I saw it for the first time in a meeting I called and led. No. Actually: I realized then what I had been seeing for years. It broke my heart. I’ve tried to tell the story twice before. Both times, I described what happened in that meeting, but did not include any backstory. Now it’s time to write the whole story. Bring honor to your name, holy Lord.
In the middle of that dark-valley time, I often found myself alone with God, crying aloud and writing passionately in my journal. During that time too, I came to identify with David, the shepherd-poet-warrior-king, in ways I had not before. For David was also ostracized by people he trusted. And he cried out in distress - and in faith.
No longer wounded, outcast, lonely, afraid - your new name shall be Confidence, Joyfulness, Overcoming one, Faithfulness, Friend of God, One who seeks My face.
Why, in midlife, did I suddenly find my boundaries battered and my adulthood denied? The answer hinged on the skewed view of womanhood in my church culture.
Frustrated, exhausted, I realized: I would never count as an adult in my church system. Free at last, I’m embracing the adulthood God works in his own
What if the ways the Southern Baptist Convention has handled clergy sexual abuse in its midst reflect the ways a narcissistic abuser handles getting caught out?
Cliques are by nature, exclusive. Wherever they occur in the church landscape, they fragment the church. They prevent the people of God from becoming one.
When the "threat alarm" goes off in an abusive church system, the response is orchestrated and brutal. But it's church: Appearances must be kept up. People loyal to the system confuse while pretending to clarify, cover-up while pretending to address, attack while seeming to answer, put-down while pretending to help.
Behind the scenes at Living Proof Live, I'd found a celebrity culture - not the "one anothering" of the church of the living God. So with all my heart, I cried out for change.
This is what happened when I served as onsite leader for a Beth Moore Living Proof Live event. It’s a peek into celebrity culture, the exploitation and manipulation of women and abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention.