The following blogs were posted in October 2021, then deleted due to heightened threatening and abuse. They are being posted from more recent to less recent, so somewhat chronologically backwards.
I have much to freshly write, but it is late (or early... 1:45am on 8/10/24)...
Church-home-less?
Updated: Oct 14, 2021
A few days ago, a dear co-worker at the Christian school where I work asked me in the lounge, "Mrs. Wise, do you have a church-home?"
I had to answer, "No."
I had just been posting a series of blogs about "home" and "church" - intentionally together, because they are, to me, much the same. Without a practical church life, I feel homeless. But if a church is abusive, condemning, gossiping, unwilling to hear a victim nor confront a perpetuator of mistreatment... it feels like an abusive "home", which is actually not a home at all, if home means a place of safety, where one is unconditionally loved, where household members’ needs are met....
So, in light of recent experiences, I have been humanly/practically homeless when I was told I could not live with my husband and could not be in our home with him, and when my son was sent away from that home.... and then have felt spiritually homeless over the past few months.
When I moved to the Seattle area, I purposely chose to rent an apartment very close to a church meeting hall where my parents used to live and where some Christians in my city meet. I can see the property from my apartment window. I hoped my children and I would have a new beginning, in a new home and in our church-home where they would never be sent away, but rather where they would always be loved and welcome.
But shortly after renting this apartment, my daughter was gossiped about, ostracized, and treated unkindly by leading/serving ones in the church. It was clear to me, in conversations with some with whom church leading ones WOULD talk, that I also was being gossiped about and my situation grossly misunderstood. When I reached out for fellowship and to help to clear things up, I was not provided such an opportunity. So I have not felt safe to go there. So how could such a church be "home"?
As I mentioned in the recent past blogs, the church is spiritual and universal in Matthew 16 and very practical in Matthew 18.
I know I am in the universal church, and I love every believer. I treasure the church Christ IS building, against which the gates of Hades will never prevail.
But "the church" in Matthew 18 that I (or anyone else) can go to and tell when someone sinned against me (or another member) and refuses to hear me or other witnesses, I feel I have lost. Instead, the practical church I once thought I could "tell" has become an integral part of my trauma.
I am not giving up. I know there are believers with whom I am and will be safe: emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and physically, who uphold the governmental law and who love people as God loves people, who don't tolerate and who confront abuse and sin but who nourish and cherish anyone open to care, as Jesus did on earth and is still doing in His heavenly ministry. I still find such ones in scenarios of "two or three gathered" in the Lord's name. Perhaps with that I must be content, at least for now.
We are all sinners, for whom God's only Son came and died. To sin, to trespass against someone, is understandable. But His church should be able to confront a sinning one, and the sinning one would benefit to humbly hear and repent so that reconciliation can occur and fellowship maintained. Of course, the one being sinned against should not be retaliated against for eventually telling the church, but rather should be heard and protected. Neither, though, should the sick ones (sinners) be condemned, nor should the effects of the sicknesses (sin) be kept a secret if the matter is affecting others, as if that is "loving" and "covering" - while a disease and its complications spread. Anyone who loves a person would want to bring/promote health and healing to that person’s body. Wounds need to be treated and illnesses eradicated. The wounded and sick ones should be lovingly helped to become healthy... just as in a normal, healthy, loving home.
"Tell it to the Church."
Updated: Oct 10, 2021
Jesus said that if a brother who sins against you won't hear you and two or three witnesses, then you should tell it to the church, and if the brother refuses to hear the church, that brother should be like a heathen and a tax collector to you (like one who is not a brother in the church). See Matthew 18:15-17.
What does this look like? Because I, and many others who have opened to me, have tried to go to ones we thought could represent the church when we were not heard by someone who sinned against us. For some, "witnesses" were hard to come by. Some went to elders or "coworkers" - ones thought to be mature in the Lord - for help, and to be witnesses who would address the issue with the offender, but in the end, the one seeking witnesses or "telling the church" was often hushed, threatened, shamed, ex-communicated, etc. How does one "tell it to the church"? And what if "the church" doesn't listen? Again, that may cause one to ask, "What is the church? Where is the church?"
I believe we human beings need community, including for the care and strengthening of our faith, and for protection when there are dangers in our lives. A church community should be a safe place where one can find refuge, guidance, help, and a way to confront an offender and to stop abusers from targeting victims. That's perhaps naive, but it is my belief. Things only happen if people can get away with those things in a community. Abuse generally only survives in secret. But my experience has been that when abuse was talked about in my church community, the victim was hushed, or the victim moved or stopped meeting, and the abuse was never addressed.
