Flashbacks

Hi again! I stopped writing for a few months because I didn't feel compelled. This is mostly a diary for me and you get to read along. I need my diary again today.

Dear diary,

Today -- and for the last few weeks -- I've been having flashbacks of the two miserable years we spent at our last church. I've had weird little run-ins with people I associate with that time and seeing them brings back vivid episodes of dysfunction.

This morning my husband mentioned talking to some people from that church and I almost immediately became morose. By the time he'd left for work and my oldest was on the school bus, I could feel the dark mood closing in. I felt an intense urge to eat, cry, or go to bed and sleep all day.

Thank God for the mental wellness to see that and to find an alternative. I called a friend and asked to spend the morning at her house. My two younger kids and I went there and by lunchtime I was good as new. The mood had passed. The rest of the day was balanced and pleasant.

What a distressing bout of crankpot-ism. We've been gone nearly a year and I hardly think of that place or those people anymore. The shape of my life has much to do with what happened there and I've (mostly) accepted that. I have not accepted the emotional intensity those memories still hold.

Boo.

When Church Makes You Crazy, Part 3

I expected to finish this list last week but my life just isn't going as I'd planned lately. The most recent mishap was a wood splinter that pushed itself under my fingernail. On the index finger of my dominant hand. I thought I pulled it out but now that the finger is swollen and complaining, I think I missed a piece. Going to the doctor tomorrow for what may be a very unpleasant repair job.

Anyway - here's the conclusion of my strategies for coping with a church that makes you crazy.

Coping Strategy #4: Get Professional Help. By the time we moved away, I had the support of a psychiatrist, a therapist and a pastor. I needed all of them. Most of our life is connected to church so a stressful church setting means a stressful life. I desperately needed the relief and perspective that these people gave me.

My pastor gave me two essential things: the words of Jesus applied directly to my life and the words of an experienced churchman. I never imagined that church could be threatening. He understood how betrayed I felt and helped me hold on to the hope of Christ even when the church made me want to throw up my hands and give up.

I needed the psychiatrist because I needed medication for my depression. I've been told that constant stress can lead to depression. Other occupations have the benefit of divisions between home and work that cushion exposure to stress. I don't think we're the only clergy family that finds it difficult to maintain those boundaries, so stress oozed all over our lives.

Seeing a therapist helped me get some perspective on my situation. I had a hard time seeing my life with any objectivity and she offered different ways of thinking about what was happening in my life and how I could respond to it. I also needed the safety of the therapist's office, where I could say anything that was on my heart. Every other part of my life seemed fragile but her office was a sturdy place to tend my bruised heart.

Coping Strategy #5: Expect Blessing. I had a friend who kept saying that to me and I often thought she was being kind of a ninny. Do you not see what is happening to me and to my family? Don't you see that God is letting us wither here?

Later I began to replay the phrase and consider that possibility that God would bless us. It is hard to be hopeful when everything looks bleak, but because of Christ we always have reason to hope. Like the woman who touched the hem of Jesus' robe, trusting that He could heal her even though she'd been suffering for years. She expected blessing.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” (Mark 5:25-34)

When Church Makes You Crazy, Part 2

Coping Strategy #2: Find a Lighthouse Friend. One of the tragedies of being the center of conflict in our church was that I was terrified of everyone - not because I thought everyone was out to get me, but because I had no idea who I could trust.

The church leaders who had interviewed my husband and called him to be their pastor turned so quickly when they disagreed with him that I feared everyone in the church would feel likewise if they knew me. I tried to be bland and agreeable but after a while I felt like I was disappearing. I needed the freedom to express my thoughts honestly.

I decided it would help to find one person with whom I could be honest. I was acquainted with a woman who seemed trustworthy, mature in her faith and sophisticated enough about church to handle my church politics saga. I asked her to be my lighthouse friend: to let me tell her all that was happening so that when I saw her on Sunday morning I would not feel alone.

