Have you or someone you know been hurt by someone in the church? Have you been left surprised, disappointed or felt betrayed by someone who you felt should know better? Have you or anyone you know stopped going to church because of how you were treated?
I am really sorry for how you have been treated, I am sorry if this experience has put you off church or put you off God. I felt that it may be important to look at this subject together with great sensitivity because I know that this is a subject many find difficult.
In the bible speaking of Christians (those who have asked forgiveness for sins and invited Jesus into their hearts and lives) the bible says that ‘we’ are the church – 1 Corinthians 12:27 “Now YOU are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it”. So in essence ‘the church’ isn’t a building as such but is supposed to be ‘the people’. Everyone has something to offer just like different parts of a body – 1 Corinthians 12
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
God laid out in the bible that we all have a part to play, there is not one person who is more ‘important’ than the other. Yes GOD laid it all out but we do all have free will we aren’t robots and unfortunately just as parents WE can tell our child not to be mean or bully and try to show them a good example, that child is still their own person and can either agree with what we are telling them or can run off and do what they want anyway, they think they know best, yes they still have our surname, people still see they are a part of us but sometimes the things our children do and how they treat others are not a true representation of their parents or their family values. Similarly a prestigious company wanting to be ethical in all areas can guide and lead their employees and colleagues as well as they can, but all it takes is for one employee to run off and do something really unethical and shocking in the public eye then all of a sudden the employer is tarred with the same brush, and the integrity that the company worked so hard to show others seems ruined in a moment, because the employee wasn’t being a true representative of what their boss stood for. People looking at that employee wouldn’t see an honest ethical company that he worked for, if anything they would tut and say “Well if he is connected with that place I want absolutely nothing to do with it!” The employer and leader is left hanging his head and wishing people only knew that this was never ever his intent for this to happen.
God is love. God never ever intends for us to be hurt by others, yet it does happen. In fact it does happen in all areas of life not just in the church, but somehow when it happens within the church it hurts more because we hold the church to a higher standard, we feel the people should know better, and you are right, they should. Saying that they are people and that they have free will does not excuse what they did to hurt you, but when we look at what ‘people’ really are it does explain a few things.
What are people?
There are people who all have baggage from their past experiences, are products of their environments, dealing with past traumas.
There are people who have discovered faith in God. They try to commit their path to God, they try to be aware of how they treat others.
There are people who struggle with the day to day but try to project an image of being God’s ambassadors to the world yet somehow their eyes aren’t on God but on themselves.
There are people who have come to a point of complete surrender to God and do things in His strength and value every person they meet, always aware that they learning and the importance of keeping God at the centre.
There are people who live double lives, hypocritical, unwilling to surrender all to God, controlling and manipulative.
There are people who value fellowship with other believers and love to worship and pray, very aware of the needs of others and their own needs.
People who aren’t perfect.
Broken vessels made whole.
People on a journey.
People who refuse to change their manipulative ways.
People who are such a blessing.
People who are self-centred.
People who are generous.
These are people. This is the world we live in and for many this is church.
The Christian Church is made up of so many different characters and personalities and people on so many stages of their journey. God has given us free will. Some people make church very complicated and some run it like a business and some keep to the simplicity of the teachings of Jesus.
The approach of Jesus when He was on earth was very simple and the Gospel is simple and powerful. Jesus sat with people from all walks of life and didn’t flinch when he compassionately touched the leper. He had a way of listening to all and not rejecting anyone, but all while He never compromised on His own beliefs and teachings. He showed it was possible to love a person and not love or agree with their lifestyle. He showed it was possible to love the unpopular and the unlovable. He saw the person not how they looked or treated him or others.
God wants the church to reflect Him. Loving without compromising. Being genuine.
The churches are run by people with free will. People who have their own ideas, agendas, ways of doing things and varied characters and backgrounds.
