When Church Hurts

Church hurt is real — and for many, it's the reason they’ve walked away from pews, pulpits, and even faith communities altogether. In this episode, Jason and Nicole open a gentle but honest conversation about the damage churches can do, especially when well-meaning people respond with clichés instead of compassion.

🎙️ We unpack common phrases like:

• “No church is perfect.”
• “Just pray about it.”
• “Aren’t you being bitter?”
   … and explain why these responses can make things worse.

👂 Instead, we explore how to respond with presence, empathy, and the love of Christ — and how healing can begin outside the walls of the church.

Whether you’ve experienced church hurt yourself or want to better love someone who has, this episode offers space to listen, process, and hope again.

🛋️ Pull up a chair. There’s room at the table for your story.

Thanks for pulling up a chair at Table for Two. If you enjoyed today's conversation, we'd love for you to join us on Facebook! It is where we share behind-the-scenes updates, chat with listeners, and keep the conversation going throughout the week. We'd love to see you there.

Transcript

Ep7 When Church Hurts

Jason: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Table for Two, the podcast where faith, family, and real life meet around the table. 

Nicole: We are Jason and Nicole Barnett, a married couple in ministry learning, laughing and leading together, and bringing you along for the ride. 

Jason: And today's episode is a little more tough. It's a, it's a tender episode.

It's called When Church Hurts. 

Nicole: So we know this topic is heavy for a lot of people. Whether you've been hurt by the church yourself or you love someone who has, we just hope that this conversation brings validation, healing, and hope. This table, this is table for 

Theme song: two for storms and swallowed on noise.

Church, Jesus and hand copy and mugs are life held together by grace and a few hugs they. Said she submits. We said we both do. It's not about ladder since mi, you serving the kingdom one and lock lines and callous hands and holy routines at this table for two, there's room [00:01:00] for you. Pull up. Butcher will tell the truth, love and faith with the side.

Nicole: Before we dive into the deep stuff, let's break the ice. Here's today's lighthearted question. 

Jason: All right. What's the weirdest or funniest thing you've ever seen happen in a church service? So I think we have the same story we do, and I'm just gonna warn you before we tell this, this is slightly inappropriate and slightly, maybe not quite G-rated.

Nicole: It's definitely something As a youth pastor we caught. When the senior pastor at the time didn't quite catch it. Yeah. 

Jason: Um, go ahead. So again, I was an associate pastor and our youth group, well, let me say this, the sanctuary at this church, there were three rows of pews, right, with two aisle ways, right? [00:02:00] One, one in, you know, there's a middle section, a far section, and then another far section.

And our youth group sat in the middle section. Second row, not front row, because we didn't wanna get spit on by the preacher. Yeah. Second and third 

Nicole: row, 

Jason: but, but he did not preach on the platform. He preached on the floor in between the front pew and the alters. And so he's, I don't even remember what the sermon was actually about.

Nicole: I don't either, but it was hilarious. This one line 

Jason: Yes. That he 

Nicole: kept saying over. And over and over again and again, keep in mind we are youth pastors at the time. 

Jason: Yeah. And we're not by ourselves. We have a whole room of teenagers with us. 

Nicole: Yeah. And also this is, this is kind of my saving grace. I was about eight months pregnant at the time and dealing with a lot of leg cramps and all that stuff.

So that kind of saved us a little bit from in the middle of the S [00:03:00] service. Um, go ahead. 

Jason: Well, anyway, so. We are, um, sitting there and all of a sudden he says, have you found your Peter? Now you probably chuckled as you heard that, and, but maybe you didn't. Maybe it went over your head. Maybe you're, you're, you're a better person than we better PE person than we are.

But again, we were working with teenagers. Okay. And, and he says, have you found your peter? Immediately we began to think of 

Nicole: the slang term. 

Jason: Yes. And so we're, we start chuckling a little bit, but then, and it doesn't 

Nicole: help that the teenagers next to us are sniggering as well. They're giggling. 

Jason: And so now we're, we're trying to compel, compose ourselves, and then he says it again and then.

He makes it work. He's like, you've gotta find your Peter and you gotta grab it. You gotta take all the, you gotta take hold of it. And I just remember I lost at that point [00:04:00] again, I'm sitting in the second row, so I'm up in the front now. The good news is the congregation's behind us, so they can't see my face.

They just see me doubled over. But they don't, he's, 

Nicole: he looks right at me. The senior pastor looks right at me. He sees my face as bright red Tears are streaming down my face, and he thinks that he must have done something. Or said something so emotionally profound because I am sobbing apparently, and I, I kind of kick my leg a little bit and I cramp up.

