The Process of Healing…

Have you ever noticed that Christianity oftentimes goes against human nature? It makes sense when you think about it… God’s ways are not our ways, and all that… But, when it comes to applying it to daily life, it seems like I always need a reminder. Anyone else?

Some of you are familiar with the story of the broken vase. A friend of mine had a vision of 2 vases… One flawless in every way, and the other a simple clay vessel that has been broken and repaired several times with the cracks and holes visible. The monetary value of these aren’t even comparable, but in a darkened room with a candle in each, which one produces more light and is therefore, more valuable? The point of the illustration is that the light is the love of God, and we are the broken vessel. The more real we are, ie, when we let people see our brokenness, the more God’s love can shine through us for others. It’s only when we’re willing to be vulnerable with each other that we’re able to make a real connection.

This is all to say that I think I need to let you all in on some more of my broken because if I don’t, I don’t think I’ll be able to make any more progress with healing. There’s not a lot that I’ve been through that I haven’t shared in some form or another, but this one I’ve held pretty close to the vest. The reasons were honorable at first, but I think they’ve morphed into more of a protective shell that is threatening to become impenetrable if I don’t do some work to tear it down. Ok. Metaphors done.

I remember doing a Beth Moore bible study many years ago (the girls were still babies) called “When Godly People Do Ungodly Things”. At that time in my life, I wasn’t able to absorb much, but the concept stuck with me, and as I’ve matured in Christ and in my service to the Church, I’ve seen it play out firsthand. Obviously, I’m not going to be naming names here, but those who know me will know what I’m talking about when I say that we belonged to a church filled with spiritually sick people. We didn’t realize the extent of the problem when we joined, and it even took a few more years before we could recognize what was going on. At that time, we had committed ourselves to service, and we felt that we needed to stay to try and help. We even took on leadership roles and positions on the board thinking we could make a difference. Looking back, I think we did make a difference… We upset the status quo and threw everything into a tailspin.

I had been given the role of worship director. It was a step I felt ready to take after years of worship service, and Joe was with me in the role of tech director. Working together, I felt invincible. Worship is where my heart is, and this seemed like such a natural transition that I really didn’t take heed to the smattering of warnings we were given going in. One stands out as eerily prescient, and that was, “If you don’t want to see how the sausage is made, don’t ever join a church board.”. This was actually from my dad who had been burned by a church in the past after he and my mom had joined the board. All this is not to say that Joe and I didn’t pray about it and take the decision seriously. We absolutely did! We just didn’t understand the implications of what we were signing up for going in.

At first, everything was going fine. The problems we faced initially were those we had actually expected, and I felt that we took them in stride and did the best we could with what we had. We even got a couple of wins for the team at first, being able to upgrade outdated equipment by selling off some older stuff that was literally just taking space in a closet, and also starting a coffeehouse ministry for the church that is still running to this day. These small but significant changes we were able to make just confirmed to us that we were in God’s will in these roles.

During this time, the church was going through a search for a new pastor. The pastor who had been there for 20 years decided that he needed a change, and left an interim pastor in his place who was willing to serve until a new leader was found and hired. The piece of wisdom he left was that we should take some time before beginning the search to heal as a congregation (the general rule being give the same amount of months as years of service of the previous pastor; in this case, roughly 2 years before we start the search). I don’t remember exactly how long we waited before beginning the search in earnest, but it was in that general ballpark. It was in the waiting period that Joe and I officially took over the worship ministry, so the congregation was dealing with a lot of change in a short amount of time. If you know anything about Baptist churches in general, you know that any change is a scary and unwelcome thing!

It was when the pastoral search began that Joe and I were beginning to deal with real trouble. It started out as simple grumbling, but it was a weekly complaint and nothing we did or changed seemed to help. The primary issues that we heard about at first were complaints about music choice and sound/tech issues. Granted, I’m a much more dynamic worship leader than they had been used to, and one of the changes in equipment didn’t really live up to expectations when the upgrade was made, so I can give some grace to the complainers. When you’re in service to anyone, though, if all you hear is the negative, you start to feel completely unappreciated, and lose some of that initial heart to continue serving! This was the beginning of the end for me and Joe. It wasn’t that we weren’t willing to work through the issues… We were there for another year before feeling led to leave… It was just the point where the bloom was off the rose, and service stopped being joyful and started to become work.

I’m sure some of my frustration could be felt through my worship, even though I did my best to leave it off the stage. Worship leading for a congregation, at least for me, is literally putting my heart out on display for everyone to see. When I lead worship, I’m inviting the congregation to worship with me, and there’s very few things that are more personal and intimate than removing every barrier in order to give God your heart in worship. It’s not a performance. It’s a personal experience in which everyone in the congregation is allowed to participate. If you know me at all, you know that very few people are allowed to see my whole heart. Unfortunately, life experiences have led me to be pretty guarded when it comes to letting people in. I can count on one hand the number of people who have seen me cry as an adult because that means that all the defenses have been dropped, and that’s a dangerous place for me to be. A lot of this is because of the issues my dad and I have had, but there’s also a fair amount due to trauma from being bullied for 13 years through school. These are both topics for another heart-to-heart, but it’s enough to know the source material for our purposes here. All that to say that when you criticize my worship, you’re targeting my heart whether you know it or not. It’s personal. There’s no way it could be anything else for me.