A friend once said to me “I don’t have a problem with God just His fanbase”, they were not saying that God has fans, they were saying that they didn’t have a problem with God but their problem was with Christians that they had met along the way who were hypocritical. I didn’t want this article to just include what I have experienced or heard but wanted to include the experiences of others. I have had a few people share with me their experience of church, some have been hurt and still attend or attend a different church, some no longer attend a church but hang onto their faith in God, for some their negative experience has changed their faith. Here are some extracts of their comments below;
“I left church due to legalism, control and manipulation amongst other things. I would say I still have some faith but think it looks very different to what it was.”
“Christians caused me to leave church but still have faith in God and now attend another church.”
“I don’t have things in common with people who go to church, I pray on my own terms and I don’t need an institution to do that in, I don’t need the social aspect in order to be a good person.”
“I get bored with the routine of church in a building and mans love of power. People get obsessed by leaders and eyes off God. I pray all the time. I meditate every morning with Him. I love God and depend on Him for absolutely everything”
“I am reluctant to go to church as my experience is that certain members of the church judge you if you look more like the secular world. God doesn’t judge us but people do. He looks at our heart and uses us to reach those out in the real world”
“I would say that it’s very easy to allow your view of God to be tarnished by people, the way they act and what they say. The issue is that people say and do things that they later may change their minds on. Perhaps it was a mistake or perhaps their understanding has changed, either way it can hurt people along the way. I’m sure I have said things or done things that have hurt people. My advice would be to treat those people/churches with the same forgiveness/grace that you would give yourself. And to always turn to the Bible for the truth. And also something that has kept me close to God is actually seeing and knowing that there are some many different ‘types’ of Christians and that we’re all just trying to understand Gods word and live a life that we think He would be proud of. The one thing that remains central to it all is that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and it’s that simple.”
“I have been hurt by people within churches and find unfortunately that many people leave churches because of people and not because of God. This I find particularly heart breaking but easy to understand – we are human, and humans get it wrong.
To those who have left the Church, I would encourage them to seek peers who they can be accountable to, especially if the hurt is still too great to consider returning to church or attending another. A few trusted godly people can help strengthen and challenge your faith. We are not designed to walk this road in isolation and I have found it to be much easier with friends alongside.”
It is not an easy job being a church leader. There are church leaders who tirelessly try to lead the Jesus way, they pray daily and commit their way to the Lord and do what they can, but again members of their congregation are people, not robots, they have free will, they are all products of their environment, they are all at different stages of their journey, and try as you might to do the right thing as a leader and help people you may well still encounter opposition from some members of your congregation. Galatians chapter 6 says 9” Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Some loved Jesus and were so grateful for His compassion, others hated Him and wanted to kill Him. English poet John Lydgate said “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”
We are the hands and feet of Jesus, it’s not an easy task, thankfully we are not alone.
Here are some experiences shared with me by those leading churches;
“One of the first songs I learned after becoming a committed Christian in my mid-teens included the line ‘I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back’. I sang it heartily then, and I meant it. But sadly, for too many followers of Jesus, turning back is now part of their story. For some it will be personal pain and devastating life problems that have impacted their earlier devotion. Certainly during my 22 years of chronic ill health and one of the most painful conditions known to mankind, turning back on my faith has been a daily temptation. Like the writer of the Psalms I have cried out many times, ‘how long, O Lord?’. But probably one of the most common reasons for a faith turnaround is the impact of other people on our own spiritual journey.
I faced this very early in my Christian experience when a good friend of mine became embittered by the way he had been treated by members of his congregation when his marriage went through a sticky patch. Stung by criticism, he walked away from the church, and I found myself saying ‘if that’s how Christians behave, then I am not sure I want to be part of this’. Then I read in John 21 how the risen Christ appeared to Simon Peter, telling him the kind of death he would later suffer in his determination to follow Christ. Pained by this knowledge, Peter pointed to the apostle John, and asked the Lord ‘what about him?’. Jesus replied, ‘what is that to you – just follow me’. I resolved that I would follow Jesus and not other Christians, or allow what other people do to dissuade me from serving God. In the words of the next verse of the song, ‘Though none go with me, still I will follow, no turning back, no turning back’.”
