Our baby was just a few weeks old. Miguel and I ventured to Target to buy some basics. It was summer and my newborn was still a featherweight so I decided to hold him up on one shoulder as we meandered through the store. As we entered through the double automatic doors the familiar scene of fragrant candles and stacked greeting cards stood before us. My postpartum stomach attempted to tighten as I scanned the wide aisles before me looking for anyone I might know.
At this point, the anxiety of walking through a local establishment was pretty familiar to me, but it didn’t make it any easier. Every time I went somewhere public I would coach myself through the parking lot. The same questions bounced off my brain and into fogland as I asked myself,
What if I see someone from church?
What if I see a former friend?
What will I say?
What should I do?
Should I initiate?
Should I leave them alone?
What do they believe about me?
Why has almost everyone not reached out?
Will this ever get easier??
Once again, by the time I entered the building, I had come to accept that there was no good way to prepare for running into anyone who belonged to a church you were recently excommunicated from. I prayed under my breath countless times, “Lord, just please help me,” as I attempted to focus on shopping for things like kid’s toothpaste and quarts of milk.
But it was this time, with a brand new baby in tow that we had only taken a few steps into the store when a woman approached us from behind. “Aww! A new baby. How adorable!” I turned to find a tall woman who looked to be a mom of teenagers who I was pretty sure we didn’t know.
I smiled politely and let her get closer so that she could have a better look at our bundle. Before I knew it, this woman was sandwiched between Miguel and me, forming a nonconsensual group hug and ogling all over his precious new life. “You guys!! What a blessing!” She exclaimed as her smiling eyes bounced from the baby and then back at us. For a couple of seconds, I forgot that we didn’t know this woman by the way she spoke so personally and endearing to us.
Pretty quickly the exchange was over and I struggled to pull my list of needed items back to the forefront of my mind. That short exchange proved to become a recurring memory for me but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. I’ve processed it a lot since then and the conclusion still painfully pokes my heart. We had largely lost the opportunity to introduce the new baby to our community. Our community that we loved. The same community where grandpa-aged men had previously snatched up my newborns and walked them through the church foyer. The place where the empty nesters would swoon endlessly when our family walked in, openly admiring our bed-headed little boys.
But that was not our experience this time. There was no larger community to bring him home to except a few of our close family members and a handful of friends.
Most of our relationships and extracurricular activities had been tied up in one place. The church championed the idea of doing life together, nearly every. single. day. of the week. Which was fine, when we were considered “church family”, but once we were disowned it affected our and our children’s social life a whole lot.
We had to restart. Somewhat similar to what one does when they move to a different state. However, this was not our choice and unlike someone who is living in a new neighborhood, we were still living in the same place. We were bound to run into someone at some point.
Those moments that I feared; they came. Although not as frequent as my body told me they would. I have seen old friends while Christmas shopping, estranged family at the grocery store, and have even had to sit in the same waiting room with someone I once would have welcomed a conversation with.
Just a few days after the members were informed our family was no longer allowed to return to church, I was pulling out of my parking spot at the store when I saw a familiar woman from church in my rearview mirror. She knew my family well. Time seemed to freeze as my mind raced with what to do next. My heartache was fresh and everything in me wanted to cry out to her. I had only known her to be kind and caring. As I started on my way out of the parking lot and saw her loading her groceries into her trunk, I stopped, rolled my window down, and said, “Hi”. She turned and once she recognized my face, her eyebrows furrowed with pity. She walked towards my minivan and hugged me through the window. She said, “We love you guys.” As I began to cry she pulled away and abruptly changed subjects by asking how my grandmother was feeling. I responded with something short and hopeful and drove away; never to hear from her again.
Questions about the family of God’s role in excommunication baffle me to this day. According to our church’s membership manual, it was the church member’s responsibility to encourage us to repent whenever the opportunity arose, but how could they do that when they didn’t know what happened?
They couldn’t encourage us to repent, because none of it made sense, which is why we were mostly met with silence. They were not equipped to live out Matthew 18, because their leaders had not followed it nor were they capable of teaching them how to. For some of the deeper relationships we lost, I practically begged for a conversation. “Please, show us what we have done wrong. We don’t even know what you were told.” We made it clear that we were not afraid of hard conversations. They refused and some pointed us back to meet with the elders. This is wrong, especially when the pastor is behaving in spiritually abusive ways.
Professor and well-known theologian, Michael J. Kruger writes in his book, Bully Pulpit: Confronting the Problem of Spiritual Abuse in the Church:
“…here are several principles to keep in mind as churches seek reconciliation between abusive pastors and their victims.
First, victims should not be asked to meet with an abusive pastor unless he has been held accountable. The foundation for reconciliation always begins with the truth about what happened and accountability for what happened. And it is the job of the church, not the victims, to provide that accountability. If the church fails to provide it yet insists the victims meet with the abuser, they have shifted this burden to the victims. The church is making the victims do the job it failed to do. Now the victims are in a position where they have to prove their case, all the while having no protection or help from the church. This scenario provides the abuser more opportunity to attack the victims, essentially abusing them all over again.
Second, victims should not meet with an abusive pastor unless he is genuinely repentant. One can imagine a scenario where a church does hold an abusive pastor accountable but that pastor remains defiant and unrepentant. But there can be no biblical reconciliation unless there is real repentance: “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him”(Luke 17:3). In such a scenario, the victims of abuse should wait until an official church body has established that genuine repentance has taken place. It’s not enough that the abusive pastor merely claims to be repentant. He must demonstrate repentance to a governing body that is able to evaluate it properly.
Third, victims should not meet with an abusive pastor until they are emotionally and spiritually ready. Even if the abuser is held accountable and is repentant, that does not mean a reconciliation meeting must take place right away. Many victims of abuse are so deeply traumatized that they struggle to be in the presence of an abuser until real healing has taken place. This may take months, even years.”
This advice brings about serious questions about how the body of Christ encourages reconciliation when church leadership is acting in spiritually abusive ways. In our case, we were cut off for having serious concerns about the behavior of our elders. We are talking about souls being shut out of the assembly of God’s people, children even. The framework around this extreme type of punishment should be handled with the utmost care and should have been preceded by the leaders being held accountable for their actions. Unfortunately, the entire flock is put in a poor position when biblical protocols are bypassed to protect the pastor or establishment which only multiplies the trauma to the victims of spiritual abuse.
Now, ready for some good news?
The good news is my anxiety and fear have made a lot of progress in this area over the last year and a half. I can mostly move through aisles focused on the task at hand rather than being absorbed by some kind of awful face recognition game.
Am I triggered by emotions and reactions I wish weren’t part of running a simple errand? Yes.
Have I been ignored and avoided? Absolutely.
So far, I have survived all of the encounters and sightings.
As I reflect back on the huggable lady who stopped to adore our new baby, I am reminded of what a profound impact human beings can have on one another just by acknowledging one’s existence and providing some warmth to one another. The return on these miniature investments can be much bigger than we ever could imagine. You never know if a small act of human kindness will be a drop of water on a dry, weary soul.
What about you? Have you ever experienced an act of unexpected kindness in a particularly hard season or rough day?
Also, how do you think Jesus would teach us to handle conversations with church members who have been excommunicated? Have you ever seen this done well?