Navigating Church Trauma With Kindness and Grace | #churchtrauma #churchhurt #healingfromchurchhurt

Related Sermons:

Putting Off and Putting On: https://youtu.be/W40XXOFTP7I
The Forgiveness of the Forgiven: https://youtu.be/qbjoqfluPuQ
Why Forgiven People Must Forgive: https://youtu.be/CptbQc7EeYI
The Believing Life: https://youtu.be/uozvF_3kp5E
A Godly Reading of the Golden Rule: https://youtu.be/JL3AP1Z9PEs

As people living in a fallen world, we find ourselves exposed to pain, sorrow, grief, mistreatment, hurt, and sometimes even very traumatic things. When we become believers, the world doesn't change, but we do. While we will still experience these things, we can now approach them in new and different ways. In Christ, we are new creatures, being shaped and formed into His very likeness through sanctification. We put off sin and put on righteousness, a process that goes on for the rest of our lives here on this earth until Christ returns and we are glorified. This struggle involves dealing with our own sins and with those who sin against us. But how does one rightly do that when the sinning against us occurs in the church? What is to be done when someone in the church is responsible for hurting, harming, or mistreating us? Sometimes the pain is so traumatic for people that they leave a church to go to another church. What should someone be looking for if they do this? What kind of questions can they ask to feel confident and sure the new church is a safe and loving environment? These are hard questions and concerns that Dr. Richard Caldwell and Dr. Josh Philpot take up this week on the Straight Truth podcast. Join us to hear how they seek to provide biblical clarity and wisdom on this topic.
Dr. Caldwell acknowledges the truth that people have been, and are, hurt in churches. He explains that it sometimes results because of unfaithful shepherds where people are not handled rightly, not treated rightly, and responded to rightly. But it can also come about by way of other believers. Even God’s people can act in ways that grieve the Spirit of God and hurt their brethren. It is a reality that happens, and in no way does he want to diminish this. However, he says, people today are seemingly more sensitive to their own hurt and mistreatment, having an overly self-awareness of how others treat them. He comments that people tend toward fragility where there really isn’t fragility and where they ought to recognize real fragility they don’t. He explains this comment by reminding us of the brevity of our lives; we are literally one breath away from eternity, and we do not sustain our own lives. It is God who sustains us and strengthens us in everything that we face in this life. Anything we’ve overcome in this life is because God has done that. Dr. Caldwell shares how God’s people have been mistreated through the ages, giving some examples from Scripture to help us to grasp this truth, as he further explains that it’s with the Lord's help and the Lord’s strength that we can overcome all kinds of things, including grievous mistreatment.
Dr. Caldwell says that anyone who comes out of a hurtful situation in a church and is looking for a new church, will need to adjust their expectations. First, there is no safe place in this world. Only heaven will be safe. They'll want to look for a church that is doctrinally faithful, and has qualified leaders. Once in a healthy church, they'll need to remember that they're going to meet with things that are not pristine, things that are not perfect, yet it's a church where sin is not ignored or excused. Dr. Caldwell shares the example of the Corinthian church, reminding us that sin must be dealt with within the church body.
Dr. Caldwell has questions for those who have left a church due to some hurt or mistreatment. He would like to know how they view what it means to be a Christian in the world they're living in, and what is their ecclesiology; what is their view of the church. He shares there needs to be a right view of God, of humanity, of what salvation grants and doesn’t, a right view of our strength in the Lord versus our weakness, and a right view of dealing with sin issues. Again, this is not to diminish in any way at all how the person has been mistreated and hurt. It is wrong when this happens. But says Dr. Caldwell, wrongs can be exaggerated, and the remedy for the wrongs done often don’t match Scripture. Remedying wrong in the life of the church requires confession of sin, repentance of sin, and forgiveness. Do we believe that we're never going to sin against someone else and have to seek their forgiveness? We live in a world, the church world, where grace is needed. Where we are extending grace to others, but also where they have to be gracious to us. We are to live in a way with others where we are not ignoring sin, not excusing sin, but dealing with sin rightly, thus allowing us to get to the other side of it and walk together.