For the next several days I will be working on a new book project. During that time I will be posting some excerpts from the previous books. We begin with a chapter from “Bring’em Back Alive – A Healing Plan for Those Wounded by the Church”. This chapter is called “Your Bleating Heart Will Tell On You” and it deals with the uncomfortable truth that sometimes we choose to remain in victimhood.
Blessings,
Dave
Eugene Peterson argues that the main difference today is not how much people are hurting, but how much they expect to be relieved from their hurting. Few in the church have taken victimhood to the subterranean level that Romanian Sandu Tudose achieved.
When his wife ran off with another man the seventy-four year old man vowed to spend the rest of his life in a hole in the ground. His underground ode to bitterness is located in the town of Mera, Romania and is outfitted with a bathroom, heater and water tap. He has food delivered and his garbage picked up once a week. While you may find his response childish you certainly cannot say that he “doesn’t know forgiveness from a hole in the ground.” While we may laugh at the ridiculous excess of this man’s response, we can achieve emotional and spiritual equivalence by burrowing into ourselves and never surfacing to live life within the community of believers.
I do believe that as a society we tend to fixate on woundedness. But at the same time I am convinced that we must begin a serious dialogue on hurting and wounded Christians. It seems to me that this seeming epidemic of Christians wounded by Christians (or churchgoers) might merit a pathology test to see if we (the church) are causing the outbreak.
I have wondered why the wounds suffered at church seem so devastating. Perhaps one of the reasons is we don’t expect the rules of street fighting to be present in church. Workplace tactics like gossip, manipulation, controlling others, etc do find their way into the body of Christ. During the writing of this book the U.S. was at war with Iraq and a big topic was the “rules of engagement” for the military. There are certain rules that the most countries believe should never be violated. Military professionals believe you must never use a hospital to shield troops and weapons. You must not locate strategic military targets near churches or schools. We believe that the soldiers should not strategically integrate with citizens because of the potential danger to innocents during military engagements. Our opponents did not share our view of the rules of engagement.
I think the same thing happens with Christians. We expect certain behaviors and tactics will not be used in the church or from the folks who are there. Our enemy, Satan, does not share our ideas for the rules of engagement. Jesus warned us of the inherent dangers of being a lamb in this brutal world.
“Stay alert. This is hazardous work I’m assigning you. You’re going to be like sheep running through a wolf pack, so don’t call attention to yourselves. Be as cunning as a snake, inoffensive as a dove.” Matthew 10:16 (MsgB)
We really are like sheep running through a wolf pack both in and out of the church. I wish that were not the case in our fellowship but we don’t have a screening system to investigate everyone who claims to be a Christian. We let’em all in and there will be some wolves that find their way into pews. But we never seem to expect that.
Christians are simply not prepared to encounter the tactics of the “world” in the church. We start out believing this Christian walk will be an idyllic spiritual Camelot where hurt has been banned by decree. Everything is going just according to plan until someone begins to spread some gossip about you. Or when a fellow leader takes you to task for teaching from a book by an author (hopefully not me) that he knows is apostate and you should know that too if you were listening to the Holy Spirit. We are unprepared for the unbiblical blindsiding that inevitably happens.
Letting go of Victimhood – Part 5
Dave BurchettFor the next several days I will be working on a new book project. During that time I will be posting some excerpts from the previous books. We begin with a chapter from “Bring’em Back Alive – A Healing Plan for Those Wounded by the Church”. This chapter is called “Your Bleating Heart Will Tell On You” and it deals with the uncomfortable truth that sometimes we choose to remain in victimhood.
Blessings,
Dave
Eugene Peterson argues that the main difference today is not how much people are hurting, but how much they expect to be relieved from their hurting. Few in the church have taken victimhood to the subterranean level that Romanian Sandu Tudose achieved.
When his wife ran off with another man the seventy-four year old man vowed to spend the rest of his life in a hole in the ground. His underground ode to bitterness is located in the town of Mera, Romania and is outfitted with a bathroom, heater and water tap. He has food delivered and his garbage picked up once a week. While you may find his response childish you certainly cannot say that he “doesn’t know forgiveness from a hole in the ground.” While we may laugh at the ridiculous excess of this man’s response, we can achieve emotional and spiritual equivalence by burrowing into ourselves and never surfacing to live life within the community of believers.
I do believe that as a society we tend to fixate on woundedness. But at the same time I am convinced that we must begin a serious dialogue on hurting and wounded Christians. It seems to me that this seeming epidemic of Christians wounded by Christians (or churchgoers) might merit a pathology test to see if we (the church) are causing the outbreak.
I have wondered why the wounds suffered at church seem so devastating. Perhaps one of the reasons is we don’t expect the rules of street fighting to be present in church. Workplace tactics like gossip, manipulation, controlling others, etc do find their way into the body of Christ. During the writing of this book the U.S. was at war with Iraq and a big topic was the “rules of engagement” for the military. There are certain rules that the most countries believe should never be violated. Military professionals believe you must never use a hospital to shield troops and weapons. You must not locate strategic military targets near churches or schools. We believe that the soldiers should not strategically integrate with citizens because of the potential danger to innocents during military engagements. Our opponents did not share our view of the rules of engagement.
I think the same thing happens with Christians. We expect certain behaviors and tactics will not be used in the church or from the folks who are there. Our enemy, Satan, does not share our ideas for the rules of engagement. Jesus warned us of the inherent dangers of being a lamb in this brutal world.
“Stay alert. This is hazardous work I’m assigning you. You’re going to be like sheep running through a wolf pack, so don’t call attention to yourselves. Be as cunning as a snake, inoffensive as a dove.” Matthew 10:16 (MsgB)
We really are like sheep running through a wolf pack both in and out of the church. I wish that were not the case in our fellowship but we don’t have a screening system to investigate everyone who claims to be a Christian. We let’em all in and there will be some wolves that find their way into pews. But we never seem to expect that.
Christians are simply not prepared to encounter the tactics of the “world” in the church. We start out believing this Christian walk will be an idyllic spiritual Camelot where hurt has been banned by decree. Everything is going just according to plan until someone begins to spread some gossip about you. Or when a fellow leader takes you to task for teaching from a book by an author (hopefully not me) that he knows is apostate and you should know that too if you were listening to the Holy Spirit. We are unprepared for the unbiblical blindsiding that inevitably happens.
….to be continued