Loving the Church When You’ve Been Hurt

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Winfree Brisley
Let me pray for us, and then we will get into the conversation. Father. We thank you for this time. We thank you for this gathering of women from local churches all over the country and around the world. Lord, we know that you have established the local church for the good of your people, and it is your church, but it is also a place where sometimes we are hurt, Lord, where sin still impacts us and where we have wounds. And so Father, we bring that heaviness and that hurt before you in this time and ask that you would send your spirit to work among us God, that He might speak through us up here, that we might be able to offer some encouragement to these women, and that you would be doing your healing work in each of our hearts, we pray all this in Christ’s name. Amen. Well, as we move into the conversation, we just want to give a few clarifications. This is a big topic, and so we want to give you some context for how we’re thinking about it and what our approach is for this short time, the 45 minutes goes faster than we expect sometimes. So you know, church hurt could range from a one on one interpersonal conflict all the way up to some sort of very public scandal of a celebrity pastor, and we can’t really engage all of the ins and outs of those things. And so for the purposes of this conversation, we thought it would be most helpful to keep it in the realm of a local church or maybe denominational level. So that’s kind of the context that we’re envisioning, and our conversation will stay in the realm of hurt, not abuse. And so we want to be careful to make a distinction there, and to say, you know, we are not professional counselors, we and so some of the things that we might say could look different in the context of abuse. And so we do want to be careful to say we’re talking about hurt. If you’re interested specifically in learning more about spiritual abuse, we would recommend to you the book bully pulpit by Dr Mike Krueger, and it is available in the bookstore. It’s a very helpful consideration of spiritual abuse in particular. So you might want to check that out. And I also want to plug a book about church hurt before we get into it. This new devotional by our friend Megan Hill, 40 days, 40 days of devotions on church hurt, called sighing on Sunday is an excellent resource. It’s a new one out, and it’s also available in the bookstore. Well, as we begin to get into the conversation, I’d love for just each of you to share a bit of a bit about why this topic matters to you, why this is close to your heart. Sure.

Karen Hodge
Well, let’s try this one. We’ll just swap. Okay, I think it matters because Jesus Christ laid down his life for the church and and the church is eternal, and it matters to me, because you matter to God. You’re an image bearer. And if you’re in this room, there’s a story that he’s written in your life about the church, and I just want to say I’m sorry, and God sees he knows he loves you. You’re a beloved daughter of the king. No matter what’s going on your heart today. Just want to acknowledge that anything else I say might be secondary, but I will stand back by that door as a pastor’s wife, the old lady on the stage of 34 years and give you a hug if you want one on the way out, because I understand.

Winfree Brisley
Karen gives good thoughts.

Irene Sun
This is really important to me because, because this is a workshop not on how to be sad when we’re hurt, or how to lament even, but that’s a good thing. But this is how to love the church when we’re hurt, and that’s a very different conversation. And I am so grateful that each of you are brave enough to walk into this room because we are called to love even when we don’t want to, even when we’re hurt, and that is a way we can reflect the image of Christ.

Ruth Chou Simons
This topic is so important to me, as I’ve been on both sides of church leadership or congregant, having been hurt from as a leader and been hurt as a congregant and as a mama to six boys who are becoming young adults, I recognize that we how we respond to either hurt on a very large public scale, or how we respond to the hurt that happens at a conversation after church on a Sunday will really show our children in our next generation like who. Think you know, Is he worthy, right? And and so this conversation is important, because Jesus is worthy of us really being mindful about how we can respond and how we can respond biblically to things that are hard, like

Winfree Brisley
this. Yeah, that’s so good. Well, Karen, I think it’s helpful to kind of define our terms a bit. We’ve said this is a broad topic, and so what do we mean when we say church? Hurt Like, what types of things have you observed or experienced that you think might be examples or give us a sense for what this is?

