Hustle & Flow
Join us for the wisdom, humor and insight from a married couple of 33 years on the hustle and flow of life.
We have worked so many types of jobs over 33 years. We have worked in the service industry, retail, corporate and blue collar work. We have been Realtors for 18 years, managing property, flipping houses and owning short term rentals. We have worked staff work which includes everything from Pastoring to Youth Pastoring to Children’s ministry.
We have been involved in CrossFit for over 11 years, owning a gym, coaching and actively working out. We are involved in Spartan races and travel the nation competing.
We own a Dessert Cafe called Crave in Downtown Tupelo that has been open since 2014. We currently have three locations.
We have raised four children and currently have two grandchildren. Family is of utmost importance to us.
We have a life full of stories that we can’t wait to share with you.
Hustle & Flow
Healing Church Hurt and Finding Forgiveness
Have you ever felt deeply hurt by your church community, as if the very place meant to offer spiritual solace became a source of pain? Discover how church hurt can inflict emotional and spiritual wounds that go far beyond minor daily disappointments. Through a mix of personal stories and societal insights, we illuminate why such profound hurt often leads to people permanently leaving their congregations, stressing the dire need for compassion and understanding in addressing these sensitive issues.
Join us as we scrutinize the moral and spiritual responsibilities that churches hold, exploring how Western cultural influences have shaped American church practices, sometimes leading to controversial and unorthodox methods. We also delve into the troubling tendency of some churches to prioritize their image and unity over transparency, especially when dealing with scandals involving fallen ministers. This conversation highlights the significant impact of poor leadership during personal crises and the critical need for integrity and accountability within church communities.
Healing from church hurt is a complex journey, but forgiveness can be a powerful tool in this process. Learn about the importance of accurately attributing blame and differentiating between personal grievances and institutional failings. We discuss practical strategies for coping, such as taking time off or finding a new congregation, and emphasize the mutual need for understanding between church members and leaders. We aim to provide a compassionate roadmap towards healing, fostering a more caring and supportive church environment for everyone involved. Tune in for this essential conversation on navigating church hurt and finding a path to emotional and spiritual recovery.
Hey, good morning. Good morning, this is Brad. I'm with my wife, tiffany. We are the host of the Hustle and Flow podcast. Thank you for listening this morning and taking your time to spend with us. We are going to be discussing church hurt this morning, and so I'd like to say it's a topic I'm real excited about, but probably not so much because it's a delicate topic and we're going to try to do it justice as we talk about it this morning. Good morning, tiffany.
Speaker 2:Good morning.
Speaker 1:What's happening?
Speaker 2:Just trying to get through the summer heat and get a little bit of reprieve from this Mississippi heat that you know we have a lot of heat and humidity. In the south the humidity makes it so much worse. I'm convinced of that for sure, being in other places like Las Vegas. It doesn't have much humidity.
Speaker 1:But it's been hot in Vegas.
Speaker 2:It's been like 120 degrees in vegas. Man, it's been crazy, yeah, but it feels different. You know, we've been there and it feels different, like 100 there feels different than 100. So I've spent a little bit more time indoors. I just look out the windows at outdoors, which sometimes, you know, if I have a little dead space, I'll like, if I've got three or four minutes before I'm doing the next thing or waiting on something to come out of the oven, I'll go to TikTok and I'm it's dying down, which is a little disappointing because it was so much fun the first week after the presidential debate, also known as the comedy show.
Speaker 2:So you know it's. It's like. You know, is it the kids? I don't know what generation started saying like, be for real, like I think everybody. When we were watching it, we were like is this for real? Are we being punked? Be for real. It was just we are not being punked, it was just too much. You know, the golf thing has circulated so much and it's absolutely ridiculous. So I don't know, we're in store for something. None of us know yet what, but we're in store for something, huh.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, here's the thing I know. And the Bible says that nobody's in power, that he don't allow to be in power, and nobody really enjoys hearing that. So everybody's like there's no way that God allowed him to be in power for years. Well, I believe the Bible, so anyway, I actually. I was thinking about Brewster's Millions, if you've seen the movie. He goes into the race, richard Pryor, and he says vote for none of the above. But I've got two candidates that I really think would do well in this election and you want to tell them who?
Speaker 2:it is. I just realized after I finished saying what I was saying. I looked at your shirt that says Seinfeld Costanza 24, a campaign about nothing, and so you were in my story with that shirt on and I got more comments, not about anything else that was in my Facebook story, but about you. Know your shirt and where you got the shirt, yeah. So I just realized after I finished saying that that that's, I guess, yeah, the campaign about nothing. I feel like this campaign is about nothing, but you know, I definitely I definitely is a campaign I can get behind.
Speaker 1:Seinfeld could stands a 24, man. That would be a crazy ticket. But hey, thank you so much for listening this morning. We love just hanging out and spending time, uh, talking with and we hope you guys are enjoying the podcast. You know we really want to be able to do these subjects justice and there are some subjects that are a little more delicate than others. There's some that are just fun to talk about. We just finished a couple talking about some mental toughness and things like that. But you know, those are fun. But today's topic is not really fun because it is something that is near and dear to a lot of people and a lot of people have walked through this and experienced it, and it's church hurt. So what's your first thought? When I say church hurt, what automatically just comes to mind?
Speaker 2:I mean just, I think the first thing that comes to mind is just stories of stories of, you know, people who have experienced church hurt and and the outcome for them you know for that, and there's just so many degrees of church hurt, so I won't I won't get into too much of that yet, but yeah, sure, yeah, I understand.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I understand. Well, I saw this. I saw this post on facebook the other, the other day and, um, when I saw it I'll just be honest with you my first thought was that's stupid, because the post was and you may have shared. If you shared it, I love you still. Uh, is that mcdonald's can mess up your order a hundred times, but church does something to you and you never come back. And I thought, well, man, that sounds really really good. That must be in Brad, chapter four, verse three. And then I thought to myself that's dumb, because McDonald's has no moral or spiritual obligation to you. They're serving you.
Speaker 1:I don't know what those chicken nuggets are and I know they serve the McRib, which is basically a Brillo pad with barbecue sauce on it. They serve you food. They're under no moral obligation If they screw your order up. So what? If you want McDonald's, you're going to go back and get some chicken nuggets. You're never going to get ice cream, but you're going to get some chicken nuggets. You know what I'm saying? They're under no moral obligation, but the church itself is a different story. So when you parallel something like that, it makes no sense. No, it's a crazy jump it is. It's just social media, but it is a crazy jump because the church is under a moral or spiritual obligation to you and your family, right? What does that look like? I mean, what do you? What do you think about that? When I say that that they're under moral and spiritual obligation, what do you think?
Speaker 2:Well that they have some responsibility to shepherd your family correctly and to to present the truth to you and uphold the truths and the doctrine of the church with integrity and to just do other practices with integrity, to to the goings on with the church with integrity and and morality, yeah, and that's that's a good answer.
Speaker 1:That's what I, that's actually what I was looking for, because we are, as the body of Christ, the church, specifically the local church. It has an obligation to you and your family that we say we hold these truths of the Bible, that this is what we believe, that the Bible says, and that we are to enforce those and help you with those and help walk through those. So we owe that to you and your family, and you know, the one thing that I think and you and I kind of we didn't disagree last night, we said, hey, maybe this is a better way to talk about this is that American churches aren't always a true picture of the church as a whole and that they somewhat have in some ways become polluted with Western ideas and the advancements that we have in our country. It has bled its way into the church.
Speaker 2:So well, you know, I didn't think about this when we were talking about this last night.
Speaker 2:But even just you know, if you, if you are on social media, you see people that are starting to be very vocal, like there's the church Nope Guy that goes in and this is crazy and some of it is really great, yeah, and then there was a lot of controversy over a large church in Texas, their Easter program, some of the things they had, and people that were dressed very modest, and then people that the songs they incorporate, all those things, and so people that are looking in go that's not church, that's crazy.
