Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
How to Deal with Church When You’ve Been Really Hurt

How to Deal with Church When You’ve Been Really Hurt

Last updated on: September 27, 2021 at 8:30 am by Randy Alcorn

How to Deal with Church When You’ve Been Really Hurt 2021-09-10T17:49:11-08:00 Randy Alcorn

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Over the last year and a half, many Christians got angry at their churches for gathering or not gathering, going online or not going online, wearing masks or not wearing masks, or obeying or disobeying government mandates, or speaking up on political issues and candidates or not speaking up on them or speaking up on them in the wrong ways. It’s simply endless. There are many people who stopped going to church during COVID who will not resume in the future.

I know there are other and deeper reasons for feeling hurt by your church. Trust me, Nanci and I realize what it is like to be hurt by church people and church leaders. And I’m sure, though we’ve never set out to do so, we have hurt our own church people and our church leaders. Which leads me to believe that most of them never set out to hurt us, right?

I can tell you this—we have never felt hurt less and less often by our church and church leaders than we have in the last number of years. Why? Because while we have lowered the bar of the expectations we have for the church and its leaders always living up to what it might, we have raised the bar for our own attitudes toward the church and its leaders being what they should. We seek to practice what Jesus said, “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:31).

So the question is, are you treating your fellow church members as you wish they would treat you? If you wish they would be kind to you and interested and engaged in your own life and concerned about your challenges and reaching out to you in love and offering help to them, are you doing that to them? And if you were a church leader, how would you want people to view you and treat you? Would you want them to believe the best of you, that you are genuinely trying to honor the Lord and love the church, and do the right thing to help the most people, and to pray for them and go to them humbly when you believe there’s a problem they should deal with? If so, then is that what you are doing toward them?

Sadly, hurt from church is eating up many people and distracting them from moving on in their spiritual lives and keeping them from church altogether. In this spot-on video, Allen Parr answers the question, “How do you respond when you’ve given your life, your time, and a whole bunch of your money to a church only to be disappointed and hurt?”

I love his answer, and I suggest you listen to it, and then return and finish this blog:

Jesus calls the church His bride. He died for her and says that ultimately the gates of hell won’t prevail against her. So if you give up on the church, you give up on God’s plan. If you walk away from church, you walk away from Christ’s redemptive work. If you say you love Jesus, but you’ll no longer be around the church, you’re saying to Jesus, “I love you, but I can’t stand your bride. I’ll hang out with you, but I refuse to be with her.” If you said that to me, I’d say, “If you don’t want to be with my wife, you and I won’t be hanging out together—she’s too important to me for you to shun her like that.” That’s how much I love Nanci, but I’ve never come down from Heaven in order to die for her, like Jesus did for His bride.

As I said, we are not naïve about church problems! But we are also not strangers to the beauty and goodness and local and global fruit of church life—though we would be had we chosen to walk away from church the various times we were tempted to. (Of course, God can call people to leave a church and go to or even start another one, and that happened to us many years ago! My concern is with giving up on all churches, which is increasingly common. See Why You Should Think Twice Before Switching Churches Right Now.)

Despite what many think, not giving up on church is a huge part of our moving forward in our walk with Christ. My encouragement is this: show to church people the same tolerance you advocate that church people show to the world. In fact, Scripture goes a step further. We are to do good to all men (and to show them tolerance is to do them good), but especially to the household of faith (Galatians 6:10). You are family. Treat Christ’s people as family.

We are to “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). All Bible passages about forgiveness involve lowering our expectations of our brothers and sisters in Christ and not insisting they live up to our standards, or demanding perfection we don’t measure up to ourselves. God’s grace should calm us and cheer us. (See The Art of Forgiveness.)

I’ll finish by recapping Allen’s six excellent points on how to deal with church hurt:

1. Don’t allow a bad experience to cause you to drift.

2. Extend grace to your leaders.

3. Don’t judge all churches by one church.

4. Bring it to the church’s attention.

5. Resist the urge to speak negatively about the church.

6. Forgive those who have hurt you.

Allen says, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been frustrated, bitter and angry with church or church leaders but I still go, give, support, and serve because I know that the church is what Jesus is using to reach the world, and I desperately want to be a part of anything that Jesus is building.”

Amen!

Previous Post

September 23, 2021

Can Rich People Go to Heaven?

Next Post

September 27, 2021 10 Ways to Find Rest in Christ, from Samuel Annesley

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category About Me Animals Books Books and Resources Christ Christian Life Christians Past and Present Church Creation Culture and Worldview Doctrine and Theology Eternal Perspective Ministries Fun Grace and Truth Grief Happiness Heaven Marriage and Family Missions Money and Giving Persecuted Church Politics Prayer Prolife Salvation Sexual Purity Sovereignty and Free Will Suffering and Evil Uncategorized Writing

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz