I preached a couple of Sundays ago, and afterward I uploaded a video from the service where I briefly touched on the subject of Church Hurt.<\/p>\n
Something has happened since then.<\/p>\n
Many of you have written to me privately. Others have spoken up openly in the comments with honest and vulnerable posts. It has moved me deeply.<\/p>\n
So for the last few days I have been thinking, praying and seeking God. Not to find a finished answer, but to find a little help and understanding. For myself. For you who are hurting. And for a good conversation about where the road goes from here.<\/p>\n
Let me say this first: If you have been wounded in a church, your pain is real. It shouldn't be explained away or wrapped up in clich\u00e9s. And it is never your job to heal someone else's failure by pretending nothing happened.<\/p>\n
A person who wounds you is a person who wounds you. When a leader fails, it's a leader who fails. And when a church culture pushes people out, it's the church that needs to change. Not you.<\/p>\n
Jesus himself was actually wounded by a religious system<\/p>\n
The first time Jesus walked into the synagogue in his hometown and proclaimed good news to the poor, freedom to the captives and sight to the blind (Luke 4), the crowd didn't exactly react the way you'd hope. They rose up. Drove him out of town. Led him all the way to the edge of a cliff to throw him off.<\/p>\n
It happened in the synagogue. Among the believers. On the Sabbath.<\/p>\n
Jesus was synagogue hurt.<\/p>\n
He put words to it himself. About the religious leaders he said:<\/p>\n
\"They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.\" (Matthew 23:4)<\/p>\n
And shortly after:<\/p>\n
\"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You yourselves do not enter, and you don't let in those who are trying to.\" (Matthew 23:13)<\/p>\n
If anyone understands how a religious system can wound, it's Jesus.<\/p>\n
That's also why he didn't come to start yet another religion. The community he wanted to build he called ekklesia. An everyday word that back then meant \"the called-out ones.\" A gathering of people. People who are called together. No heavy burdens. No shame. No middlemen between you and your Father in heaven.<\/p>\n
He came with relationship. Not religion.<\/p>\n
And still Jesus chose the church<\/p>\n
Notice this:<\/p>\n
The same Jesus who was wounded by the religious system said:<\/p>\n
\"I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.\" (Matthew 16:18)<\/p>\n
He didn't say: Follow me on your own.<\/p>\n
He said: I am building my church.<\/p>\n
Later Paul writes to the men:<\/p>\n
\"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.\" (Ephesians 5:25)<\/p>\n
That's the strongest picture of love the Bible uses at all. And it's about Jesus' relationship with the church. Not with an idea. Not with an institution. With people.<\/p>\n
The whole Bible doesn't end with Jesus bringing us home one by one either. It ends with a wedding. The bride is the church. That's us. Together.<\/p>\n
I once heard someone say:<\/p>\n
Your biological family is the one you were born into.<\/p>\n
Your friends are the family you chose yourself.<\/p>\n
The church is the family God wants for you.<\/p>\n
That sentence has stayed with me ever since.<\/p>\n
God could have chosen any structure at all. He chose family. A community of wounded, sinful, growing people who learn love by practicing on each other. Not perfect. But his.<\/p>\n
So how do we help each other move forward?<\/p>\n
To you who are wounded:<\/p>\n
You are not in debt to the one who hurt you. Healing can begin far away from the room where you were wounded. Maybe through one safe friend. Maybe through quiet mornings alone with Jesus. Maybe through a completely different door in a completely different place. Boundaries are biblical. Time is a gift. You are still loved. Not because you come back, but because you are his.<\/p>\n
To us who are the church:<\/p>\n
We have to listen more than we defend. Change, not explain. We have to make the church a place where wounded people can breathe again without having to prove anything first.<\/p>\n
To all of us:<\/p>\n
Pray for the people you know who walked away wounded. Write to them. Listen without trying to fix. Be one safe door in their life. Sometimes healing begins right there. With one person who is simply present.<\/p>\n
Jesus is still building his Church. He is still bringing his bride home. And he has room for you. Even with the scars.<\/p>\n
Let's have this conversation together.<\/p>\n
What are you left sitting with now?<\/p>\n
What do you need the church to get better at?<\/p>\n
And what would help you, or the people you love, move forward?<\/p>\n
Feel free to write it. In the comments, or send me a private message if that's easier.<\/p>\n
This is a conversation we need to have together.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I touched briefly on church hurt in a video \u2014 and then the messages started coming in.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2892,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tirsdags-teologi"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2909"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2926,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2909\/revisions\/2926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aabenkirkekbh.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}