Speaker 2:And you know, here's the thing, like we're saying, is that for us, and especially for America, some of our churches are being polluted by the outside influence. But if you go to Australia, back in the bush, you know they don't have that in their church. Their church doesn't look like that. If you, you know, you've traveled to Trinidad a few times and went to church there their churches do not have acrobats in bikinis, you know, flying through the air for an Easter production, like that's crazy, that's unheard of in other churches. And so sometimes, yes, we say that American church isn't necessarily just the true picture of what the church is supposed to look like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can you? I mean, and I'm not trying to down the American church, because it is what it is now, okay, but can you imagine a group of people from Ghana coming out of the bush and coming over to one of our churches and they're like, well, it's nice, this ain't got no roaches or nothing, you know? I mean, can you imagine they I'm going to say this and I'm not trying to be offensive, I promise you I'm not they wouldn't understand that that's church. They might say, well, okay, the music's good and there's preaching's good, but they might not understand because just because something you see in a local body does not mean that that is actually what church is. Sometimes, and I'm telling you, the Western ideas, man, have really infiltrated our church. Yeah, they really have. And you know some churches, when we talk about church, some churches are into self-preservation, image, reputation, and they want to try to. And we've talked about this and, man, this is a delicate subject, but churches sweep crap under the rug.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Why.
Speaker 2:I think for some churches it's the consensus of if you know, if people know this is going on, they'll leave, it'll bring the vibe down Like it'll bring the. We won't have unity if people know that this or that is happening. And so I think sometimes things are swept under the rug in preservation of keeping everything exactly how it is and intact, to not disturb the waters or to change anything. I would hope it would not ever be, you know, so that they have a loss of tithes because families may leave or people may leave, or if we say something to this family, they're the biggest giver they're going to, they're going to not give anymore, like I hope those are not such a way.
Speaker 2:You know situations that happen, but they are. We've been in church ministry long enough to know that they are sometimes. But it happens, but they are. We've been in church ministry long enough to know that they are sometimes. But I think that that's definitely some of it and the church just doesn't, because also because there's so many churches that have had things exposed that it's bringing such a black eye sometimes on church in general that we don't, we don't want to be another, another church with the black eye.
Speaker 1:You know, right, but you know, and I'm here, we go it. We have seen lately there's been a lot of ministers fall and you know I'm not going to call names, but you guys know if you, if you, if you read any post or anything, you know that there are men who have fallen. But you know, in my opinion, in my experience, what I've seen is that church hurt happens a lot by members. They get hurt in church because they're exposed by maybe whatever's happened in their life, whether it's real or not, or whether it's a sin or not. Sometimes things get exposed. But I've never really understood and you and I have talked about this some why it is that we feel like that we have to cover leadership and we sweep leadership sins under the rug and we try to salvage the reputation or salvage the image of the preacher. But yet, as a member, a lot of them get nailed to the cross and that's I hate that. That probably sounds disrespectful, but they get nailed to the wall over their stuff. But churches sometimes sweep that stuff under the rug and they're trying to preserve the preacher.
Speaker 1:I told you about a TikTok that I was listening to the other day is that the wife called in and she said that her husband she didn't know if she should stay with him or not that he had touched an underage girl inappropriately. And of course, our first thought is what? When somebody in church touches an underage girl inappropriately, what legally? What do you think is supposed to happen? I mean, you should notify the authorities, but you know what happened, they did not. Yeah, but you know what happened, they did not.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They sent him through intensive therapy.
Speaker 2:And that's you know, that's on you if something like that happens again, oh, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:And but I, but I've been part of churches where we don't want to prosecute them, and not just sexually. Okay, we're talking about other things. I don't, we don't want to, we don't want to pursue that. We don't want to pursue that. We don't want to pursue that. We don't want to pursue that. We don't want to pursue that.
Speaker 2:We want to try to salvage this man these situations, people have had plenty of time and space to fix their mess, to fix their proclivities, their things that they have going on. And so when God finally does shine the light on something because we didn't fix our mess, then the consequence then is not really always so much up to us, it's not but I think it goes back to their sliding scales of sin, depending on, maybe, who it is or what it is.
