What Healing From Church Hurt Actually Looks Like

Expectations and Disillusionment with Church

I have this expectation of the good that church is going to provide for me, but then once I get there and I get involved, if it is a church where spiritual abuse is happening, the opposite happens. My expectations are shattered and instead of trustworthy friendships, I now have worse friendships, and I feel like the ones in the world were better. You know, instead of getting healed, I feel like worse off than before.

Some of this is tied to a spiritual leader, a pastor, who has selfish ambitions and is trying to build his kingdom under the name of God's kingdom and is just using people to fulfill that purpose. In this episode, I dive deep with my friend Aaron Dagle on the topic of church work. This is an entire 45-minute discussion as we go into Aaron's story, how he overcame it, and ultimately what his life looks like on the other side of it. If you're looking for something specific, I've included chapters down in the description below. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy this conversation.

Aaron’s Journey into Church Work

So Aaron, how are you today, man?

I'm good, man. Good to see you, bro. What's happening with you?

Yeah, what do you mean? I'm just hanging out, you know, doing the coffee thing in the middle of the day, as is the trend for my life. So absolutely. I'm high on H2O in it, bro.

Man, I need to drink more water. I think one of these days, I'm going to get one of those apps and actually stick to it, you know what I'm saying?

So Aaron, why don't you introduce yourself just real quick, man? Just do a quick intro, give our audience some context on who you are, and maybe we can talk a little bit about how we randomly connected. I think we just became internet friends, right?

Totally. Yeah, I grew up around the things of God, man, and then got into the street life, got involved in drugs real heavy, particularly when a horrible incident happened, my mom was raped in front of me, and I was just pretty much done with God. I saw it left the church, went to the streets.

I got back in around 17 and quickly was like all in, man, I'm going for it. I was like, get saved, get baptized, only way for Jesus, go to ministry. I dove in and got back into the things of God. Did church work for a long time while going to college, teaching in high school, pastoral ministry, youth pastor, and small groups pastor, and came the congregation pastor of a Spanish church.

Then I went through a horrible transition, just some deep church hurt, some abuse, and things my wife and I walked through with our lead pastor at the time. It transitioned us into what I knew I would always be doing, which was traveling and speaking. But that opened up the opportunity, no longer being in that local church to start working on some books, YouTube videos, getting online, podcasting, things like that.

And so we're in that sphere together. We do work with couples as well. My wife's a marriage and family therapist. So I help a little bit with that. But that's a bulk of marriages, her deal, and then the YouTube videos and books and stuff is where I'm at, traveling, speaking in churches.

The Impact of Church Hurt

Awesome. Yeah, fantastic. I think we connected right because of some of our similar passion, right, to see people in recovery and see people with addictions get their lives together, man. And it's awesome to see that that connection's been on, you know, state active over the last couple of years.

So YouTube, right? I've been following you and watching your Reels, man, you're throwing Reels up all the time. You're up there all the time, which is awesome. And they're encouraging and uplifting. And I found my way over to your YouTube channel where you recently published a series on church hurt. And, you know, I think it's a buzzword, right? There's a lot of conversations about church hurt.

Maybe not enough, but we see some of these big incidents, right? You know, Hillsong's been in the news lately. We see, yeah, I grew up in the day of remembering the whole praise the Lord scandal. And, you know, my mind thinks about all of that and thinks about all the people that are impacted, you know, by these major events. What kind of led you to start talking about church hurt? I know you shared a little bit in your intro about a rough transition. What led you to start doing those YouTube videos and having that conversation?

Man, I went through about five years at the tail end of being in church. I had a lead pastor, and then I was the sort of administrative pastor running small groups, the Spanish church, prayer—everything under his ministry and our local church. And we had a great relationship. He was a father figure to me. He was everything. I mean, I went to him with all questions, and just I adored him, you know.

The last five years of that, though, things took a turn for the worst. He had gotten in his head that my wife and I were like not real loyal, that we were out, you know, to sabotage his church or his ministry, but I don't know exactly, but it took a very nasty turn. I share a lot of the details on the YouTube videos, not as much as I think I'm going to share in the book, ultimately, that I put out on it.

But man, to be honest, dude, I sat on it for years. I have been six and a half years out of that church, and I was scared, bro. I was scared to talk about it, scared to talk about the fact that I was hurt in church because I felt like, man, doors are going to close, pastors aren't going to invite us, pastors aren't going to want us on their show because like in the Christian world, you don't talk about the fact that you were hurt in church.

Finally, I just felt led—I got some encouragement from some friends—and I shared more of the details on the videos and just been taken wherever the Lord leads from there.

Navigating the Cycle of Hurt

You don't understand, bro. What was the paradigm for you? That caused you to go from this point of you've been silent about it. You know, I don't want to say much. It could cost me your reputation or open doors or whatever to be able to finally get to that place where you're like, you know what, I've got to speak about this now.

