Years ago, in another life, I traveled with a ministry that
was revival centered. I thought this was going to be an incredible experience
of growing deeply in the Lord and serving in a Children’s Pastor role. We
traveled to a new church every two to three weeks and completely took over
their services, children, and youth areas. Those three years of living on the
road for ten months out of every year ended up being some of the darkest of my
life.
Those three years almost caused me to walk away from any
church association forever. Strangely enough, it was not the people that we
ministered to that broke me; it was the leadership that I traveled with,
supported, and took counsel from that caused the most harm. Early on I came to
understand that leadership was our judge and jury. They were not there to
actually invest in you as an individual, they were there to keep you in line
and make sure that you did not tarnish the image of the ministry. There were
long lists of rules, daily meetings that sent us into introspection for deeply
rooted sin, and an overall sense of damnation. Before you assume I am being overly
dramatic…one of the nights during the meetings, we actually taught the churches
to walk through a list of sins, check each one that they had ever committed,
and pray thoroughly for forgiveness. We were encouraged to go through this “sin
list” weekly. My walk with the Lord quickly became exhausting, self-deprecating,
and all grace had been removed.
I quickly became dubbed a “problem child”…was accused of
things I had never done and disciplined accordingly. In the three years I
served with this ministry I was moved to three different teams and apparently
my “reputation” preceded me. I developed anxiety to such a level that I developed
an auto-immune disorder which was interpreted as a way to seek attention. I
considered suicide, I cried myself to sleep almost nightly, and I prayed for
death or a rescue. In the end, I was given an ultimatum and chose to walk away
from a ministry that I had felt called to serve in.
Not everyone in this ministry had this same experience but
there were some that did and it was hard to recover from. In hindsight, I
should have never been a part of such a ministry. Previous wounds from past
experiences had made me vunerable and ill-prepared to deal with such a
legalistic environment. Memories of this time recently came to the surface
again through a discussion at church with my tribe and also being in contact
with someone that is still a part of this ministry. Before I was prepared for
it, emotions of brokenness welled up within me.
I don’t share this to bash a ministry that I once was a part
but it reminded me as a parent, as a believer, as someone who is part of a body
of Christ, do I fall into the trap of legalistic behavior? I struggle with this
because I was raised in such an environment. I sometimes project this on my
children and others…on of my greatest fears is that I will turn my children’s
hearts away from Jesus in the effort of helping them become perfect Christians.
I want to shower people with love dripping in grace. Can my children see
discipline as an act of love because I am doing it the right way or am I
damaging Christ’s reputation with my tongue? We as parents and believers are
first called to love and then teach. I want to raise up people who share the
love of their Father. I want them to be so intimately aquainted with their
Father’s heart that others are drawn to Jesus.
I am a broken
individual with incredibly deep scars but my heart yearns to love my family and
others. I still run from hurt and stay away from strong individuals that I fear
their judgement…BUT God is teaching me still. Even at the age of forty-five God
is growing me in my faith and my relationship with Him continues to deepen. I
was not broken beyond his healing power…no one is and there is incredible mercy
in knowing that.
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