To Church or not to Church:

Do you want to be healed?

 

I stopped going to church the time when some church people hurt me to the point of no return.  I made a choice to forgive, yes.  However through this particular journey of forgiveness I had to realize that forgiveness is a process.  Forgiveness starts with the initial decision to forgive, but this doesn’t always guarantee that your heart is ready to heal.  Total forgiveness takes a healing process.  It takes other situations to prove to your heart that you are indeed ready to move on.  True forgiveness shows that you will not carry the trauma of an old relationship into the new one.  Trauma is something that the church doesn’t talk enough about.

 

Have you ever watched one of those hospital shows?  You know the one where the ambulance pulls up, siren lights are bouncing off of the building, and the emergency sliding doors open to the two leading surgeons of the hospital.  They attentively listen to the EMT explain the condition of the patient.  The staff of the hospital then rushes the patient into an emergency surgery because he has a tree branch sticking out of his side rib cage. “This is serious,” someone would say to some extent; either in exchanged glances or in actual words.  Then rush rush rush into the building, into the elevators, and into the surgery room.  The doctors quickly prepare for surgery, scrubbing in while having a quick conversation about what recreational activity they will be participating in after their shift.  Well, this is what trauma looks like when someone is struck with a tree branch.  How does trauma look when people are really hurting from a hit that they didn’t expect from life?

 

I recently left my home church of seventeen years due to a series of misfortunate events.  We lost two members to suicide which I felt could have been avoided.  It affected me very deeply which triggered a crisis of faith and a serious mental health episode.  However, no one seemed to notice and in my novice interpretation of the situation, I thought it was something I had to handle by myself.   I was wrong.  This is when I realized “the church” is weak in addressing the issues of the soul.  Spiritual leadership has become too concerned with collecting tithes, motivating the masses, and outward appearances.  We, as the church,  have forgotten how to address the human soul and his suffering.  We forgot that we live in a fallen world and so the people fall with it.  How do we help those who need help?

 

Does the Church want to heal?

 

 My father was a pastor and he was very good at listening to people and navigating them to a clearer perspective of their life circumstances.  Some pastors have a talent for it while others do more harm than good. So where does this leave the position of the church when the members or the leadership are not trained to deal with the trauma of their patients?

 

Our world is in a mental health crisis.  I often promoted the idea of seeking outside therapy for mental illness, marriage counseling, and/or addiction.  The church is not always equipped with the skills to properly address such issues.   I was often met with "Don't seek the world for help; you need to seek Jesus."  I have, in response to the misinterpretation of who God is, stopped putting limits on God.  I realized that he is all around us.  He helps us and he gives us resources all of the time.  The “Church Mindset” has  defined God as only accessible through religion while failing to recognize his sovereignty, his love, and his inclusion.  The Church must stop waiting for something to happen.  It must GET UP, WAKE UP and Jump in the healing water that God has troubled.

 

Do you want to be healed?

 

How are we supposed to deal with trauma if we keep turning away patients?  We expect the ambulance to come to the building but when we see the tree branch sticking from the rib cage, we cringe; we get repulsed; and we send them away!!  I speak on the behalf of the Kingdom and not against it.  It is time to repent about the way church is handled and the way it handles it's patience.  You were prepared or a time such as this so don't think that the Lord will replace you if you don't wake up to your purpose.  Church, it is time to wake up!  It is time to make church a healing place once again.

 

There was a huge stigma in my formal environment for seeking mental health services, especially therapy, outside of the church.  I was denied the opportunity to speak on mental illness during my last experience with my church of 17 years and haven't been back since.  Stickney, S., Yanosky, Black, and Stickney, N. (2012) submitted that individuals are often met with negative stereo typing and discrimination from their social groups when seeking mental help services.   This stigmatization  could cause lowered self esteem, or embarrassment due to the negativity associated with seeking mental health services.  This should not be, but it is.  Instead of the church treating the patient, we make the patient feel ashamed for seeking help for his illness.  This doesn’t seem right.

 

Do you want to be healed?  

 

The church  should be the hospital where hurt people go to be healed.  This is where people should be able to address their trauma and their pain.  Instead, due to the inconsistencies of understanding the word of God, people have turned church into a den of thieves.  Everyone is in competition, trying to be better than the next.  Don't get me wrong, all churches are not like this.  Just like there are good and bad hospitals; there are good and bad churches.  I would actually change this idea to; there are strong and weak hospitals and there are strong and weak churches.  The strength of any organization is made up from the minds and hearts of the people who run them.  Still, these organizations can only grow stronger as the minds of its members grow  stronger.  The members who help the organization function must be knowledgeable and compassionate about healing and addressing other people’s pain.  It is a hard job.  Although society has monetized the training necessary to obtain the skill level needed to care for others doesn’t mean that the church has the right to deny its patients care.

 

Do we want to be healed?

 

I know that many people have been hurt in the past by the church.  I know that it is hard to find meaning in life when the very place that was supposed to treat you sent you away.  They just weren't prepared for what was coming.  They didn't have the resources, the staff, nor the training.  They let too many people die.  For this, I am sorry for the pain it has caused you.

 

Sometimes trauma can resurface when you thought that it had been dealt with.  Truly, the way that you had dealt with trauma in the past will determine to what extent it affects your life in the future.  My church hurt experience has come up to the surface several times.  Each time, a new catalyst of the pain had been discovered when revisiting the situation.  I had over 17 years invested in the little church I attended and although I choose not to speak ill of the church, I will say that it was not a good situation at the time of my departure.  I have been writing ever since.   I am happy that I have found the real Jesus.  He has shown me the therapy of writing and journaling.  He has walked me through the treatment of forgiveness. This works for me.  It is part of my healing process.  The surgical procedure by the Holy Spirit on my soul taught me how to forgive those who did not have the skills to help me in my trauma.

 

If you want to be healed; forgive.

 

 

I write this blog from a Christian Worldview. It is dedicated to spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the coming of his Kingdom.  Therefore all content is God centered and adheres to the word of God.  My Goal is to motivate you to find your purpose.