Hearing how many people are going through it, you know, when it all blew up, I sat in my house for six weeks. I didn't go anywhere. I didn't have no church, no pastor. I was depressed. I'm not naturally prone to depression, and I just—I had no direction. The whole world that I knew was ripped out from under me, and I felt very alone.

But then there's no resources. Like, where do you go? Who do you go talk to? And I would look for help, and the only thing I found, which was a very solid resource, was The Bait of Satan. But that was sort of, you know, that's written in the context of whenever like your heart needs to be right with God. And like, it just, it gave me something, but it wasn't everything that I needed.

I started talking with other people traveling, and I heard, you know, I went through this or I'm not in church anymore. I hate God because of this experience. And I said, wow, like I'm not the only one. There's other people dealing with this, and it needs to be talked about.

Signs of Spiritual Abuse

Hey, real quick, enter up in the conversation just for a moment, that if you found any value out of this conversation so far, please hit the like button below. And that Bait of Satan book is fantastic, but you're right. I mean, it's about dealing with the personal offense and really checking our motives, right? But, you know, sometimes when we are correct, you know, and there is that hurt, and those leaders have impacted us, it's like, man, how do I process that?

And yeah, there's so many people, man. I think about the struggles of modern church and how we're—I'm not hopeless, but it seems like we're losing ground, right? Especially in America, it seems like we're going backwards. And I wonder how many folks out there are struggling with church and the reason the church is kind of feeling like it's going backwards, even though we are getting closer to eternity, you know? How many people are out there, and they've had these unspoken issues, and they've just abandoned the church as a result?

How would you define church? So say somebody's listening to this, and they're like, you know, I think I've ever had some experiences, but like when you say church or what do you mean by that?

To answer that and let's continue with exactly what you're saying is this: society is sort of winning and getting ahead to where like this Christian nation, America, you know, the place where God, if he has a place on Earth to live, it's America. You know, it's in its change. Society has been so disillusioned and, you know, from a lot of misconceptions and faulty beliefs, but this hatred from the church that was always in society has now exploded.

Well, now what we're seeing is a lot of people who were once in church following in those same trends now. And so there's also these massive groups of people with Christian backgrounds who are saying, man, I hate the church, I'm done with the church, like, and they're disillusioned with what they've seen. Most of what they have seen has been church hurt what we're talking about.

So with that, you know, talking about what it is, when we go to church unless we're drugged to church as kids or because we're trying to please the spouse, you know, I mean, we're the most partisan adult. We're going to go with an expectation: I want to be healed of something. I want, you know, friends I can trust in. I have this expectation of the good that church is going to provide for me.

But then once I get there and I get involved, if it is a church where spiritual abuse is happening, the opposite happens. My expectations are shattered and instead of trustworthy friendships, I now have worse friendships. And I feel like the ones in the world were better. You know, instead of getting healed, I feel like worse off than before.

Some of this is tied to a spiritual leader, a pastor, who has selfish ambitions and is trying to build his kingdom under the name of God's kingdom and is just using people to fulfill that purpose. When people feel used like that and, you know, that they're not being, you know, lifted into the fulfilling of their calling and their ministry, but they're being used to fulfill somebody's selfish ambition because a mega church is going to give him a name, you know, now he can do the next event for TikTok because he's got this big mega church.

Understanding Church Dynamics

And people feel that, and it crushes people. You're bulldozing over people to accomplish this kingdom that is said to be God's kingdom. But it's not. And these words and actions are just leaving Christians disillusioned. And so hence the term church hurt.

Yeah, you know, I was listening to Ruslan, if you follow Ruslan on YouTube at all, but he's got some amazing content. But he was having a conversation about the amount of pastors that have this communication gift, right? And in the right context, they can use it. But what's happened is for those of us who have a heart for ministry, the church has typically been the only alternative.

And so outside of modern culture, you've got a bunch of people that have an incredible communication gift, have a bunch of charisma, but ultimately are in a shepherding role, you know, leading churches. And they really shouldn't be, right? And so it's not good for the leader, and it's not good for the church members either because there's nothing wrong with, you know, building the platform. But when you try to do that in the wrong context, we start to see some of the fallout as a result of that.

And so you said church, man, I love that on expectation and offense, right? And John Bavir does talk about that in his book. I think one of the quotes in there was, the greater the expectation, the greater the offense. But let's bring that back a little bit, right? Because there should be some expectations when we come to church. Like it should be a safe place. And I believe that, like I think church should be the safest place on the earth to struggle, said that so many times before.

And so how do we deal with that, right? Coming in and we're walking into a church and we feel it. Like how do you—what are some of the signs in your church? I know you did a video that describes what I think nine of them.

Signs That Church Hurt May Be Present

Yeah. Signs a church may be abusing, and nine signs that it may be happening. Just I agree with that too. Like it should be, and it is the best place to struggle. It is a healthy place. You know, it's that just because you get prick by a needle doesn't mean the whole haystack is full of spikes.

You know, and so it's that one. It's like you get into that one church that just warps your idea about it. But anyways, yeah, of the nine signs, let's kind of talk about two, three of them and dance around here. But one of the big ones I've seen is separating you from friends and family, both before and after. So, you know, I think the church is a huge component to our world. But if you're only working in church, your only focus is in church.

Like, God never called you to just be inside of a bubble. He called you to be infiltrating the world and changing the world, not being like the world, but being that influence, to be that light shining on a hill. And so anything that takes you away from everything to the exclusion of that alone is sort of cultish. I mean, it is cultish.

So what does that look like? How does that play out? Like we say separating from friends and family, you know, to share any personal or specific, but like how would you describe that? What does that look like for somebody who might wonder?

You know, I mean, an extreme example, like, I mean, in our case, when we left the church, we had to tell everyone that we were—that it was our fault that we left because we harmed our pastors, and we had to sell our house. We had to move out of our city. Anybody who texted us, or emailed us, or called us, we were not allowed to respond to them.

I mean, so it was an extreme pace of like, you know, you are not allowed to talk to anybody in this church ever again, you know, under threats of like, if you do, I'm going to go after your ministerial license, you know? And then on the back end was telling the people in his church, you know, or Aaron and Cessie, that's my wife, you know, they were not loyal, they were—we later found out that he accused us of stealing money from the church.

I mean, it was—and just crazy stuff. But like those rifts that were completely separating these friendships that we had developed for 10 years as pastors in that church. So that's more of an extreme case. But, you know, anything that—if 90% of your waking hours is you have to be here, you cannot, you know, do any other activities, you cannot be involved in any other groups, then like, that's weird and cultish.

Communication and Trust Issues

Yeah, absolutely. I saw a meme on Facebook not so long ago, and it said, you know, we don't get the same church anymore. We can still talk to each other, you know, this is church. We're not in gangs, yeah. And that's the mindset behind it, right?

And so the separation from the friends and family you mentioned just a few seconds ago, like it was as much as the conversation was like, don't even text him anymore. And it was like, the encouragement was like, so basically, once you're gone from the church, they're black sheep, right? It's like, we don't associate anymore.

And so I would reference that back to, again, what you said at the beginning, this mindset of the leader building his own kingdom, right? Instead of the greater kingdom. Is that a fair assessment? Oh, absolutely, Justin.

Gossip and Trust in Leadership

Yeah. So what about any other signs that you're seeing that you've seen that might be helpful?

Yeah, you know, talking to you in confidence about the other people in the church, especially if you're like, okay, the pastor bringing you into the confidence and saying, you know, yeah, I'm really concerned about so-and-so. If someone's talking to you about other people, then I guarantee you, when the scenario changes, they'll be talking to other people about you.

And what I found in that scenario and those experiences was that it was pitting everyone against each other. And the one source was the spiritual leader at the top. Just, uh, no. Justin, really, I'm, you know, yeah, it's crazy to even verbalize it.

I'm hesitating as I'm saying it because I'm like, this sounds crazy. It's that whole mindset. It's like, this is just between me and you, right? When you had that conversation with six people, it's not really the truth anymore, you know?

Yeah, and I almost feel like leaders, some leaders do that at times. It's like, if I can, if I can, if the leader can set the tone, right across all these conversations, then if, if something blows up, it's like, well, I told you so. I told you this was happening, you know?

And it's almost like they're setting this—they're building this lab, if you will, you know, to almost shield themselves from any maybe accountability or responsibility.

The Dangers of a Lack of Accountability

Absolutely, bro. That's coined it all in the perfect phrase, right? Appreciate it. And so give me one more sign of abuse. You know, you're talking about spiritual leaders, toxic leaders, you know. How do they set up these systems to cover their own narcissism, right?

Because a toxic leader, and maybe that's a whole mouthful right there. Maybe we can jump into that a little bit in this abuse area. So as far as covering it up, one thing I’ve seen is a smoke screen of accountability. You know, it's like, hey, I'm the pastor you have to submit, you know, spiritual leadership, be loyal to the church, but then who's holding that pastor accountable?

Who is that pastor's pastor? And if you ask, they may have an answer, and it's going to be like some guy who lives nine states away, you know, or it's a group of pastors who are the board of the church, but they're all, you know, the only thing they know about the church is what that lead pastor is telling them about the church.

So like there's no way to hold him accountable. And I get it, like the people where leading should not be, you know, holding us accountable. But like, if you have a, you know, I think at some point like that, that's kind of a warped mindset like it, you should have somebody around you who's close enough, who can pull your coattail as they say and say, bro, you're wrong, man, you're not doing this right.

