Award Winning GENESIS SCHOOL OF MUSIC

➡️There is no hurt like church hurt, because churches are supposed to be a safe place – and church leaders should be safe people.  We have this concept that everyone who’s a part of a church should be acting like Jesus, but just because someone goes to church does not mean that they even know Jesus.  According to Matthew 7:22, someone can even be performing signs and wonders, and not make it into heaven, because they do not know God.  Jesus said the world will know us not by our signs and wonders, but by our love (John 13:35). 

Personally, I grew up in a small church where everyone knew each other, everyone looked out for each other, everyone seemed to have a genuine heart for the Lord. It was a very safe and healthy environment. However, when I was 22 years old, I was fresh out of college and I moved to a church in the Deep South. I had spent a weekend with the staff during the interviewing process, and I was excited about the move. The pastor explained to me all about the church, the size of the church, the atmosphere of the church, and the excitement of the student department, since that’s the world that I was going to oversee. However, when I arrived that summer, things weren’t quite the same as the picture that had been painted. But even more than that, “something” was in the atmosphere and I knew it was not right. After about six months, I started sharing with an older lady in the church, and she started crying and saying how I was right – something had happened at the church and it was sin.  No details, just confirmation. 

A couple of days later, during a staff meeting, I started sharing about some things that I was seeing and was feeling. The lead pastor, face extremely red, stood up and started accusing me of lying, saying horrible things about me, definitely raising his voice and saying how one day I would have to stand before God. It was an abusive, very hurtful situation. Within a couple of days I was asked to leave immediately. Within months after my move, there was a church split and an inappropriate relationship was uncovered. I was right, yet I was the one who was abused.  My biggest shock of that whole event wasn’t the pain of what I had experienced, but the heartbreak of something like that happening in the church. I had never seen anything like it. 

I truly thought people loved each other, they looked out for each other, and, like my childhood church, we were all working together to see God move in our small town.  For the first time, my eyes had been opened to a dark side of the church. 

Since then, I have been a part of some amazing churches, but I’ve also, probably like many of you guys, had a couple of other very painful experiences take place. So what do you do when you’ve been hurt in the church? Here’s four things:

1. Be honest before God – let him be your counselor.  In John chapter 14, Jesus is talking about how he’s getting ready to leave the world. He tells his disciples , in verse 16, “when I leave I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counselor to help you and to be with you forever.”  About two months later, the Holy Spirit was given on the day of Pentecost. He is our counselor. Before you go to anyone else, go to God. Be honest before God.  People are important, but there is no counselor like the Holy Spirit. John chapter 10 says that we can know God‘s voice, just like he knows our voice. Go to God.

1. Be still before God – let him be your defender.  Doing nothing is one of the best things, and yet the hardest things we can do when we experience pain.  Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.”  This is a call for us to trust in God, knowing that he sees it all and he’s in control – even when we don’t feel like he is.  Our biggest battle in any hurtful situation is never with the other person, but it’s with own own emotions, knowing that we need to be still in the middle of the battle – do nothing – and let God be our defender. 

1. Be careful where you land – let God be your Shepherd.  We need the church, and we need to be a part of a local fellowship; however, like I said earlier, just because someone calls themselves a Christian, and a church calls themselves a church, does not mean that they even know God. We’ve all seen people that call themselves Christians, but they do not act like Christ. Psalm 23 reminds us that the Lord is our Shepherd. He will lead us and take us to the right community of believers. We have to trust him with that.

1. One of my favorite promises in the Bible, found in Philippians 1:6: Be confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it” – let God be your healer.  We bring  our hearts to God, our pain to God, our disappointments and we let him finish the good work that he promised to complete. He is faithful and he will do it. 

That’s in the Bible and the Bible is always right!

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