GATEWAY TO FREEDOM AND HEALING
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Welcome and thankyou that you have taken the first step to understanding and healing from the disappointment and trauma that can result from spiritual, and church related emotional abuse.
The information contained in this article is a summary of the work of Ande Coulper (author) and Dan Allender (trauma therapist) as it was heard in episodes 20 & 21 of the ‘Rise and Fall of Mars Hill’ podcasts.
If you are not aware that series of podcasts dealt with the powerful and dramatic rise and sad fall of a large church in the United States. The series follows the persona and damage caused by the Mars Hill Church founding pastor Mark Driscoll. If you have the chance, please listen as I’m very confident that it will have a few ‘me too’ moments for you as well.
ENTER THE GATEWAY TO FREEDOM
FRIGHT OR FLIGHT
People recognise something isn’t safe where power and spirituality are used as a cloak to cover over someone’s real intention of ‘what I want to do is hurt you’.
The person who harms you brings their representation of who and what God is to harm you. However, our body is always scanning for signs of safety or threat. Our body can go into fright or flight mode. People can dissolve into people pleasing mode. People can also disassociate or feel numbness. There is a honeymoon phase where people invest in a new church, they feel safe in the community and excited about the potential there. But their past experiences tell them ‘Something isn’t right, and they need to leave.
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I'LL JUST SUBMIT
A spiritual overlay then says ‘NO, you need to stay, this is your access to God’. There is a saying that ‘we repeat what we don’t repair’. People fight their bodily reactions to leave and stay due to spiritual submission to the pastor/authority. They think ‘I’ll just submit’ and that’s when they become stuck. We begin to ask ourselves – what does it mean to be in a relationship – what does love mean –
what does it mean to be loved by God. How we are developed in our lives will predetermine how we deal with these situations. There is no mind over matter, we carry the scars of our hurt. People in a toxic and harmful place or community feel profound disorientation. This is a common thread for spiritual abuse survivors. Everything I thought I knew, I don’t anymore – we just want to normalise things.If you tell someone who has also had this experience, then you are not alone. Our body is literally saying, ‘enough, this is not safe’. We tend to feel this when we notice ‘something isn’t right’ and think wow, this is happening – it’s really as bad as I thought it was, or worse.
COMMON VALUES
The very first step is recognising and honouring the ‘wow, this is real, this is big’. We may be triggered but this doesn’t mean we have been abused either. It isn’t about the pain being bad enough, it is about people accepting your pain. It is not about having to meet the diagnostic formula for trauma, it is about, ‘hey, if you have these emotions, I just want to free you up. Even when someone tells their smallest of stories or experiences, and someone honours it, it is grounding and hopeful. The Christian community forms through – common values – core commitments in terms of scripture and faith and solid perceptive doctrine. Narcissistic pastors / leaders don’t just need to win the argument they need to crush the
opposition – ignore, shun, and remove. Shame exists in abusive totalitarian systems where there is complicity i.e., there is advantage to staying by knowing what is going on that is true and good – at least for a season. The dark things, the violence, the degradation could always be looked at as ‘no one’s perfect. That is the ‘Mars Hill Church USA experience where people said Pastor mark Driscoll is a mess but look at the good things that are being done’.
As you weigh the scales of justice it is easy to land on the side of ‘I enjoy the privilege of being part of this significant work of God and in relation with good powerful people’. Yet the totalitarian regime will crush you the moment you step out. Narcissistic pastors/leaders are good groomers, they give you access, involvement, meaning/power, care intimacy, and bonding. This is what faith is about – a place where we can bond in relationships and internalise goodness. So, in this environment people don’t see dogma and trauma but see benefit and trauma.
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YOU ARE CRUSHED
The pastor/leader removes your sense of power. Your power is always under their power and authority. If your power corresponds with what their power is trying to achieve then I’ll let you have power, but the moment you try to take that power in a different direction then you are crushed. The powerful leader that offers us escape from uncertainty gives us purpose and meaning seems to be who we bare a certain level of attraction to as a leader.Hence – take away my uncertainty and offer me a sense of purpose in my domain, then use me and spit me out when you no longer wish to give me your light. Those who leave a totalitarian church environment often see other pastors and leaders with cynicism and scepticism.
Be wary when teaching about relationships is designed to teach you not about scriptures but more about containing you to be loyal to the system. It is normal to be angry, in anger there is grief. You are so angry, your feelings of being misused
don’t allow you to heal for fear of being sucked back into a new system of control.