Karen Hodge
Sure, let’s start with the word church. Okay, you might be thinking organization. I want to say organism, maybe to you, but you and you might be thinking in terms of just the idea of what, how the Scripture defines the church. And I think it’s important for us to understand before we move on, that it’s always plural. It’s always corporate. We’re living stones, right, being built together. We are the bride of Christ that will all be at the wedding feast. It’s not a solo event. And we’re embodied people. The church is a body. And we can’t say, I have no need of an arm or a leg. So you might want to just look at the person next to you and say, We are the church. We’re the church. Yeah, and we have the we have the capacity to not only receive injury or harm, but also to inflict it. So I think it’s important for us to see that first, but then to think biblically about church hurt. We have to think about the big framework of the Bible, right? In other words, what’s the origin of church hurt? Well, it’s the fall. It’s the tragic intrusion of breaking everything and everyone. So the church is full of sinners who are saints. There are broken people, broken systems, broken organizations, even in the context of the church. And so that’s why, when Paul is writing pastoral epistles, or writing the Epistles in the New Testament, he’s addressing things like anger, slander, malice, what our need to be kind and tender hearted and to forgive others, as Christ has forgiven us, and so he used Words like biting and devouring. Why? Because our our sin is so present within our heart that we we often say and do things that cause hurt for other people. So

Winfree Brisley
yeah, that’s really helpful. And I think you know, we all know in the context of relationships, whether that’s just one to one in a family, friendships within the church, that expectations have a lot to do with the way that we experience and receive things from people. And so as we all talked cleanliness, that was one thing that came up that Ruth pointed out, we also need to consider our expectations within church relationships. And so Ruth, I’d love for you to talk a bit about, you know, if, if I feel hurt in the church context. How might I think through whether I’ve been sinned against, or perhaps whether the issue is with my expectations of the situation?

Ruth Chou Simons
Yeah, you know, whenever I kind of always think about this, when I think of the word expectations, because I am somebody who’s real prone to feeling like, so vulnerable to always say this, but I’m like, I’m really prone to feeling disappointed, like it’s I can easily be like, that’s not what I expected from you, or I really expected more. And a lot of times when I feel that way, the first thing I have to do is like, go, how does that trace back to what I’m maybe worshiping or idolizing other than Jesus. So I think we have to start by going, am I disappointed because I’ve actually been sinned against and there’s an actual reconciliation that needs to happen? Or am I somehow possibly looking to that person in my church community or in the body of Christ, to like, be like Jesus, like in a perfect way. You know, am I somebody who’s disappointed because you didn’t meet my expectations? And somehow I am now making an idol of my expectation of a church relationship, forgetting that the church, the Body of Christ is made up of sinners. And I think sometimes we forget that we kind of walk in the doors, and I’m sure that it doesn’t help that sometimes we do kind of come with, like a facade on and we don’t always come vulnerably. And I think it’s really easy to start assuming that we’re going to somehow meet each other’s needs perfectly, and that we’re not we forget that we’re sinners who are actually in need of Jesus. And so I think it’s really good to not always assume that every situation is some big, confrontational thing, but to even start by saying, Where am I so? Why am I so upset? And is this really because I’ve had i. Uh, wrong expectations and putting too many things on an imperfect person. Or do I need to engage in a reconciliation with this person?

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, I think that’s really good to say. Hey, the first step is sort of internal, to really be honest before the Lord, to really think through, examine our own hearts, our own motivations, and bring that before him, and kind of work through those things before we sometimes we want to just react really quickly. I think it’s good to have that pause and reflection, but let’s say we’ve done that. You know, I’ve reflected. I’ve really prayed about it. I’ve really been honest before the Lord and tried to examine my own motivations and my own idols. And at the end of it, I come to the conclusion, no, I really have been sinned against. Like there really is something here. Where do we go? Then, with that, Irene, what do I do if I realize there really is an issue here? What’s, what’s maybe a next step?

Irene Sun
Well, the next step, and actually the first step is always to pray. And I always go to Job whenever I think of prayer, because at the end of the book of Job Yahweh says that Job has said has spoken right about me, and the friends have not spoken right about me? Well, Job said some really awful things about God, and you’re like, just, oh, what do you mean, Lord, that Job has spoken rightly about you. And the biggest difference that Job’s words has compared to his friends is that job prays even when he’s talking to Eliphaz, even when he is responding to the friends who were hurting him, he was praying. And so, for example, when he was responding to Eliphaz in Job chapter seven, he’s talking to Eliphaz, and suddenly he goes into what is a man that you make so much of him that you set your heart on him, visit him every morning and test Him every moment. How long will you not look away from me nor leave me alone until I swallow my spit? And so it’s just really interesting to me that we are called to be in right relationship with God first, before we even start thinking about making our human relationships right, we need to be in right relationship with God, and sometimes is to cry out to him and say, Why Lord and that Yahweh says, Job has spoken rightly about me.

