All the words that follow are reflective of how I have been feeling lately. I am angry, I just want to be done dealing with this trauma. I am tired of hearing of more people who have been hurt and have experienced something similar at this church. This church was my home. But home shouldn’t be where people stonewall you and ignore you. Home shouldn’t be a place where questioning why we do things a certain way gets you edged out. Home shouldn’t be where asking questions gets you labeled as a gossip and a threat.
Maybe it’s my fault for treating this church like home, when it could never fill the place in my heart that can only be filled by Jesus. Maybe it’s my fault for wanting community and friendships so badly. Maybe it’s my fault for accepting the narrative I was fed and for not questioning why certain families had left years ago.
Maybe it’s my fault the church leaders didn’t listen to me when I raised concerns. Maybe I didn’t phrase it in just the right way for them to understand. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. Maybe I was too timid. Maybe this church did so much good in my life that I wasn’t ready to call out what I saw. Maybe that’s really scary- to entertain the idea that a home could cause so much pain in a person’s life or in your own life. Maybe it’s my fault that I desperately wanted a home.
Or…
Maybe all the things that multitudes of people are calling out are real. Maybe we aren’t all just making shit up because we don’t have anything better to do with our lives. Maybe we are worried and we love this church and we want to see it do better. What if we just want to see the pastor have accountability beyond the boards in place as of this writing? Maybe we want to see policies that protect the vulnerable, the weak, and the powerless. Maybe we don’t care if this pastor wrote a chapter in their book about power dynamics if we aren’t seeing true humility as they operate within their organization’s power structure.
Maybe those with the best intentions can still cause suffering when power goes unchecked and when experts aren’t consulted. Maybe the church can get it wrong sometimes, no matter how close to God the leaders appear. We are, after all, only human.
I am too tired today to detail the problematic things I experienced, witnessed, and was told. I am too exhausted to keep dealing with an organization that can’t simply say, “Checks and balances aren’t a bad thing. We should see where we can improve and be held accountable in better ways,” and then ask the people affected the most how the organization can do better. Why is it such a threat? What brings people to this place of such inflexibility and confidence that the organization is right and the individuals are wrong?
I am tired of this narrative that is all too familiar in churches. And for what? What do churches gain in not seeking to understand when so many people are saying the same things?
“To presume I or others have anything to gain from contributing to these stories is to shift focus away from the root of the problem.”
I want to justify my position, to convince people why I landed where I did. The difficult truth of it though, is people will see what they want or are able to see. People will likely be angry so many of us have chosen to speak up. Know that it wasn’t easy. I’m not enjoying spending time processing and reliving this over and over in my head, wondering what could’ve gone differently. This has been excruciating. To presume I or others have anything to gain from contributing to these stories is to shift focus away from the root of the problem.
The reason I am writing this is for the vulnerable, for the weak, and for the powerless. As Wade Mullen says, “It is okay, even ethical, to bring dark secrets into the light, provided the goal of exposure isn’t to shame the abuser just for the sake of condemnation but to expose them as an act of mercy – for the abuser’s future health and for the protection of others.”
This is for justice and mercy.
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8
