Here’s an exercise that you probably don’t need to try. You gather a group of people who have been Christians for a long time. Helps if they’re active, but it also works if they grew up in church. You ask them to tell you the traumatic, horrible experience that happened to them that involved other Christians. Or several such stories.

There are websites devoted to such things. I’ve been in gatherings of ministers where painful stories were shared. I’m in a Facebook group with church leaders where heartbreaking anecdotes appear on a regular basis. You can gather similar narratives with groups of women, elders, church secretaries, deacons, song leaders, Bible school teachers, children of church leaders…

Don’t be surprised. And don’t give up on the church because of it. Like it or not, church has always been that way. Read Paul’s letters. Really read them. Read the things that Peter and Jude talk about. Study John’s letters and note that he talks a lot of love because he isn’t seeing much of it! Read about Diotrephes in 3 John and substitute in Brother Jones, Sister Thomsen, or Pastor Davis; the story hasn’t changed all that much.

Sharing our heartaches can be very therapeutic, though we need to careful how we do it and with whom we share. Our therapy can be very damaging to others. Worse, our vengeful venting can destroy the faith of others.

The main thing is, we have to move forward. Learn from those episodes, mainly so that we don’t inflict pain on others. But don’t let them define you nor your experience with the church. What really matters is how we grow because of the things we’ve gone through.

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