Dealing with Church Hurt Webinar

Welcome again. It’s excellent to be with you all. My name is Matt Kaufman. Ron Messner’s been introduced already and we’re very glad to just spend this hour on this topic of dealing with church hurt. Actually, in Arlan’s opening comments, he said it was a weighty topic and I think we can all agree with that.

I would also just point out the response that we have for these webinars is, as you well know, you have an opportunity to type in a question or two and we have pages of them here, Ron, more than what we can get through. But it was very telling, I think, and very, very thoughtful questions.

You can tell that they come from a place of experience. They’re coming from a place of, this is what I’m dealing with, this is what I’m seeing. In fact, I couldn’t help but notice I saw an entry come in, and then a little later, the same name comes up with another question, which probably means after they enrolled.

You thought about this, you put in a question, and then as it marinated, you’re like, oh, I’ve got another one. So, I don’t know, Ron. I mean, just speak to the pertinent nature of church hurt. You know, why are we getting a turnout and why the many questions? Right?

Yeah, I was struck, Matt, as I read through those, and I would say this to the group. I was encouraged. The preponderance of questions was about how can I be helpful, and we all of us, or many of us would have our own reason for, or may have reasons to think about hurt or things that have happened, but I appreciate this group of ministers and ministers’ wives, seeing their role to be able to help others.

And that it’s super relevant. Yes. In our roles. Yeah, no question. It is important. Relationship, we think about Scripture, through all parts, from God toward us, Christ with us, and us with the church, relationship is at the core of faith and fellowship, and I would say for all of us, it undergirds our experience not just with the church, but then I think we mention this at a later point.

Why is it important? Yeah, because it affects our relationship with God. Yeah, and I think with that, let’s start with an objective here. Our objective here tonight is really to recognize what church is, what church hurt is and how it can be both minimized and treated. And that’s going to guide us a little bit here.

And I’m really encouraged by a lot of the questions that we’re in. What do we mean by church hurt? You know and so we’re going to provide a little bit of definition. Not that our definition is the end all definitions, but it’s going to guide us tonight and what we mean by church hurt. So, I’d like to just start with a little bit of a table of contents, so to speak.

This will act a little bit as a guide for how we will step through this topic here in the remaining hour. First is that definition of church hurt. We’re going to go there. We’re going to look at what we mean by it. Then we’re going to look at the significance of why church hurt matters and why it’s a worthy topic, which is going to resonate.

You all know the significance just to even be present and by your questions, but we’re going to speak to that significance because that’s important. And then also, then the source. And I’m going to maybe even provide a little bit of guardrails for tonight’s conversation. Ron, as I read through some of these questions, some of them very clearly the minister or the wife that put in the question was the one who suffered from church hurt and I want to just acknowledge that on the outset. Church leadership endures their fair share of church hurt. It’s interesting, Matt, I hadn’t thought about it but this is primarily thinking about hurt that happens from the church to us, yes, but it goes both ways particularly in leadership. There are times when we are wounded because we’re representing the church. Somebody holds us responsible for something that might not even have been our decision or something we’re willing to be a part of and we have to bear that with dignity to be helpful. But it can be difficult and that is not exactly where we’re going to go tonight. So, we just want to acknowledge that we’re looking at church hurt that goes both directions. But we are looking at our role to our congregation, so I really appreciated those comments, but it just again spoke to the relevance that people are thinking about.

So, the source of church hurt. Then we’re going to look at protections, how can church hurt be mitigated and then finally the treatment, how can church hurt be cared for? And in an hour, we don’t have time to be complete or replete in all these areas, but hopefully give some starting points and conversation.

As Arlan mentioned, chatting questions in is going to be completely appropriate. We’ll try to land the plane in enough time to spend some time on some of those questions as well. So, you can look forward to that. Let’s go straight to what do we mean by clarification as we go in? So, from the table of contents, it might appear that we would have an answer to all questions.

And there is no such thing. We are human beings in human relationships in a fallen world, and so we need to respond where we can, in ways we can, address what we can, but like all other things you deal with or any of us do, it’s not going to take care of everything. So, what do we do? We don’t give up. We do what we can do, and then seek peace in knowing that we’ve done what we can do.

That will resonate through the presentation, not the answer to everything, but do what we can do. And I think mitigation is really the word that we chose for that, wasn’t it? It’s not eradication. It’s not elimination. It’s mitigation because we do, as you said, live in a fallen world with relationships and that happens in the church setting.

Thanks for that clarification. So, as we think about then let’s go to this definition of some really wonderful questions being chimed in there, is hurt always bad and that type of thing. When is hurt helpful or when is hurt by way of truth, for example. I’d like to maybe set this up like this.

And again, we’re kind of defining it in our use here tonight. We’re going to call it the psychological or emotional wounds caused by negative experience in the church. We are speaking about the negative effects of hurt. And so, if we were to play on words pain can be helpful but we’re using hurt is not helpful.

Is that fair? No, it’s very helpful. There will always be disagreement. There will be tension, stressors, those kinds of things. And pain could address those, maybe define those, but I think going with wounds talks about when there is pain afterwards damage or scarring that affects our relationship with the church and with others, which wounds would define, so I think it’s good.

So, something that you actually did to give a little bit of background, Ron and I have chatted about this topic, and I’ve gleaned some of his thoughts and it placed them into a logical outline. And so, some of the thoughts that you’re going to see here tonight really are Ron’s as he has ruminated on this topic.

And so, one of the points that you make Ron, that I thought was really, really insightful and I’d like you to explain is we talk about these psychological and emotional wounds being caused by negative experiences in the church. Some are real by reason, and some are real by perception. That’s an important fork in the road.

Speak to those. Yeah, I’m not sure it’s the best words to describe them, but we’re going to go with them. And just bear with us as we talk through. So sometimes we use the expression that perception is reality. And some people have trouble with that. Because, of course, perception is not always based on reality, but to the person, in the experience of the person, it is reality.

