The church has a special place in my heart. I think it has great value and love what it does for people – as long as it is a healthy church. I also believe that healthy people need to be the product of a church. If a church is not helping people become more healthy than something is terribly wrong.
I have come to this conclusion because of my life’s journey and listening to a lot of other people talk. I have been led to an emotionally healthy place by my church and I see that I am not the norm. The church I attend is seen as different…check it out for yourself.
I did grow up in a “normal” church and I was taught things that are Biblically correct but also unhelpful for me. It kept me bound to my co-dependent chains. Sermons that other people needed to hear, I internalized and made my life.
For example; a sermon about dying to yourself and giving up your life for others (like your spouse and children) was not healthy advice for me. I was struggling with an addict for a partner and spent my days only worrying about him and our kids. This type of sermon only exacerbated this tendency in me, pushing me further and further into my unhealthy fogginess. I was a robot. I stopped recognizing my own emotions and did everything for my family, nothing for myself. I thought the church was telling me to keep doing this, forever and ever amen!
Now let me stop and say that I do not blame the church for my unhealthiness. Nor do I blame my now ex-spouse or my parents for that matter! This was the journey I needed to be on to get healthy.
But I got a lot of help from my church to become healthy and I do not think this is happening for a lot of church-goers.
I also believe that this is not a malicious act on the part of churches, I believe it’s a lack of knowledge. But that is a sad disservice to the people of every congregation. The lack of emotionally healthy leadership has been gravely apparent in the last decade as well. So this process has to begin at the top levels and then be taught by everyone, to everyone.
Being emotionally healthy was the key to me being who God has called me to be. Without that piece I was ineffective and actually harmful to people. I was giving out bad advice and thrashing about in my self-made prison of codependency. I was not a light, nor did I look any different from the world. Let’s not let all our fellow Jesus followers drown in their unhealthiness.
So this is my call to action:
If the church truly wants people to be effective in sharing the love of God with others they need to teach their people to be emotionally healthy. Let’s get to it.