You need to check your motives. Like, somebody needs to be able to confront you. And when you remove all that, and then here's another part of it is put people in positions who are yes men, who are obedient, and then constantly remove people who are voicing concerns. Within you insulate yourself with this leadership team of yes men, and then people in the church, they might not go to you, they might go to that person, that team, but really they're getting the same advice from that one person because he's running the whole information input into that one team.

So this is a couple ideas for us insulating, you know, how it's covered up.

The Challenges of Helping Hurt Individuals

Being somebody that's in ministry, I connect with people all the time, right? And so I imagine a lot of people that have dealt with some of this stuff dealt with some of this church hurt like you did have on. You stay quiet about it for a while, right? And so if they did make their way back to the church, for one reason or another, I would imagine that that individual that's been impacted by this church hurt has insulated themselves, like I'm not going to get hurt again.

You know, how do we recognize that? I mean, how do we minister to somebody who has been in this type of situation, you know, that is how the toxic leader and felt hurt by the church? That is a great question, Justin.

There's a lot of caveats to that. And when we get hurt, it is very difficult to plug back in, like from the perspective of the person who has hurt. It's also—we become very prone to be critical of the church and of the new pastor. We’ve seen the junk, we’ve been damaged, so we go and we reconnect. What you’re going to experience is an inhibition to connect to that new church, to that new pastor.

You’re going to be very leery and possibly quite critical, just like seeing all the negatives because you're so—you’re sore. You know, you don’t want to get burned again. And so you're just on this hypervigilance. Pastors, on the other hand, now you’re asking as a minister, how do we recognize that?

We are going to see those lack of ability to fully commit, you know, just maybe not fully given their heart and are checking things out for an extended period of time.

We may not know why unless the person has been vulnerable and opened that up to us, but chances are they're not. I mean, I’ve heard—I’ve actually tried to connect hurt people from church hurt to new churches. And in the meetings, I’ve heard the people flat-out tell the pastors, like, I will never trust what a pastor ever tells me again, you know?

So you can be extensive hurt like that. The pastor then has to assume the responsibility. Am I willing to love these people through this? And like, that is going to be hard. It is going to be hard to be criticized as a leader, to constantly be questioned, and to love people past their hurt.

And not every leader is going to be equipped for that. Thankfully, what I have seen is that churches whose pastors have been hurt and then healed tend to attract hurt people and God uses them to heal them. Most often, you know, God is aware, God is definitely aware of the leader’s giftings and will send the right people to that church for healing.

It is challenging on both ends. I cannot overlook that. For a hurt person to give a new pastor a chance is a leap of faith for that person. And for a pastor to love a person past that hurt takes a lot of effort and a lot of energy and a lot of willingness just to be like Christ and say, I’m going to take a lot of, you know, hurt and rejection and criticism and just show this person through consistent action that love is real, that Christ-likeness is real, and that genuine leadership in the church exists.

The Path to Healing

Yeah, that’s really good. So Aaron, your story, how did you guys start that path to healing? Like, what was it for you that got you to this place where, you know, you recognize what had been done with you? You’re out of the ministry at that point, you know, if I understand your story correctly. How did you guys start to pick the pieces back up and heal some of those scars?

Yeah, so when we left, like I said, I was six weeks just in the house, sitting in a chair in a dark room. I mean, I was low. And my father-in-law, who’s a pastor, kept telling me, he says, you need to go to your presbyter, who would be like a bishop in the Catholic church, you know, just sort of a leader over a section of pastors he says, you need to go tell him what happened.

And I was resistant. I said, I’m not going because then I have to explain what happened to me, you know, with my former pastor. I’m not going to shed him any negative light. And he was very insistent. And I just refused to do it. In sheer desperation, I went to a professional therapist and to the presbyter. So I went to both men the same week.

And I had an outline of basically the whole story in like a 30-minute recap to give them context and just said, like, what do I do? What’s going on? The therapist helped tremendously because he pointed out basically off of gaslighting that had been happening because I was internalizing this. It’s like, you know, it’s in my fault. What did I do wrong? Did I touch the Lord’s anointed? Did I offend God? You know, did I, you know?

And all that internal stuff and the things my pastor told me that I would not succeed without him, you know, the direct sabotage. I’ll tell you the story if we have time here in a minute. But so the therapist says, you know, Aaron, like you were in an abusive relationship. And like seeing that, like acknowledging, that when I started to see, you know, this was a narcissist, this is a sociopath, that you were in a relationship with.

Now the results of that is what I’m dealing with. Like the light brought healing. The flipside was talking with the presbyter. He called my former pastor, and then it went above my presbyter’s head all the way to the superintendent, which is over the whole state. And basically after it was all said and done and investigated, I was found to be in right standing with the organization.

And the presbyter told the other pastor, he says, man, leave him alone. But I had committed to my pastor when we at left. He said, you know, sell your house, move out of the city, you cannot go to a church in any of the three parishes, which are counties in Louisiana. I gave us this list of things and I agreed to them.