Speaker 1:They're sliding scales and all sin, even in the Bible, all sin is the same, but all sins don't have the same consequence and I think that you know it could cost you your job, your role in leadership, cost you your family. You know leaders need to be protectors of a flock and I think that that sometimes, though, um, people get hurt because things aren't handled correctly, does that make sense, that the people, that that maybe the leadership don't handle things correctly? But we're just talking about church hurt in general? Um, you know, I was reading, reading some, some things lately. Um, a guy said that he quit church. His dad was when he was 13,. His dad had surgery on heart, his heart surgery, and the pastor told him uh, his dad died during surgery. And his dad said, or the pastor told him said, your dad probably wouldn't have real Christian If he was, god wouldn't have taken him that way. That hurt that guy and he quit church and he quit church, yeah, and he quit church?
Speaker 2:I imagine so. And he quit church? Yeah, because we confuse that somebody says something really stupid, that you know, with church and that they're all going to be that way because there was a human involved that said something really dumb, really stupid, handled something the wrong way. That that's church and that's they're not. One in the same, like, people are human, and that's one thing we have to to understand sometimes that people are human, but that's not necessarily always church.
Speaker 1:No, because the people have unrealistic expectations sometimes about church, because the church is led by God but Ramah humans. That's where it gets sticky.
Speaker 1:Yeah because I'm just a man and I'm going to make some mistakes and I'm going to say some dumb things. And I can tell you, over 52 years in church, I probably said some dumb things. I know, I have you know, and did I do it with the intention to hurt somebody? No, but did I hurt people? Possibly through some things that I said? You know what's the old saying Sticks and stones don't don't break my bones, but are break my bones, but words won't ever harm me. Well, that's not true. Yeah, words will cut deep, because somebody can say something to you that it can open or cut a wound that it takes years to heal.
Speaker 1:You know, and and we talk about the framework of the church when you look at that, people think about that. It needs to be a place of healing, hope, forgiveness, helping people put their life together, and it gets confusing. This is what happens when you're in your lowest point and you're going through your darkest time and somebody does not help you at church. What happens a lot of time? You get hurt, yeah, and they can't understand in my worst time, why you're not there for me. Why would you say something? My dad just died. Why would you tell me that he wasn't a Christian or he wouldn't have died that way.
Speaker 2:Or you know, my dad just died. Why would you not show up? You know, when we preach and teach that our church, you know this is you come here and we love you and we love you. Well, love to us looks like if something bad happens in my life that you're going to show up. Do you want?
Speaker 2:to talk about that you want to talk about that to a limited personal experience. That was definitely and I was. That's not what I was going to, I wasn't going to necessarily mention that, but, yeah, that was something that I had to get over was being closely connected in a church. Being closely connected in a church and one of the top three worst periods in my life, you know, of losing someone and then and not having people show up, leadership show up that was something that I realized that I had allowed myself to be deeply hurt and offended over and I had to work through that. And I had to work through it and say, ok though, that's this church, but that not me. I know that's not every church, because I've been to another church. Well, actually, which was crazy, the church that I was at they did, you know, I did have an expectation and I was let down. But I know it's not every church because another church where I had worked on staff at and been closely connected with that leadership drove an hour to be there for me. So I know it's not every church and I can if I would have thought, okay, well, this is church, I'm not going to be a part of a church that doesn't show up, I'm not going to go to church anymore because church doesn't love me, doesn't care, I'm not going to show up for church. That wouldn't have been true.
Speaker 2:But um, you know, going back to something also and all those things I was, I was thinking even just sometimes when we leave a church we get hurt because nobody checks on us.
Speaker 2:Did they even care that we left? And then if we see maybe leadership out in public or church members out in public, they don't speak to us, they don't act like they ever even knew us, and that hurts and that's harmful. And sometimes I think as believers we don't realize that just not knowing what to say and saying nothing and embracing those people that we fellowshiped with on a weekly basis at church, just because they're not with us anymore, like that's not where our obligation stops with our brothers and sisters. Like you go and speak to them in Walmart and say, man, I was thinking about you, I've missed you. You know that goes a long way because we don't ever know sometimes why people left, but you want to always keep the door open and close it, very likely because we don't know what situation was going on. But we know that we don't want to play a part in them never coming back and being part of a church body again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Because that can contribute to being hurt. Right, and, like you said, uh, there are so many people on the fringe that are one step away from never going to church again and you're that person that can help them and walk through that with them. You know, I think it goes back to, though, sometimes people. They feel like the church is real heavy in judgment all the time. And let me say this Nobody's perfect. We all make mistakes and we screw up, and you know you need to maybe not look at it from that point that everything's about judging you. There's a way that things need to be done. You know there's order in church and a lot of people let me say this, a lot of good people make decisions in haste pressure, image protection. They do stuff quickly without maybe putting it in perspective, and it hurts people.
