When the Church Rewards Dysfunction

For years I have been walking a path that has led me to some deep healing in my life. This has included working with mentors, therapists, and spiritual directors. It has led me to have some painful and terrifying discussions with people I love, and has stirred up memories I had either tried to ignore, or had completely repressed.

It is not an easy process. In fact, it is one of the most difficult things one will ever do. It is no wonder, then, that those who have gone on this journey, or help others on theirs, often refer to it as “doing the work.” Because it is work. Hard work. And it is hard work that, I’m sad to say, is often undermined by participation in church communities.

We all have dysfunctional behaviors in our lives. They are behaviors that we usually developed as kids. They are dysfunctional because kids don’t know how to respond to difficult experiences, let alone traumatic ones, and so they adapt the best they know how.

These behaviors can look very different from one person to the next. When I was growing up, I endured many traumatic and painful encounters. Some were at the hands of family members who didn’t have the emotional tools to deal with their own pain. Others were at the hands of oblivious or even predatorial church members. As a child, I blamed myself for many of those experiences, and I responded by trying to be the most well behaved boy I could be. I became a people pleaser.

Others may have responded to their own pain in other ways, such as rebelling against any authority, or lashing out, or developing a constant hypervigilance. As self-defeating as the coping mechanisms can be, they are the best we know how to handle life as kids. To their credit, they usually get the job done-that is, they help us survive childhood

One day, however, we grow up-at least on the outside. Those coping mechanisms, which may have served us well in our childhood, become our worst enemies. They start to sabotage our relationships, thwart our career ambitions, and threaten our health. At that point, we have to make a choice: keep doing what we’ve been doing, or “do the work.”

There was a problem I faced early on in my attempt to do that work. I was a pastor at the time-on top of my experience of growing up in the church as a pastor’s child. Naturally, I was deeply immersed in church culture, like the practices,  protocols, and ingrained beliefs. I had been taught that the church was the best place for one to be. I was taught that it would help one grow and mature to become the person God had designed them to be.

This was becoming less and less true in my experience. In truth, it was seldom ever my experience, but I had been too indoctrinated and entrenched in the church world to ever see it. The sad reality was that while I was at a place where I needed to do the work and face my unhealthy defense mechanisms, the church was reinforcing them. That is, the church was rewarding me for being a people pleaser.

Because of my unhealed trauma, I was stuck in fight or flight mode, where any hint of anger or distress was a trigger for my old wounds, so I did everything to keep my environment peaceful and under control. I deadened my feelings and pain so that I could focus on the feelings of others. In the church this was seen as being selfless and considerate, the perfect traits for a pastor. In reality, I was just playing a role, fueled by my unhealed trauma, to keep others happy, and that fit right into what the church needed to operate.

Now, to be clear, I cannot speak to everyone’s experience in the church. I can only speak to my experience and to the tales of friends and family members. The unfortunate truth is that so often the church has less to do with healing and transformation and much more to do with maintaining its own survival. Anything that contributes to that-even an unhealthy coping mechanism-is welcomed with open arms.

I didn't need someone to commend my people pleasing; I needed someone to ask me why I felt the need to live that way.

How could that be anyone else’s responsibility? How could they know what I was going through when I didn't even know? That is an issue, because one cannot lead  you where they have not been themselves, and the reality is that so many church leaders have been chewed up by that system and have never done the work of true inner healing. When one has healed, they can often spot defense mechanisms from a mile away.

We need elders-in the true sense of the word. Not just someone who can quote scripture, but someone who understands the wisdom between the lines because they have lived it, because they have faced their own pain. As someone has said, “Religion is lived by people who are afraid of hell. Spirituality is lived by people who have been through hell.”

Of course, churches are not the only arena where one’s unhealthy behaviors are rewarded. It can happen at work, in families, and in whole societies. But the church promises that if you do what they tell you, then God will take care of the rest. So parishioners are left spinning the hamster wheel and wondering why they still lack a sense of peace and meaning.

I realize I may be coming off as jaded. If you are part of a spiritual community that does know what doing the work looks like, then I am incredibly thankful and happy for you. If yours does not, don’t let that community keep you from taking the journey of a lifetime. If they are unwilling or unable to help you do your work, then find someone who can and will. It is the road less traveled, and is filled with treasures you won't find anywhere else.