The Truth About Church After a Crisis

In a previous episode, I spoke honestly about how the church can fail people after divorce. And I stand by much of that.

But I also need to correct something.

Pain is a good diagnostic tool, but it’s a terrible navigator.

In this episode, I share a personal story about how God challenged my assumptions, removed my excuses, and led me back into a healthy church community. This isn’t a walk-back. It’s a course correction.

If you’ve been hurt by the church… if you’ve stepped away… or if you’ve convinced yourself that “me and God” is enough, this conversation is for you.

We’ll talk about:

• Why isolation feels right but leads you wrong
• What the Bible actually says about community
• How divorce can distort your view of church
• Why there is no “Plan B” for Christian community
• How to find a healthy church (without rushing your healing)

You don’t need a perfect church.
 But you do need a church.

To support the UnYoked Podcast and to help others... PLEASE subscribe and rate.. right now. And if this resource is helpful, please tell a friend.

Transcript

Todd Turner (00:00)
In my season one church episode, I spoke pretty strongly about how church and often fail people after a divorce. And I meant what I said. I wasn't exaggerating. I wasn't trying to be edgy. I was just speaking from real hurt and real experience. But today I need to say something equally honest. I was right about many of the problems. I was wrong where I let that thinking land.

Pain is a good diagnostic tool, but it's a terrible navigator. So this episode's not a walk back, it's a course correction. A quick story to hopefully let you know that God can be gracious in this season that you may be in.

There was a season in my life, if you you've listened to this podcast, you know what it was. I just wasn't leaning into church at all. I had my reasons. Some, you know, they were legitimate. Some were just excuses. I kept walking by this church in my neighborhood and I made all the excuses in the world why that would not be the right church for me.

things like too many strollers, too many young people walking in the door. It just didn't feel like a church that I would enjoy or get anything out of. Well, one day I walked in. I texted a friend while I was in the lobby and I said, well, I had this all wrong. All my assumptions were shattered.

God removed my excuses and my typical go-to issues. I'm pretty tough theologically and I just don't like a lot of things about how we'd play American church, but he gave me a place for healing. All my excuses were gone. He gave me a healthy church to grow and to heal and to walk along people who love him and help me do the same.

For a long time, I convinced myself that nobody in that church understood what I was going through. Divorce has a way of making you feel like a category of one. You sit there thinking, no one here carries the weight that I carry. No one here has my exact story. And if I'm honest, I sometimes let that thought sneak in. But over time, something started to dawn on me.

You know, the truth is, the people sitting around you in church may not share your exact circumstances, but every single one of them is carrying something. One family is quietly dealing with a prodigal child. The other is fighting a diagnosis they haven't told anyone about yet. Someone else is drowning in financial stress. Another person smiling on the outside while they're married is barely holding it together.

Our stories are different, but suffering is not unique to us. Charles Spurgeon once said, I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages. What he meant was that trials are not just interruptions to our Christian life. In many ways, they are the Christian life. They push us back towards Christ.

The Apostle Peter said it plainly, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you as though something strange was happening to you. That's 1 Peter 4.12. In other words, trials are not the exception. They're part of the shared experience of God's people. Tim Keller once wrote something that stuck with me. Suffering is at the heart of the Christian story. When you start to see that, something changes.

you realize that the church is not a room full of people who have their lives together. It's a room full of people who need grace just as desperately as you and I do.

Different wounds, different stories, different seasons, but the same need, the same savior, the same hope. Let's get into this. I still agree with the problems and their truths about divorce and the church. So let me be very clear so nobody misunderstands this. I still believe divorce stigma in churches are real. Many churches are not equipped for crisis care.

Shallow spiritual answers can wound hurting people. Programs can outrun compassion.

trauma way too quickly. I stand by these truths. But if someone listened to my earlier episode and concluded, fine, I'll just step away from the church and do faith on my own. Well, that is not a biblical conclusion.