So this presbyter, who became my pastor, is now currently my pastor. He told me, he says, man, you gave your word and now you’re bound by that and you feel this condemnation. He says, you need to call your former pastor and tell him very kindly, but respectfully, you're not going to do that. That you are going to honor him, but that's it.

And so I called him on the phone, and he answered, and I just told him, I said, look, I need to apologize. I gave you my word that I would, you know, not tell people what really happened that I would sell my house, that I would not go to a church. And I was like, I can’t do that. I’m going to live my life freely, and wherever God leads me, I’m going to go, but I’m not going to bash you.

Like in that really broke some things off of us. And then we got into a church year and a half. We were there, and then doors started to open. We started traveling and preaching. That was always my calling. I always knew I would travel and speak, sort of like what they call an evangelist in some circles. Doors open there.

And then the Lord had directed me, you know, quit your job, start writing books, start doing videos. And it just picked up and gradually getting involved again, reconnecting with healthy churches, healthy pastors. Over time, we found a sense of healing to where we can now talk about it without the hurt, without the pain, you know, without the anger and finding our footing again.

Defining Gaslighting Within the Church Context

Hey, man, you used the word gaslighting, right? And I think on one that Webster's most popular word in 2022, I think it was, it was one of the ones at the top of the list. But can you—I mean, I think people have a good understanding of what gaslighting is. I mean, it's a term that is very prevalent in culture.

But can you explain gaslighting specifically in the context of church? We had Saturday morning, my wife and I would meet for our marriage. We would talk, read a book, a marriage book, you know, his needs are needs, have some coffee. Well, my pastor instituted Saturday morning prayer. And we would go, but we started feeling like, man, we—this is our date time. This is our once a week.

We were both working full-time jobs, plus we were both working in the church, you know? And so I was like, man, I just—I can’t do this, pastor. I’m sorry. Like, I’m not going to have to go. That became a big fiasco. But when we were discussing it, you know, it was never like acknowledging or seeing that hey, like my marriage is important.

I’m dedicating 30 other hours. It was simply like put back on us like, well, you don’t have a heart for this house. You’re not being loyal to this house where God called you. And then we were also punished for that. We were told we were not allowed to travel and speak out in other churches. Any time a pastor invited us to speak, we had to tell them that we were busy in our local church.

So as your district, like you have to have the approval of your sending pastor, I would assume, to go out and speak. Is that kind of how they had that control, if you will? Yes. It’s sort of an unsaid thing within that church.

However, thankfully, about 50% of what we do in ministry is inside of that organization. We also, you know, we’re, we’re spread a lot wider than just that organization. But it was a personal thing. It was no leverage as far as like I had to do it. It was simply like I felt like honoring my pastor was honoring God. Like, you know.

So organization aside, whether it was in the organization or pastors outside of the organization, I always told them no because that’s what my pastor had told me to do. Even though it was punitive, like that was irrelevant.

The Risks of Confronting Abuse

Yeah, good context there for those who are listening to see your heart in the matter, right? It's like, here I am. I'm just trying to honor the man I got in front of me. And yeah, it's constantly taken advantage of or, you know, we see these gaslighting techniques that were being used against you and it's on.

So what would you say if we—let's just say there's somebody listening to this and they're seeing some of this in their church, you know, the advice, man. Do they run? Do they try to confront it? You know, how do—they're not at the point where they've been hurt yet, right? It hasn't gotten this bad. It hasn't mushroomed up.

But they're recognizing some of these signs and like, I feel like I could be entering into this and I kind of see it on the horizon. How do they deal with that? In that particular context, I would simply advise to just go somewhere as where it’s healthy.

Unless you feel like God has put you there to address it, you know, if—but that’s going to be foreign in few between. I think that’s going to be for ministry, lay ministers, maybe youth pastors, assistant pastors, guys like that who are in ministry and are seeing the problems and you’ve already committed to that church.

Now you’re seeing these red flags. In that case, like you might be there to influence it, and just up and packing and leaving right away might not be good. If you’re just visiting a church and you’re in the crowd, and you’re like looking around on Sunday morning and you see like, you know, seven out of the nine signs that I talk about in the video clear in the face, I’d be like, you know, I’m just going to go to a different church next time.

Navigating Healthy Relationships

Yeah. So for the lay minister, they've got to be able to—the youth pastor. If I’m on staff or I’m serving in a church in a leadership role, then my response is really, I need to see God and make sure that I’ve been brought here to influence this change, right, before I start going down that battle. But if I’m a member or I’m just, you know, I’m hitting the church up on Sunday, maybe volunteering every once in a while, it’s a battle they probably would advise against somebody fighting.