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, that’s so good, going to the Lord first and then Karen. What about accountability within the church? What about principles of confrontation? How do we think through after we, you know, we’ve gone before the Lord. We feel we’ve honored him, we’ve prayed about it. Where might we go in, in human structures and within the church,

Karen Hodge
right? And again, this is saying that there are trusted leaders in the church, right? Okay, this. And so part of, part of the way we parse that out and discern that is by being embodied in community, right? And so hopefully there are older, wiser people in your life. The day of crisis is not the day, the first day for you to begin building these relationships. Today’s the day so that when something like this happens, that you can go after you’ve prayed, you’ve sought, you sought the Lord in His Word, and then sit down with them and and actually work through how to think biblical, biblically about this. And then what are the next steps towards peacemaking? And, of course, Jesus outlines those in Matthew 18. So perhaps it’s it’s a case where you would take someone like that with you in in the in the effort to try to bring out biblical reconciliation?

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, absolutely. I

Ruth Chou Simons
think the temptation is whether, as we were talking, I was thinking, what’s rolling around in your heads, I wish we could pass the microphone? Well, no, I don’t wish. Actually, let’s not back them, but, but, you know, some of us might be thinking, Oh, church hurt like this one friend who really hurt me, and we go to church together. And some of you might be like, Wow, I had a leader in my church just flat out, really, really speak wrongly towards me, or it was a pastor. So we all have different images in our minds about what we might be feeling. And I was thinking through, you know, are next steps really different for different kinds of relationships, and I think that we can get into the nitty gritty of that a little bit more as we go on. But I think overall, this Matthew 18 principle is the principle with every case that’s really tempting to want to go to your friend first to talk about how much you’ve been mistreated by the friend or the Sunday School teacher or the leader. Or the pastor, and especially if you’re at a large church, I think it’s really easy to think, well, I don’t, I can’t make this right, or I don’t really know what I can do about it, so let me just go and just keep talking about it, you know? And that actually kind of gets icky, right? It starts, I mean, big theological word there, but it’s like it starts just being it’s starting to rot within the community, you know? And so we do need to think through, okay, the Matthew 18 thing doesn’t just only apply to when there’s been an offense with a friend or a misunderstanding. It even applies here when we’re talking about leaders or we’re talking about somebody in authority, and thinking through how we can engage that person, knowing that they are a person like the pastor of your church is still your brother in Christ. It’s not like some far removed and I think that’s why, Karen, you made a good you just I think it’s really good for us to say we know that not everybody’s at the healthiest church, or we can’t assume that everybody’s in a healthy church. But the reality is, dealing with church hurt really has to happen in the in the in the safety of knowing that there’s trusted elders and trusted leaders, trusted people you can go to, you can’t easily go to, somebody that you never have interface or you can’t interface with right? So I think, yeah, when we think about that, I don’t, I can’t think of a reason why that wouldn’t apply. Am I right? You’re right?

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, no, I think you’re exactly right. Yeah, that’s great. Well, when we think about church hurt, I think we talked about expectations, and I think often we will realize afterwards that we feel let down by someone that we respected, and so maybe that’s the friend who spoke harshly. But a lot of times in these situations, it might be a leader we’ve really respected, someone who has taught us for years or led a ministry in our church, our pastor, and there are a lot of ripple effects when someone like that, especially has a larger scale situation of hurt, where maybe they’ve had a public failing, they’ve done something to harm a large section of the congregation. And so then it’s not necessarily just, how will I process what has happened, but how will the church body deal with this? And so sometimes then the interpersonal dynamics become, well, I have a different take on the situation, or I feel differently about what has happened here than Karen does, and so how will we as sisters be able to work through this situation? And so I want to kind of think through an example of that a little bit. So, you know, let’s imagine a situation where the pastor of a church has had some sort of public failure that is now exposed and people have been hurt by what he’s done. In my own experience, at least, there was a tendency in our congregation for some people to feel, to have a hard time believing what came out and to say, well, he was a faithful pastor, and he was good to my family, and my experiences with him were only ever positive, so I don’t think this could be true. And so that was sort of one end of the spectrum. And then maybe the other one was, Well, if he’s done all these things, then let’s just cancel him and be done everything he ever did is tainted, and we want nothing more to do with him. And so I think that we tend toward those extremes. But Karen, maybe, how do we think through biblically the fact that people are complicated, and they might have been a great leader and they might have a public failing, and what do we do with all that mess that comes in the midst of church hurt?