Here are some examples. Some are my direct experiences. Others are experiences of ones close to me. Some came to me about the situation, and perhaps I failed as much as anyone, not being a proper witness who would go to the offender to help a victim be heard. With those not my own experiences, I am purposely vague; I have no heart to tell others' stories. I only want to find out how to properly address matters in which someone sins against another, and if the matter is not resolved, the Body of Christ is hurt - when one member suffers, we all suffer.
A teenager is touched inappropriately by a leading one. This is talked about by witnesses and leading ones in the church, but never addressed with the teenager. The teenager's father is told, and he goes to the accused and asks if that happened. The accused denies the claim, and the situation is laid to rest for 30 years, with the teenager growing up with painful memories she never thought were valid. Finally, that father has courage to ask his daughter about it, when she is 46 years old. She begins to work through that now-validated sense of being violated. The father was afraid to know if the claims were true, because if they were, and if he went to church elders about it, he was afraid of getting ex-communicated as he had been a few years into his meeting with this group. He treasured the riches of the ministry of the Word in this group, but was afraid to confront a situation and be excommunicated... again.
A daughter goes to "coworkers" about her own father who is a "coworker" and an "elder" in the church, but who has multiple crippling addictions that are affecting the family. She is told to never tell anyone, not even her own husband, or God will curse her family. Such a threat hushes her for years, until the addictions are more publicly exposed and the needs had to be addressed. In the meantime, this sister was too afraid to open to anyone after telling those brothers, lest God curse her by taking one of her children or by some other punishment. She and other family members have needed thousands of dollars’ worth of therapy, and borne indescribable grief, pain and suffering.
A sister and her husband are both nurses. They become aware of many fellow members of the church that have been abused by ones in the church. They go to coworkers and elders. The claim is that such brothers are not trained professionals and hence unable to do anything substantial to help. The abuse continues. The sister opens on Facebook. She is publicly shamed. Her husband, shortly after, dies by suicide. (Forgive me for any inaccuracies that may be in this. I am writing to the best of my understanding, and purposely vaguely, about this matter. If it were properly dealt with, I wouldn't be writing about it at all.)
Multiple sisters went to leading ones about being sexually harrassed by a brother in the church who had a job in the church community. He is the son of a co-worker, and was just transferred to a different role, still working among sisters who were also targeted. He targeted at least one married sister in his locality, trying to arrange to have sex with her outside her work. She thought she was the only victim, because the others who had previously gone for help, trying to "tell the church", were unsuccessful in stopping this type of abuse in the church from continuing. She eventually opened to someone who knew she was not alone, which she found comforting.
A teenage girl moved to a locality, in which a teenage boy in a high-profile church family repeatedly molested her sexually, though she would repeatedly tell him not to. She went to the boy's mom and told her. The response was that boys will be boys. That girl was hurt beyond words. She loved that boy, and he loved her, but they needed much care in this matter. No girl should be violated - forced to do anything she is not comfortable with. Eventually she got a small tattoo on her arm, reminding herself to stay alive. The day she got that tattoo, she was excommunicated from that boy and his family - though they had been like a family to her and said she would always be welcome, even if she was not in a relationship with their son.
A sister opens up about her husband's addiction, as well as about abuse, such as being told that she didn't get hugs because she should be 115 pounds. She opens to multiple witnesses who are also coworkers and elders. No communication is made on her behalf to the abusive husband. The abuse continues and gets worse.
A sister opens to a "coworker" who is also a medical doctor, about her husband getting out on a freeway for the second time. She is told that she must be surgically clean when she speaks to her husband.
A young brother reached out to two elders in desperation to get proper help for his dad and to somehow save his parents’ marriage from another forced separation. He was told that he crossed a line and was not spoken to after that by those elders, at least for many months, though he had witnessed “lines crossed” in violation of his nuclear family in many instances. And to someone who asked what line the young brother crossed, no answer was given.