So sometimes wounds happen because somebody perceives they were slighted, or that an expression was made about them, or they were talked about, or left out, or, you know, all those kinds of things. And I think it’s really important for us in leadership who may have to deal with it, to be careful, all wounds hurt.

The most important thing is not figuring out whether it’s true or not, and then telling them it wasn’t true. The most important is recognizing that it caused a wound. And so, the wound still needs to be tended to, whether by real, by reason, we mean that there actually was something that happened, so a reality based wound where there was either something harshly said or somebody who was mistreated, or real by perception, where that person feels as though that happened. It doesn’t have to be based on reality, it’s still a wound, and the wound exists, and the wound needs to be dealt with.

In order for the relationship in the church to be healed. So just, and encourage, especially for those of you who are maybe overly problem solvers, as opposed to stepping into situations and being able to stay in that. It’s not going to be helpful to just seek to solve the problem by pointing out the inaccuracy in the perception.

At some point, and I’m pretty sure one of you is already chatting in a question about this though, doesn’t reality matter? And the answer is yes, and we’ll get to that, but not until you’ve acknowledged the wound, regardless of whether the wound is based on reality or not a reality or perception or not.

So I think it’s critically important for all of us to accept that wounds are wounds. It doesn’t matter who was in error or what caused it or what misunderstanding there was. The wound still exists now. I think that’s super helpful. And then to also acknowledge this definition really captures a large swath of a variety of suffering from some suffering to very deep suffering.

And that needs to be acknowledged as well, that not all wounds are equal. Maybe is that how you would say? For sure, that’s true. One of the comments they make on that is, to the person, it probably doesn’t matter how their wound compares to someone else’s, but for sure, there are wounds that have happened where somebody has been deeply hurt by something that should not have happened, something that shouldn’t have occurred, and others that feel more like slights.

So, but I don’t think we should dismiss them based on that. If there’s a way for us to address them, if it can’t be, sometimes we need to agree with somebody, you know, this isn’t going to change. I can’t change their mind. But yes, there’s a wide, wide variety of what has caused the wounds, but also the intensity of the wounds.

Yeah, I think that’s helpful as we put our finger on what we mean here tonight, about what church hurt is. Let me just make that comment. I think it’s also important for us as we engage to recognize what matters is how significant the wound seems to that person. It’s not like telling your child that shouldn’t hurt that much, but if they are deeply offended or afraid or something, then it hurts into much.

It’s not based on what we reason the amount of the wound should be, but how they are experiencing it. At least initially, we have to step in the amount of pain that they’re feeling, and then we can try to back up from there. And I want to point out a really critical word in this definition, and that is church.

Psychological and emotional wounds caused by negative experiences happen in families. Yes. They happen in workplaces. They happen in the larger community. They happen in neighborhoods. But we’re talking about those that happen in the church. Yeah, that’s important and it showed up a little bit in the questions.

It’s not that we shouldn’t be helpful when that wounding happens in a family, or a neighborhood, or a job, or from an employer. And some of the things we talk about may relate to those, but this is where the wound happened in the construct or the existence of the church. And that really leads us to the place of significance.

Why does it matter? And so, this idea that church hurt has significant impact on people because it touches on a person’s faith and relationship with God. That is the unique niche that tonight’s topic in the hurt that we’re talking about separate from family, neighborhood, work, in those other places.

This has a God orbit to it, doesn’t it? Yeah, I think some of that might help in thinking through this and as you do it with others. We probably understand better that if somebody has a father who’s an extremely harsh man or unable to invest or engage with, then we understand that might affect their ability to relate to other men.

So, we inherently can reason through that. We can say, well, you know, that they had it hard at home. And so, that’s their experience. I think it applies in this same way, not because God is the church and church is God, but scripturally, the church is an arm of God. And so that wounding or hurt within the church does affect the relationship with God.

So it’s critically important. It’s not just about helping people feel better, but enabling them to have a better relationship with God by helping them understand or heal in some way. It really speaks to the fallout and the significance of what the hurt is. I’m going to give an example here that none of us can relate to in person, but I think Eli’s sons, priests to God, meant to be a go between, and their infractions against people were greater than the infractions of the same kind that was being done in other places because of their priesthood.

That is especially egregious. Right, it’s a good example. And so, it’s important to think about then. So, we’ve talked about the definition, what we mean by it, its significance. Let’s go now to the source. How does it happen? Now, we’ve got some loaded terms here Ron. First we’re calling this avoidable hurt.

Okay, so we’re going to provide a couple of different sources here. We’re calling this avoidable hurt. We’re defining that as knowingly or unknowingly causing pain that could have been prevented. So, I want you to help us parse out the knowingly or unknowingly part that seems loaded.

As well as could have been prevented. Yeah, I appreciate it. I think some of you could have probably helped us with our vocabulary here. So, we’ll try to be helpful by defining our vocabulary. So using the term avoidable doesn’t feel entirely comfortable to me because it sounds like that person knew and knew they shouldn’t have.

So avoidable in that way. By avoidable we mean it’s not inherently part of the institution or the structure. It’s avoidable in the sense that if you had thought about it, you might not have approached it that way. Or another person with a different personality might not have done it that way. So, sometimes, probably all of you have experienced, or maybe not all, but some of you have surely experienced where somebody talks about pain that happened, whatever, with a Sunday school teacher, or a past elder, or somebody in the ministry who said something, or whatever it was, and the person had no idea, and you know they had no idea.

And other times, we have to acknowledge, we are all capable of getting backed up, getting a little defensive, getting irritated that things aren’t going and somebody’s, you know, demanding too much. And so sometimes we, we know we’re pressing the limit. Our point here is that it doesn’t matter if it’s knowingly or unknowingly.

It is pain which didn’t need to happen if all things had been known. Now, why is that important? I think we have to acknowledge that, but we’ll save that for later. But yeah, in this case, we’re talking about we want to acknowledge to the person that it would feel like this didn’t have to happen and could have been avoided. Let’s just use that a little bit as we look forward in the presentation. We are going to talk about inherent hurt or hurt that’s going to happen. And I think that’s going to be helpful. As some of the questions came in, I got a sense too, Ron, that there is a little bit of how can you possibly get it right, type of thing, and they’re right.