Karen Hodge
Winfrey, I think you bring up some good points. Number one, church hurt is never singular. It’s always plural. In other words, there’s always a ripple effect. There’s always collateral damage, even in the way we have conversations with other people. And then the other thing you said in your comments was, my experience is my reference point. I feel this way about this is my perception. And so that there again, goes back to how he answered the other question about like going to God first and going to His Word. But I think our reference point has to be Jesus. And I know that seems like the simple answer, but Jesus actually disappointed people. He did not do everything that everybody thought he was going to do, but Jesus did not disappoint people at a rate they could not absorb, because he’s perfect. Our good friend Tasha Chapman taught me this the idea of and as leaders and those of us who serve in the church, we will disappoint people. And the key here is disappointing people at a rate they can absorb, right? And so that’s the discipleship gap between what we expected and what we experienced, and that we seek to come into there. And so how do we deal with this? We wrestle with God, we pray, and we have to seriously take consider, if. We’re in a healthy church. And how do we know that? We know that because we look in the New Testament and all of the framework for having a healthy church is there, and right at the top of the list is sound doctrine. That word means healthy or hygienic. When you see sound teaching, you will see a sound or healthy church, right? And so those are kind of things that kind of help us, but often we have to, and you just said, ick, we have to wrestle through these things. We have to wrestle through these things so we can think biblically and then live that out relationally.

Winfree Brisley
Yeah. And how might we tell so let’s say, like a pastor leader, someone who has maybe not just sort of disappointed at a rate we weren’t prepared for, but really has sinned against people in the congregation really has legitimately caused hurt. How can we tell then whether they are someone we could try to trust again, or whether maybe they aren’t fit to lead anymore? How do we kind of think through that discernment,

Irene Sun
whether or not there’s repentance, and if it is a public sin, then that requires a public repentance. And that, I mean, I go to a Chinese church, and our two elders regularly confess sins at the pulpit. I mean, not in the gross way, but just in like the things that I have done throughout this week, while I’m preparing the sermon, while I am impatient with my wife, my husband tells her congregation that a lot, and I am so thankful that we have two elders preaching, elders who are not afraid to be constantly, regularly, just exposing their imperfections And and I think that is what is required of a doctrinally sound church.

Ruth Chou Simons
So I think in reflection to in response to both of your comments, I think our feelings are not the standard right, how we feel about somebody, or what we want to believe about somebody or how we feel. Sometimes we are like, Oh, I don’t really want to deal with the church hurt, because we don’t want the church to suffer for it or whatever. But I think we have to have God’s word and and the Gospel be the reason, like the actual measure for what is right and wrong. So ultimately, we know that in our heads. But I think when it comes to like, relationships and people, sometimes we get a little weird and fuzzy about it. And so what you’re describing both of you is, you know, Karen saying, like, ultimately, it’s not just like, whether we feel like this or not, we have to have sound doctrine to to be the foundation for what, what is a pastor’s role. What is our actual relationship with one another? How do we treat one another? That’s not something we’re making up on the fly. Or the culture is not telling us how we do this thing. We’re not a corporation. We are the body of Christ, and the Bible tells us what is our family relationship is to be like. So we have to return to the word. We’re not running events every Sunday, right? We are actually the body of Christ. We are the church. And then what Irene saying is ultimately, like, humility, right? Humility and repentance. Because when a leader is subject to that word and is like, okay, everything here applies to my life, then there will be humility in response to it, right? So basically, what we’re saying is Jesus and the word of God is central. And when we all say, hey, whether we like it or not, like there’s been like sin, because God’s word says this is sin. And so then you look at that leader and say, does that leader also acknowledge and agree with God, right? Agreeing with God means that our posture agrees with God too. And I think there’s a way for us to say is, are we turning towards the gospel and saying both the person who sinned and those who are forgiving like are we all postured in a way where we say we agree with God? But this is the next step we need to take.

Winfree Brisley
Yes, that’s so good. I love those principles of looking for the humility and the repentance and all those things. So that helps us as we think about assessing the leader’s posture in one of these churches situations. But let’s think also for a minute about how I relate to other members in the wake of this. So let’s say I’ve pulled out my Bible like Ruth is encouraging me, and I’m looking to what the body of Christ is supposed to be, and I’ve come to a certain conclusion about how I think our church should respond to this failed leader or some other issue. And then my sister. Here has done the same thing, and she’s looked at her Bible and she’s come to an entirely different conclusion about the way forward. How do we meet one another and love one another in that because the reality is, in these situations, a lot of times people will come to different conclusions. So how do I how do I love you, Karen and meet you if we don’t agree about what’s happened and we’re both seeking the Lord.

Karen Hodge
Well again, I think it takes humility, and I think it takes grace, and I think that sometimes we agree to disagree, and I think we keep the main things, the main things when it comes to be in other words, what is eternal? You are eternal. God’s word is eternal. Our relationship is actually eternal. All of these things are eternal. And so when we get down in the weeds and the details, and I think this, and I thought that, and I disagree with that, in other words, those are secondary things. And so I think keeping our mind on the eternal things, especially if we agree to disagree. And then, of course, we keeping that speech in that triangle of whatever is truthful, loving and according to the need of the moment. And if it can’t be all three of those things, then we probably shouldn’t be talking about it.

Winfree Brisley
Yes, well, said, I love that. Well, I also think these situations can bring up hard questions about God, right? Right. We believe that the church is his, that he has instituted it for the building of his kingdom, that he loves the church. He’s ordained the church. He watches over the church. And yet, we see the church being a setting where all kinds of hurt and sin still happen. And so for some of us, this might bring up questions about why he allows these sorts of things. Where is God in the midst of church hurt? And so Irene, I wonder if you have some thoughts on that, how do we wrestle through those questions about God? Yeah, as

Irene Sun
I was thinking about this question, I was also thinking about the hardest scenario, where it’s the hardest for me to forgive, and that always for me, applies to the hurt of my children. So when pastors kids are attacked because they’re a pastor’s kids, or if they’re singled out or or when my children are hurt because of the authority place over them. I’m not talking about like hurt by another kid. I’m talking about when they’re hurt by adults. That is a situation where my own heart it’s very difficult for me to receive and reconcile, and in those very difficult times, that’s when I cry out, God, where are you? Why did you allow this to happen to a child and and I go back to what Joseph said at the end of Genesis. You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. I don’t see the good at the moment, but I must believe that even when others are doing evil against my own children. I need to believe that God is powerful, and he is able to transform this evil for good, for the good of my child, for the good of this adult in authority, for the good of our family, even when they’re screaming, even when we’re holding them and they are screaming, I need to somehow cry out for faith, and ask the Lord to help me believe that this evil can turn out for good. And I want to read for us Romans, 828, because we think we know that verse. Or at least I thought I knew this verse. All things work together for good, to those who love God, for those who are called according to His purpose. And this is what I learned this week, because in the next verse, Paul actually explained what this good is. Because for me, good means comfort, health, well, being, reconciliation, restoration, all those good things. But this is what Paul means when he says good for those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become form to the image of His Son. And that is the good that God promises, not good in accordance to my own definition of good for my family and my children, but that my child, the adult whom who hurt him, so that all of us, our whole family, our church, will be conformed to the image of His Son. I.

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, well, I was about to say that’s so good.

Ruth Chou Simons
Ruth, go ahead, no, I just think it’s so good when you’re describing that God doesn’t waste anything, right? And so the sanctification process is happening on our end, if we’re the ones being hurt, but also on the person who seeks forgiveness or is needing to repent, or is failed as a leader, or stuck his foot in his mouth and said all the wrong things, or handled a situation incorrectly. But I wanted to also point to what Karen alluded to a little bit earlier, I think at the very top of our our conversation in that, you know, when the apostle Paul writes all these letters in the New Testament, there’s all these like one another’s right, there’s all these like instructions. For how we can not hurt each other. There’s all these instructions about how we should do things the right way. And you know, he always starts those letters off. Always starts the letters off by talking about the character of God, about what God has done, what Jesus has done, how Jesus is perfect, how he is preeminent, how he holds all things together, right? And then he goes into, therefore, how we are transformed. And then the one anothers come along. And I think the point of that is to remind ourselves that we will all kind of really doubt what we’re even doing if we jump right to the like, I’m gonna be really kind. I’m never gonna fail anybody. Well, we’re gonna fail each other all the time. Like, I don’t know if for any mamas out there, I’m like, today, I’m not gonna yell. And then it’s like, 930 in the morning, and I’m like, I couldn’t even keep it together for like, four hours, you know? And so the reality is, if you’re just like, Oh, I’m never gonna do this, and I’m gonna do that, but if you start with like, Okay, who is God? How is he faithful? How has he made provision for me to actually be capable of faithfulness through Christ, then I can one another in the right way. And so I think when we’re asking, I mean, Winfrey’s asking all the hard questions today. I mean, I don’t know if you guys, I mean, these are, that’s why this is the fun scene. These are the hard and I’m sitting here like, I don’t know, but they’re really hard questions. But I think when we’re talking about, like, how do we not just question God or just go, like, oh, I guess the church. I mean, how do we see real transformation if, I mean, all you have to do is open social media, and every day something disappointing is happening in the right I mean, we all see it, we all hear about it, we all feel like what, you know, there’s this disappointment that’s happening. But one of the first things I always remind myself is, okay, God’s already, he’s already won the victory like this. All this is happening between now and when we need no light in heaven is that we’re being transformed all of us, even the ones who take a couple of laps around the sanctification process over and over and over again, including myself. So the ultimate point is to remember that God is who He says He is, and he’s transforming us. He’s transforming us, right, making us conform to his image through all this stuff, even the hurt that we experience. Yeah,

Winfree Brisley
and I love that one another emphasis, because Karen keeps saying, We are the church. This is we. I think it’s so tempting in situations where we’re hurt to just think about, how does this impact me? What will I do about it? How will I get, you know, my needs met and those It’s not wrong to think about those things, but this one another emphasis says, and something Irene said as well, that there’s also sanctification in view for the other person, right, that the person who has failed us, the Lord, still intends to work in their lives. And so having that one another focus lets us see the Lord’s doing something in my life. He’s doing something in this person’s life. He’s doing something in my sister’s life. He’s walking through this with me. There’s a much bigger plan in view than just the way that I’ve received this or I’m processing it. Yeah, that’s so good. Well, as we navigate these situations, one of the tricky questions we will sometimes come to is, has something happened in our church that is so egregious, so concerning that we should actually consider changing churches? We We talked a little bit about, how do we know if the leader is repentant, but there are larger structures in place at the church, and so how do we think through that evaluation of a whole church and maybe a need to move. What does that look like? What might bring us to the point of leaving a church body, and how do we think through that? Well,

Karen Hodge
yeah, well, it’s got to be a slow process. I think it’s got to be a prayerful process. And I can tell you on the days when I want to bolt and think like I’m just gonna take my living stone and go over here and be a lone stone and just do my own thing, you know, or whatever. I just wanna pull out and amputate part of the body. And I feel that way as a pastor’s wife, often I come back to this quote that that grounds me to necessarily love Christ is to love his church. Church. I cannot say I love Jesus and say that I don’t love the church, which is you and you and you and you. Okay? So then I wrestle with it, right? So let’s say we get to the point where, yes, we’ve determined this is not a healthy place where I can, I can spiritually flourish, my family can spiritually flourish if you’re you don’t make those decisions independent of our family. In other words, God always leads families, if we see that all throughout Scripture. So I think it’s something that we’re prayerful about with our family. But I but in our church, we take membership vows, we take covenant vows, and I say I belong to God, and I belong to you. And so for me to break a vow, I have to, I have to rehearse why I love Christ. If I love Christ, I love his church. I’m not saying you don’t leave, but I say you, if you leave, then you leave prayerfully, humbly and graciously,

Ruth Chou Simons
well and I mean, I think we’ve already touched on this too, but that it’s not an independent decision, independent of the process. There’s a process of that Matthew 18 conversation, there is a process of giving opportunity for things to be made right. Being made, right? Doesn’t mean it’s on your or my timeline, right? Sometimes I’m like, that should have happened last week, but the Lord might be taking your church through a journey that’s not going to happen as quickly as you expect. And so obviously, we’re talking about things where I can think of five different scenarios that will be treated all differently. So it might be something different in your mind. But I think overall, what applies and what’s true over and over again is what Karen just described, is that we need to remember that church in our local body that is a family and that you’re not just you’re I mean, despite the way I think a lot of modern churches can be you’re not just showing up and like, it’s not like attending a conference, right? It’s not like you’re just popping in to see what’s going on. If you are a member, or if your church has membership, or if you are, you know, a committed member of that local body, you are really part of the family, and family members do work things out, and do give opportunity to make those things right. And you don’t just rehearse a problem in your mind and just say, That’s it. I’m done. You actually go and work those things out. And

Karen Hodge
I might say, if you’re the person who’s standing at the door when somebody leaves, my husband always says, Keep your foot in the door, because sometimes people need to leave for a season and prayerfully work through what’s going on their life. And the hospitality of the gospel always has a foot in the door to welcome a brother and sister back into the family of God. And so I have to think about that a lot because, I mean, Tim Keller often said ministry means having to say goodbye. I never liked that, that he said that he said so many awesome things, but that one thing I never liked, because, as a pastor’s wife, I don’t want to ever say goodbye to somebody, but I try to remember to keep my foot in the door, because oftentimes people come back.