Yeah, Justin, it’s the Bible says engaging in a quarrel that’s not your own is like a passerby who grabs a dog by the ears. And I can—there’s a whole another caveat to spiritual abuse, which is the spirit of Jezebel. And I know that a lot of people have a very limited experience with Jezebel. They think it’s just a promiscuous woman, which is a very narrow mind of you.

Jezebel is not attached to a man or a woman. It is a spirit of control and manipulation that comes into somebody's heart whenever they have been abused and have not fully healed from that abuse, be it sexual or physical, whatever. And that spirit seeks the highest position in politics, in church, in business because it wants to control and transfer hurt and offense.

So a lot of times when we have spiritual abuse happening in a church, what is happening is that that lead pastor or whoever is in that position that is hurting people is tied to a spirit of Jezebel. That being said, the spirit of Jezebel is highly confrontational, very intimidating, very demeaning.

And so anytime you try to address it, even if it’s in the right spirit, even though you have legitimate facts, most likely you're going to get your head chopped off in the, you know, figuratively speaking, in the situation. And so if God has called you there, you know, if he's put a J- who anointing on you to confront this, you know, I don’t want to tell nobody, you know, not to move forward and charge into the battle.

You know, the Bible says if your brother has ought against you, go to him. And it says, you know, if, you know, if you have something against your brother, go to him. So either way, whoever is at fault, it doesn’t matter. It tells you to confront the person privately and then to go and bring other people.

But again, it also tells you in other contexts, you know, don’t just go engage in a battle unless the Lord is sending you into it. So chances are, it’s not going to be your fight. You probably need to just leave because it’s just going to get worse and blow up in your face.

Recovery and Healing after Church Hurt

And you can be gaslighted. And then along with you and tangle with that, the more confusion and disillusionment will result. But if you want to take that approach, I mean, you know, somebody needs to deal with it. Right. But we said under it, though, you know, those of us in the faith, I mean, I don't think we could ever imagine— I used to share this with addicts, people that were struggling with addiction all the time. Nobody woke up one day and said, I'm just going to become an addict overnight.

There was this progression of things that happened. And I think sometimes, you know, in the context of church, we could sit under this and continue to be chipped away at for years. Wow. And then the mindset behind that as we're being chipped away, you know, then we end up in a position where I'm just done with the church.

But nobody that’s serving God, you know, faithfully thinks that they’re going to be in a position where they eventually could be hurt and abused so much that they just walk away from their faith entirely. And so I think it's good advice, you know, like that you just gave: not my battle to fight.

Like I’ve, you know, there may be a scenario in a hill that the Lord calls me to die on, but when it comes to the value of church relationship and church family, and you know, I need to be in a healthy place because I'm called to serve that church. But then also that place is called to help my family grow and mature.

And if I’m constantly fighting these battles and being chipped away at that, you know, it’s not—that’s certainly not healthy for the individual that’s in it. Absolutely.

A Path Forward for Those Wounded

Yeah, it’s a 99.9% of people that apply to you. Like there was one J who in Scripture who guided you. That’s it. You know, I grew up in a costume. They threw the J—they threw the Jezebel term around everywhere. You know, anybody that disagreed was a Jezebel spirit.

Yeah, and that—because it takes away from the reality of what that spirit is. Yeah, that’s another—it’s a whole other conversation.

Yeah, so Aaron, you’re back. You’re engaged in the ministry again, man. The Lord’s using your travel and share stuff on the internet. Like, and I know you did a video on three ways to serve God after. And I’m going to link this whole series to Aaron down in the description. But I mean, what did that look like, the journey back, right?

What would you—let’s say there’s somebody listening that’s recovering from church hurt, and now it’s like, okay, I think I’m ready to be vulnerable again, and I’m ready to engage in the ministry. You know, what did that look like for you, and what might that look like for somebody else?

Bro, the revelation of like, okay, it’s okay to talk about this and to call it for what it actually is was the number one step. Because I was so afraid to say it. Like I felt like if I talk about church hurt, I'm the problem. If I say that my pastor abused me, then it’s me who was the one who caused all this.

And so you like to—you have to reveal in order to heal. Like, what did I go through? You have to acknowledge this. And that's key. I know it’s so simple, but like in my case, man, I sat for too long not naming it. Once you’re ready, like you asked, you know, take that.

How do you take that stuff? You sort of got to challenge yourself. You have to give yourself time. You just can’t give yourself forever. I actually was sitting at the table and had some people who were hurt in church and there was another minister at the table. The person says to the hurt person, you just get involved. I don’t understand. Like just jump in, you know, and I thought to myself, you know, that’s like telling someone with a broken leg, you know, just start jogging again.

If you jog, like the leg will be okay. That's true, but it’s not true right now. But the person cannot sit and heal with their leg propped up for the rest of their life. Like there's a timing to it. But at some point, you have to reset that bone. You have to get back up and want to do some physical therapy.

And it’s not going to be comfortable. What happened to us is not our fault, but healing from it is our responsibility. That’s good.