You can’t get it all right. So there is going to be hurt that happens. We want to separate those here tonight, and we’re going to talk about the avoidable hurt here, and more specifically, Ron, you mentioned here, leadership can induce hurt by being insensitive or uninformed, entitled, controlling any of these would fall under this avoidable hurt.

If you just had known. Yeah. You know, an example I think of, Matt, and this is not uncommon, and I would guess some of you will deal with this. When somebody says, I talked to the elder, I talked to the minister, shared this information. And then they never check back with me, you know, and it doesn’t matter if that’s somebody who lost a child or went through a divorce or separation or something like that.

And in our own struggle with that we think surely they will check with me. And we don’t. And I’ve had it shared about elders who I know cared. And if they had any idea that it would have had that significance they would have. So uninformed, maybe I wouldn’t call them insensitive, although it feels insensitive.

How can you not check with somebody who shared hurt at that level? Well, and let’s take insensitive, which is a very negative connotative term, but just not having the sense. Right, which goes for all of us, right? Oh, that didn’t strike me. My senses didn’t pick that up, which is really what’s happening.

Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. I think all of us could identify some times when we would defensively say the other person didn’t let me know it was that sensitive, you know, was I insensitive or were they expecting that I should know that without them telling me and for these purposes, it doesn’t matter.

But collectively, whether you’re dealing with hurt, which you were the source of or someone else. We’re different in how much we’re aware of that or how much the other person was aware. And we’re not here to use names, and I hope that you wouldn’t either. But we have to acknowledge that some people, more matter of fact, just move their way through and don’t touch on that and somebody’s going to be hurt and come to you and say, well, they didn’t even show or didn’t even listen or I didn’t feel like they were engaged with, which isn’t the same as saying they don’t have a heart.

Yeah. But they could come away feeling like that person was insensitive to the depth of the hurt. Speak to the entitlement or controlling. So again, those seem heavy handed, but yeah, they can happen. They can happen pretty easily. So, I think any of you who are in a position of leadership, one of the temptations we have to work on is that we can have some sense of entitlement. Not entitlement like I should get the biggest house or the first chair or whatever things. Like you ought to listen to me or give me some credibility in that or I shouldn’t have to or why do I have to do this?

And it happens, if we look through politics through organized religion, all those things, the entitlement, even in the Bible, what happened with leaders in the Old Testament who became convinced of their entitlement and lost their humility. So we cannot say it wouldn’t happen. It is a part of who we are.

And sometimes you’ll be dealing with that. With somebody who was hurt by someone else who felt overly entitled, and sometimes you might be the one who is the source of that feeling like I shouldn’t have to, or you’re demanding more than what is fair. Why do you expect me to know that? I think that term is something that we can taste.

And so, I think it’s real having that. Yeah. It’s not right to deny it. We’d like to think we’re better people than that, but we’re flesh and blood, and we know Scripture says about this, the soul that we carry. And unfortunately, Ron, even in the larger Christian culture we see church hurt happening on larger stages that really play a lot to some of these things.

Yeah, you know, tonight we’re not going to talk into other church experiences, but the news is the news. You know what’s out there, and there isn’t any known denomination which hasn’t had some people who, within that, take on some level of entitlement, or some level of control, which causes harm to people within the organization.

It’s just a reality that’s there. So let’s move then right now. Let me just comment on that and I think this will be helpful. You can’t push it too fast, but sometimes hurt happens because somebody comes to me or somebody comes to you and they assume you know what happened with their child, or they assume that you know the family relationship they came out of, or they assume you know what the Sunday school superintendent said to them, or they assume you know what the elder said to them, but you don’t know, they think you’re in that circle, and so you really are not able to be sensitive in the way that they want.

But it’s legitimate, it’s avoidable in that if, knowing all things, you wouldn’t have done that. But it’s going to happen sometimes. And surely, you have had it happen. I won’t push on that, but where they’re like, well, I just thought you knew that. Yeah. Well, I didn’t know that. And if I had, I would have handled it different.

Sure. That’s really helpful. So we have avoidable hurt. And let’s go now to the protection. So this is the mitigation. How do we mitigate avoidable hurt? Two things here, setting up protections, setting up accountability. How does that help mitigate?

Yeah. I want to talk about those. I want to add a couple more. I was thinking about it. Yeah. Please do. So, setting up protections is just to recognize that you might not know. So ask questions or engage or check with a person. If somebody’s sharing something with you, I’m not talking now about when they’re hurt and sharing it.

I’m talking when you’re potentially the source of the hurt. Okay. Put boundaries around who you are and don’t be presumptuous about what you know and set up protections. That requires a pretty good understanding of oneself. To put protections around, to say, I tend towards entitlement, I need to put protections, I tend towards control, I need to put some protections.

Yeah, so I’ll use an example. There are situations I don’t share with our ordained deacon unless the person I talk to is comfortable with it, but I often just let him know of situations because he will reflect back for me. If I don’t share it with somebody, I will miss those things.

And he might say, well, did you know some piece I didn’t know. So you allow him to be someone more of your senses. Yeah, it is. And it kind of runs those together a little bit, if you will, the protections and the accountability. But I think accountability is a bit more of reporting back and seeing, but it’s letting him help with those safeguards or other things.

So, one of the things I put down here is just ask questions like, was there anything else involved in that? Not presuming I know, but delving into it further, not for the sake of knowing all of it, but just to make sure I didn’t miss something, or did you need something, or is there something that I could help more with, or were you expecting something else?

So I think that’s a part of those protections, is not just listening, thinking, okay, good, I got that here, this will be helpful for you, and recognize that no, you don’t necessarily know. Yeah, it’s a way of protecting your own sense of entitlement, or not being informed. I could give an example to Ron. I have found some a few chosen sisters to be very, very helpful in providing some accountability and some oversight to some matters dealing with sisters, if that makes sense.

