When Faith Lowers your Guard

Tonight, before I sat down to write this, I was at a worship night. It was put on by someone I would never have met if not for the church I'm about to critique. It blessed me in a way I can barely put into words. I told them it felt like an oasis in a desert. I want you to hold that image while you read the rest.

I wouldn't trade my years at that church, despite the pain, despite the crisis of faith that came out of what happened. The things I took away from that charismatic world have served me, deepened my faith, given me a grid my first church never provided. I experienced the power of the Holy Spirit there, the things you read about in Acts, being drunk in the Spirit, all of it. These things are real. I lived them. So understand, this isn't a takedown. It's harder than that.

I went to my pastor with a divided heart, and I left with a label on it.

This was during the years when my church seemed one hundred percent behind one candidate. I had questions, not about policy so much as character. I wasn't rebelling. I was confused, and I trusted this man, so I brought it to him the way you bring something fragile to someone you believe will hold it carefully.

He called it identity politics. Two words, and the conversation was effectively over. In fairness, he pivoted after that and said we should go to the well of the Holy Spirit together. It sounded loving. But it was still an exit ramp, spiritual language as a way to skip the conversation. He didn't ask why I saw it that way. He didn't ask what I was afraid of. He put a label on my heart and didn't try to honor where it was. What struck me most was how fast he wanted out. Like my confusion was a problem to be managed, not a person in a spiritual crisis that needed care and guidance.

What followed was worse than the conversation itself. I felt like I didn't belong at my church anymore. And when I looked around, every church seemed to be saying the same thing, all behind one man, no critique, no room. Everyone I knew thought the same way. When no one anywhere shares even a hint of your perspective, you don't just lose an argument. You lose your place. That kind of lostness messes with you.

I've since heard others describe the same sharpness from him, a cold stare meant to intimidate, disagreements met with force instead of grace. So I don't think I caught him on a bad day. I think this is how he handles hearts that don't line up.

Here's the thing about churches like mine. We preached love at full volume. Jesus loves you. God's love is bigger than you can imagine. We went to the well of the Holy Spirit together, week after week, and that kind of worship asks you to open up completely. Guards down. That's the whole point. You can't receive with your fists closed.

But that openness is exactly what makes the wound deeper when someone in authority fumbles it. Week after week, the encounters with God's love were arriving through his words, his voice from the front of the room. Your heart starts to associate the two. The man and the love get wired together, and you hand him a trust you'd never hand a boss or a coach or a friend. You put a placard of godliness on him. So when he dismisses you, it doesn't feel like a man being careless. It feels like the dismissal came from somewhere higher.

I've noticed the Baptist and Bible churches seem to have this happen less, and I've wondered why. Part of it is structure, boards, doctrine, process. Colder, but with guardrails. Some of them even say it outright: they don't want the church built on a personality. I used to hear that as blandness. Now I hear it as a defense, one they built because they've seen what happens when the man and the message fuse.

My church made the opposite bet. From the beginning, they said they wanted to be a house of worship above all else. Groups, discipleship, all of it took a back seat, because worship was where God met us. All the chips went on the encounter. And in a church like that, the encounter arrives through one man's voice, week after week, with nothing around it. So when the voice that delivers heaven dismisses you, there's not much to catch you. The small groups existed, but they always felt like an afterthought, and at least back then, there was no one above him to appeal to.

I've been thinking about this again because of a program here in Dallas, a coaching experience framed as faith based. Most people I've talked to come out blessed, and I believe them. But some come out shaken, spoken to harshly in a way they never braced for, because you don't brace when you think God's love is the container. One woman put it well: if you're selling business coaching, sell business coaching. Wrapping it in faith takes away people's ability to protect themselves.

That's the crux of what spiritual abuse is, I think. Not always cruelty. Sometimes just carelessness with a trust that was too big to be careless with.

I know the objection. Pastors are human like the rest of us, and we're called to forgive. I get that, and I think I have. It took five years. Two words from him, five years from me. I can see him now without hard feelings, mostly. But forgiving someone doesn't mean pretending it was small, and it doesn't mean trusting them again. Those are different things.

Lately I've been thinking about this from the other side. I volunteer in a recovery ministry, and they gave me a leader title. The truth is, I almost don't want it. I'm not a pastor, but even this is a mantle. People walk in raw, guards already down, and some of them will put that placard on me whether I ask for it or not. The weight of it scares me a little. Maybe it should.

Even if he truly believed I was off track, I think care would have looked like curiosity. Sheperding and care asks questions. What it doesn't do is reach for the fastest exit. Love doesn't rush past your heart.

And tonight, an oasis in a desert, and spiritual clarity given to me by that same church's fruit.