A sister reaches out for help from her in-laws (and other elders and co-workers) amidst abuse in her marriage. They agree with that sister's husband that she should leave her home, no longer be allowed to live with her husband, that he stay in the house... She appeals many times to church elders, who do little or nothing to uphold even the basic law in that couple's situation. Once the couple involves an attorney, an elder who is an attorney states that elders can no longer be involved because of the legal representation. But when that was withdrawn, there was no help rendered. When police were called to tell the couple's son to leave his childhood home, and the wife texted many in the church, asking for help, there was no response. Neither had a lawyer at that time. The wife told the church with that text. It seemed the church wouldn't listen.
A sister learns of accusations of her daughter that are very serious. Her daughter insists that the accusations are not true and begs to speak with one of the church elders and a sister who serves with college students in the church, all of whom are gossiping and passing on serious accusations of her to others. Her daughter is shunned by all of them, never allowed to share the truth. That mother tries to reach out. She, too, has never been able to have this matter cleared up. She does not feel safe going to church meetings when such matters have not been properly cleared up. And her daughter is one of at least 4 young people this mother knows who have experienced this type of treatment in this church.
A wife is told by a coworker that she must stand by her husband, in spite of past abuse of both her and her child, in spite of an addiction that he has lied multiple times to her about, and in spite of her having no more trust left toward her husband. She is told that divorce is not an option, but rather to care for him as one who is sick, so he can get better. Addiction affects an entire family - not merely the addict. And lying and abuse do not lend themselves to healing or romance or sustainability of any relationship. The sister has despaired of living In this situation.
There are many, many more grievous and intolerable situations of which I have become aware. Let them be represented with this #12.
So... how can we as believers and as members of the church apply these verses that are the first mentioning of a local, practical "church"?
To be continued....
The Church, Part II
I want to make a list of mentionings of the church in the Bible, as a sort of checklist... and I myself am checking the list against my own experience of "the church" as I have believed it to be in my life. I hold to the truth of God's word about the church that He loves so dearly, as well as the truth that the revelation in God's word should - and eventually will - become reality to believers in Christ.
There are verses to back each point in my list, but I am not going to quote or cite many verses in this blog, for the sake of brevity. I mainly looked through and pondered/applied verses with the word "church" using an online concordance (https://www.biblestudytools.com/search/?s=bibles&q=church&t=niv&c=all).
The church is spiritual, being built by Christ Himself. Fleshy actions, behaviors, and even personalities are not practically part of the spiritual church Christ is building.
The person to whom the church was first mentioned could be rebuked and called "Satan" shortly after receiving a major spiritual revelation. The church doesn't exempt ANYONE from also being offensive, capable of being one with Satan. We should not be respectors of ANY person.
If someone offends another member, and doesn't hear the one offended, even with 2 or 3 witnesses, the church is actual people who can be TOLD and should be HEARD by the offender on behalf of the offended - otherwise the offender should be treated as an unbeliever. Believers should not be afraid of telling the church, and the church should be capable of approaching an offending member on behalf of one offended, toward reconciliation. The church should not rebuke the one who has been stumbled and mistreated, tell that person to "cover" the offender, agree with an offender who is even breaking the law, and/or shun (or even ex-communicate) an offended one.
The church should not be divided, and believers should NEVER feel they are less than or more than any other believers. The church's members are NEVER superior nor inferior to other members, just as I don't have inferior members in my body. No group of believers should ever consider themselves superior or inferior to any other group of believers, either. Believers are of equal status, only with varied functions. We are just believers, members of Christ's body, and thus members of one another.
Every believer is "in the church", and "going to a meeting" is NOT a requirement for any believer to be "in the church". Otherwise even Paul would not have been "in the church" during his last years of ministry, John who wrote Revelation would not be in the church since he was exiled on the island of Patmos, and many, many believers would be excluded from the church due to imprisonment, health issues, or any other constraints, or even due to a condition of being stumbled or ex-communicated and thus unable to meet with ones who are abusive, stumbling, divisive, etc.
We should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, but the Bible does not give a minimum number for "assembling" other than 2 or 3 gathered - wherever - in Jesus' name.
The church can be seized by fear, persecuted, and scattered throughout a region. The church is not immune to normal human experiences; it is spiritual but comprised of real humans. Humans should not be de-humanized or shamed for being human, especially by others in the church.
Elders in a church should be overseers who shepherd those God bought with His own blood.
A church can meet in someone's house and is comprised of believers - men and women - who break bread, eat food together from house to house, and even who have everything in common, at least in the early days of the church as recorded in Acts.
Paul's way of life matched ("agreed with") what he taught everywhere in every church.
