Hazy view from the pew of a church service: People are standing, some with hands upraised, before "Jesus" written in huge block letters on a massive white screen.

The world in church clothing

Lord Jesus, show me when the church is not the church, but instead, the world in church clothing. Show me when a system is competing with you for my heart.

Red, pink and white rose petals, along with tiny yellow leaves, lie scattered on gray paving stones

To the exiles scattered by toxic church

Maybe the church has become bewildering to you. Leaders you trusted and people you respected are acting in ways that do not reflect who Jesus is, nor what they profess to believe. They have turned on anyone among them who appears to threaten the status quo. What is going on?

Against a snowy background stands a black iron gate, locked with multiple padlocks of different colors and shapes.

Shunning in the church

Any group that shuns is withholding your deepest needs in order to control you. That’s the opposite of loving you. It’s people you trusted, trying to erase you.

Back view of woman with brimmed straw hat, standing in field of tall grass, her arms outstretched at her side, her face toward the setting (or rising?) sun

Cries of the shunned

In the middle of that dark-valley time, I often found myself alone with God, crying aloud and writing passionately in my journal. During that time too, I came to identify with David, the shepherd-poet-warrior-king, in ways I had not before. For David was also ostracized by people he trusted. And he cried out in distress - and in faith.

Interesting door handle on a dark door, opening to a hazy, but very green, world

And the future starts now

Even in suffering, even in exile, may you find growing within you: A life energetic and blazing with holiness, conceived by God himself. Life healed and whole. Laughter and singing. Genuine faith proved genuine. Living hope. One-anothering love. A future that starts now.

Door to hope: An open door welcomes you into a sun room filled with plants and light.

A future filled with hope

It's the best-loved verse in Jeremiah, and God says it to exiles. He announces to people who feel they have no future at all: "I know what I have planned for you. I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope."

Silhouette of a person with arms wide open, standing between the bold sunset colors of a wide sky and a wide ocean

The most freeing thing

The work of exile – the work God wants to do through it – is to free you from bondage that masquerades as relationship, to draw you to himself, to show you what is and is not love. Perhaps the hardest thing you can do in exile – and by far the most freeing – is to stay there until it has done its work.