I’ve told him, I said. I’m just not going to be able to see this right or, or see this completely. And does that fit the accountability you’re speaking of? Yeah. So we’re not talking now about what to do after the hurt. This is how to mitigate it. How to try to prevent that from happening.

Yeah. So, I would encourage, in that example, if you’re going to use your wife, which is a good idea, but be sure that she is safe telling. If she’s in a role where your sensitivity or sense of masculinity is that she has to reinforce you’re doing a good job. That’s no protection. But she can be very helpful if you’ve given her space to say, did you realize how that might sound to a woman? And the same thing would be true if you’re, you know, I’m quite a bit older than you are. I need younger people to say, do you know, to younger people. This is what that sounds like.

And so running that past somebody that’s younger being aware of that. So it’s not just a gender thing. A gender thing is a little more obvious. And we like to laugh about it, but it’s whatever roles you’re not in, even you know, I’m not a businessman and I’m not a farmer. And if things like that come to me, I need to find out from somebody else where I might be insensitive because I don’t know that.

I really liked that idea of having younger to help because how do we process older? I think he thinks I’m young, which I’m just saying that. So, help me understand a generation because we take things differently too. Right. And one of the common questions that came in is this new?

Church hurt has always been around. I gave an ancient example of church hurt, but is the sensitivity higher today? And that might be true. And it’s part of the world we live in, or it might not be depending on who we’re talking to. Right. Yeah, I think in fairness, I would answer the question. It probably is, but only because we’re not in a we society.

We’re more of a me society. So if I have a pain, it should be addressed as opposed to you ought to bear that, which I’m not saying either one’s right or wrong. It just probably is more that sense of entitlement to get it taken care of. Yeah, but being in tune with that, I think is what you’re saying.

And we need accountability to help that. I think that’s really helpful. Let’s move along then. So now we’ve got another source. Here’s the inherit. Okay, so we’re going to call this knowingly or unknowingly, there’s that clause again, we may or may not know it, but causing pain that will occur by nature of life and people.

So, speak to this inherit idea. Yes, I’m going to just go for a minute, move sort of off topic. So, is there anybody here who would say you were never hurt by your parents? And I’m not talking about when your parent lost their temper. I’m talking about when they said, no, you’re not going to stay out too many nights.

No, I don’t care what your friends are doing. So just the authority structure exists. And I was hurt by it. I mean, I had good parents. I’m not trying to bring up something there, but that doesn’t mean I can’t remember some things like, why’d that happen? So just the authority differences in what our levels of, or places of submission are with that, having to work within an organization.

You know, there are things we would like to do that don’t happen in this school, or in this family, or in this church, and that may be hurtful to me. And I think I can say this, a past example would have been people who felt strongly called to evangelism or missionary work, and our church wasn’t at a place, and not defending who was right or not, but pain happened.

Yeah. And it happened because that’s who the church was at the time, and it didn’t line up with who I was. So it was a part of the organization, not necessarily a part of an insensitive elder or somebody who didn’t think you were qualified or something like that. Well, I appreciate that example because there you do have a person sincerely feeling the call of God and the best that they can understand and then being said no to.

And I think that is very helpful as we think about inherent hurt. So this is what we’re saying is this is hurt that’s going to happen. It’s not avoidable necessarily. You’ve got a few things like personalities. Yeah, so this would be more fun if we were all together and we could point to two of you that we know are different enough from each other and suggest how you might clash a little.

Good people who don’t have any intention to do that. But just to approach things differently or just one who’s stronger and just get things done and somebody else who it needs to be talked through and reasoned and spend some time and that’s going to cause hurt without there being a wrong person or or a bad person.

Just by nature of who we are and who we are not by God’s design is going to rub people. And so there’s going to be a hurt that probably could happen from that. This one we spoke to, but go ahead and speak a little bit. You might be ignorant of past hurts and its impact. Again, inherent in the sense that you only know what you know, and you don’t know what you don’t know.

That pretty well summarized it. So, it doesn’t matter what role we’re in, if that’s Sunday school superintendent, or minister, or elder. Churches that have history. Often we either don’t know the history. So in Washington, people no longer consider me new. But I don’t know the things that happened in established in the Washington Church.

And I would say for a larger church that’s been around for 150 or 200 years, you know, whatever, there are pieces which are part of the history that even if you grew up there, you may not know. Yeah. And know how those rank a little bit. Often this will be in the place of family competition, if you will.

Like, feeling like a certain family always gets these positions, or a certain family always gets their way with things. And if you weren’t part of that, you don’t know where that hurt is coming from. How can you avoid that? Yeah. And you don’t. I think another one too, Ron, is triggers.

People are triggered by certain things, certain procedures, certain ways things are said. And you can’t manage all of that. Right. And you don’t often know that that’s a trigger. No, for sure. Let’s look at real or perceived lack of options. You spend a little time here, Ron, what do you mean by this?

And this goes to the organizational thing, maybe? Yeah, so I’m not going to use deeply personal examples, but I’m going to use some that have come up. So, there are certain situations that we as a church body, group of elders, but collectively a whole church, we have in place expectations that discipline will happen if a certain thing happens, or it’ll be carried out in a certain way.

And that is hurtful. In my own experience, I haven’t had that much with this fortunately, but it’s huge when people are in that vulnerable place, and I might prefer not to do that, but we have said that we believe Scripture supports that. So we need to do it. And can I just interject, even from the questions, there is a healthy pain that we’re not speaking of, but often hurt that accompanies and can can come along for the ride.

And you’re speaking about this hurt part. Right. And even as elders sometimes, we would like to avoid that. Maybe thinking, is there some way I don’t have to do this? And it’s not just about this. When it’s things like somebody who wants to get remarried, or get out of a marriage, or somebody who wants some certain responsibility, and they’re not, and you have to carry that out.

