My doctoral project was to determine if coaching would benefit bivocational pastors. I coached six pastors across the US and Canada for three months. My dissertation was a record of the coaching calls and the changes that took place in the lives of those I coached. In addition, each person had to write a two page report on how the coaching impacted his or her life, and that report was included in the dissertation. The dissertation later became The Art and Practice of Bivocational Ministry: A Pastor's Guide published in 2013.
One of my favorite pastors I coached during that project was a woman who pastored a small church in a small community out west. During one of our sessions I asked her what she would most like to do as a pastor. She hesitated to answer at first because she said no one had ever asked her that question. Finally, she said she would like to be able to minister to persons who had been hurt by the church in the past. I laughed and told her if she found a way to successfully do that her little church wouldn't be small for very long because she would find a lot of people who have been hurt by the church. The remainder of that coaching call was spent discussing how she might begin such a ministry.
Unfortunately, it's not difficult to find people who have been hurt by the church. We have a well-earned reputation of shooting our wounded. Too often, the church hurts others rather than offer them healing. In heated meetings we speak hurtful words to one another. We ridicule the ideas or suggestions of others. We let people fall through the cracks to the point that they believe the church doesn't care about them. We try to tell people how to live their lives when we have no idea of the things they are dealing with. In one church a single mother of four young children began attending services. After being there about six months a couple approached her one Sunday after the service and began telling her all the things they thought she was doing wrong in raising her children. She never went back. When someone from the church finally asked why she stopped coming she explained she had enough going on in her life without people telling her she was a bad mother. Sadly, these kind of experiences are not uncommon, and many people have left the church due to the pain the church caused them. I once met a woman who showed me a letter she had received from a member of the church she had attended also complaining about the way she was raising her children. She had received that letter twenty years before and still had it, and as she showed it to me and told me the story I could hear the anger that was still in her voice. Some of the wounds the church causes runs deep.
The church is not made up of perfect people. None of us has it all together. We need to learn to be patient with one another and respect the feelings of others. When I think of the patience God has with me I have no choice but to be patient with others. As I've said in sermons, church is not a hotel for saints but a hospital for sinners. It needs to be place where we all can find healing and instruction for our lives.
None of this is to suggest that we ignore sin in people's lives or that we become door mats that others are allowed to walk over. Certainly, we must stand for what is right, but we don't have to be mean or ugly about it. We don't have to trample over people's feelings.
Life is tough with lots of challenges. The church should be the one place where we can work together to help one another get through those tough times. We should look to heal and not add to the pain and difficulties in the lives of others.
If you are reading this and is someone who has left the church because of the pain it caused you, consider coming back. As I wrote above, the church is not a perfect place. Most of the time when we've hurt someone it wasn't done intentionally. A family left the church I pastored over a hurt caused by a group in the church. I went to visit the family and encouraged them to not let that hurt keep them from church. I suggested if they couldn't return to our church to find another one to attend because we all need a church. They did find another church and attended there for years. I then explained to the group that caused the pain what they had done. They didn't realize the damage their actions would cause, and it never happened again while I was pastor there.
Find you a good church and allow God to bring healing to your hurts. Life is too tough to try to get through it without the support of a church who loves God and will love you.
No comments:
Post a Comment