“I have learned to not put my eyes on people but to keep them on God. If people in the church hurt you remember you’re not answerable to what people say, you’re answerable to God. Keep your eyes firmly on the one that would never hurt you and forgive those who do. The most difficult thing to do sometimes is to not hold a grudge against them but treat them as if it didn’t happen.
If you are in a situation where those in charge are upsetting you or leading in a way that you don’t think they should be then meet with them face to face to see if you can be reconciled. Firstly go to the person who has done you harm. If they won’t listen to you ask for the elders, if they still won’t listen take it to the church ask for it to be brought up in church meeting. If it can’t be reconciled you have done all you can. Then agree to disagree, find a church that practices the word in love and not the law, find a ministry that is true to the word of God in love. Instead of giving up, seek to keep in touch with God through a ministry that preaches the word in love.” Matthew 18 15-17 – God lays out in these verses how to approach this situation.
I asked one Minister this question – “Have church people ever put you off the church? And how do you keep going with God despite people?”
Their reply was – “Yes massively! Most weeks in fact. I find people to be the most difficult and at the same time most beautiful part of being in the church community. I keep going by remembering that I’m part of that and likely put people off of church myself – so I’m part of the problem as well as the solution. I also try to remember that people aren’t God and though we’re made in his image we don’t always perfectly reflect him and so people’s responses and actions aren’t always indicative of God’s heart.”
God knows that in life we will come across these situations and he lays out in the bible how we are to deal with them. God doesn’t want us to be worried but he understands that at times we will which is why He tells us where we can put our burdens, on Him. God doesn’t want us to be hurt in the church but realises there will be times this may happen so lays out how we can try and be reconciled but that there may be a point when we have done what we can.
I heard this line recently – You are not called to criticise you are called to pray. Which reminded me of this verse – Romans 2.1says – ‘you therefore have no excuse you who pass judgement on someone else for at whatever point you judge another you are condemning yourself because you who pass judgement do the same things.’
I decided a long time ago that my faith in God and my belief in Him was nothing to do with Christians but purely to do with Him alone and what He has done in my life. In spite of Christians in the church who have upset me I am a Christian. In spite of things in the church that could have been handled better, my faith has never been stronger than it is today. Christians who are walking the walk and have come alongside me in my journey are like a breath of fresh air, so needed, so vital and so very important. In spite of Christians I AM a Christian because of God and what He has done in my life. Treating others the way Jesus would treat them is so very important, I believe that I wouldn’t be alive today if my birth mother was treated badly by the church, my birth mother who had no options or support and whose only real option in her pregnancy was abortion entered a church, if she had been treated badly and excluded she would have felt she had no choice but to sign that form, she had zero support, there was no other way that she could see. When she was loved by those in the church she encountered the love of Jesus and prayed and asked Jesus to come into her heart and life, suddenly she had support, she had fellowship, she had a Father. She then went on to consider adoption as a life for me which would have been very difficult to do without support. I am eternally grateful to God for the miraculous circumstances that have brought me here today, but since looking at this subject I am now also very grateful to those people in the church who my birth mum came across, those people who were being Christ’s representatives, those who were acutely aware of others and their needs and not just their own, I will never know who these people were but I remain grateful. They will never know that the way they treated others that day avoided a near death moment. God knows what is happening in the lives of those around us, He wants to be able to lead and direct us to be part of their journey in a positive way.
Tell God all about your hurts, pray to Him. He is ready and waiting with open arms to receive you.
“What a friend we have in Jesus all our sins and griefs to bear, what a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.” Hymn by Joseph Scriven
“Here is love vast as the ocean, loving kindness as the flood, where the Prince of Life our ransom shed for us His precious blood.” Hymn by William Rees
Turning to Jesus is as easy as saying “sorry, thank you, please” – “Sorry for the wrong things I have done” – “thank you for dying for me” – “Please forgive me and come into my heart and my life Amen”.
Don’t let people put you off God. Don’t let your experience put you off finding fellowship with other Christians. Romans 1:12 – That you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith”.
I pray that you find peace for the past and hope for the future.
Jo
© Fresh Bread and Faith – Jo Le Page
Fresh Bread & Faith 