Family conflicts that they don’t have a solution. I mean, they’re within our churches. There are family conflicts. That have been there for three generations, and you don’t know them, or you do know them, but there’s nothing you can do about it. Yeah, I like that example about somebody who might want a position or want a, a role and you’re not going to go over top the procedures of your church. I’m going to share one, which, once we were informed, we changed that, but in Washington, we used to have nominating ballots. And so if we needed 3 sisters to Sunday school, we’d come up with 5 names and then we’d vote from those 5 names.

And then I would take that ballot and circle the ones who got it. And had no thought that I was posting the losers. Until somebody said, please don’t do that again. Because I was posting the losers. That it was just an administrative act now. Never again. And we’ve changed some and how we do the the choosing of positions.

So that’s a good example of both avoidable. But you also have this inherent, this is the way the system goes in appointing offices. There’s going to be. Yeah. And so it actually included both. Somebody who would have liked to and felt they weren’t chosen. And then secondly, that I made a public.

The void of it was that I made a public. I couldn’t fix the fact that they weren’t getting the support for the position. That was just there. And I can think of actually several within Washington, of pain that existed, because why am I not asked? For sure. You know, and I didn’t know what to do with that.

Yeah. So that was, unavoidable, inherent pain, but how I handled it was insensitive sometimes. Without my knowing, I was being insensitive. And they still love me. We’re okay but I didn’t know it. Now that’s a great example, let’s look at one more source. And this will be the last of the sources.

And this also is inherent, There’s also inherent, knowingly or unknowingly causing pain that will occur by nature of the duty and church institution. This is very similar, but you’ve got to really go into church roles here, Ron, and just looking at the nature of church and the institution itself, it has some roles that it does.

And by nature of the roles that it fills, sometimes there can be a shadow of hurt that follows. You know, I think put up the second piece because I think they speak across each other. So the church is responsible to interpret theology if somebody has deeply different theology and in their mind they’re right and they can’t figure out what to do when it doesn’t align. Some people are fine with that and they’re just like well, we don’t agree with that and others like you’re telling me I’m wrong, so what do we do?

The church can’t stop working through theology. The Church can’t not put doctrine in place. It is a function of it. The Church doesn’t exist without those roles. The Church at some level has to define sin and godliness, and in terms of lifestyle convictions, somebody may not agree. So, these don’t always result in hurt.

But the church can’t not do her role, you know, those are things that must happen. The discipling of believers, you know, we’ve talked about that a lot here and other places. In doing so, there will be people who don’t feel they got the support they should have or weren’t engaged in the place they should have.

So these are not avoidable. We need to be aware, and I think, yes, we’ll be coming to that next, about, so what do we do with these where there are those differences that are structural, they’re a part of carrying out our role. We shouldn’t ignore them. They’re still real. And I think some of the questions, I think this can be helpful to some of the questions that we got to help people see that the church, it wasn’t personal, it wasn’t about you, but that elder had a responsibility to either put this in place or to assign that or to assess and sometimes did it well, sometimes did it poorly, but it wasn’t entirely avoidable.

Well, one of the things that I’ve learned here tonight is to understand that whether you might call it unavoidable pain or wounds, they go hand in glove. And sometimes teasing out the difference that this pain for any of these reasons, because of truth or whatever is going to be present.

But how do I mitigate the hurt and the wounds that can come alongside it? Well, this goes to protection. How inherent hurt might be mitigated. So, we can’t avoid it necessarily. So speak to any of these points here. Yeah, I want to start with one that’s not there because it just relates.

Oh, I said, yeah, I think both it in our own when we are hurt sometimes. Or, hurt somebody else, but also when we’re supporting someone else, just pointing out and reminding that we live in a fallen world. And we all carry that with us, both as the person that might feel wounded, but also the person that they see as the source of that.

I mean, maybe not by creation, but by fall, that is true. There will be. So often the question is, how do we live in a fallen world? Not how do we get rid of all the hurt associated with the fallen world, but how do we exist within that? And I think some of that falls within this. So, when there’s, and I’m going to just use an example that comes to mind.

I’m gonna speak as an elder now, but you may be in the position of feeling, not wondering if you should support the elder or show sympathy, but acknowledging the hurt that comes with that. So, if I’m gonna put discipline in place, it’s important that I talk to the person about it.

Understanding the hurt of that, as soon as they won’t receive it because they see me as the one being judgmental, but, but at least try to speak to that. as opposed to thinking it shouldn’t. So just acknowledge some things. Well, if somebody talks to me about, my name has come up for Sunday school 10 years in a row, and I haven’t gotten a position.

Does nobody like me? Going to the answer and say, well, maybe you will next year. That doesn’t acknowledge the hurt that this is the system we follow. Even saying, if I could just appoint, I’d be willing to appoint you. But acknowledging the hurt of that. I remember the person who pointed out to me that.

You’ve posted my name as a loser for several years. No, please don’t do that again. Acknowledging that hurt not taking responsibility for it like I did it, you know, but acknowledge it hurt whether I did it or didn’t do it. Yeah, but I hear you saying not only oh, I’m not going to do that again thanks for letting me know but that was wounding, wasn’t it?

Yes. You are acknowledging not just a mistake, but you’re acknowledging the wounding part, the hurting part. Okay, and I think in some of the questions that would be an important piece. Sometimes just acknowledging to the person you understand why it hurt. Not that you have an answer for it, but that you understand that people are incredibly supported and helped by knowing someone, understand why it hurt.

Yeah. Even if you don’t agree with them. Yeah. It does help. And would you say that maybe leadership voice carries further in acknowledging somebody’s church hurt than a peer understanding church hurt? No question. I think that’s why the questions are coming from ministers and ministers wives.

Because they’re coming to you. Because if they know you understand, that carries more weight than just, you know, my cousin who I told, or some other person in the pew. Yeah, know how you are heard or received. So that is receiving feedback, being willing to let people say, you’re really abrupt, or you really use a loud tone, or you don’t seem to listen, and that’s painful.