Most Sunday mornings we did not speak beyond a pleasant greeting but seeing her and knowing she understood how hard it was for me to be at church was a light in the fog of my fear and anxiety.

Coping Strategy #3: Avoid the Building. APart form Sunday morning I completely avoided church. I didn't stop by to see my husband. I didn't drive by on my way to the grocery store. I changed my routes so I never saw the church building except on Sunday morning.

All my associations with the building were negative and it was draining for me to see it and arouse all those feelings.

When Church Makes You Crazy: 5 Strategies

We spent a couple of years at a church that literally made me crazy. The church leaders abused my husband and I felt scared every time I went in the building. The stress of that situation caused an episode of clinical depression that persisted until we moved away.

While we were there, I found a few strategies to help me cope with the situation. Mostly I wanted to never go to or think about that church, but I felt that I had a few obligations as the pastor's wife:

1. Attend worship most weeks.
2. Bring my children to Sunday school. (This one had more to do with stability for my children than obligations to the church.)
3. Speak kindly always. Speak of church politics as little as possible.

Given those parameters, I found about five things I could do that helped. I'll tell you about one of them today and describe the others during the rest of the week.

Coping Strategy #1: Worship Elsewhere. I went to our church on Sunday mornings because I believe it can be confusing and discouraging for the congregation if the pastor's wife never attends. I barely considered it "worship" in the true sense. I didn't hear the senior pastor's sermons as messages from God but as reminders of his duplicity. Every hymn and prayer was clouded by my stress and anxiety.

I visited other churches as I was able, usually on a weeknight. It was such a relief to sit in the pew and feel like I had some privacy with God. Even in a happy church I feel self-conscious about being the woman everyone can identify.

Eventually I built a relationship with a nearby church (I'll call it "Bridge Church") where I attended a weekday Bible study and made a few friends. During the months after my husband had left our last church and before he took the call to our current church, we attended Bridge Church. In retrospect, I would say that was an important part of my re-learning how to feel safe at church. I think most of our friends at Bridge Church knew something had gone terribly wrong for us. I never felt judged, no one ever pried into details. We were welcomed, hugged, made to feel loved and valued.

The pastor at Bridge Church advised me to "do nothing." He told me we needed time to heal and to receive love and care with no obligations. He was right about that and it was a precious gift.

A Place of Mercy and Grace

The pastor who preached at my husband's installation is familiar with the miserable situation out of which we came. After the service we spoke briefly and he assured me that there would be challenges at this new congregation, "but I pray this will be a place of mercy and grace for you."

I think of that often. So far it seems to be so. The general mood of the place seems to be confidence in God's work among and through the congregation.

A couple of weeks ago we had a visiting pastor. His sermon referenced the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector from Luke chapter 18:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

How often, in our last congregation, I felt like the tax collector! It's strange for me to say, since I grew up attending church and have, as far as anyone else could tell, a well-behaved life. But there I constantly felt inadequate.

The tone of the sr. pastor's sermons, conversations, aspirations for the congregation seemed to be that the members of our church were set apart, closer to God than others. I would not have been surprised to hear him say in a sermon, "God, I thank you that the people of this congregation are not like other people. We follow your laws and deserve your attention. Help us make other people more like us."

It sounds so appalling that you'd think some among us could have rioted, but in practice it is insidious. It happens gradually, it's hard to identify exactly what's going on, and then one day you wake up and realize you feel less than. Less good than other people in your church. Less obedient. Less worthy of any blessings.

Being now in a congregation that, to my eyes, seems loving and merciful and humble causes me a different kind of pain. I am ever more aware of how lacking mercy and humility our last congregation was. I grieve for the years we spent there and for the dear people who might be misled by what is happening there.

Gracious Insomnia

It's the middle of the night. I've been having a lot of strange and distressing dreams this week, including tonight. Earlier this week they were vivid dreams in which my children were in danger and I could not rescue them. I can't remember tonight's dream, but when I woke I was thinking about the sr. pastor at the church we recently left.

Being now in a congregation that is warm, loving, and gracious is helping me interpret what was off kilter in our last church. I now realize how legalistic the place felt to me. I have often thought that sr. pastor seemed pharisaic, and when I woke from my dream tonight that was on my mind again.

I respect for the pharisees for their effortfulness. They desperately wanted to get it right so that God would love them. I think that's what motivates sr. pastor. He knows the Bible like no one I have ever met. He can whip out a verse for any situation. He works hard to make things happen and wants to align the universe in such a way as to please God.

At other times I have recognized how sad this is, but tonight I feel how tragic this is. The poor man has memorized the Bible and missed the point. God wants to embrace and comfort him and then use him to share God's gracious love with others. He is missing out on the blessing of God's grace because he is working so hard to do right.

Tonight that seems to me an even more desperate situation than a major depression.

The congregation where my husband is now the pastor has expressed no expectations except these two: That God has brought Husband here to care for them and that God is working among them.

It is a stunning blessing to be with people who trust God so thoroughly. It makes me realize that in our last congregation it felt like there were specific expectations about what Husband would be or do, and when he disappointed those the leaders' confidence in God's faithfulness waned. Husband was accused of not listening to the Holy Spirit and of lacking pastoral judgment. I described this accusation to someone recently and she reframed it as "spiritualizing controlling tendencies."

While we were there, those accusation bred doubt in our hearts about our relationship with God and Husband's call to serve as a pastor. Now those same accusations cause me grief for them. How sad, how desperate, to have so little confidence in God's faithfulness.

The pastor who preached at Husband's installation reminded me that there will be challenges and seasons of frustration or unhappiness here, but that "it seems this may be a place of mercy and grace." What else could I possibly hope for? We are weak and broken and sinful, living among people who are likewise. Mercy and grace is what I most crave.

Is There Good Paranoia for a Pastor's Wife?

My last post, about negotiating relationships with church members, sparked some particularly interesting comments. Here are some highlights:

"We don't want to be completely paranoid, but we do have to remember that the congregation is full of sinners." (Susan)

"I learned as a pastor's kid that the people who were the nicest to us when we moved there were going to be the first ones to betray us later on. As a pastor's wife, I now live a life of distrust, fear, anxiety and paranoia. But then I ask, if everyone really IS out to get the pastor and his family, is it paranoia? The reality is, Satan is after the one who distributes God's means of grace--the pastor. His family is fair game too. Our problem is, how do we deal with this reality without going nuts?" (Kathrine)

"We've been here almost 7 months, and we haven't had anyone accuse us of anything we haven't done, spread lies to try and undermine [my husband's] authority in the church - heck, even try to be underhanded with each other! There are some really good churches out there - I'm praying you have found yours. I know finding ours has gone a long way in healing my kicked and beaten up heart." (MamaOnABudget)

Clearly, a lot of pw's find this tricky territory. I can relate to the paranoia Kathrine describes. That's precisely how I felt in the midst of the conflict at our last church. We had been so deeply hurt and the feeling that my husband was under constant threat put me on guard with everyone in the church. In retrospect, I can see that it was a very small group of people that had any grief with us. Let's say there were 500 people in the church -- 10 were angry with my husband, 100 were very supportive of him, and the other 400 had no idea what was going on in the church office.

Like Kathrine, I felt like those 10 people were "out to get" us. Now it doesn't seem quite that way. In fact, I believe now that they felt threatened by us. Somehow we posed a threat to something they considered essential about the church. They weren't out to get us; they were trying to protect themselves.

Susan is wise to point out that the church is full of sinners - including us and our husbands. I'm praying to be part of a church where we all freely acknowledge our sinfulness. That's one thing that was clearly absent in the leadership of our last church.