HOW DID IT COME TO THIS
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FEEL OUR FEELINGS
The mind has one perspective – Oh, it’s OK but the nervous systems reaction may not match. Weare body, mind, and spirit – each interconnected. To find a feeling of safety some people need to disconnect. The nervous system will say, ‘I’m pulling the plug on this’. People coming from these situations can exhibit a window of tolerance. When in this window our body, mind, and spirit can communicate together. We can feel our feelings, and everything is in place. Watch for body clues like when someone says ‘I love my church’ but at the same time is agitated, begins to sweat, or look for the door. We must look for opportunity to discover what people may need to help bring them back into their window of tolerance. Some people won’t be able to dive straight into their experiences, they may have had years of abuse. If we don’t recognise the bodily signs of people not wanting to share, then it will be like dealing with a car stuck in the snow. You can pump the accelerator as much as you want but the car won’t go anywhere.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
The pace of our work needs to match the depth of the hurt. Build on safety to get greater interaction. You can white knuckle it for a while, but you still carry it, there is a cost for doing that. Your body says, ‘you won’t listen will you. Enough is enough’. This is the grace of God telling us, ‘That’s it, no more submission or depression’. We long for and are made for wholeness. We can think that in the past we have been shamed and abused but still think ‘but this time will be different’.
Usually, this feeling has been decades in the making. We shouldn’t get to the point where we have a panic attack when someone prays for us.We often rush to verbalise and rationalise our way out of situation – we fight and resist grief – that result comes from our culture. Our bodies prefer familiarity rather than safety, so if familiarity and harm feel familiar our body will prefer that until you get more support around you. Our mental health, our relationships, our physical bodies get bypassed – it is harmful to keep everything in the spiritual realm. None of us is fully complete – none of us is a finished product – we all need additional support,
we need community. It is very harmful if we put it all under the realm of spirituality.
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PAIN IS VALID
To know some basic skills is helpful – use your five senses to keep grounded.
Not all pain is trauma. Trauma is something that overwhelms the nervous systems ability to cope. Hence the effect of this trauma is stuck in our bodies.
Something may be disturbing and uncomfortable but that may look a little different to someone else’s trauma who is trapped in a burning building. Not all pain becomes trauma. If you can process the trauma, great. If you can heal, great. Even if it is only mild discomfort then we still need a plan. The plan requires wisdom and support to navigate these situations. Many people seek validation for their pain. It is not about the pain being bad enough it is about people accepting your pain. God gives our bodies wisdom so that we can use it to move through this. We need to imagine
what comes next, to often we get stuck on – I want to be seen – I want to be heard – I want my pain to be validated. There’s the thing – your pain is valid. Look at trauma as a lens – you are essentially looking at three factors – fragmentation of
ourselves, reflection is a fragmentation and trauma opens the door to some form of numbness. Fragmented people are attracted to fragmented pastors and leaders who give them a sense of resolving thru numbness. This is done thru a punitive structure on an ‘us vs them’ basis which includes power misuse, power, and rage toward others.
These people have passion but don’t have to deal with their own unresolved issues.
Fragmenting, numbness, and isolation comes from the trauma of a pastor saying, ‘I’m for you as long as you are with me’. As soon as you threaten my work, I will destroy you. These are so often the issues for people who have been spiritually abused when traumas aren’t resolved.
MANTRA OF CONTROL
There is dogmatism, rage, and consumption that is always bound together in this level of violation.Many churches adopt a mantra of control and leadership that is not hierarchical but more like an onion. There are different layers in the world they create. The more you peel it back the more reality is revealed. But when you look outward from the layers you feel the obligation to protect it. The further you
are away from the middle layer the more idealistic your perception of the situation is. Hence the person living with the least hold on reality is the pastor/leader themselves. They are convinced the work is exactly as they want it to be. Anytime this reality breaks it is a signal to the narcissistic pastor/leader to vent their wrath on people.
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CARROT AND STICK
Dogmatism and authoritarianism are inevitable bound together i.e., Hitler and the rise of the Third Reich. A totalitarian regime like some churches run on three categories – fear, I will destroy you, hence the fear of shame not death. When you combine fear and shame you understand, not the carrot but the stick. The stick is primary, but if you comply/obey and give over to the feeling that I will not go
through what I saw the other congregant or staff member go through. Then loyalty has its advantages. There is an advantage to be at the table, there is good food, good drink, good laughter, and a life that you won’t find elsewhere. There is conviviality, delight, and honour but never the addressing of fear and shame. There is a powerful system in the carrot and the stick. You have seen what happens to the
person that questions. You move into the outer ring – you either leave and abandon the system or you stay. A powerful Image is – if you are good nazi you will enjoy the privilege. Then when the regime is exposed how are you going to deal with the shame of your own complicity. Many people then realise they were traumatised by the regime but also enjoyed the ride in the meantime. I allowed my body to be part of something I now see as false. In traumatic churches people see horrible nasty things happening but they also experience joy and happiness. This type of narcissism is a form of insanity and a form of evil. We fall for it because it’s madness. The cost of addressing both personally and structurally the domain of narcissism in oneself often costs pastors/leaders their position and their reputation. Humiliation and shame are the core fear of narcissists. Most move onto other churches or even sell real estate.