But if people know it’s okay to give you feedback, and that may be another way to say that knowing how you are heard or received is the willingness to receive feedback and share that. I think the third one is more about the person carrying out the action but ask around. Sometimes we make decisions and say, well, you know, that’s how it is, I have to.

And there may be other alternatives, which we didn’t think of. But in conferring with somebody else in the minister team or with some other elders, sometimes there are some options. Some that I’ve had. Why? Yeah, I’m not going to use them here because some of you know that people have talked about it and said, Ron, are you sure you need to do that?

From older brothers who are mentors, who were mentoring me, I like, well, I thought I did. You thought your hands were tied, but then you had more freedom. No, they definitely pushed that piece about you need to think about that. So seeking counsel, you don’t know that unless that happens. And I think the last is just this delegation, which we have talked about in all kinds of contexts, that being aware there are some things somebody else is better at than you.

Use them regardless of whether that’s somebody needing just a soft touch because they’re very sensitive or somebody who needs help figuring out something. Somebody asked me to resolve a farm conflict. That’d be really dumb. It’d be dumb for me to do it. I need to look to somebody who knows more about that.

Yeah. Or maybe you’ve drafted an email and you’re saying, would you read this and maybe edit it a little bit to help take off my edges? It would be my ordained deacon and my wife. Yeah, for sure. That’s really, really helpful. And so now let’s move into treatment. So these were protections, right?

This was how we mitigate, again, this concept that we can’t eradicate this disease of church hurt. It’s going to happen in some form, but how can we mitigate? How can we step into it now? This idea, how can it be cared for? It has happened. The wounds are there. And so let’s look at just the avoidable hurt.

Now as we reflect. Yes. So, I want to make a comment on both these again, something I didn’t think to put down, but this is a reflection as counselors at ACCFS. It’s not unusual for somebody to come in and sit down for 50 minutes. And talk 49 of the 50 minutes and say, thanks. It was really helpful.

So what does that mean? They just wanted to be heard. They needed to be heard. I wouldn’t even say wanted. I don’t think they knew they wanted to do it. But the healing from being heard. So that, and I think it includes the show Grayson Buff is a part of that. The willingness to hear it and not be afraid that you feel like somehow you’re endorsing it or you’re going to tell them they’re right, but just the grace of stepping in and being willing to listen.

So don’t undermine that. In fact, some of the questions, they do not have an answer, but I would say still be there. Do that because this gives them encouragement within the church. It does mitigate and makes the wound less; I don’t know their support there I want to key in on be there because again going back to the significance slide. Why the significance? Because we’re talking about relationships with God. Yes, that’s what’s at stake here at the end of the day. It’s not how they feel about me or how they feel, it’s about this relationship with God. And if that gets twisted up and tangled that’s where the real hurt is. And so, I think when you say, be there be present you are embodying a truth that they hopefully can experience with God or see that. So we’re trying to do some rewriting in that.

Rewriting their script. Yeah. Rewriting that script. Yeah, for sure. I would say that pathway to address hurtful leadership. So sometimes there are some answers, some things that could be clarified, and maybe you can be a part of that. It’s like, would you want me to go with you, and maybe we could ask if that’s what was meant or help explain it.

It’s not unusual for somebody when they’re deeply hurt to just feel like I’m just going to get in more trouble. It’ll just be worse. And sometimes it’s not a good idea to go and talk, but sometimes it is, and they just need somebody who’s not going to get cranked up emotionally, not as angry or hurt or complaining, whatever.

And that can just help get it right and help with the expression. So you can be the pathway for that, either to the person or else just explaining, you know, here’s what I think happened. I don’t think it was meant that way. Listen first, before you go to helping with hurt, listen first, don’t ever lose that.

But what I see in bullet number two, and again, thoughts go to many situations that we’re seeing in the larger Christian culture to having a pathway to address hurtful leadership. This is really good stewardship. And I’m thinking about myself in leadership. Is there a pathway to address me if I’m hurting people and there needs to be an important question.

And that can be difficult to put in place for myself. Yeah, you know, it’s interesting, Matt. It’s something that we’re working towards. I’m not saying it always works, but I think it’s going fairly well. When that happens within an elder role, I think, I’m not going to say all, but certainly most of our elders would be fine with you going to another elder.

And asking for them to help you in figuring out how to relate to this one, that we know we aren’t everything to everybody. And sometimes having another elder hear it, just listen to it, you know, in a different way, and maybe make some suggestions or be some part. But particularly just to give some context and reflection.

So a pathway, having that path to go to, knowing it’s okay to talk to another elder, unless you’re just going to gripe at them. And don’t do that hard, right? Transparency? Yeah, I think, Matt, just for all of us, acknowledging hurt happens. You know, and not if you made a mistake, being willing to say, I should have addressed that in a different way.

Or, as the person who is helping somebody who is hurting, being transparent enough to be able to say, you know, I think I probably would have been hurt also. Transparent enough to acknowledge that. I don’t know if they meant it that way, but I think I would have felt the same way you did. That isn’t piling on, not if you handle that well, but it’s opposed to, well, I don’t think you should. That’s not helpful.

Help us see reparation. Yeah, so I think we need to acknowledge, we’ve been talking about how to help people bear it. Yeah, but there frequently is something to be done, some way to handle that, whether that’s somebody who hasn’t got an office and would like one and think through, you know, when you need a substitute, can we use them for that, or if there’s a midterm change, or I mean, that just is in that example, or giving the person who is the offending party, the opportunity.

And again, I didn’t know that, but I’m sorry it happened that way. So things can sometimes be repaired, the reparation. Yeah. We have to know when to step into that, when there’s a place for it. Yep. But we shouldn’t ignore it. So let’s look at now, the inherent hurt, again, under this treatment idea. And this will actually be our last four points with some time here for any chat and questions even if you unmike yourself there at the end.

So just know that will be coming here, but let’s talk about inherent hurt. Yeah. So, I don’t think they’re all that different at this level than the avoidable. Listen without judgment. So if somebody has a different doctrine or a different theology or something they want to do, which they couldn’t hear them, don’t correct them through it, just listen to them without judging.