Speaker 1:You know, if you're hurt right now from church, you know you've got a story. Yeah, and everybody has a story. Do you have a story of church hurt? Of course, yeah, yeah, mike, do you have a story of church hurt? Absolutely, I've got a story of church hurt. But what's the difference? How is it that you can begin to heal or come back from church hurt? What? I've got a story of church hurt. But what's the difference? How is it that you can begin to heal or come back from church hurt? What do you? What do you? Where do you think you start?
Speaker 2:I think, if at all possible, you go to the person whether it's a member or leadership you know that hurt you and try to talk that situation out. Wait a minute.
Speaker 1:Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're talking biblical stuff now. Hang on just a second. So you're saying that if I'm offended or hurt, I need to go to that person and talk to them about it and not go to my mama? Yeah, okay, I can go ahead. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's you know, that's and that's the thing is, I don't know. You know, we just don't want to do that Sometimes we don't want to. It's easier just to walk away from a situation than to be confrontational that we feel like, or to bring it up or to. We don't want to be messy, so we think it's just better just to leave the situation or leave the church, or leave whatever, or then then to do that. But sometimes, you know, we can find out that maybe we there was a misunderstanding, or you know, um, nobody checked on me when, when I was in the hospital. Well, did they know you're? They didn't know you were in the hospital Because I'm the ladies leader at our church. Somebody said are we going to do meals for so-and-so that had surgery? I said I didn't know she had surgery. What are you even talking about? But we may find out that there was something we didn't know. If we do that sometimes I think that's one of the first things is just to see if there's any way possible to to talk it out?
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe to clear the air. Ok, because you said it. Sometimes it's just a misunderstanding. You ever had that happen before you and I've had that happen. We've talked, we were talking about two separate things and you thought I was talking about something I thought was talking about and all of a sudden, boom, we're like in an argument. I'm like whoa, hey, hey, hey, whoa, I didn't like that. What I was saying. You're like OK, then you know, but sometimes that's that misunderstanding.
Speaker 1:But I think too, in order to start to heal from church hurt, is that you have to acknowledge that you've been hurt. Our two and a half year old granddaughter she has more boo boos. I mean, every time she comes she's got a boo-boo. Well, she don't mind to tell you she's got a boo-boo, yeah, but good, christian folks who get hurt, they almost wear it as a badge of honor to suffer in silence or maybe ignore the hurt or disappointment or regret, because they think it's the Christian thing to do. I just need to choke this, choke, choke this down and pretend I'm not hurt. Well, your arm's, laying in the floor, it's been ripped off. No, no, no, no, my arm's fine, I'm fine.
Speaker 1:But you can acknowledge that you've been hurt. Well, I just don't. I don't think that's the way things you know. I just want to show my emotion. Well, you know what Jesus did. You remember the story of Lazarus? Guess what Jesus did when Lazarus died? He cried. Guess what happened when Jesus was in the garden and about to go to the cross? He was under duress, he was stressed out. So you can acknowledge, if the Lord, god Almighty, can acknowledge that he had emotion and he had some things, you can't too, and I think that's one of the things that you have to acknowledge you've been hurt.
Speaker 2:Why do you think people hide that? Well, I mean, I think, just for the reasons that you said, that it just may be easier just to push it down and move past it and not bring it up and hoping it'll just you know that feeling will go away. Sometimes they don't, though. I think that's when you have to address. It is when you realize you're not getting over that thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. I think the other thing too, in order to heal, not only do you have to acknowledge you've been hurt. The other thing and I like this and I've been thinking about this is that you have to change perspective on who or what hurt you, that it wasn't actually the church itself that hurt you, that it was someone or a group of people that hurt you and you got to assign hurt, anger, blame to that particular person and not the church itself.