Temporary retreat can be wise. Permanent isolation is not. I no longer agree with where I landed the plane in the last episode. I realized something uncomfortable. My frustration with church systems started drifting towards independence from the church community. And scripture simply does not give me permission to live there, not as a follower of Christ.

I've been relearning what it means to love God, not emotionally, but biblically.

if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Love is not just how I feel about God.

Love is an alignment with what God values. To love God is to love what he loves and to take serious what he takes serious. Jesus loves his church and the people in it. Ephesians chapter 5 verse 25 Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her not the building

not the production, not the brand, the people, the gathered body of believers.

church culture, and I will,

But I cannot reject the body of Christ without rejecting something Jesus deeply loves. We're not an island. We're built for community. The New Testament never describes a solo Christian life. Hebrews chapter 10, 24 and 25. Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.

That command in Hebrews is not written to thriving believers only. It's written to pressured, hurting, tempted to quit believers. Isolation feels natural after divorce. It feels protective. It feels efficient. But listen to Proverbs 18.1. Whoever isolates themselves seeks his own desires. He breaks out against all sound judgment. That verse isn't angry. It's diagnostic.

Isolation slowly bends judgment. Christianity is a body faith, not a private subscription. How do we obey the commands alone? Okay, let's go a little further. Not emotionally, but biblically. If we just say it's just me and God now, I want to ask you a serious question. How do we obey the New Testament commands alone? Not grow.

not feel close to God, not listen into sermons, but to obey because a large chunk of the New Testament instructions, they assume other believers are present in your life. You have to be on guard and how can you be on guard when you're alone? Scripture tells us to.

Believers to be watchful and on guard spiritually. 1 Peter 5, 8. Be sober minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking to devour. Lions hunt stragglers, separated ones, isolated ones. Being alert is harder when no one knows your blind spots. No one sees your drift. No one asks harsh questions.

The Bible doesn't present wisdom as a solo download. Proverbs 11, 14, where there's no guidance, the people fall in an abundance of counselors or safety. Proverbs 15, 22, without counsel, plans fail, but with advisors, they succeed. Counsel requires counselors, plural. You cannot practice plural wisdom sources in isolation.

One of the most dangerous things about isolation is this. You become your own interpreter, your own validator, your own corrector. And the problem with that is simple. You and I are not neutral judges of our own lives. When you're the only voice in the room, it's very easy to slow drift into a version of Christianity that always agrees with you. You start interpreting scripture through the lens of your feelings.

You start excusing attitudes that once bothered your conscience. You start explaining away the things that used to challenge you. The scary part is it can feel very spiritual. You have a Bible open, you have worship music playing, you can even be praying. But there's no, if there's nobody in your life who can challenge you, question you or correct you, you're in a dangerous place. Scripture actually warns us in Jeremiah 79, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately

wicked. In other words, your heart can lie to you. It can convince you that bitterness is righteousness, that pride is conviction, that isolation is maturity. If my own heart can fool me, I probably shouldn't make it my only spiritual advisor.

This is one of reasons that Christian life was never designed to be lived alone. Yes, there are spiritual disciplines you can practice in private. You pray alone, you read the Bible alone, you can wrestle with God alone. The spiritual formation was never meant to be a solo project. It happens in community. It happens when somebody who loves you says, hey, I think you might be wrong about that.

It happens when someone who knows scripture better than you challenges your interpretation. It happens when somebody sees a blind spot in your life that you can't see yourself. God designed the church that way on purpose. left because left to ourselves. We don't just drift. Sometimes we drift while convincing ourselves we're doing great.

Here's the part that really corrected me. There are more than 35 one another commandments in the New Testament. They're not suggestions, they're commandments. Let's read a few. John 13, 34, love one another. Romans 12, 10, honor one another.

Romans 12, 15, rejoice and weep with one another. Galatians bear one another burdens. Ephesians be kind to one another. Colossians teach and admonish one another. James confess sins to one another. Hebrews exhort one another daily. Let me ask this obvious question. How do you obey these one another commands without one another's? You can't. Not fully, not faithfully, not biblically.

