Ouch - Sometimes Church Hurts

I’m growing in my concern at the abuse of power within the Church at the moment. I’m frequently and consistently seeing “leaders” exert control over their congregation, telling them how to worship, what to wear, what God is calling the individual to do and worse in some cases. I’d like to say this is happening in all the other churches, and not The Salvation Army, but sadly, there are corps that are just as bad as every other church. So, having experienced some level of control, and abuse of power, and now seeing it for what it is, I thought I’d share some insight into some warning bells I’ve learned to watch out for…

1. Your church leaders have a very clear vision for what the church is involved in, but you have a nagging feeling that they are more concerned with building their own kingdom, not genuinely turning people toward God’s Kingdom. How can you tell? Well if numbers and “stories” (as in something to use to prove what a good church you are) are more important to them than the pastoral care and spiritual development of their flock…there’s a problem. Naturally a healthy church is one that is constantly growing – but if the growth does not extend beyond conversion, and people start to drift away, chances are, you’re church is not healthy.

2. If you leave church on Sunday and you do not feel uplifted and ready to serve God in your every day life, then there is a problem. Naturally a good sermon challenges and convicts you, but if you feel condemned or burdened when you leave, then your church is failing in it’s calling to edify the spirit of the believers and encourage them to go out and serve God. Remember – Jesus calls us to come to Him when we are weak and burdened and He will give us rest. He says “Come to me all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear and the burden I give you is light” (Matt 11:28-30)

3. When your leaders start dictating to you (a) what you should or should not wear on a day to day basis (b) how you should spend your personal time (c) how much finance or time to you should give to the church and finally (d) who you should and should not be friends with or cutting out family members from your life. This is a really tough one because this is often pretty subtle, and it’s not necessarily easy to measure whether the leaders have overstepped their boundaries and spiritual responsibility. Obviously there are times when we need to be challenged on some of this stuff. If we are deliberately dressing provocatively (and by that I mean, that we purposely choose outfits to entice the opposite sex) to worship, that’s a problem. But that does come down to the motive. Also, we should spend time in fellowship with our church friends, but when that is constantly and consistently at the expense of spending time doing other things we enjoy, that’s a problem. Also, naturally we are called to tithe to “God’s storehouses”…that doesn’t necessarily mean YOUR church. I know many people who tithe over 10% to missions and to ministry projects all around the world… but if your church is insisting on over 10% of your money, you need to question why. Also, no person has the right to tell you who you should allow into your life and who you should not. If you are being told to cut people out of your life because they “don’t get the mission”, and if your church feels that they are more important than the family God gave you…we have problems here.

4. When you are told who to marry or who not to marry – or if you are told to leave your husband/wife by your church pastors – not on the grounds of physical/emotional/sexual abuse, but because he/she is not who the church deem fit for you to marry… I think this is self-explanatory.

5. Your church preaches hate/dislike/prejudice from the pulpit. Jesus came to love the unlovable. Jesus showed grace. Any preacher/pastor/leader who tells you that it’s okay to hate anyone from any other faith/race/sex or anything else, is not preaching the grace of Jesus. It’s really quite as simple as that. Love the sinner hate the sin. Jesus says though “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged” (Matthew 7:1-2) Let’s face it, there are some things that are really hard not to get judgemental about. I think I’m almost a woman of grace…I say almost because my grace is given freely to my friends and family who do not know Jesus, but I struggle at times to show grace towards judgemental Christians – which is just as bad as what they are doing. In fact, just last night I was talking to somebody quite dear to me about the Westboro Baptist Church (incidentally did anyone watch that documentary last night…man I just couldn’t believe half the stuff I heard!) and how “my grace just does not extend that far”…thankfully, God’s does. Showing grace does not mean you are okay with the sin. It just means that you believe that the convicting, is God’s job. We are merely called to love God and Love others (hey 2Love – what a great name for a youth department, eh Dave?! haha)

6. Naturally – physical abuse of any sort should not be tolerated… if your pastor or leader has physically harmed you – GET OUT!

7. They preach that your church is “better” than others or that “other churches don’t have what we have” or that “God blesses our church more than others”…dangerous dangerous ground. You begin to believe it, you get caught up in the vision, and at the end of the day – it’s just a lie. The Church is the bride of Christ – nobody should diss Christ’s bride…that includes the church down the road, the other denominations, and even other Corps or churches of the same denomination. We are all called to be different, each denomination/church/corps is called to be unique in it’s outworkings of service to God. No two churches should be the same. But just because my church offers this, and that church offers that doesn’t mean either of us is “better” or “more blessed” than the other one.

8. Finally – if you have started to feel that little gut feeling that things in your church or things with your leaders are “just not right” and you start to look elsewhere for another church…and you get challenged about leaving… or if you are called to go elsewhere for whatever reason (ministry/job/marriage etc), and your church do not want to release you… you’ve got big problems. People stepping into their calling, or people finding a place where they are going to better serve and connect with God, is something to celebrate, not control.

There are probably a million other warning signs, these are just the ones I’ve either experienced or have spoken to friends who have experienced…many of our stories, though from different denominations and churches… have had many common elements in the outworkings of the abuse of authority and control put down upon us. All of us have bought into the lie that we either did something to deserve this, or that we were just not Godly enough, or that we had bought about spiritual warfare upon the place, or worse still – that God will punish us for going against the church. We’ve all left feeling as though it was our fault. The flip side of that is that many of us remain in our churches (not me - I got the heck out of there the second someone helped open my eyes to the reality of my situation!) because we “don’t want to jump ship” or “don’t want to lose our friends or community” or “can’t change something from the outside”. And we continue to fall deeper and deeper into a spiral of lies and are stripped further of our worth.
No finally – I need to say that yes the bible does say to respect those for whom have been given spiritual authority…we are to respect our leaders. But that does not mean that we need to stay somewhere we are going to be damaged and abused.

Within the last 2 years, I have met so many of you out there, who just like me have been abused by your church, your pastors or your elders. It strips you of your worth and that my friends is not biblical. The church is supposed to edify and strengthen you – to equip you for ministry in the world. If your church is not doing that, you need to find a church that will before it’s too late and you lose your faith…and that my friends, breaks God’s heart.