MamaOnABudget, how blessed I would be to live among a group of Christians who trust each other and their pastor! Perhaps we will. It has lately occurred to me that the goal of life is not to escape suffering. I want to escape it, and I will exert tremendous energy to avoid pain, but I am beginning to understand that when I cannot see past the misery God is still trustworthy.

Where To Look

On facebook I posted a link to this list of 10 ways Christians tend to fail at being Christian. Someone commented that maybe “we should all make a list and look very carefully for ourselves in it.” I don’t have time for that! I’ve got my hands full detailing other people’s self-righteousness!

For the last couple of weeks I’ve had a decent routine of personal devotion that is really good for me. It’s generous of God to give me a disposition toward this habit. I have found, though, that every chapter I read leaves me thinking about sr pastor and how destructive and misguided his efforts are. Stupid brain. I don’t want to be thinking about him, even to consider in detail his misunderstanding of the Christian life.

I am of two minds - maybe I’m being sinfully distracted from God’s message about himself and me, or maybe this is a necessary step in making sense of (and discarding the lies of) what’s been going on for the last couple of years. I’m not sure how to distinguish between the two.

I have exerted a lot of energy trying not to judge sr pastor & co., but realized that I have to judge their actions so that I don’t take responsibility for all this misery. “Love the sinner, hate the sinner” is much more complicated than it sounds.

Exposure

After my last post, a reader wrote me with this thoughtful question:

How do you keep people from your previous congregation and even the sr pastor from reading your blog? Are you ever afraid they will identify you by what you write? I think you are so brave to voice your troubles. I don't know that I could do that.

I have thought about this a lot and people close to me have listened to me fret about it for, cumulatively, hours and hours. Below are some of the things I've decided upon that allow me to write this blog.

It is certainly possible that someone from my old congregation has or will come upon this blog. The majority of them would not ever recognize that I am writing about their church. The people who have hurt me, sr pastor included, seem so unaware of themselves that I would not expect them to see that I am describing their behavior. If they do, I'm not sure what they would do about it. Apart from my description of the conflict I don't think there is anything here that identifies them specifically, so they'd be accusing themselves.

This is why I guard my anonymity so carefully online. I have no interest - ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST - in identifying the people or the congregation I am describing. I cannot imagine any benefit that would come of that and I write primarily for my own benefit. Describing my experience helps me understand it, cope with it, trust God with it, compartmentalize it. I learn by writing. When I start a post I usually know what I want to write about and have an idea what I will say, but often discover something in the process of explaining myself.

I started this blog almost a year ago and a miraculous, unexpected second purpose has turned out to be creating a community of churchworkers and families who hurt. I thought there might be half a dozen people who would read this. I don't know how many readers I have, but it's more than that. The affirmation, encouragement, and spiritual care I receive from your comments and notes is one of God's great provisions for me.

Cycle of Abuse

Several years ago I volunteered at a domestic violence center and learned about the cycle of abuse. It involved the abuser repeatedly working to separate the victim from support systems (usu. family, friends), to control choices and behavior, to undermine the victim’s sense of autonomy and capability so that the victim becomes more dependent on the abuser.

I found this outline of the cycle of abuse on a domestic violence web site. It’s alarming how similar this looks to what happened at our last congregation. I’ve crossed out the elements that do not apply to the conflict with sr. pastor. As it happens, that’s every item that has to do with repentance.

Incident

Any type of abuse occurs (physical/sexual/emotional)

Tension Building

Abuser starts to get angry

Abuse may begin

There is a breakdown of communication

Victim feels the need to keep the abuser calm

Tension becomes too much

Victim feels like they are 'walking on egg shells'

Making-Up

Abuser may apologize for abuse

Abuser may promise it will never happen again

Abuser may blame the victim for causing the abuse

Abuser may deny abuse took place or say it was not as bad as the victim claims

Calm

Abuser acts like the abuse never happened

Physical abuse may not be taking place

Promises made during 'making-up' may be met

Victim may hope that the abuse is over

Abuser may give gifts to victim

The “incident” was always some episode of sr. pastor aggressively asserting control. He was surprisingly creative about doing it, but in every case his objective seemed to be to force compliance at any cost. He did crazy things and then refused to talk about them, manipulated every confrontation so that he did not accept responsibility. He was unpredictable and blamed (privately and publicly) Husband for anything that went wrong.