I cramp up because I'm pregnant, I'm dehydrated. And so he just kind of assumes that at that point, maybe it wasn't an emotional response. Maybe I'm just cramping up and I'm in pain. Yes. 

Jason: But it was, it was hilarious. And we were not the, and, and, and I have learned through the years, it wasn't just us and the teens that caught it.

There were several of the older members that caught it as well. They just, they were more mature than us [00:05:00] able to hold it together. Um, but, but, but we didn't, I did not confess the truth to that instant until I have as a senior pastor elsewhere, two, two years after the fact. I finally made that confession to him.

Nicole: But I will say this to the senior pastors and, and those who are going to be preaching. Think about what you say, especially how a teenage mind might take it and how the associates mind might take it. 

Jason: Yes, they will. It will dere them and, uh, believe me, I've had my share, fair share of close calls and somewhere I've had to be very intentional how I worded things.

Yes, 

Jason: I had a series called Divorce that was not initially gonna be called that, and I was saved by someone. And also this last week I just preached a, a sermon called. Uh, when the butt blocks your blessing, and I really wrestled with that title. 

Nicole: I definitely was kind of a little worried about it, 

Jason: but the reason I wrestled with it was because of that moment sitting in that pew as an associate.

Um, [00:06:00] but again, I had, but I paid very much close, uh, a lot closer attention to my wording and my sermon to make sure I didn't word anything in a way that would elicit giggles from our teenagers who, which our teenagers here sit in the back. So, 

Nicole: yeah. So that does help a little bit. 

Jason: Well. Now that we've broken the ice and then some, um, this turned to a little bit more serious topic.

Uh, today we're talking about church hurt and not from a place of bitterness. Um, and not from a place where we're angry at the church and we want to dissolve it as an institution. 

Nicole: Absolutely not. 

Jason: But this is from a place of love for, for both, for the church and the people who make up the church, but also for the people who have been wounded.

And so I hope this, I, I don't know, maybe this is, is a discussion about what hope can look like. Yeah. What, maybe me rephrase that, a discussion about maybe a hope for what healing can look like Yeah. As [00:07:00] we have this con conversation. 

Nicole: Yeah. And so, you know, we're also calling out some unhelpful and even harmful things that church folks sometimes say when someone is hurting.

Um, again, it's not to shame anyone, but. This is an invitation to be better, to do better and be more compassionate in our responses. 

Jason: Yes. And before we dive into like, and that's really gonna be our focus today, is the unhelpful things that we say sometimes in response to somebody at church that's dealing with church here, but kind of just start us off with an analogy.

And in some ways this is a poor analogy. But I think it's a good one. Uh, there's a guy on TikTok, I don't know his name, and maybe you as a listener know who I'm talking about. But what he does is he goes into an animal shelter and he deals with these dogs that have belt with neglect and abuse. Mm-hmm.

And so when, when you walk in and you see them and there's kennel at the shelter, they are cowering back of the corner every time a person walks [00:08:00] by and this guy will go in. And what he does, he, he, he goes in and he faces the door, he faces away from the dog. 

Nicole: He ensures that the dog doesn't see them as, doesn't see him as a threat.

Jason: And then slowly he works his way to, he's sitting, you know, he's sitting on the floor next to the dog. And again, gradually he begins to hand the dog treats. And then over time, usually the dog after accepts the treats, then it's more willing to allow him to pet the dog. And you see the dog become more of a dog, but.

Before that happens though, and even throughout that process, you will see moments where, you know, normally a dog's up in your lap trying to lick your face. If you have a tree, it's trying to steal the tree outta your hands. But the dogs he's dealing with in these videos, they are just cowering in the corner.

Mm-hmm. You can tell something bad has happened to them. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and they were, they were dealing with something. 

Nicole: And one thing I absolutely love about most of the interactions we've seen with this guy is that he will often tell the dog, you know, you didn't deserve what you went through. You didn't [00:09:00] deserve that.

And, and how often do we respond that way with somebody who's dealt with church hurt and is just as shy as that dog might be? Well, 

Jason: and I think it's relatable to what he does in those videos because not just with church or, but any type of hurt that happens. Yeah. When we get hurt, whether you're inside of the church, that's how we respond.

We shut down, we cower away from certain people in certain situations because of the trauma we've dealt with, and those are our trauma responses. And just like Nicole said, when we're dealing with people who have been hurt and harmed by the church, when they hear that word, church, you know, for, for most of us, when we hear church, we, we think of the warm loving people, the praising Jesus together, amazing sermons.