LET HEALING AND RESTORATION BEGIN
(YES! EVEN FOR PASTORS AND LEADERS)
Our body is not a tool – we are image bearers – we are loved by God. I need to be treated in love. We need compassionate attention – that is God’s posture to us that gives us the model of how to listen to the hurting part of us. We must listen to ourselves with compassion rather than running back into more harm. By the grace of God, we should pause and say ‘NO, maybe not this time, God imbed in me that this is
not what you made me for’. We naturally avoid this – we often need someone to witness to us. Create safety in a place where you can say to someone ‘I honour the place you are in, I honour your pain, your story, your cost. I honour the price you have paid to be in the place you are in now’. This is where the God given wisdom in our body begins to say, ‘Pause and stop, listen to the body, I just need to catch up’.
Grief is an essential part of our healing. We need to feel feelings. We have been taught to internalise trauma rather than recognising when we can grieve, when we can feel, when we can be appropriately angry, when we can advocate for ourselves, when we can have joy, when we can be encouraged and received. All these things are about opening the window of tolerance, it is like a container that now has more room. Now our body has more room we can move thru that experience. Grieving is a normal part of our life. It matters that anyone in leadership including in the spiritual sense is really doing the work in humility. Pacing yourself is essential, the more complex the trauma the more complex the healing. In our window of tolerance, we can begin to plan – take some time away from our church or church in general.
We are trying to tap into the wisdom of our body so we can take further steps i.e., begin to build stability and safety. It is not about retribution – we are inbuilt with God’s dignity; hence it is not about payback. There is a desire in all of us for quick solutions in life, but the pacing element is so important. Grounded-ness and humility are so important. At our God given self-best we can be humbly
confident – we are in touch with our fragility.
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It is always important that pastors recognise that there is always an inherent power differential. It is important for pastors to say ‘I just free you up to go on your journey with God, I am not God. I just bless you. For I know that the God of the universe does hold it all. Pastors should be connected to the humility of God and ask themselves – what is my part to play. Settle into the truth and reality of who you are. With every death in Christ, there is a resurrection – hence with these stories of wounding within the church there is a coming wave of wounded healers to tell their stories. So, in a grounded worthy way there can be some grassroots reorientation for the church, and it can heal.
God is constantly inviting us to see even the smallest of resurrections. So, while we are waiting, so while we are in process, we can pray that God will give us the eyes to see that things are happening, that there are tiny shoots being experienced.
God give me eyes to see in a way that you are already here, already working, give me ways to tune in to what’s already being experienced. So often in our valid pain we miss it, the invitations, the glimmers, and in a way, healing means we see it more clearly and then we are better able to understand that God is already here, never
left, here with us. God is grieving with us but also birthing in us something new.
This should give us a lot of hope.
You must welcome people into a grieving process where they tend to their body where they learn to trust themselves that if they had it prior, they may have stepped back and said, ‘this is not well for my soul’. You must tend to your body and learn to trust yourself. The goodness of God and the land of the living will bring you out of despair, but it is a long hard process. Trauma bonding occurs when people share their stories with people of similar experiences when they can say – ‘finally I can share my story with someone who has lived it also’. Narcissism breaks down in the presence of honesty and humility and that needs to be a further cry for us in the evangelical context with the message – ‘NO more narcissistic pastors and leaders.
In sharing we must show honour, respect, and love for one another. Whilst narcissism and trauma are a cloud on our faith – there is still a freedom to tell the truth –
we begin with this framework that the truth will set you free. Paul writes in 1st Timothy – ‘Here is a worthy statement worthy of your full acceptance. Christ Jesus came to bring forgiveness for whom I am the worst’.
YOU ARE A BLESSED AND WORTHY MASTERPIECE
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I thank you so much for making the decision to pause on life’s roadway and take time to enter the gateway to freedom. I sincerely pray that the words on these pages and on the whole GFN & G2F website have led you to a ‘light bulb’ moment in your life.
A light bulb that shines directly onto Gods face of love, kindness understanding and
forgiveness.
A love that promises you an abundant and eternal life.
May God richly bless you.
Ken Jaensch - GFN Ministries - Founder and Director