When I say community is not optional, I'm not saying that because church attendance is a rule. I'm saying it because obedience is relational. Following Jesus is personal, but it's not private. Let's say that again. Following Jesus is personal, but it's not private. It wasn't meant to be.

This is blunt, but it's biblical. There is no plan B for Christian community. My friend told me that, Wayne Stiles, he said,

I was telling my trouble with church and how I just really wasn't attending. And he said, Todd, listen, I don't care how bad church may be. It's God's plan A and there is no plan B. And man, that really shook me to my core because I was creating a plan B that God doesn't allow for. He needs us in community. Jesus didn't establish independent spiritual freelancers, detached disciples.

self-contained believers. He established a body. Look at 1 Corinthians 12 27. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. Members of it, not observers of it, not occasional visitors to it, connected parts. We may not like every expression of the church, but we are not given permission to abandon the concept of church.

the me and God on a couch mentality.

talk about something that divorce and COVID both accelerated. Certainly for me, maybe for you listening. The idea says me and God, we're doing great. I got my Bible, I got my worship music, podcasts, my coffee. I don't really need church.

Sounds peaceful, sounds sometimes mature. It's just not biblical because scripture commands things that cannot happen alone. Galatians 6-2, remember, bear one another burdens. You can't do that alone. James, confess your sins to one another. Can't do that alone. It requires presence and relationship.

And how do you rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep? That can't happen through a screen. Digital teaching is helpful, but it's not fellowship. Content is not community.

American church culture trained many us to ask, what am I getting out of this? A biblical church says, how am I loving others here? In Acts chapter two, the early church shared life together, the shared meals, the shared resources, the shared burdens. They did not attend, they belonged. Even wounded believers still bring value.

Sometimes the value is honesty, humility, and a testimony of survival. You don't need to be strong to contribute, but you have to be present.

Let me balance this clearly. If you're fresh out of a divorce, an over-programmed church can exhaust you, and it may not be good for you. Too many sign-ups, too many expectations, too many roles. Wounded people don't need five ministries and a volunteer badge. They need time, truth, a few safe people they can talk to, and room to breathe.

If your current church cannot make space for your healing season, it may not be the right church for you right now. But hear this carefully.

A wrong church does not equal no church. Just because you may not have the right church that you've been going to does not mean you have the authority and the permission to go to no church. So what do we have to do? We have to find a healthy church. If you have not had a healthy church, you're living a small town. But if most of you here in America, if there's not, if you can't hit a church with a golf ball from your house,

You could probably run into five with a 10 minute drive. There are options and it may take you out of your comfort zone. So how do we find a healthy church? Well, let's talk about that.

A healthy church teaches scripture in context. Listen for careful Bible handling. Not churches that frequently teach on topics and then they sprinkle verses in. Churches that read God's Word and fill in to unpack

the meaning. Teachers are more important than orators, not slogan preaching, not verse of the day theology. Look for context, humility, and explanation out of your pastor or out of the elders or out of Sunday school or small group. Anybody leading by teaching, look for their ability to teach the word.

correctly, 2 Timothy 2, verse 15, that rightly handle the word of truth. Two, a healthy church talks honestly about suffering. Healthy churches don't skip grief texts.

They preach on Psalms of lament, Job, hard passages, a waiting season. If every sermon jump straight to victory and joy and overcoming, and this is your season of life, be cautious, be conscious. Life is in balance. The preaching should be balanced as well. There are times that things are good and there are times are bad. There's a time for suffering.

There's a time for mourning. And if your church doesn't talk about those things, and they don't even know how to mourn, because they're too busy trying to spin positivity into their brand of Christianity, be careful.

