Chapter Eleven — If a Church Has Hurt You

Dear friend, this chapter is for you if you have been wounded by a church, and are not sure whether to go back to any church, or when, or how.

Read it slowly. There is no deadline in it.

You are not alone, and you are not imagining it. Many people carry wounds from church.

Some were abused. Some were shamed. Some were pushed out for asking questions. Some were betrayed by friends. Some watched a church they loved fall apart over a scandal or a split.

You are not the only one. Many have carried this, and some of the counting is at the back.

If you were hurt by a church, you have company. That does not make the hurt smaller. It means your wound is not proof that something is wrong with you.

God is near the brokenhearted. Before anything else, hear what Scripture says to the wounded.

"The Lord is near the brokenhearted; he delivers those who are discouraged."

— Psalm 34:18 (NET)

"He heals the brokenhearted, and bandages their wounds."

— Psalm 147:3 (NET)

Isaiah described the Servant of the Lord this way: "A crushed reed he will not break, a dim wick he will not extinguish" (Isaiah 42:3, NET). Matthew says that was Jesus (Matthew 12:20).

The Lord is not like the people who hurt you. He does not snap what is bent. He does not put out what is barely burning.

He is the shepherd Ezekiel promised, who said, "I will seek the lost and bring back the strays; I will bandage the injured and strengthen the sick" (Ezekiel 34:16, NET).

And Jesus' own invitation was addressed to exactly the people religion had worn out:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry."

— Matthew 11:28–30 (NET)

If the yoke you were given at church was heavy, it was not His.

Grief is allowed. You may need to grieve. Not only the hurt, but the loss: of a church, of friends, of the trust you had, of the person you were before.

Lament is a form of prayer, and many of the Psalms are laments. The writer of Psalm 55, quoted in Chapter Eight, told God exactly what his friend had done.

You may do the same. God can hear it.

Healing takes time, and help. Wounds from church can touch the deepest places a person has, because they are tied up with God.

Many people need help to untangle what was done to them from what God is like. A counselor who understands harm in religious settings can help. So can a pastor from a different church, or a friend who listens without needing to fix.

Do not try to heal alone, and do not let anyone rush you.

If it was your child who was hurt, your grief is real too. Get help for yourself, not only for your child.

Trust is rebuilt slowly. You may not be able to trust a church, or a pastor, or a group of Christians, for a long time. That is not a failure.

Trust should be earned, and it is earned slowly. When you are ready, you can let it be earned again, a little at a time.

If you still feel guilty. Some of you left years ago and still feel it, on a Sunday morning, or when an old hymn plays.

Hear this. Guilt is not always the voice of God. Sometimes it is the voice of the place that taught you to fear leaving it, still speaking after you have gone.

If our conscience condemns us, John wrote, "God is greater than our conscience and knows all things" (1 John 3:20, NET).

If there is a real sin, confess it to Him, and He is faithful. If there is not, you may set the weight down.

Leaving that place was not leaving Him.

Returning, or not yet. Some of you want to know: must I go back? Here is where a verse is often used badly.

Hebrews says, "not abandoning our own meetings, as some are in the habit of doing" (Hebrews 10:25, NET).

It was written to encourage believers to keep meeting together, and the verse just before it is about how to "spur one another on to love and good works" (Hebrews 10:24, NET).

It was not written as a club to beat the wounded back into the pew. The meeting it protects is one that spurs people on to love. A meeting that crushed you is not what it means.

And Jesus said, "where two or three are assembled in my name, I am there among them" (Matthew 18:20, NET).

You are not under a deadline. You do not have to walk back through any door this Sunday.

When you are ready, and not before, know that you were made for a family, and that the family of God is larger and kinder than the part of it that hurt you.

When you are ready, start small: a friend who prays with you, a small group, a quiet service where no one will put you on the spot. Let the Shepherd bring you in at your own pace.

"I will not abandon you as orphans, I will come to you" (John 14:18, NET).

The God who runs. Jesus told a story about a son who left home.

When the son came back, "while he was still a long way from home his father saw him, and his heart went out to him; he ran and hugged his son and kissed him" (Luke 15:20, NET).

That son had left his father. You may not have left your Father at all. Leaving a church that hurt you is not leaving Him; He did not stay behind in that building.

But if you feel far from Him, He is watching the road. And He will run to meet you.