How to understand and overcome your church hurts

If you’ve been a part of a church or any group, you’ve probably experienced hurt. Many of us have been there. Either someone has said or done something that was hurtful, has misunderstood or judged you, or has made you feel unwelcome. One of the saddest things about “church hurt” is that it is very common for us to generalize one or two people’s wrongdoings to the entire congregation, worse off to God. We can especially generalize when the person is someone we highly respect or a leader in the church. It can make us keep our guard up, which interferes with our relationships with others and ultimately our relationship with God.

Why do church hurts cause so much pain?

Doesn’t it seem to feel worse when we are hurt by our fellow church members? Why do you think that is? I believe it’s because we create assumptions about church goers that we don’t even realize we have created. Thus, when things go awry, we feel horrible. Here are some assumptions we may have about fellow Christians:

We believe that when people become believers, they automatically become sinless people who should know what is right and do it; maybe it is our glamorization of what it means to be “saved” as meaning you become perfect
We come to church with hopes that people in here will be different from people out there, so when they let us down, we feel extremely disappointed
We may experience church as great initially, but the more time we spend in the community, we began to notice that people are a mess and things are not perfect in here
We have classified some people as “holier” than others or they have classified themselves as such, hence when they do something wrong, it stings a little more
Some of us believe that the church truly is family, so we open up and we share the intimate parts of us, but sometimes we are misunderstood, or our problems are minimized or worse off they are used against us
Sometimes we can see our church issues and we want things to get better now but change seems to be moving too slowly
Every church has a culture; maybe we are having culture clashes, or we are changing in ways that are different from our church culture

You can probably add to the list (feel free to do so in the comments below).

We cannot discount that sometimes as Christians we project an ideal of perfection unto our brothers and sisters. We demand that they say the right thing and do the right thing all the time. We want them to “have it all together,” which leads to us being judgmental when they do or say things that are non-Jesus-like. We can even be so self-righteous about it that we become the same thing that we hate but in the opposite direction.

Additionally, it can be difficult for us to allow others to go through their sanctification process. We would rather them follow “the rules” than admit their issues.

A major reason why people are hurt is because they don’t feel safe enough to be a sinner in the church. I am not talking about people who don’t want to repent but want to live however they feel and call themselves Christians (that’s a different story for another time). I’m talking about people who are truly fighting to be transformed but who are human fighting flesh and Spirit. I’m also talking about people who are struggling with mental challenges like depression, anxiety, trauma, etc who need some support. We find it hard to suffer with people, so we show them scripture and walk away feeling happy with ourselves that we have done our part.

So how do we begin to move forward from our church hurts?

Correcting our understanding of church is a good place to start.

We are human and flawed in and outside of the church. In case you haven’t realized, half of the New Testament was written to address issues in the church, which tells you that current church problems are not new. In fact, the whole Bible is full of “craziness” by people whom God called righteous. People deceiving, lying, stealing, killing, you name it, to have their way. God did not condone any of it and others were hurt by these wrongdoings, but those who acknowledged their wrong and repented were given grace.
We are saved by grace, yet we are still sinners. The main difference is that our sin is no longer being held against us and we are being transformed to look more like Jesus. But until Jesus returns, we will be sinners. This is not heaven! We are imperfect beings.
Just because one or two people did you wrong, doesn’t mean everyone in the church thinks that way. And just because humans did you wrong doesn’t mean God condones it.
No one is beyond reproach. In Galatians 2:11-21, Paul called out Peter, correcting him for acting inappropriately. If he was so concerned about Peter’s status as one of Jesus’ closest friends and an apostle, he wouldn’t have done that and in public and included it in a letter to a church. This shows that both of them were humble enough to speak and listen to each other regardless of their roles in the church.
Our primary authority in the church is God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). We all have different roles, but no one is greater than the other. Actually, Jesus said the least will be the greatest. Your pastor or minister is not better than you, they have a different role than you do, but we are all part of the same body and the head of that body is Jesus.

That being said, I’m sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry they hurt you. Please forgive them for the wrong they caused you, if not for their sake but so that you can move forward. Forgiveness is not always easy, that’s why my next post will focus on steps to forgiveness. In the meantime, read this post I wrote on forgiveness. And stay tuned for the next two week’s posts on being on either side of forgiveness – the one who needs to forgive and the one who has done the wrong.