Church & Community
I was badly hurt by a church years ago and it has never really healed. How do I even begin to move past it?
“Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD.”
Jeremiah spoke into a period when Judah's religious leaders were using their position for themselves while the people under their care were scattered and unprotected. What God says through him is not a defense of the institution. It is a direct charge against the shepherds who did the damage, spoken by the owner of the flock. Scripture names this kind of harm long before it says anything about how the injured should respond to it.
“Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.”
Peter writes as an elder to other elders and sets out how leaders are to handle people: willingly, not for money, and never as lords over those in their care. He wrote it because the opposite was already happening in churches he knew. If what you experienced was leadership that dominated rather than served, you are not being oversensitive. The New Testament had a standard here, and it was not met.
A path forward
Write down what actually happened, in order, as though explaining it to someone who was not there. Church hurt often stays vague and enormous until it is put into specific sentences.
Tell one safe person the whole of it out loud, ideally a counselor or a pastor from outside that church. What was done to you inside a community is rarely healed entirely alone.
Bring the anger to God unedited. The psalms model this precisely, and you are allowed to pray about what was done to you long before you are ready to pray about forgiving it.
Closing verse
“He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.”
- Psalm 147:3
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