How Do We Turn the Ship Around?

 

There was a question that was haunting me.

 

I’ve asked God this question at night when my teething one-year-old struggles to fall back asleep. 

I’ve asked it while I’m making macaroni and cheese on the stove at lunchtime for my kids. 

The question lurks again while I wait for my child to finish his last few math problems for the day so that I can check his work.

 

And with each and every aching spiritual abuse victim I come across, I ask,

 

“What can we do, God?… What would you have us do?” 

 

The church’s reputation is deteriorating by the day. And when I mean the church, I mean all of us. I don’t care if you go to ‘This Church’ or ‘That Church’. Wherever you attend can even have a 5-star rating on Google, but believe me when I say, that many people would never think twice about attending your church. 

 

Do you want to know why? 

 

Because the church, as a whole, is losing people’s trust. 

 

In our defense, we like to make this a them problem…

 

“My church is great, too bad for those other churches!”

”It’s not all churches that are corrupt.”

”Oh well, that hasn’t been my experience.”

 

We take our personal testimony and weave a blanket statement to discredit countless others who have tried to commit to a church community and have been left with a limping faith instead of a stronger one. But is that really how the body of Christ functions? Disconnected and discombobulated from the experiences of one another?

 

In 1 Corinthians 12:26 it states,

 

”And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”

 

Diane Langberg expounds on this concept in her book When the Church Harms God’s People. She says,

 

”The church is a body. Its members are to have the same care for one another that they have for themselves(1 Cor. 12:25). If your face is about to be hit, your arm and fist work to ward off the blow. If you see danger headed toward you, your feet move you to safety. In the church, we are to be concerned about all the members of our body and not just seek our own well-being. We are called to weep with those who weep, to share the sorrows of those who have been wounded(Rom. 12:15).”

 

And if that’s not enough reason to care, we need to consider the plight of God’s people because He cares. There has been no small number of sheep that have come out of church with blood dripping from their necks. These wounded sheep matter to God.

 

Every. Single. One. 

 

So when God finally answered my question I was expecting a glorious one. One where Jesus rides in with a royal stallion and whips and flips all our tables. An event that starts with boo and ends with yah. But instead, His answer to me is simple and seemingly small. 

 

It starts with repentance, Amanda. 

 

Oh! Repentance, yes good, good. Let’s get these all these powerful churches to do some repenting!

 

No, I mean you.

 

Me? Something about this answer feels eerily familiar. It is not the first time that I have begged God to change my circumstances and He has gently nudged my heart to see the error of my ways.

 

You see, as I sit with profound concern over what our church system has become, I cannot ignore that I’ve been a part of it and supported its current structure for more than three decades. I served in it. I gave my money to it. I lived and breathed it. Even now, while I’m apart from being a member or regular attendee of any church building, I am still part of the church. 

 

Which means that I have contributed to it. 

 

I’ve been the person who has relied on previous believers to tell me how and what church should look like instead of knowing exactly what Jesus has instructed. 

 

I’ve been the person in the pews supporting a ministry that has destroyed someone’s life, choosing to believe the narrative fed to me rather than pursuing truth. 

 

I’ve been the person who idolizes men in leadership positions in the church.

 

I’ve been the person who has minimized the effects of abuse.

 

I’ve been the person who has stepped over the injured lying in the road, not wanting to get my garments messy or have my schedule delayed.

 

I’ve been the person where the harm hadn’t so severely affected my life and thus chose to justify why it wasn’t a big problem for me.

 

I’ve been the person who chose to trust my church leaders blindly, even when there was a steady flow of casualties behind them.

 

I’ve been the person who didn’t ask questions when something didn’t seem right.

 

I’ve been the person who relied on the convictions of another instead of intentionally finding my own. 

 

I’ve been the person who witnessed unqualified behavior in my pastor but was too embarrassed to confront him about it.

 

I’ve been the person who has accepted broad spiritual jargon in place of true transparency.

 

I’ve been the person who honored the position over seeking accountability.

 

I’ve been the person who didn’t run after those that I had said I “loved” when they left my community.

 

I’ve been the person who expected God to pick up the pieces of catastrophe while removing myself from taking part in that process.

 

I’ve been the person that has judged other believers for not sucking up their trauma to return to church.

 

I’ve been the person who has benefited from a sick system that has devastated people’s lives.

 

I’ve been the person who thought that victims of spiritual abuse should act better, heal faster, and forgive sooner without providing tangible care.

 

I’ve been the person on the outskirts of conflict who chose to stay ignorant. 

 

I’ve been the person who thought the best answer to healing what my old church had done was to find a new church, instead of questioning why spiritual abuse is so prevalent.

 

I’ve been the person who made assumptions and oversimplified why some Christians choose not to attend church.

 

I’ve been the person who chose to investigate only as far as it would disrupt my life.

 

I’ve been the person who chose to do nothing because I didn’t think I would make a difference.

 

I’ve been the person who prioritized social acceptance and my pastor’s job security over inquiring about biblical disqualifications.

 

I’ve been the person who has attributed power to a particular building or person that only belongs to the Holy Spirit.

 

I am guilty of committing these sins and probably a boatload more than what I’m aware of. 

 

Confession is only half of it though. Repentance is making the intentional decision to not act in these ways again. It’s relying on God to help me make real changes in my behavior. This is not just some blog post to be read. It was an experience with God that caused me to apologize to the people I have hurt in my life with my intentional and unintentional actions. It required me to have a conversation with God and to think about how He would want me to behave instead.

 

Here are some changes He brought to mind:

 

• Caring when someone is harmed by the church.
• Educating myself and advocating for Christ’s vision of what his church should look like.
• Inquiring about serious actions that take place in a church that appear to be unloving or unbiblical.
• Being an advocate for healthy changes in churches. 
• Spending time outside of my regular Christian bubble. Seeking to understand and care for those who don’t trust the church.
• Thinking of ways the church can minister to believers who have not been able to connect in church buildings. 

To be clear, I don’t believe that a ship as big as the modern-day church system can do a 180 overnight. But I do think we can start turning the helm ever so slightly and eventually make a turnaround. Will you join me?

 

Is there anyone in your life that you have intentionally or unintentionally harmed in the church? Ask for the Holy Spirit’s help to reveal, confess, and repent of those behaviors. Then think about reaching out to that person to share what God has done in your heart.

 

Lastly, I listened to this podcast episode, What the Bible Really Says About Leadership and Submission, featuring Lance Ford, where He describes some of the places we have gone wrong in our current church system. He does that by reminding us of what Jesus said he wanted His church to look like. I highly recommend listening to this timely message. It provides tons of scripture references so that you can do some of your own research too. Let’s know these things for ourselves so that we can be confident in making changes that are biblical and glorifying to God.