Battered boundaries in the church
Why did I suddenly, relentlessly, find my boundaries battered? Who knew battered boundaries in the church would set me on a new life quest?
Why did I suddenly, relentlessly, find my boundaries battered? Who knew battered boundaries in the church would set me on a new life quest?
When a group shuns, it rejects someone who has belonged. How shunning in the church looks, why it hurts so much – and why you can overcome.
Jesus is building his church. Repeatedly, he announced the key: “Love one another.” So what does that look like? And why is it so rare in the church today?
Have you seen anything prideful, controlling, cruel, in your church culture? Yes, and it’s wrecked you? No, not really? Either way, it matters what you do next.
A preacher said: “You cannot love the Lord if you do not do these things.” Paul wrote: “I tried keeping rules. It didn’t work.” How checklists lead us astray.
They’re eerily alike: Ahab and Jezebel, who ruled in Elijah’s day. Men and women church leaders, who use one another to abuse everyone else.
You begin to see something distressing in the church. Can it, might it, be an obsession with power, eerily like the Baal worship of old? Whatever do you do?
A prayer “that, as the Bride of Christ, we will continue to learn to ‘walk in beauty’ with our fellow man and God." - Mark Charles
Long ago and still today, God promises his traumatized, grieving, scattered people: I will be a sanctuary to you. I will protect you. I will gather you back.
People like King Ahab spend their lives using and abusing others, to get what they want. They also mesmerize and misdirect us, so we won’t see them as they are.