So yeah, taking that leap of saying, I am going to trust again. I am going to, you know, connect with another church. I am going to reengage. Those are some very basic, like simple, but not easy steps to take yet necessary. And it’s okay for the person, right, to put some boundaries in place, right, to protect themselves.

Like sometimes, like I’m just going to dive all in, you know, I don’t know how to swim. But I’m in the pool when I ain't got a life vest on, you know, in eight foot. My kids do that all the time. They try to—they want to run and jump in the eight-foot section of the pool, especially the younger ones. And it’s like, hold on, you know, hold up a little bit. I don’t want to have to jump and save you, you know, and you can’t swim.

And so it’s okay for them to put that life vest on. Have a little bit of boundaries. Do you have any insight into that? What type of boundaries, you know, that type of person would put in place?

So that type of person—sorry, that was the wrong term to use. Somebody has been hurt by church, that sounded terrible. Yeah. Boundaries or—or healthy, any healthy person will have boundaries. Jesus had boundaries. You know, it's kind and it's Christ-like to be kind to people and to answer their questions and things like that.

But Jesus would say like, you know, they’re trying to trip him up. And he’s like, you know—they’re saying, well, tell me, you know, how you do this or what? And he says, I’ll tell you what, you tell me blah, blah, blah. And they're like, oh, we don't know. He’s like, well, I’m not telling you either.

I’m not going to play those games. I’m not going to allow you to corner me. And that’s a very small example. But Paul also was, you know, very firm in his identity and would not let people just say anything about him without, you know, him speaking up.

I did read Safe People, and I read Boundaries, both by the same author, Cloud and Townsend. And I hired people. Yeah. Oh, man. Safe People’s fantastic, and it’s specifically even more so than Boundaries for people who are dealing with church hurt because it shows you how to deal with a narcissist or a sociopath or somebody particularly who is very unsafe, which would definitely fit the qualifications.

But the biggest thing we can talk about here with boundaries, I’ll say, is to just like understand that having boundaries is good. It’s Christ-like, it’s healthy. That is the biggest misconception. It’s like if I said boundaries like that I’m being mean or I’m being un-Christian, that is the furthest thing from the truth.

Yeah. Boundaries are absolutely essential. The reason we got hurt in the first place is because we did not have healthy boundaries in place. Right. As far as our responsibility, again, it’s not our fault. And I’m not—but, you know, however, as far as our responsibility—had we had healthy boundaries in place, we would have been protected.

Healing Beyond the Hurt

Right. And so a caveat to what you go through in church hurt is to learn that, okay, I need to put up boundaries. Yeah. Imagine that’s got to be so hard, man. Like when you’re looking at a leader and we use these terms narcissist and sociopath and like out of the people that are supposed to be our shepherds. Like in that, I can’t even imagine.

That’s a hard dichotomy, like to swallow that, you know, when I see the way—I mean, Jesus was direct, but man, he loved, you know. And when I think of Jesus as the shepherd, you know, and the pastor supposed to be that shepherd for me, not my Jesus, but my shepherd, right?

And then I get entangled with this person who’s narcissistic and has all these tendencies. I mean, that's just really got to wreck the brain and the heart a little bit, you know, to have that relationship be so perverted, if you will, from what it’s supposed to be.

Absolutely, bro. Yeah. Yeah, it’s devastating, man.

The Aftermath of Church Hurt

Yeah. Well, I appreciate you speaking up and talking about it. I think that, you know, as I brought out the intro a lot of times, we think church hurt, and we go to this extreme and we think about some of these huge, you know, scandals that have happened in the church publicly and all the people that have been hurt by those things.

But really, Aaron, what I’m getting from you is that this church hurt thing is something that happens at a much more micro level across the country. It’s not always these huge scandals. But it’s kind of the day-to-day on kind of entanglement with spiritually abusive leaders. Would that be a fair assessment?

I think it says where selfish ambition exists, every evil. Yep. In James 3:16, it says, you know, where there’s selfish ambition, you will find every kind of evil. Right? And so going back to what we expect, we expect that a shepherd, that a pastor would be loving and selfless and helpful, and like shepherding people.

But when they're selfish ambition, like it’s somebody who is leading a church that has not dealt with that—that selfish arena in their lives, that is like in it for my name. Like the Bible says every kind of evil exists. So manipulation, control, fear, confusion, perversion—all of these things are there. That’s a guarantee from the word.

Right. And so yeah, the big things are going to catch the media attention. But you know, unfortunately, there’s no—like you don’t have to literally appear before God and say, God, okay, I feel called to pastor church, should I pastor a church? And He give you a sample of approval.

Like it’s the beauty of being in a Christian nation is that in each oblo and in the street call, I can start a church. Right?