Speaker 2:Well, and even maybe specifically it could have been that church If that church voted you out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's probably extenuating circumstances, but as a whole I mean, let's just be honest, and this is what other denominations do is what other denominations do. But you know, we know there's denominations that if they know that you're living with somebody that's not your husband, they will get together in a business meeting and they will decide that you do not, you're not a member there anymore, and they're going to, they're going to vote on sending you a letter. That happens, it does, it happens. So maybe that church as a whole, maybe that church did hurt you, but that again is not all churches like it's, you know. Like it's. You know, if somebody at McDonald's hurts me and is rude to me, mcdonald's did not hurt me. That person or that location or that whatever, and that's the thing is like that may. Sometimes that's location, specific. That's not the church as a whole. It's time for you to find out if they voted you out. Go somewhere that will love you, right.
Speaker 1:Well, and so that that does happen occasionally, but for the most part, I think a lot of times it's usually specific to somebody. Yeah, somebody hurt me, and so you have to assign that blame. That it was Joe hurt, or it was Stephanie hurt, or it was hurt from this person at this particular church and it's a weak spot in the church, sometimes Not the church as a whole. So when we talk about church hurt, you need to assign appropriation to the right thing and the right person. That it was Tiffany that hurt me, and so I have a problem with Tiffany, but I don't have a problem with Pastor Mike, I don't have a problem with this church. I have a problem with this person and you reorientate yourself and change your perspective and I think that that helps. So, acknowledging changing, maybe, your perspective, whatever else, what else?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and I don't know if this is really a good place to put this in, but I'm going to. Sometimes, though, even with our hurt, we need to realize are we mad? Are we just offended? Are we disappointed to be able to work through our hurt, and are we deeply hurt? You find yourself being offended a lot? Then there is a possibility that this you know that it may it could be you yeah, that maybe you've got to do a checkup and find out, like why am I being offended so much?
Speaker 2:If you're mad a lot, if you get mad over lots of things you know at church, then we, you do maybe need to do a checkup and say, ok, like why, why is this affecting me this way? And make sure, going back to what you said, that you don't have unrealistic expectations, and and try to develop a little bit more than we just did, one on mental toughness, a little bit mental toughness to where everything doesn't hurt you or offend you at church. Because you know, I will say too, there's a certain point in time, like if you get offended or hurt in church a lot and you've been in church a while, that we, you just got to grow up a little.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's maturity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got to, you got to grow up a little, but then you know, if, if there is something that that did deeply hurt you and it's real and it's valid, then you may need to create just a little bit of space between between you and the person that you know that did it. Um, you know, and and there's, maybe pastors are going to be like, oh no, no, stop, I don't. I don't know about that, but if you, if you're going to church every Sunday morning and it hurts and it's painful and you're bitter and you're whatever, then maybe you need to, you know, take a beat, go go visit another, another church for just for a couple of weeks and let yourself, you know, heal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and it could be changing locations If you're, if you're at a church that has multiple locations, maybe you change locations You're still going to church, but change locations You're still going to church, but you change locations. If you're in a small church, it's a little more difficult. Maybe you do have to have a season that you have to separate for a while, because you can't heal if you constantly have the wound being ripped open and you have to learn how to work through that. And I'm going to say this Everybody talks about I'm hurt, I'm hurt. And I'm going to say this Everybody, everybody talks about I'm hurt, I'm hurt, I'm hurt.
Speaker 1:But I'm going to go from the ministry perspective too. There are men and women of God who have been hurt by their congregation and we tear them down and blow them up and expect them to stand up every Sunday and minister to us and take our barbs and take our beatings. And I'm going to be honest with you there are men, good men, women of God that have been hurt too. And if you're that person, you know I get it. Maybe the church pays you, but maybe it's time for you to step down and go get healed somewhere too.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I want to say this because I think there's zero chance this lady's listening. Well, you know, I want to say this because I think there's zero chance this lady is listening. But you know, I was somewhere just very recently and a lady spoke up in the middle of a situation and said something no-transcript but you know. Then talking to that person, you know the pastor later really affected him and it was so hurtful and mean and you know we don't think about you know, but they have so many situations like that sometimes. But they have to go home, and you know, but then they've got to go and act like everything's okay and still treat you and your family like everything is okay. And you know, take on the burden of somebody who's really got a situation here that needs them in the middle of the night, and all these things that are still carrying around some of those, you know hurts A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Well, and I've told you, I was raised in a small, small denominational church, and can I tell you the number of times my mama went home crying because people were mean to her or mean to my dad Because they were pastoring, because they were pastoring the church and just mean. And so you have to work through and listen. You may have to go sit down Sometimes and I'm going to say this from a pastor perspective. Sometimes you need to go set your butt down. Okay, I get it, man, you want to preach the word, you want to pass. Sometimes you need to sit down and heal and not serve and not get all back up involved in things again. And so you know what I need a season to heal too, and I think that's important. The only way you do that is creating some space. I think you also have to seek some godly counsel. Listen, you don't live in a world by yourself. You need to go find people you can trust and that you can talk this thing out with and, you know, work through it with, and I think that that's important.
