New Shepherds for a Hurting Church
The room would seat 100, the chairs packed tight into nice straight rows. I walked through the rows praying for each person who would come and sit in this space, a space dedicated to learning how to minister to those who had experienced religious trauma or spiritual abuse. I had not led this particular training before so did not know what to expect. As the time for the workshop to begin neared, women began to fill the space. Slowly but surely each chair filled, but the women kept coming. They filled the floor space at the front of the room, leaned against the side walls and back walls. I was overwhelmed. In total, 136 women came, each one of them hungry to know how they might care for those who had experienced religious trauma and spiritual abuse. These were not counselors or social workers, these were pastors. Women clergy attending the Wesleyan Holiness Women Clergy Conference, female pastors who knew the hurt and pain of spiritual abuse (some of them quite deeply and personally as the road to the pastorate for women is not always easy). They knew and they cared. That one hour workshop was a picture of hope for the church. It was a holy moment in which the heartbreak of God for those who have been wounded by his church was embodied by a group of shepherds who chose not to turn a blind eye to the pain but to name it and then dared to ask, “how can we bring healing?”
136 Beautiful Shepherds Learning How to Care for Those Who had Been Harmed by the Church
At Restor(y) we have continuously chosen to believe that the healing so desperately needed for the church today, the healing for religious trauma and spiritual abuse, is not going to be found outside of the church. We have chosen to remain committed to the church as the most beautiful community in the world. We have sought to continuously work for the restoration of the bride of Christ. This work is not always easy, but as I spoke to that room of 136 women, as I watched them, tears filling their eyes as we together sought to imagine what it would look like for the church to be a place of healing rather than harm, I was reminded of why we do what we do. In that moment God was reminding me that his word is true, that it is in fact through new shepherds that he will bring healing to his people (Jeremiah 23:1-4).
As I looked out into that room, I felt a surge of hope, for God has not abandoned his church rather he is rising up new shepherds.
These are shepherds who will attend to the flock. They are not in ministry to build up their platform and when they face conflict they do not respond out of fear or self-preservation. Rather these are shepherds who will look out upon their congregations with great compassion and seek to care for them, to pour oil on their wounds, and seek to bind up their broken hearts. They are shepherds who will gather and restore. They will not sow division but will draw the people of God together in beautiful unity. They will not ignore broken places within the church but will work for healing. These are the shepherds God is raising up. They are shepherds who, in their relationships with others, will have the same mind that is in Christ Jesus. A humble, self-emptying mind that knows how to suffer with others. These are the shepherds God is rising up, these are the shepherds that are needed for the healing and restoration of the church.
I met 136 of these shepherds in that workshop room that day. I meet countless of those shepherds in the work we do here at Restor(y), pastors and denominational leaders who so desire to lead the church in restorative ways. These shepherds are my friends and my peers in ministry, they are my mentors and my spiritual directors. If you have never met such a shepherd, please know they exist and I am praying even now that God would lead you to a place where you can receive such care and attentiveness, that God would gather you into the people of God called the church that you might find healing. If you are a pastor, may I simply encourage you to discover how you might be one of these new shepherds? Will you continue to learn and grow in such a way that you might bring healing and restoration to the church? God has a restoration plan for his church and his invitation is that we might be a part of it. How can you answer that call today?