Other people on staff at the church have indicated that they are discouraged, unhappy, frustrated by our departure, but that they feel they cannot say anything.

Writing this is hard for me because I am furious that Husband - we - have been treated this way. It has caused immense pain to our family. It has sown doubt about things we ought never have to doubt. Everything about this is antithetical to my understanding of what pastors are called to do. I’ve been trying to write this for weeks, but thinking about it still makes me so sad and angry.

Now that we have left that church, I feel confident we will heal. I am thankful that God provided us with a way out. I continue to feel distressed, however, by the effect of this pattern of control on the church. It turns the congregation’s energy and identity toward a few particular rules of Christian living and away from God’s love and mercy and justice and a relationship with him in Christ. I cannot imagine why God allows this to continue.

Riled Up

Since I stopped attending worship at our old church I have avoided the place entirely, even driving past it. Today I offered to help a friend by dropping off one of her kids at church and didn't even think about the fact that I avoid going there. I figured it would be ok. I didn't need to go inside the building or talk to anybody.

Turns out, I don't have to go inside the building to feel agitated by being there. I spent about five minutes in the parking lot, spoke to only one person and that conversation was pretty innocuous.

Afterward I felt wound up and agitated, like I'd had three too many cups of coffee. If I'd sat still and thought about it I would have cried.

I expect this. I understand that I have a conditioned fight/flight response to this church. An acquaintance put it succinctly: "Even people who don't believe in God believe in B.F. Skinner."

I understand it and I hate it.

The Ninny Report

This is so immature of me, but sr. pastor is still making me bananas and I need to whine about it. Today the staff was all together for devotions and sr. pastor gave a briefing about the candidates the call committee is considering to fill my husband's position.

And my husband was in the room.

And no one on the staff has said anything about his leaving, or we'll miss you, or we wish you well. Several public announcements about calling a new pastor, no public announcements about saying goodbye to THE ONE WHO IS STILL SERVING THEM!

He is such an idiot about dealing with people.

What Happened?

We have gotten some very kind notes in the last week from friends who want to support and encourage us. It's so good and helpful and hard and I love them for it.

One friend asked, as many have before, what happened to create such conflict in our congregation. I tried to describe how it started here, but really I have no clear answer. The energy, the hours, the tears, that have been poured into trying to grasp the conflict so that something could be done to resolve it are incalculable.

I have theories and I can talk for hours about what I think is going on, but that only agitates me and arouses my anger. I feel like it would help if I could answer this question in some short, understandable way.

Sunday

Going to a new church is making me realize just how much I have hated going to church lately. En route yesterday my kids were acting crazy in the car, and I remembered how that used to put me over the edge on Sunday morning. Yesterday, it seemed fine and I knew they'd quit as soon as they unbuckled.

At our new church, lots of people smile and shake my hand and it's easy for me to say, "I'm new here. Could you tell me where to find...? How to ...?" There is a kids' church during the sermon, so we found the person who manages that and she showed us how it all works. When it was time for them to leave the service, my kids just got up and followed everyone else and were happy as could be.

The sermon addressed, in part, our identity. Does your identity rest in Christ, or in obedience, or right doctrine, etc. I tried to apply this only to myself, but my mind kept wandering to sr. pastor. My experience of him suggests that his identity is in something like being right. Technically speaking, that's not my concern anymore since I don't need to see him. But it is very hard to stop judging him.

Thankfully, there was also confession & absolution during the service.

Espionage

And now, a little spying. A few days ago my husband was talking to someone from a local congregation that is interested in having him help them out for a while, and maybe to call him eventually if they can gather the funds. An elder from our congregation was in the same coffee shop and apparently eavesdropping on their conversation and thought there must be something untoward about. The elder didn't speak to my husband, but he reported the conversation to the senior pastor.