But for someone dealing with church hurts that that's not what they hear. That's not what they hear, that's not what they feel. 

Nicole: They feel the judgment and they feel the trauma that they've, that they've dealt with. 

Jason: Mm-hmm. 

Yeah. 

Nicole: And so maybe instead of saying, oh, well, [00:10:00] you know, no church is perfect or, or not every church is like that, maybe, maybe we just need to say, I am so sorry you dealt with that and you did not deserve it.

Jason: Right? And that, that's really the first phrase that a lot of us as Christians will go to. Is when we, when someone tells us that they've been hurt by the church and they tell us a story, our quick response is, well, no church is perfect. And that's true. There is no perfect church out there. Or 

Nicole: not every church is like that.

And it doesn't matter if every church is not like that. The fact that one church is like that was enough to harm someone. 

Jason: Yes. Um, and again, not every dog is going to bite you, but you get bit by one dog. 

Nicole: You're gonna be cautious. 

Jason: You're gonna be a little more cautious. So again, while, while not, you know, no church is perfect, that's a hundred percent true.

The church is a hospital for broken people being transformed through the grace of God. And that's through learning to love God and love others, [00:11:00] but others loving us, help us along the way. And for those dealing with your church, that's not what they've experienced. And sometimes they've experienced from people, things from people that no human being should ever experience.

Yeah. But from someone within the church. 

Nicole: Somebody who's professing to love Jesus, but they just e exuded so much hatred and, and judgment that, that they can't get past it. 

Jason: Yeah. And so when we use No church is perfect, or, well, not all churches are like that. What we're really doing when we say that is we're ex, we're, we're kind of making a, an excuse for the harm that was caused.

Were based on the abil, based on imperfection, 

Nicole: and we're also invalidating their experience. Yeah. 

Jason: So what we need to do instead is just acknowledge they're hurt. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Jason: And like Nicole said, just say, I'm sorry that happened 

Nicole: and it, it was not right. Yeah. Point, acknowledge the fact that it was wrong and don't try to say, but after that, just say it was not [00:12:00] right.

Jason: Yeah. And, and just leave it at that. And you don't have, if you, if you don't know what else to say, don't say anything else. Yeah. Just be present, uh, be there with them. Uh, the second thing that a lot of, um, church people will say in response to someone dealing with church is have, have you tried reconciling?

Nicole: So this puts pressure on people to rush into unsafe or premature conversations. When you are hurt and you're dealing with a trigger, you can't just rush into those conversations. When Jason and I, for example, when we have an issue where we have like an argument or whatever. More often than not, I have to take a step back because I tend to be a little hotheaded.

And so I have to step back and I have to kind of get to a place where I can have a civil conversation with him without lashing out an emotional, with an emotional response. And the the fact is, is when somebody's dealt with church hurt, they're, they've [00:13:00] been ex like they've been wounded deeply. And, and it's by people who never should have wounded them in the first place.

So it's even, it's even more complicated, I feel like, than a spousal relationship because there's, you're kind of expecting to have fights with your spouse. You're not expecting to be completely damaged by a, a place that preaches healing and hope. 

Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: Um, 

yeah. 

Nicole: And so you have to go into those conversations with a level head.

But on top of that. Why is it always the expectation of the person who's been hurt to fix the problem? 

Jason: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I'll say this to you, a and a lot of us will say, those of us in the church will say, well, don't the, isn't it belonging to the community of God important? And, and yes it is. We should belong to a faith community.

We should belong to a group of people. But again, they've been hurt. 

Yeah. And 

Jason: they're not ready for that [00:14:00] yet. And you know, healing has to happen before reconciliation can happen. 

Yeah. 

Jason: That person has to have, get, has to have time to work through what they're feeling and, but so often we pressure them to jump back into the wider community.

But understand this too about the church. The church didn't necessarily start off with this group of two or 3000 people. Most of these churches. We're meeting in people's homes. 

Mm-hmm. 

Jason: So that we're smaller groups and, and quite honestly, maybe the community that a person dealing with church hurt needs is just a Christian who's gonna sit there and be with them.

You in that moment, you are their church community. You are providing that safe place for them without pressuring them and rushing them to heal. Healing takes time. It's not, when I say it takes time, it's not something that's based on a timetable. It's, it's something that takes the person working through it and.

And wrestling through with, with God and with sometimes with talking with people. And we can, we can be that [00:15:00] ear. 