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, and that brings up another good point, which is, in these situations, there will be, often people who feel led to leave, but there will be those who stay, whether it’s because you’re on staff or as a member. My family’s been in a situation where a lot of families left our church. We felt led to stay, and that can be a really painful position to be in, as you see people that you love leave and they used to share the Pew with you, and now they’re not there, and even if you support and believe they’ve made a godly decision and they’ve left well and they’ve done all these things that we’ve talked about, it can still be really hard to be left behind in one of those situations. So Irene, how do we navigate that? Well?

Irene Sun
So the acronym for our church is Pittsburgh Chinese church for PCC. But because a lot of people ask me, like, can I come to your church even though I’m not Chinese? So I’ve been starting, I started telling people our PCC actually stands for preach Christ crucified. So for those who stays and decided that they will remain and continue to be part of the body. That is what I would encourage you to do to keep preaching Christ crucified, and that is to be conformed to His image. And the image that we are conforming to IS an image of the crucified Christ that is pierced hands, pierced. Feet bleeding. Head pierced sides. We are not being conformed to the image of a glorified Christ. We will be but right now, we are preaching Christ crucified and. So that is what we are to do, what we are called to do as we remain ask the Lord to help us to to love people more and to need them less. So as we are being amputated as our the body our local church is changing as we are missing an eye and missing a toe. We pray, Lord, please help me to need them less, but to love the ones who stayed more. And at the end of the book of Job, because we talked about how Job prayed, Yahweh calls job to pray for his friends. He says to he commanded his friends to offer seven bowls and seven rams offer them as burnt offerings. Go to job and ask him to pray for you and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer, not to deal with you according to your folly. So pray for those who hurt you, but also pray for those who stayed. Pray for the leaders and pray for the family of God.

Ruth Chou Simons
Just a side note, I think if we remember that we belong to the big C Body of Christ, like the church, then yes, you can’t give of your time, and you can’t stay in touch deeply with every single person from every church. But remember, if you’re staying, or you’re going, or even if you have a conflict of like not agreeing, like we were talking about earlier, not seeing it exactly the same way, that’s still your sister in Christ. That’s still your brother in Christ. You’re still practicing for all of eternity what you’re you’re going to spend eternity with this person. So it, it’s actually really lovely to sometimes just check in on somebody, like, with, like, Karen said, with the your foot in the door, right? We can, like, check in on people that just because there was this part, this painful part of that relationship doesn’t mean you don’t have to, you know, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t stop caring for one another. If you see one another, meet for coffee, even if they’re not at your church anymore, you can actually like go to coffee and hear what’s going on in their lives. And I 100% love membership and again, like, I think that critical decision to really covenant with people. But I also think sometimes we get so like, we forget that we belong to the Lord, like the actual body of Christ, the Church, where we need to just love one another and care care, even if, if we’re walking in some different paths.

Winfree Brisley
Yeah, I think that’s so good, and we’re almost out of time. But I want to just end on a note of healing and thinking about what does healing look like after church hurt. And I think, you know, we would tend to think that you would want to get as far away from something that has hurt you as possible, but I think we would all affirm the fact that the place to be healed from church hurt is actually in the church, right? So, Karen, can you maybe give us one final encouragement along those lines as we close down, why is the church the place to find healing from church hurt?

Karen Hodge
Well, because he ordained that. He ordained it, and that’s why it’s good. And so we lean in, even when we want to lean out, and when we we bump up against hurt or we get wounded with hurt, that is his big purpose of sanctifying the church, and that’s you, and that’s me, and one day, everything that hurts right Now, that’s hard, that’s dark, that’s yucky will be white, because one day we’re going to feast in Zion. There’ll be a great wedding feast, and the church eternal will be white and pure, and we will be together forever. And so on the days you want to look in or you want to look out, I encourage you to look up and look to the end of the story. That’s where we find our hope.