Are they a bunch of teenage girls?

The End is in Sight

It's very early in the morning. Still an hour or more before the rest of my family wakes up but I can't sleep.

On this blog I've tried to capture the emotional essence of my experience without describing events in specific because, really, who cares? This isn't a historical account. Today I just have to cut to the chase.

My husband is resigning from our congregation. The meeting a couple of days ago was with the church council to discuss his intention. The council members seemed to get it - why he is leaving, what their responsibility is to us as we go, that this is a big risk for us. The senior pastor and congregation president, on the other hand...

Were I to write a novel about church conflict, I could not invent a scene to more clearly express the interpersonal and managerial ineptitude that plagues this congregation. My husband described briefly how the congregation president and senior pastor have made it clear that they require we leave the church. Responses from council members were varied, but all compassionate and involved. Cong. president said little until confronted and senior pastor sat in the back of the room reading a book. Bizarre is kindest description I can muster.

The very good news is that there is an end date. The bad news is that I do not feel relieved. I am &%#)!# angry. I don't know what I thought was going to happen. I suppose I hoped that senior pastor would make some small gesture of regret, apology, compassion. He has known of my husband's intention to resign for several weeks and continues to be all business. Sometimes I imagine that he might try to say goodbye to me in some noble, we-wish-you-well sort of way and I might smack him. It seems so satisfying in my imagination.

Thank You

Thank you for your prayers. The meeting went as well as we could have hoped. From my husband's report, it sounds like he was able to speak honestly and that most of the people present seemed to hear him. Praise God.

Urgent Need for Prayer

My husband has a meeting tonight with several members of our congregation. It is very important that the conflict be discussed honestly, but we have reason to believe that many of the people he'll be with are in extreme denial about the intensity of the conflict between my husband and the senior pastor.

It is physically painful for me that I cannot alleviate the anxiety or stress of this for my husband. I rely on the confidence that God will be at that meeting and that He works in the hearts of all the people there. Please pray that everyone there tonight will speak the truth in love and hear the truth in love.

Stress Contagion

The last several weeks have not gone smoothly for me at church. A series of problems involving the kids -- sickness, tears and pleas for me to stay in Sunday school, multiplied misbehavior during worship -- has disrupted my plan every week.

I am an excessively self-aware parent. I regularly evaluate my own behavior and attitudes and try to decipher how I am affecting my children. I have purposely avoided analyzing our Sunday morning misadventures. There are so many reasonable explanations: they are young, there are three of them, it is winter, they are tired, I am tired.

I'm losing patience with these explanations, though. I'm pretty sure the stress I feel on Sunday is getting them wound up. I don't have any idea what I might do about it. Sunday is stressful. I want desperately to be at church and to be glad I'm there. No matter what I pray, or read, or try to think about during worship, the underlying conflict erupts somewhere.

The weeks ahead promise to be more complicated than the last few months. We are developing plans to move away from this situation and transition brings anxiety and conflict up from the locked closet in the basement.

This week someone reminded me of how "late" Jesus was when his dear friend Lazarus became sick. Lazarus was dead by the time Jesus got there. If Jesus had shown up when people thought he should, then the miracle of Lazarus' resurrection would not have happened. I cannot fix my Sunday morning stress, but I can try to be patient and trust God for the outcome.

This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it. John 11:4

Unexpected Kindness

At church this weekend I was surprised by unsolicited kind comments from a couple of church members. A man I know only a little, and who I would not have assumed to be fond of my husband's ministry style, was chatting with my kids and told them, "Your dad is a good pastor. One of the best!"

So sweet and so poignant. I realized, as I sometimes have before, that the conflict here is localized to just a few people who happen to be very powerful in this congregation. I've heard that major church conflict is usually confined to 7-10 vocal critics. Our experience seems to support that theory.