Nicole: Yeah. So we can be the fellowship that that person needs. We don't, they don't need to be in a church service every Sunday before they're ready. 

Jason: Yeah. Reconciliation is good, but only when it's safe and spirit led.

It can't be forced. 

Nicole: No. 

Jason: So what we need to do is just be present, kinda like. Kinda, you know, if you read the book of job and you read about job's, friends, they start off with the right attitude. 

They 

Jason: just, they derail after it. Yeah. But when they first get there for the first seven days, they just sit with job on the ass sheep.

And maybe that's what we need to do. Pay listen, grieve with them, mourn with them, 

Nicole: and only speak words of advice when they ask. And always with an, with the open end of this is. How I might respond in this situation, but I understand if it's not the way you are going to respond. Yeah. 

Jason: So again, reconciliation is [00:16:00] good and healing, but healing must become before reconciliation and safety always comes first.

Yeah. 

Jason: So again, if a person's dealing with church hurt because of like sexual abuse in the church or something to that matter, they do not feel safe there, 

Nicole: nor should they, 

Jason: and chances are, they may not feel safe in any church for a long time. So we have to be, we have to recognize that fact. Yeah. They're not gonna, then they're most likely, they're not gonna be comfortable with letting their kids come to church either because of what happened to them.

So again, we have to be recogniz, recognized that, and be respectful of it. Don't try and barge and bust that door down. Try but pray and think through. How come, okay, they're not, they, they don't feel safe coming to the church, but how can we work it out in a way where, where they feel safe interacting with us.

Yeah. Who rep, who is representing the church here? 

Nicole: How can we be a healthy church for them? 

Jason: Yes. 

Nicole: On a one-on-one basis. And we 

Jason: say, pastors say this all the time. [00:17:00] The church, the church is not the four walls. It's, it's not, it's the people. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Jason: So think, think about that. You know, it, it is not necessarily getting them back through the four walls.

It's getting them back to where they can see Jesus for who Jesus is. Yeah. And not for the people that hurt the not, not the people that hurt them. 

Yeah.

Jason: All right, so another thing that people will say to someone dealing with church hurt is that the person dealing that's been hurt by the church will attempt to share their story about what happened. And someone will say, well, the respondent, well, well, let's not gossip about that. 'cause we're all afraid of gossiping.

Although, 

Nicole: although. That's never really the case. I've seen so much gossip happen within the church, but the second it's about the church. Oh, we don't wanna talk about that. 

Jason: Yeah. Um, but, and so it's just a means of shutting it down Yeah. Rather than actually acknowledging what happened. 

Nicole: But for the, for the record, [00:18:00] confiding in safe people about church hurt is not gossip.

It's part of healing. 

Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: You have to confess what's in your heart in order to start healing and. You can't just keep it contained. And so I know that Jason and I, we do our best to be that, to be a safe place for people to share their hurt. We try not to make the excuses of, you know, not every church, not every pastor, not every, it's like, no, this is, this is your experience and you are, your experience is valid.

We are so sorry. Um, and we. We try not to shut it down. 

Jason: Yeah. But because here's the thing, we all have a, we all have stories, right? And we need to share, we wanna share those stories. And even the ones that are painful, because again, sharing those stories is how we find healing in our lives. Whether you often we [00:19:00] want, we definitely wanna share those stories with God, but God will bring other people into our lives to help us, right?

To process through those things and work through those things. But when we silence somebody's stories, we're, we're silencing what they're carrying. God never designed us to experience fear. He never designed us to experience pain, 

no. 

Jason: Or suffering. And if God didn't design us to experience those things, he definitely didn't design us to hang on to them.

Nicole: No. We are designed to be in fellowship and communicate with one another, and that means sharing our burdens. And also carrying each other's burdens. So when you are talking with someone who has experienced church hurt mm-hmm. You are called to help them carry that burden. 

Jason: Yeah. So don't silence their story.

Create spaces for people to where they can be honest, I'm honest about what hurt them. And again, that might not draw 'em back to church right [00:20:00] away, but just the fact that you listened to them and you heard them out. Without casting judgment, without shutting them down, that lets 'em know they're valued.

Nicole: Yeah, and, and for the record, it's not gonna be pretty, more often than not, those stories of church hurt the ones that we don't often wanna listen to, because they, they, they, they're tough. They're going to hurt, they're going to step on your toes. But remember. Those stories cause them hurt long before they stepped on your toes.

