Rebuild the Pastors

Churches today...

 

Sometimes in church life you will hear the term ‘spiritual abuse’ talked about. The UK Government defines abuse in four categories which are: physical, emotional, sexual & neglect. Definitions can often seem impotent in describing the pain that people experience but most other abusive behaviours come under these four categories. For example domestic violence is usually emotional abuse and can include physical abuse. Trafficking includes emotional abuse, usually in the form of coercive control and often sexual abuse and physical abuse. Spiritual abuse would be abuse in a religious context and would need to include one of the definitions of abuse that the government has outlined.

 

Therefore we are going to use the term mistreatment to describe the negative experience that can occur in church settings and whilst that usually leads to a belief that it’s the leaders who mistreat the congregation, research would suggest that both can experience mistreatment. Some would argue that mistreatment happens because the leaders have ‘power’ and ‘authority’ but we would argue that the congregation members have the power to join, leave and cause chaos in a church if they so choose.

 

Part of the vision of ‘Restore the Pastors’ is to help pastor’s who have experienced mistreatment in the context of church. This mistreatment might have come from peers, congregation members or elsewhere. Our desire is to help them have a safe place to talk about their experiences and to provide help on their journey towards healing. It is not a forum to hide or condone negative behaviour and certainly any kind of behaviour that falls within the categories of abuse as defined by the government would be reported to the authorities. This project is a forum to reflect on our role as leaders, be open to accepting support from other wise and experienced leaders and allow healing to take place in the face of betrayal and mistreatment.

 

As a team we have spent years serving those who have been mistreated in church and have also been involved in praying for those who have come out of ‘heavy shepherding’ churches and churches that seem to have caused pain. This experience enables us as a team to understand the nature of the complexity of church relationships and dynamics and bring them to God.