Healing from Toxic Church

Two faceless figures sit in armchairs, casually plotting their first plays in a game of chess.

Abusers like Ahab & Jezebel use one another

Post published:January 24, 2026
Post category:From: The Elijah Blessing Healing from Toxic Church
Post last modified:January 24, 2026

They’re eerily alike: Ahab and Jezebel, who ruled in Elijah’s day. Men and women in church leadership who use one another in order to control everyone else.

Unsettling red, waxy-looking water crown against black background. Something about it looks like a dark counterfeit of Jesus' crown of thorns.

Obsession with power, in the church

Post published:December 4, 2025
Post category:From: The Elijah Blessing Healing from Toxic Church
Post last modified:December 6, 2025

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?

Six wooden, little-people figures of children from around the world, standing side-by-side on a plank, arms outstretched, holding hands

Prayer of the Body, for the Body, of Christ

Post published:October 31, 2025
Post category:Healing from Toxic Church
Post last modified:October 31, 2025

Would you pray with me “that, as the Bride of Christ, we will continue to learn to ‘walk in beauty’ with our fellow man and God." - Mark Charles

A lighthouse stands on an island near other tiny, scattered islands.

Toxic church – and a promise of real belonging

Post published:October 24, 2025
Post category:Healing from Toxic Church Trauma and Grief
Post last modified:October 26, 2025

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.

Brown magician's wand, with white tip, in the midst of sparkling white light on a black background. A white halo of light behind the wand's tip helps the magician focus attention where he will.

Masters of misdirection and mesmerizing fog

Post published:October 16, 2025
Post category:From: The Elijah Blessing Healing from Toxic Church
Post last modified:December 6, 2025

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.

Heart-shaped water drop surrounded by swirling blood-red water

Spiritual schizophrenia and the two-headed snake

Post published:October 1, 2025
Post category:From: The Elijah Blessing Healing from Toxic Church
Post last modified:December 6, 2025

"How long will you try to go both ways?" Elijah cried. Where people identified with God cling to deep double-mindedness, they empower a two-headed snake.

Deborah Brunt in a green garden, relaxed, smiling at the camera

Christ alone: Counting the cost, going with God

Post published:July 12, 2025
Post category:Healing from Toxic Church My Story
Post last modified:October 26, 2025

The only way to walk free from the roles and expectations that abusive systems force upon you is to keep following Jesus as he gets the system out of you.

Bullying/mobbing: Beige wooden peg "people" grouped on dark concrete so that it appears a whole crowd is against one

Sabotage, coerce, shame: Bullying in the church

Post published:June 4, 2025
Post category:Healing from Toxic Church
Post last modified:September 30, 2025

It’s agonizing to be bullied – and it can happen to an adult, in the church. Supposedly godly people, seeking to control, plot to sabotage, coerce, shame.

Bucking the system: Pencils neatly lined up on a paper point to a row of empty check-boxes. But one red-lead pencil points the other way, to a red outline of a heart.

Bucking the system: Shunning, submission, Jesus

Post published:April 2, 2025
Post category:Healing from Toxic Church
Post last modified:October 26, 2025

Jesus grew up in a religious system God had instigated, and people had hijacked to use for their own ends. Jesus’ life shows us when and how to buck the system.

Sunset over Sea of Galilee, October 2009

Woman walking on the water, you are ordained

Post published:March 12, 2025
Post category:Healing from Toxic Church My Story
Post last modified:December 21, 2025

When asked if I wanted to be ordained, I waited on the Lord. I’m still in awe! And I can encourage you: When he calls you to walk on the water to meet him – GO!