Jason: That's right. Um, the next thing is, so we've talked about not, no, don't say no church is perfect or. Uh, not every church is like that. Uh, have you tried reconciling lingling or, or, or let's not gossip. We've talked about that. So this next one is what will this, we often ask this, we go into a protect the institution [00:21:00] mode.

Oh, like God's church needs our protection. Like God himself, the Jesus said upon this rock, I will build my church. And the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. That, that God will somehow needs our protection to keep the church going. And. And so people will shut down. People dealing with church hurt in real broken situations.

They'll do that in order to protect the church's witness. 

Nicole: And it's not even the church's witness, it's that congregation's witness, because more often than not, they're not actually being the church. 

Jason: Yeah, yeah. 

Nicole: If they're the ones that are causing that kind of hurt, that kind of trauma, they're not being the church.

They're being. Something else. Yeah. 

Jason: And really what you're doing right there is you're protecting, well, 

Nicole: you're protecting sin instead of people. 

Jason: And what I'm getting at with that though is you're [00:22:00] protecting an image. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Jason: You're not protecting God, you're not protecting his church. You're protecting an image of his church and of him that you want to.

Pro you wanna portray to the world around you, and what does the, what do, what's one of the intent commandments? Th shalt have no, no grave engraving images. Well, that image, it talks about, you know, it's talking about a physical I image or an idol that people worship. But in that sense, we take the church and we make it, make it an idol and, and, and sacrifice it.

The, the true church on the alters of convenience and self preservation, but protecting. An image over people is backwards. That's not the way God did. No, 

Nicole: and and the fact is, is Jesus never once covered up sin to protect institutions. He exposed it. Constantly. I mean, how many times did he point out the Pharisees sins?

Every time they were like, huh? Pointing the finger at somebody else 

Jason: over and over again. 

Nicole: It was he. He stepped [00:23:00] on their toes constantly because he was pointing out their sin, calling it out, and that's what needs to happen when the church is sinning. People need to speak up. 

Jason: Yes. And again, not, uh, not to create guilt or shame, 

Nicole: but to bring the sin to light, to 

Jason: delight so it can be healed 

Nicole: so people can repent and heal.

Yeah. 

Jason: Yeah. And that's what has to happen to, in these moments. The sin has to be dealt with. 'cause the, the longer it's allowed to grow longer, it remains unchallenged. It's gonna go from a small problem to a raging monster. 

Mm-hmm. When 

Jason: it finally comes out of that closet, when it comes, finally comes out into the light, that image you were trying to protect, it's gone.

It's gone. That witness you thought you were, you're preserving for the church. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's already lost it. 

Nicole: And not only did the church lose the [00:24:00] image, your, you've lost your trustworthiness as well. 

Jason: Yeah. 

Nicole: You've lost your. Reputation. 

Jason: Yeah. And we all know trust is a lot take it takes a lot more to build trust than it does to lose it.

Yeah. 

Jason: Um, so again, trying to protect the institution is not the way to go. Sometimes the best way to protect something is by letting sometimes is by taking it apart and rebuilding. 

Yeah. 

Jason: Um, 

Nicole: but I'll tell you this, God doesn't need us to protect his reputation. I. God cares more about people than he does about pr.

Jason: Yes. Don't, don't worry about that as much as helping the person heal. 

Yes. 

Jason: Um, and if you're a person dealing with an, a situation that the church is trying to keep you quiet about, they don't want, [00:25:00] they don't want people to find out about, 

Nicole: keep talking, 

Jason: keep talking, keep sharing. Those of you who are dealing with church hurt, that have been sharing your stories, I see people on TikTok all the time sharing their stories, and I want you to know, I, I watch those and my heart breaks same over and over again.

But we need, but the church needs to hear those stories. Yeah. We don't, we don't need to silence them. We don't, we don't need to, to, to shut them off and pretend they don't exist. We need to acknowledge them. So that way we can help deal with the sin within our own house. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Jason: Um, again, just saying no church is perfect.

It That's true. We're all broken people being transformed by grace, but it 

Nicole: doesn't excuse what's happened. Yes. And. 

Jason: If we're hiding sin, grace is not transforming us. It's being stifled. Mm-hmm. By the sin that that remains. Yeah. [00:26:00] Alright. So again, God cares more about people than pr, 

Nicole: but one thing that some Christians will do is they'll try to, they'll try to silence somebody who's dealing with church hurt by saying that, well, they just sound bitter.

Jason: Yeah. And that, yeah. And basically what they're, this, what that saying, what that is saying to the person doing with church hurt is, and this one, this one's gonna step on toes a little bit. It, it's labeling someone's emotions as a weakness and emotions are not weakness. 