Or if you’re the person supporting someone who’s hurt, we’re talking on both sides here, how you and leadership should avoid hurt, but also how you as the support person can help somebody who was hurt. In both cases, people are not going to open up and share unless they know you’re listening without judgment.

Later, you could add perspective, but listen without judgment. And I think it fits right in with acknowledging hurt without blame. You know, and a question came to that too. How do we do this without making a brouhaha with maybe somebody else on the leadership team, right? Or how do we not. Somebody is always trying to bend our ear and trying to get us to blame as well.

And so I think that’s key. Yeah, it’s not always easy to do. Some, I think you have to strike a balance. You can’t go the whole way saying, well, I don’t necessarily agree, but I hear, I don’t necessarily agree, but I won’t, but I know that’s going to make them feel like you’re not listening.

But if you say nothing, they may go away and say, and I’ve heard this happen, Yeah, I talked, I’ve been quoted as agreeing to something that all I did was listen. Yeah. So, there is a place just to confirm that. I really appreciate you being open under so much you went through. I don’t see it that way.

We can talk about that later, but I appreciate the trust you showed me. In being willing to share so that it still means listening without blaming, you know, one thing just even the words we use. So instead of saying if somebody were to say I was ignored. Yeah, but even saying that feeling like you’re ignored is hard doesn’t mean I believe you were ignored, doesn’t mean I agree but the feeling and helping them tuning into the right.

Exactly. Offer to be flexible offer a turn. I think you spoke to that already. Yeah, I think that it goes without saying. And then explore paths to healing and reconciliation. It’s very parable to that reparation. Yeah, sometimes they have to work through that. If they are there, point them out, don’t start there.

People need to be heard first, not judged. I can say that I’ve messed this up and I’ve written that note a very clear confession, understanding that my actions could have, were by her account wounding from a church leader and to write that letter of confession and apology, open apology, to her, it was required.

And I’m thankful for that pathway. I see this as a pathway to get the opportunity of the blessing. Thank you. So, church hurt. I hope this was helpful to see. Yes, it’s going to happen. We’re trying to mitigate it here, but also taking it very, very seriously. Again, this would be an excellent time if you wanted to unmute yourself, ask a question, you can certainly do that, or you can chat 1 in.

Arlan’s on the back end taking those chats. Maybe Arlan you’ve got something. No chats have come through, but yeah, please feel free to share those. I do have just one question. While we may wait for anyone else that might have something on their mind we talked tonight. You cannot control other people and how they will react.

But we can do our best to try to be willing to learn and grow and do whatever we can to mitigate hurt. So, Ron, I’m just curious, what are 1 or 2 things that maybe you’ve seen in people who seem to handle church hurt well, and 1 or 2 things and people who maybe seem to not handle as well.

Just a contrast there. What are some just some general tendencies that you have maybe seen? Yeah, I tried to think through this, Arlan, and I think in some ways they have to do, when we talk about PTSD and why some people walk through that okay, and others are wounded, has a lot to do with just the personal makeup of that person.

So I think things like if somebody’s able to see hurt without having to go to blame, so to handle church hurt well is to own it. It doesn’t mean denying it. It means saying that this hurt, but I don’t have to blame it on somebody. I want help with the pain, but I don’t have to have the vindication. And by nature, we’re different than that.

Some people need someone else to hurt for their hurt to be less. People who handle hurt well are ones who can own hurt, accept it, but don’t have to turn it into blame. And I think the other thing I would say is people who are able to think broadly and understand there’s often multiple factors.

You know, this has to do with my background and with your background and circumstance that maybe you had control over and maybe you didn’t. As opposed to thinking too narrowly, if this happened, you caused it. So thinking more broadly and looking through different pieces. I would say those are people who handle it well.

People who don’t handle it well, you know, this is not to blame it on anybody, but often there are people who’ve experienced multiple hurts. So that this is not the hurt. This is another one of the hurts. And it makes it very difficult to step into this one with grace, because whether they know it or not, it’s coming on top of those other hurts.

It’s hard to get it right. Yes. And I would say the same thing about people have difficulty handling hurt. Well, if there’s multiple stressors in their life, you know, if finances are a difficulty, they have either a child with behavior problems or other dysfunctional things going on or things at work that aren’t going well, they don’t have the fortitude to handle this.

They’re going to be wounded more easily. And in our support role, we need to recognize that and tease those out and not be overly frustrated that they’re not handling it well. They’re not going to handle it well with all those things that are happening. I was gonna say that to listen through or just to really listen well and think about all the extenuating circumstances that might be going on in individuals’ lives.

And I think we have to say it. It’s not pleasant to say. So, there are some people who just feel strongly they need to be vindicated. And so, they need someone to blame in order for them to be okay. You can’t do something about that, because that’s not easy to point out. When I say not easy, I don’t mean just that it’s unpleasant. I mean, they don’t necessarily step into that well, but it’s a reality that’s there.

We had another question come on, how do you discern if someone just needs to unload or vent or if it’s actually a cry for help? Been told the church wasn’t there for them because we missed it as a cry for help and action.

Do you have any thoughts on that discerning between the venting versus the moving where it’s helping. So, I want to say this with a smile on face. So, if you’re not watching the video, be sure you turn it on. Don’t ask that question yet. My response is listening either way.

Because regardless of whether they just need to vent or are hurt in a way that they need help with it. In both cases, they need you to listen thoroughly. And acknowledge first, and it’ll be much easier after doing a good job of that to then go to and maybe even ask what was that helpful? And where are you with it?

Once you come back in there and this has been helpful for me. And let’s talk about it again and give an opportunity to see what happens. After listening, well, but I like what you caught what you said there at the end. Even turn it to them a little bit and say, you know, help me understand what that was helpful or not.