One should not cause anyone - Greek, Jew, or the church of God - to stumble.
One despises the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing (1 Cor. 11:22).
Everything should be done for the building up of the church.
Christ is head over everything for the church.
God's wisdom is known through the church.
The church should submit to Christ.
Christ loved and gave Himself up for the church.
The relationship between a husband and a wife reveals a mystery of Christ and the church.
Churches should share, both giving and receiving.
An elder should take care of the church as he manages his own family.
The church is God's household and the pillar and base of the truth.
The church should help widow who are really in need.
A person like Diotrophes may want to be first, not welcome other believers, and even put others out of the church.
Do you welcome all believers?
Do you "put" others out of the church?
Do elders care for the church as their own households and shepherd Christians as those bought with Christ's blood?
Are believers cared for and allowed to be human, and is there care to not stumble the believers?
Are you and those you identify with as the church truly romantic with Christ?
I really feel that if Christ loves the church as His bride and wife, we should truly know and be the church in actuality - not just in name or presumption.
To be continued....
The Church, Part I
"The church." Loaded two words. The little article "the" here is very important, as is the noun.
I am not teaching anyone here. I am just sharing what I have learned over the years, and my concern about what I have learned based on God's word, and my observations and experiences. I am being honest, as I compare the truth of the Bible to current practices and concepts.
The first mention of "church" in the Bible is in Matthew 16:18, when Jesus said, "I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it."
The second mention of "church" in the Bible is in Matthew 18. This comes just after Jesus talks about the seriousness of offending (or stumbling) even one little one, after He talks about leaving the 99 sheep to go after one... He says that if your brother trespasses against you, go to him, and if he hears you, you have gained your brother. Then it says: "But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican" (18:16-18, KJV).
Those are the only two mentionings of "church" in the four gospels. Of course, the church is seen in practicality in Acts, and then Paul, James, Peter, and John all speak of the church in their letters... providing much revelation to seekers of God and of how to live a godly life.
The church, based on Matthew, is unique, universal, and spiritual - an entity Jesus builds and against which the gates of Hades will not prevail. The church is also a very practical entity, made up of people, according to the second mentioning - something you can tell and whom a brother should hear.
"The church" in other verses of the Bible is seen as both unique (God's house, Christ's body and bride, a warrior, the new man...) and also as something plural: the churches of Asia saluted the church in Corinth, churches had rest, were established, confirmed, robbed, greeted, cared for, followed, written letters to, and spoken to by the Spirit. (Simply do a search for "churches" in an online concordance and you will find these phrases.) The last book of the Bible, Revelation, shows a clear connection between the city and the church. John writes to seven churches, and then mentions seven cities: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. These were all cities, and the cities are referred to as churches. Then, as John writes to each, he starts with "Unto the angel (or messenger) of the church in Ephesus [or another city's name] write..."
So, what is my point? If you are still reading, I am impressed. I want to get practical now, related to my learning and experiences and observations.
The church is something unique, universal and spiritual, something Jesus builds, something that is Christ's Body and Bride. The church is not supposed to be divided, because Christ is not divided. The church consists of all believers in Christ, who receive His life. When a believer is baptized, s/he is baptized into the Body of Christ. But that doesn't mean that believers can't also be Satan incarnate, based on what they savor, treasure, value, and set their minds on. A few verses after revealing the church for the first time, Jesus called Peter "Satan" (Matt. 16:23).
The church is also plural, local and practical. The believers in a city are the church in that city.
But the fact that the church plural and referred to as "the" church in a city in the Bible does not mean that those Christians who see this/interpret verses this way, and hence meet as "the" church in a city makes those Christians better than others, nor are they necessarily "the" church spiritually. Those believers may be divided and fleshy and stumbling many, making it better for them to have a millstone tied around their neck and they be cast into the sea. (Matthew 18:6 - "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.")
My writing these blogs has been my letting "the church" know that I have been stumbled, that there are some who have trespassed, even literally, into my house and home and marriage and nuclear family, literally destroying much that was built up over decades. I am not bitter. But I am telling the church, and then letting those ones who have trespassed, if they refuse to hear and to be reconciled, be as unbelievers to me. And I LOVE unbelievers - but they are not the church. I love dearly those who have stumbled me, my children, and others, but they are not, to me, the church.
This topic will likely be continued... so I will call this "The Church, Part I."
Comments