of this conflict budget issues and stress was high for a few months last year. We continued to hear that our small faith community was the major financial draw causing the deficit for the governing institution. Nathan and I talked about it and decided that we would offer up our paid position with the institution for the sake of bringing the budget of the institution closer to balance. Our community, while growing, was not pulling its weight financially, so we thought we would help alleviate that pressure by surrendering our salary. Nathan found another job last summer and started working full time downtown in a sales role. 

That said, we felt that our time with our community was not nearly finished yet. To resign completely would have very likely been the end of our community, and we just didn't feel peace about walking away. We continued into our fifth year in our pastoral position dealing with incredible stress - church leadership things were getting more and more dire, and now we had less time and energy to pour into that side of things while still trying to provide leadership to our church community and now trying to provide for our family on the side. But despite the stress, we saw beautiful fruit coming from our community and were excited to press on. We knew things weren't ideal with leadership - how can they be when your voice is not respected or heard - but we thought we would continue to walk ahead. We couldn't imagine walking away from our faith community who had already experienced so much church hurt. 

On January 31, a meeting was scheduled with the church council (large institution) and our faith community's lead team to talk about ideas for some decision that were going to be made in the coming months. Nathan was asked to come half an hour early. We assumed council wanted to brief us on what would be talked about at the meeting before it started. With no warning, council informed Nathan that he would not be allowed to use his gifts in our faith community, effective immediately.

Our hearts stopped. We were blindsided. We had no idea that something like this was even on the table. After all those years of learning to trust church leadership again, our hearts were shattered. The reasons we were given for being fired did not hold. The timing made no sense. The excuses didn't make sense. We were devastated. It was like a sudden death that should have been able to be prevented.

We had to tell our kids that Daddy was fired from leading our church and we didn't really know why. How do you talk to your kids about something like this without having them one day blame God for it? How do you lead your kids through a situation like this when you have no idea how to come to terms with it yourself?

It has been nine weeks since this happened. Now we know that:

- it still doesn't make sense and wasn't done well, but instead of fighting for justice, I just shake my head and move on

- our community has not left our side - our faith community is still our faith community

- those who know us best, love us and are walking with us

- we're meeting in homes now

- I feel incredible freedom from the church as an institution

- now that our paycheque and "permission" is not tied to an institution, it feels like we're out from under a controlling thumb

- it feels like there is more room for the Spirit

- I see more clearly than ever how broken the institution of churches tends to be in North America

- I'm not sure I ever want to go back to a "traditional" church and I'm not sad about it. I don't feel lost or scared or fearful. I feel confident that God is working and moving and creating something new and it feels SO GOOD. I feel more free than I've felt in years.

It still hurts that we were burned like we were. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time and brushed up against a broken system just doing its thing. But as I heal, I'm choosing to not look back and hate those who hurt us. It wasn't the people who hurt us. It was the system and the fear that those people are working from that left no room for anything else. I firmly believe there is fear and blindness within churches, and leading out of those things tends to hurt people.

I just keep looking to the life of Jesus through all of this. What was God's design for the church? Where two or three are gathered? Eating together? Sharing life together? Asking questions together. Learning and growing together. Not all agreeing about everything and still being in community? Producing good fruit in our communities together. Yes. 

I ask, do our four-walled churches look like the Jewish temples with all their rituals and rules and policies and religion? Or are they open communities of faith, with room for everyone to seek Jesus together, have things get messy, and allow room for the Spirit to move? 

There can be pockets of true God-communities within traditional churches, for sure. Some of the most loving people I've met have been met inside church buildings. But I've also met such incredible, loving people who have been burned by churches, shunned by churches, told to get in line or get out (so they have gotten out) - and I can't just believe that they're wrong for leaving.

I'm not sure where I'm at with this all yet. Part of me just wants to kiss Christianity goodbye and not look back. There is so much blood in our past - and present. So many hurting people BECAUSE of us. How can I align myself with all of that? And yet I'm not ready to give up on God. I'm not ready to leave Jesus behind. Church, as God imagined it and wanted it, is a beautiful thing. The community we're doing life with is filled with beautiful people who love God and love others SO well. I am incredibly thankful for each of them. They are redeeming my faith when the institutional church just threw rocks at it, gunned it down, ran it over, and left it for dead. 

So how do I tell my story honestly, but also with grace? You can see that it's not a neat and tidy story. People have hurt us. Churches have let us down. I don't believe that those who hurt us did so intentionally. I choose to believe that they're just doing what the system has taught them. There is a great fear of questions, possibilities, and change within the church. I know, I used to be there. Not that long ago, even. 

But God is SO much bigger than all of that. I feel like I'm finally learning what "freedom in Christ" is. How big God truly is. How all-encompassing. There is such joy on this side, my friends. Such freedom. Such love. It's not scary on this side. Ask the questions. Examine what you believe. If it doesn't line up, don't be afraid to pick it apart. It won't collapse. God can handle it.

This life a journey. Faith is a journey. What I've written here is only a snapshot of where I am on April 6, 2023. A step along the way. Hopefully it encourages you that you don't need to be "landed" in a particular spot...a journey of faith is a-ok. Not knowing exactly what you believe and why is okay. God knows your heart and God can be trusted with it.