Nicole: No. Anger is a very valid part of the grief and healing process.

Jason: Yes. Yeah. And, and so many times as Christian, one of the things we get wrong is we think to be angry is sin. No. And that's not true because if anger itself was sin, then Jesus sinned and God sinned and that doesn't happen. 

Nicole: No, they are sinless. They, and, and the Bible says, get or be [00:27:00] angry but don't sin.

Yeah. 

Jason: I mean, and we know God was angry at Aaron when he, when. When they built that golden calf, right? Oh 

yeah. 

Jason: We know Jesus was angry when he went into that temple, into the temple, and he found the money changers there. Yep. Jesus. Matter of fact, Jesus was so angry. See, we read that and we think Jesus was rushed into this fit of rage and started throwing things everywhere.

No, Jesus sat down, took time and made a whip outta courts. I don't know how long that takes to make, but he, 

Nicole: and long enough to where he wasn't. It wasn't just the heat of the moment. He sat in his anger for a bit. 

Jason: Yeah, so, so anger is not sinful. Sadness is not sinful. Grief is not, none of our emotions are sinful.

Now, how we respond to those emotions that yes, they can be sinful. 

Nicole: Yeah. One thing I always tell my kids when they're dealing with their emotions and everything is your feelings are very valid, your emotions are valid. How we deal with those emotions. Is where [00:28:00] is where that, you know, where that might change.

Yeah. 

Nicole: But if somebody is dealt dealing with church hurt and they're angry, they have every right to be angry. 

Hmm. 

Nicole: It, they were treated unjustly by people who are supposed to be a conduit of God's grace and mercy and justice. And if they were. I mean, if they're being treated in an UNC Christlike way by God's people, it's completely understandable.

Mm-hmm. That they would be upset. 

Jason: Yeah. Well, and again, you know when, when some, we we're counseling somebody who has lost a loved one, right. There are stages to grief. Yeah. And anger is one of those stages. Yeah. There's, there's denial, there's anger, there's bargaining. I can't remember. There's six of them, but, but my point is.

In a lot of ways, the person who's been hurt by the church, what's died is their [00:29:00] trust. What's died is their belief that these people love me and are gonna be here for me. What's, what's died? Is this, I, I don't know what else I wanna say here, but their vision and understanding the church died in that moment.

Yeah. 

Jason: And it's like gravity itself has given out around them. So again, they're gonna go through those stages and trying to, to shame them or label them weak or, or sinning because they're engaging them is wrong. 

Yeah. 

Jason: We have to let them process it. 

Yeah. 

Jason: Now, again, when I say that there are things that are still simple, right?

Yeah. Right, right. Like we can experience these emotions. But choose not to experience him in a way that's sinful and goes against God. 

Nicole: But the thing is, the thing that we need to understand [00:30:00] is that if somebody has left the church because of church hurt and they're dealing with that anger, chances are they're not gonna necessarily be thinking about, okay, is this the sinful way of behaving or is this not?

So what we need to do is if we're, we're exper, if we're interacting with someone. Who is dealing with those, those strong emotions because of church hurt, we can help them navigate. Yeah. As long as we have made ourself a safe place for them, we can help them navigate that anger and that frustration. Yeah.

And put it in a more healthy or, um, let them exercise it in a healthy way as opposed to an unhealthy, sinful way. But I'll tell you one thing, the last thing they need from us. Is judgment. 

Jason: That's right.

And then sometimes, uh, there's some of us that are peacemakers and there and some of us aren't peacemakers because we may [00:31:00] be peacemakers. We're peacemakers because we don't like to deal with drama. Yeah. And I'm 

Nicole: definitely the opposite. I'm definitely, let's watch the world burn. 

Jason: And I'm more of like, can't we all just get along?

Like I'm, I'm too tired. I'm too tired to fight with people. Um, but, uh, one of the things we'll say in response to someone doing at church is, and they're trying to bring it to light, is, is this, is this worth dividing the church over again, kind of back to protecting the institution a lot of ways, 

Nicole: sometimes the truth is going to cause division, but healing often starts with disruption.

The thing is, is Jesus even said that he did not come to bring peace but a sword. And so sometimes his truth. And, and sin being brought to light is going to cause church division. 

Jason: Yeah. It will, it'll, it will, um, I think of it like a scalpel. Like we, we refer to it as a sort of truth, but, but then we think, we think of like [00:32:00] Luke's Skywalker in his first battle with Darth Vader, just swinging that lightsaber around, hoping to hit something.