There’s another question that came in, I struggle when someone comes to me, knowing how to listen, how much to defend the church or the person they are coming to talk about. So I thought about that. Sometimes it seems like we want to know how much to listen and how much to defend.

When is there a role to defend? Is there a role to defend whether it’s the church or someone else? Do you know, Arlan? Yeah, I think it’s a good question. I think the vocabulary might be the answer to the question. So, I don’t think we should defend, but we maybe need to explain. And the fact that we’re even feeling that defensiveness probably means we’re letting ourselves get backed into a corner too soon.

There is a point at which we need to explain not just for the integrity of the church or the elder of the minister or whoever did it, but also because if the person doesn’t get it right, at some point, they’re not going to work through the hurt. They’re going to need to understand why elections are done this way, or why this was carried out this way, or why we support this project and not that one. And I don’t mean that to be hard on whoever answers the question, I just would encourage, I think, using a different vocabulary We’ll help do that in the right order, and using explain instead of defend will slow that down a little bit and give the opportunity to explain, when we’re ready for that.

But I would even say, I don’t have to defend the church. I can say I believe in it. I can say I agree. I can say I understand why that happened, but I don’t have to defend it in the sense of convincing them that the church was right. And I can acknowledge you might see it different.

But here’s how I see what happened. I’m hoping it can be helpful for you to see both perspectives. I’m wondering as well, when a conversation is always being pointed. Yes. There’s a place for that early on as you listen and all of those things. I think there’s a shift that happens if healthy hurt is healed and that is that arrow then turns around.

And how do we now. How do we now live with that reality? And as long as people are laser focused outward, that healing isn’t going to mature to where it needs to go. So that gives a little bit of a roadmap, I think. And how to turn that arrow back, not to their own fault, but simply how do we now live with that reality?

And sometimes people are interested in that and all of a sudden, they won’t talk to you anymore. So, that’s the reality of sometimes we can’t. I think about, and we don’t have time to put it here, but we talk about the red light, yellow light, green light.

When somebody’s anger is up in that red place, there is no resolving that’s going to happen. They’re just angry. And if you can’t find a way to help them bring the anger down to a different place, they can still be hurt. You want to talk about it, but you can’t do it up in that angry place. And sometimes you just have to point that out to them and say, you know, I care, and I would like to, but your anger is intense stuff.

I don’t think we can get to the next step with the anger that high. Yeah, that makes sense. I know. There are a lot of different directions we can go with this webinar tonight and we maybe answered some of your questions and maybe there’s other directions that you wish we would have gone, and we just did not have time to.

And this is a very multi-fingered topic that can go a lot of different ways, but if any other burning questions. Otherwise, Matt, if you want to go to Arlan, maybe those questions would be emailed. Certainly. Yeah, at any point and Matt, why don’t you go to the next slide?

And just realize there are more resources out there on our website around the topic of hurt. If you would just go there and search hurt, many of these would come up. Some of these are, how do we walk through hurt? And if you are in a position of supporting someone, you’ll learn as you walk through some of the topics and some of the main ideas within these.

And some of these are really geared towards supporting others as they go through hurt. And so again, different resources are available for you to use or to peruse at your time. But as Matt said, if you have more questions or thoughts, please always feel free to email and reach out at any time.

The emails and the communications we get help drive the topics for these webinars throughout. One more question just came in. How does Matthew 18:15 fit into this? And I will read that to you Matthew 18:15 if a brother shall trespass against thee go and tell him his fault between him and thee, and him alone. And if he shall hear thee, though hast gained thy brother and it goes on to talk about otherwise go two or three and take it to the church. Any thoughts on that last question that came in there about Matthew 18:15? Yeah, I think it’s a really important Scripture. I think sometimes we try to stretch that Scripture across every venue of life, and we need to be careful.

So, if somebody said something bad about you, something derogatory, you should go talk to that person. But there are pieces, if that person is somebody in authority, maybe you do need to talk to somebody else to find help for that. I don’t think it’s wrong. The principle still stands, but I don’t think it’s meant to be a principle that we hold like a sledgehammer and say, well, you didn’t talk to him yet, so I’m not talking to you.

You know, sometimes people need to process, they need you to help them process in their head what this is about. Did I make a mistake or how should I word it? So I think it’s a great principle and should be followed. Just don’t use it in a rigid way to avoid helping somebody or to force them to do something they don’t have the capacity to do.

Or realize, like you said there, Ron, sometimes it’s how you can be helpful to help them process through it to get them in a position where they can then move towards reconciliation. And there are other times you just need to say, did you talk to them yet? But assess whether they have the wherewithal to do that. The articulation to do it, the courage to do it. But there are times when somebody shouldn’t be talking to me about that hurt. You know, my response should be, you know that brother. You know the situation. You have the ability to talk to him. You talk to them first and then come and let me know.

So, there’s definitely a time and a place where just assess who it is and what that is. Appreciate that. Appreciate all the chats, all the individuals who are engaged tonight and everyone who joined us tonight. For sake of time, I think it’s time to bring this to a close any last thoughts matter on that you’d like to.

Share one last thought that everyone that’s got on this call, just interested or going to listen to it, I think says a lot about exactly their heart on this matter. And that is we don’t do this perfectly at all, but I’m just really encouraged by that. And I would pick them and just say, don’t diminish the power of your presence.

The fact that somebody wants to talk to you means they trust you and it means that you are significant and helpful. Even though when you go to bed at night, you might think, I didn’t do anything, but your willingness to be there, just knowing that somebody would be there with us is hugely powerful, and especially in those hurts that can’t be resolved, they’re going to exist, and we need to support each other in just dealing with them.

Yeah, so I appreciate the opportunity to share with you. Well, thanks to both of you. Yeah, thanks for being part of it. Keep your eyes out for our next webinar. It’ll be in September on walking through differences on the pulpit, that’ll be the next one and any time, like we have said, please feel free to reach out.

And in our prayers we can continue to be a support and encouragement to each other. And thank you for all that you each do to share the love and grace and truth of Jesus in your congregations. God bless you this evening.