Because it was personal, some of the detachment one should have when handling the fact that there’s no way to please everyone at the same time was not possible for me. The constant complaint that I wasn’t putting enough hymns into the set lists became, to me, a personal criticism of my music choices. Criticizing my music choices takes me back to countless arguments with my dad where the crux of it was that I was just plain wrong and a bad person for not agreeing and living my life in lock step with him. (Arguments with him were always that polarized. You either agreed, or you were wrong. No nuance, and certainly no compromise.) So, being historically opposed to any hint of legalism led me to feel less than inclined to acquiesce to any of the, in my opinion, unreasonable demands being placed upon me. I also bristled at not having the support of the interim pastor, and therefore was even less willing to play nice. (And you thought I was just going to skewer everyone else with this piece!)

You’re beginning to get the picture of how contentious things were becoming behind the scenes. It certainly wasn’t one-sided, but it felt that way at the time. It felt like Joe and I were in a battle with the rest of the leaders, and that’s a difficult position. There were a couple of other things happening on the side that, if they had been outliers, we would’ve been able to work through, but as things were, they were insurmountable obstacles. We were beyond frustrated, but we still felt like God was telling us to stay put and try to work through the disagreements.

It was at the height of our discontent that the pastoral selection committee announced that they had found the candidate they wanted to put forth for election. I had had issues with the process from the start because anything that is less than transparent, in my eyes, is less than trustworthy. I’m certain that this candidate was a lovely brother in Christ, but when we were finally able to know who he was, I felt inclined to do a little digging of my own. I wasn’t alone in my assessment. Joe and I were joined by a small group of friends, and we spent the week between meeting him and the church-wide vote digging into his online presence to see for ourselves what kind of leader he would be. What we found was alarming! I won’t get into the specifics, but some of the beliefs that he espoused and was passionate about seemed to go against biblical teaching. This was not a person we felt was suitable to lead our church! And our friends said so.

At the vote the next Sunday, they voiced our concerns (being in leadership, Joe and I felt that we shouldn’t be the ones to bring this up so as not to use our positions to sway anyone), and even though the selection committee stood by their vetting, it was decided that the church would take a few weeks to reassess. There was even a separate committee formed to look into the issues we found. On the surface, it looked like we were trying, as a congregation, to take this responsibility seriously. The political movement in the background, though, was apparent to anyone who had a seat at the table, which Joe and I did. We saw the sausage made from the slaughter right down to the stuffing of the entrails. The process, and the people, got ugly.

When it came time for the church to vote again, the candidate failed to achieve the necessary votes by just 2. My relief was short-lived when I saw the anger on the faces of my brothers and sisters. There was an emergency board meeting called for later in the week, and when it was over, Joe and I knew that our time as members of this church had come to an end. The board was talking about finding out who voted against the candidate and punishing them! The anger was real, and even though they didn’t know for certain how Joe and I had voted, we were fearful of the retribution that seemed inevitable. When godly people do ungodly things, indeed. That next Sunday was our last. We felt as though God kept us there for the purpose of derailing this particular process, and once that was accomplished, He told us to go.

The church eventually found a pastor who we’ve heard is a good man and leader, but the anger and bitterness is still there. Through friends who stayed we’ve heard some of the drama, but have tried to stay out of it. This all happened more than 3 years ago, now, but I find that some of it still evokes negative emotions even though I’ve tried to forgive and heal. Not long ago, I was asked to lead worship at a good friend’s church. I thought I was ready, but discovered that I wasn’t. One teeny bit of negative feedback had me in a rage! My too tender heart wasn’t able to take even the slightest of wounds. Why?

I have been performing through this whole time, both with my secular groups and alone in coffeehouse ministry settings, with no problems. I can pour my heart out while giving my testimony, and sing with every ounce of my soul, but I don’t have to let anyone in past all the gates I’ve built. I have control over how close anyone comes in those settings, so they’re safe. Worship, though. As I described earlier, that’s a different story altogether. So, why haven’t I been able to heal? I honestly don’t know. Maybe because I wasn’t willing, until recently, to fully accept my role in the problems we had in leadership. Maybe because I’ve kept all of this mostly to myself in order to protect friends. Maybe it’s a combination of both of those plus more that I haven’t been able to see yet. The reality is that even though there are years separating me from those experiences, I’m not willing to drop my defenses to even join another church right now, let alone serve one. As I write that, I realize just how deep this goes, and how far away I am from where I should be. But maybe that’s the start I need to begin my voyage home. God knows. I don’t. And right now, I guess that’s all I need to know. Now that I realize the walls are mine, like every other wall, challenge and roadblock I’ve been through so far, God will help me break through in His time. I’m just finally ready to see how He’ll help me heal and prepare for the next set of challenges. This story isn’t finished yet…