Nicole: Yeah. And, and so. Yes. You're referring to the truth like a scalpel. 

Yeah. 

Nicole: And sometimes that is all it takes is this little tiny little incision and, and the infection can be drained and, and once, you know, once it's brought to light, but sometimes it does require an amputation. 

Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: And, and you know what, if my arm is going to ultimately cause me to die, I'd rather lose the arm.

Jason: Yeah. And so often, because we don't wanna divide the church, we'll take these, these true wounds that have happened and rather than let them be named and dealt with, we'll treat the person trying to name it and deal with it as the problem. Yeah. Like they're the ones causing division. But here's the truth, them [00:33:00] speaking and naming what the issue is, is not them creating division, the wound.

The wound that incurred occurred, the fact that they were hurt by somebody, that that wound has caused a divide. It's not the person talking about it, not the person bringing it to lie. It is the wound. The wound. It's whoever caused the wound. The wound causes it. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Jason: Not the person. 

Nicole: Let's think about it this way.

I get migraines periodically. I have to take a migraine management medication. Me complaining that I have a headache is not me causing the headache. I'm not, I'm not sending myself to the hospital by saying, oh, I have a headache. No, the headache is, what's the problem? I am just saying that I have it. I, and the, and the longer I go without treating it, the worse it gets, and more often than not, if I don't treat it quickly enough, I am, [00:34:00] I am in the hospital.

Having to take some pretty heavy, some pretty heavy medication to, to cut through that pain and, and get me to a place where I can actually heal. But if we deal with the sin, when it causes the issue, initially there's gonna be less damage. Mm-hmm. But if we cover it up, it's gonna cause more and more and more damage and.

And that's when we deal with church splits and that's when we deal with churches shutting down. 

Jason: Yeah. Because the, for the sake of what we call unity, we bury things and put bandaids over it. Right. And saying, we're gonna preserve the unity at any cost. You see what, but when you're doing that, just slapping on band-aid, on things, those wounds fester underneath.

Mm-hmm. Never really treated unity. Isn't peace at any cost. Truth matters more than comfort. [00:35:00] 

Yeah. 

Nicole: Alright. And another thing that we try to tell people who are dealing with church hurt is, well, you should just pray about it. God's got this. He'll handle it. You know, I'm sorry, but sometimes that just, that's a bandaid.

Jason: Yeah. Yeah. Spiritual cliches are just. I mean, we mean well when we say them and, and let's be honest, we don't really know what else to say. And so we try to think, we say you something, one that's not gonna be hurtful, but say something that we think is helpful just to say something. 'cause we we're uncomfortable with silence.

Nicole: Yeah. And, and I mean, it's not wrong. Yes, God does have this and yes, 

Jason: they should be praying about it 

Nicole: 100%, but it's not helpful. 

Jason: Yeah. 

Nicole: It's not helpful because listening is better than lecturing. They're not needing you to say something. They're needing you to listen. They're needing you to validate what they're feeling and what they've experienced.

Yeah, 

Jason: because the [00:36:00] thing is we need to be present with them in this moment, and that's, that's been the ongoing thing in this episode is just be present with them and let faith, let faith support, healing and, and not short circuit it. Right. We, us just being present and being there and being available. But the problem, what hinders that is we are uncomfortable with our own pain, let alone sitting with somebody else in theirs.

Yeah. We want them to get over as quickly as possible, so, so we're, our uncomfortable build, our uncomfortableness goes away faster. But again, healing is not a, some, it's not, yes, healing. There's a timetable to healing, but the timetable is not based on this date to this date. It's. However long it takes is however long it takes.

Yes, we could be praying and sit with them and God could heal in an instant, but, but then again, sometimes the healing takes piece by piece. Yeah. Those shards have been broken and scattered in a lot of different places. 

Nicole: You know, we've been talking a lot about [00:37:00] how church hurt is. Basically grief. I mean, we're, you're dealing with the grief process and, um, I'm gonna bring a little bit of scripture into this, this, the story of Lazarus.

Mm-hmm. When Jesus went, um, after, after Lazarus died, Jesus shows up in Bethany and Mary and Martha run out to him, and they're basically telling him off a little bit. You know, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died like that. And I guarantee you they were shouting at him. 'cause you know, they know that Jesus was capable of healing.

They know that he was capable of, of fixing everything. And, and they're, they're heartbroken. And Jesus doesn't say, you know, oh, everything's gonna be okay. He doesn't, he doesn't, you know, say, well, you should just pray more. He doesn't say, oh, you know this, you know, he doesn't give them some, some little platitude.[00:38:00] 

Jason: No, he, 

Nicole: he cries. 