Some of the things that would be talked about in these unhealthy churches, they use phrases like breakthrough. Everything's about your breakthrough season, your breakthrough moment, your breakthrough prayer. Scripture talks a lot more about endurance than it does breakthroughs. Victory, always victory, rarely perseverance. The Bible gives us both, but never victory without a cross first. Favor, God's favor is coming. True sometimes.

but not promised in every season to every believer. The word season itself. This is your season. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's a long winter. Scripture includes those two.

Elevation, promotion. God is about to elevate you, promote you, increase you. Yeah, Jesus talks more about humility and suffering than promotion. And special revelations. don't get me started on that.

A real church has real community that exists beyond the Sunday morning service. Do people at this church know each other's lives? Is care shared? Are needs noticed? Can you get away with just attending? That should scare you. Acts chapter two, verse 46, they met house to house. They spent time with each other.

Another thing to look for, singles and divorced adults are not treated as incomplete. Watch this little nuance. It happens a lot in a church culture that is family first. Watch the tone. Are singles honored? Are they treated like a problem to fix? 1 Corinthians chapter 7, Paul honors singleness directly. Are your leaders approachable, not distant?

Healthy leaders are accessible and human. Celebrity culture is dangerous. Celebrity pastor culture, super dangerous. I worked for one. I know that there's a balance between inaccessible and logistically unavailable. You can be available if you really care about your sheep. You can.

When you have a big church, not everybody just gets to walk up and go over for dinner. That's fair. But there's a difference between inaccessible and just logistically unavailable. 1 Peter 5 verse 3 talks about pastors being not domineering, but just being examples.

A sixth way to look at a healthy church. Healing is not rushed into serving. Be cautious if wounded people are quickly pushed into heavy roles. Jesus restores before he deploys. And lastly, grace and truth are both present. Not truth only, dangerous. Not grace only, dangerous. In this age where people love to mix politics with their faith,

and see if their church says anything about Charlie Kirk assassination or about ICE or name your current hot topic. Stay away from churches that are swimming in the deep end of politics. Jesus came full of grace and truth and you should feel both weights of grace and truth and you should feel welcome at your church.

Don't go to a church that swings too far to grace or too far to truth without being balanced. Jesus is balanced and as Christ followers, we should be too. Watch out for churches that lean heavily into politics. They're not probably handling the word of the Lord correctly. Let me just close with this. Church hurt is real. I'm not minimalizing it.

I've lived it. Many of you listening have too. But betrayal by people does not cancel God's design for people. We don't heal by abandoning the body. We heal by finding a healthier expression of it. You may need to slip in and sit in the back row for a while. That's okay. But don't disappear forever.

because community is not a program, it's a command. It's also a gift. Pray, find, evaluate, and sit. Ultimately serve, live life with your brothers and sisters. You can't stay in isolation. I stayed way too long, way too, I regret how I doubled down. But with COVID, yeah, I gave myself a little bit of excuse and then,

You know, once you step out of church, when you turn back around and look back in it, you just see all the warts. And I did too. I saw it. was like, I don't want to be a part of a church with the program that's wanting me to come in here and fold chairs and do the thing. And I don't like the thing. And I don't like how they do that. I made every excuse in the world. I did. But God gave me a gift and part of the gift was a healthy church. I will say that part of the gift was a healthy church.

But the other part of a gift was him opening my eyes to show me that if I say I love God, then I have to love what he loves and hate what he hates. He loves his church. He's called us and he's asked us to be.

members of a body and that comes with responsibilities and that comes with showing up. And so I now love the church. I love my church because I love the Lord. And I just don't want you, if you're listening this far, to stay in that rut to say,

Yeah, life didn't turn out the way I wanted. I mean, I'm a believer. I'll see the Lord in heaven. But this church thing, yeah, this American church is so broken. I don't want anything to do with it. OK, switch churches. Switch churches. Go to your church and step in there and change your church. Be a good mentor for the next person that goes through something tough.

But do not sit on that couch. Don't get away with streaming, podcast, Bible reading, and just going to lunch with some of your Christian friends every once in That's not church. I did it too long, and I pray that you won't. Blessings.