Considering the Future

So, you know, hey, you know, did God endorse that pastor? I mean, I don’t know, but I think even good men can get crossed. I mean, those solemn and started out well, and then you got crossed up, you know, I just—man, if the heart is not dealt with, and the person goes high in ministry, then a lot of other people can get broken in the process.

Yeah, if you could hop in a DeLorean—I got my DeLorean over here, my time machine—and go back to the beginning of all this. And there’s one thing that you could have done different, you know, and I know, I know you didn’t cause the abuse, right? And so we’re, you know, that’s not my intent in the question.

But if there was one thing that you could have done different, you know, either on that topic of boundaries or whatever, you know, what would have been back when all this was unfolding? So, I was always sort of drinking the Kool-Aid, if you will. And really, what changed is that I got married.

And my wife came in as she—she was an outsider, so she had a very objective viewpoint. She voiced some concerns immediately. And immediately when my pastor realized that my wife was seeing through the facade, he turned against her.

And he was trying to stop her influence. But the way he did that was he brought me into his confidence against my wife. And I was a newly married man who really believed deep in my heart that honoring and doing whatever my pastor told me to do was to just—to like, that was honoring God.

And so whatever he told me, even negatively about my wife, I would tell her as well. And so I was being my wife verbally, like, you know, you got to change, you got to get your heart right, like, alongside of this abusive pastor. And like, now looking back, I am, as a man, as a Christian, I am embarrassed. I feel like I was like, like, I hurt my wife.

I did it under like complete, like just not knowing. But I just, I’m embarrassed. I don’t know how to say it, bro. But like, I was a horrible husband in that moment in that night. And I did not stand up to this man. And it’s like, like, I now see that, like, my marriage, that is the most important relationship, and nobody’s allowed to come between that, you know, and I allow my ignorance.

And so I feel it, Vaughn, I can hear it in my voice, bro. But like, if I could change something, I would go back and instead of siding with my pastor, I would definitely side with my wife and tell my pastor, like, you would never be allowed to speak about my wife like that to me. You can pass her with your friends, but you’re not going to pass her to me.

Conclusion and Next Steps

That’s good. Thank you for sharing that. I know that’s—yeah, I know that we can’t change the past, but hearing those types of stories, man, and those examples are helpful for those who may find themselves in the middle of it, you know, and trying to decide, okay, what do I do now? You know, what do I do from this point on?

And, man, I just want to speak real quick to that before we wrap up. But, you know, that whole thing about the pastor that—that thing that keeps resonating to me through this whole conversation is that pastor bringing that person into their confidence. And it’s like, we’re—we’re spiritual leaders, and, you know, we pastor, but we’re not, or, you know, wonder how many therapists do you hear talking to their other clients about their clients, right? There should be a level of confidence reality that a pastor is required to keep.

You know, somebody comes to me for pastoral counseling, you know, I have—that's between me and that person. But, man, that sign—I never even thought about it that way of that person having those side conversations. Like, well, this is a turning client privilege, if you will, you know, it’s just between us. But like, no, the pastor has to guard against that.

And Aaron, before we wrap up, my encouragement is any spiritual leaders that may be watching, if you’ve heard some of these examples, you know, that you’re hearing this, like, like, first and foremost, like, listen, I’m a sinful human as a leader in a pastor.

And I need people in my life speaking to me to make sure that I’m guarding against becoming, you know, one of these leaders that hurts people. And that's the hard conversation to have, right? To understand that all of us in the flesh, if we’re not pursuing the Lord’s ambition, we’re susceptible to becoming these people that hurt. No, no pastor sets out to do that either, not to excuse ones who are doing it, but for the spiritual leaders out there, man, like, you’ve got to guard yourself, you know?

We sometimes that, you know, the scripture talks about a man does what’s right in his own eyes, you know, but the Lord establishes the steps. And so many times we begin to make decisions that are—this is right in my eyes. This is the right thing to do. And then on the other end of that, there are people.

Well, I appreciate it, man. Aaron, would you take a second? And I mean, I know some of this stuff wasn’t easy to share. And I appreciate you opening up and sharing your heart, not just with us here, but with just, you know, out there on the internet in general, man, dropping this stuff out there.

And I know you’re adding value when you go and you preach a different place as, man, I could hear your heart for the Lord and your heart for Jesus and people and everything that you do, man. How can people find you and connect with you if they want to learn more?

Yeah, I hang out on YouTube mostly, and I'm on Instagram as well, but it’s pretty simple. My name's Aaron like spelled like the brother of Moses. Jay for James, like the brother of Jesus, and Dagle, like the brother of Lauren Dagle. Unfortunately, I'm not as sibling to any of the three. Right. Aaron Dagle. My books are on Amazon.

My videos are on YouTube, and I'm on Instagram sometimes. Hey, thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can grab another one here. Also, Aaron's playlist on church hurt is here. And please, don't forget to hit like and subscribe so that we can get these conversations and stories out to more people.