Jason: Yes. 

Nicole: It's the shortest verse in the Bible. Jesus wept. 

Jason: And again, he knew exactly what he was gonna do. 

Nicole: Yeah. He knew the end of the story, but he didn't. He didn't say anything. 

Yeah, 

Nicole: he wept. Yeah, he cried with them. He joined them in their grief. And maybe that's what we ought to be doing. A little bit more often when we are dealing with people who are dealing with church hurt because they're not needing the platitudes.

They're needing us to join them in their, in their grief. 

Yeah. 

Nicole: And yeah, we know the outcome. We know the, we know that Jesus loves them. We know that Jesus cares about them, and we know that our church might be healing. 

Yeah. 

Nicole: But they're not needing that right now. 

Yeah. 

Nicole: They're needing you to. Join with them in their grief, join with them in their frustration [00:39:00] with the institution that did cause them harm.

Join with them in their pain. 

Jason: Yes. 

Nicole: Mourn with them with about the reputation of the church that hurt them. And then, and then that's when we can offer, 

Jason: yeah, a little bit more. We have to stop worrying so much about protecting the church brand when. Protecting the four walls of the church. 

Yeah. 

Jason: And instead of focusing on the four walls that we consider to be the church, which is actually the church building, we have to have to actually focus on what the church, what's what makes the church up.

Yeah. The actual real building blocks of the church and the real building blocks of the church are not, is not brick and mortar, it's the people. 

Yeah. 

Jason: We have to make it about people. Yeah. And sometimes when we making about people means we sit with them where they're at. No matter what it is they're going through sometimes saying words of [00:40:00] encouragement, sometimes just encouragingly by being present and listening.

Nicole: Yep.

Because the fact is this church hurt is real. 

Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: Church hurt. It's a deep wound. 

Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: People that they should have been able to trust, a place where they should have felt safe was no longer trustworthy and safe. 

Hmm. 

Nicole: But the thing is, if we can extend the love, the mercy, the the join and join with them in gr in grief, they can begin to heal.

Jason: Yeah. Healing is possible. And if you've been hurt by the church, we went and you're listening to this, we're so sorry. That was not God's heart. And we're so sorry that happened to you and no, you're not alone. 

Nicole: Oh. And if you've said some of these things before, [00:41:00] it's okay. This is your chance to grow in compassion and respond better next time.

Yeah. 

Jason: We're, I said it so many times in this episode, we are all being transformed by the grace of God. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Jason: And, and sometimes we're just trying to do the best we can with what we know. 

Nicole: And the thing is, is you and I we're both guilty of it too. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We're, we've said the same things 

Jason: offered, the cliche prayers and the cliche statements of encouragement, but again, part of growing is realizing there's a better way to do things.

Yeah. 

Jason: And that's some, that's a big part of the Christian journey sometimes and and that's really what ness is often holiness boils down to. It's not always a choice between good or bad. Sometimes it's a choice between. Bad, good or better. 

Mm-hmm. 

Jason: And God's way is always better. 

Nicole: Yeah. So if, if this episode meant something to you, [00:42:00] take a second to subscribe.

Leave a review and share it with someone who needs to hear it. 

Jason: Yeah. And if you usually follow, um, our Dirt pastor and podcast, this is a different side of our ministry. It's more conversational, more personal, more focused on topics we face together as a couple and as pastors. And living here in Eastern Kentucky, and I just talked with our church about this tonight.

You know, we're, our mission isn't to look for people that are already sitting in church pews. 

Yeah. 

Jason: That's not who we, our goal is to reach the people that are lost, that are broken. But where we live in eastern Kentucky, almost everybody's been to church at some point or, or time. The question is, why aren't they going?

Yeah. 

Jason: And why aren't they going? It's because they're dealing with something. Church hurt often. Yeah. Often it's church. Church. Sometimes it's not, but often it's church hurt. 

Nicole: Yeah. The table for two is about real talk. It's at an intersection of faith in life, and if you've ever [00:43:00] felt like you didn't fit in the perfect church mold, you're our people.

Jason: And we'll be back next week with another episode, and until then, we're praying healing and peace over you. Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus. 

Theme song: Wait for storms and swallowed on noise. Church cheese and hand copy and mugs are light held together by grace. And a few hugs they said she submits me.

Said we both do. It's not about ladders since me, you serving the kingdom and eighth one and gene laugh lines and cows hands and routine at this. Table for two. There's room for you. Pull up, tell the.