Speaker 1:But to finish up here and we can finish up with the last couple of points here is that forgiveness is the bedrock of the Christian faith. It is. I understand you're hurt and I don't. I do not belittle that. I know that there is a lot of hurt and there's a lot of real hurt, but forgiveness is the bedrock of the Christian faith and Jesus wants us to forgive people who hurt us. He does and that is the hardest part it really is. He does and that is the hardest part it really is. Forgiveness is the hardest part because when you see that person, you remember, but you may never forget. But you can choose forgiveness over and over and, over and over. And how do you work through that?
Speaker 2:I mean, you've been that I think you have to make a choice to forgive, even when you don't feel it and you don't see it and your heart's not in it. Yet I remember talking to somebody and they had a terrible, terrible situation and I said every time you think about this because your mind is trying to play it back to you, you're going to have to say I choose to forgive, I choose to forgive and eventually you're going to find the more that you pray about it and you say that out loud and you shut your mind down when it's replaying the bad thing that happened. You know that, that you are forgiving, because I believe a hundred percent that forgiving somebody is for you. It, um, I believe wholeheartedly that you do become mentally ill, physically ill, all those things, when you're holding on to unforgiveness, and I think that you can get in your own way sometimes of what God maybe has for you if you cannot move into a place of forgiveness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so too. And forgiveness, I'm telling you, it's the bedrock of this whole thing. The only way you heal from church hurt is forgiveness. You can do steps one, two, three, four, five, but if you skip forgiveness, you will not heal. You will always have some bitterness, you'll always have some hurt, you'll always have some anger. But forgiveness is the way, it is the only way. And I get it.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, if you're out there listening and you've been hurt at church, if people have hurt you, man, we understand, like we hear you, and I read all the comments and I read and listen to things and see things, but it does not represent the church as a whole. Okay, there are people who make mistakes, there are people who they're evil people. Okay, even people who hurt you on purpose, but not everybody's out to get you. Not everybody hurts you on purpose, and God wants you to learn how to forgive, and I think that's an important facet. It is the crux of what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1:Forgiveness is the way, and so I don't know what it looks like for you. I don't know where you are today, I don't know what you're facing, I don't know what they did to you, but I can tell you that there's a God in heaven that loves you. There's a God in heaven who loves his church and he wants you to be a part of his life and be a part of things. And there is a way to come back from church. Hurt, but it takes lots of perseverance, lots of being honest, lots of making things right on both sides and figuring out how to work through it. Any final words?
Speaker 2:No, I think those are some good things.
Speaker 1:Sounds good. That's it. That's a heavy subject and it ain't always fun to end on that, but I can tell you, god still loves you, no matter where you are, no matter what's happened.
Speaker 2:I do have a final thought yeah, let's go. If you've become unchurched because of that, I would just say try again, because you may be missing friendships, relationships and things that you don't even know. You know that you're missing by by, by staying in that place of church hurt and just shutting, shutting it off off. That that's it and I'll never go back. And I see that when you put out a TikTok asking about church hurt stories there was so much of. I will never go back. That was the predominant theme and I just encourage you to try again. It's okay to sit on the back and observe and to whatever, but to try again because every church is not like the one that hurt you.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right. That's right. That's good word, that's good word. Hey, thank you so much for listening this morning. We encourage you to get in the flow of life, find people who are going the direction you want to go and hop in there with them and you'll change your whole life. Thank you for listening. Have a great morning. Outro Music.
