Help! Love, MOM

I will tell anybody anyday: my happy places are:

• My house, ie being with my family,
• School – I love the school community; the dillybutt things kids AND ADULTS do in a learning community can be by turns endearing, encouraging and, honestly, enraging and is unique to this space;
• Nature – I love, love, love being outside at the beach, in a park, riverside, the forest.
• Church.

That church is last on the list in no way means that it is least in my affections.

The other day in prayer I was overcome by love for the house of God especially as it is realized in the local church I attend and for our local congregation.

I have at other times prayed for the persecuted church, the local congregations where I know the pastor or where family or friends of mine attend as well as those churches where the pastor is well known.

However, my “hurt” places are also my house/family, school and the church. I intimately and personally know that “church hurt,” is a genuine, painful and potentially faith-wrecking circumstance.

What is “church hurt?”

According to author Mary Demuth from Our Daily Bread Ministries, church hurt is the experience of a relational, theological, emotional, communal or spiritual injury in a church or ministry setting.

DeMuth says that it can involve leaders, pastors, laypeople, or friendships within the environment and sometimes it involves spiritual abuse, but not always.

She goes on to explain that,

“Church hurt is the aftermath of something painful you experienced in a church or ministry context, which can range from a damaging interaction in a small group to a publicized scandal about a church leader.”

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill

Thoughts about church hurt made me reflect on my family’s MANY experiences in that arena.

It also caused me to think of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast.

Thousands of us listened, me included, because in doing so I felt seen and heard, and so very sad; not realizing until the series how entrenched abuse, and, therefore, hurt seems to be in the American church.

However, because of the miracle of God’s great love and His outpouring of grace and mercy on me and my family — our faith is a miracle– I still love the LORD, His house and His people.

How about you? What or where are your “happy places?”

Despite what you may have suffered there, I hope that the house of God or the church is one of those.

Here are 12 scriptures that speak to love for the house of God/church.

2 Samuel 7:1-3 is often overlooked but is deeply telling — David is troubled that he lives in luxury while the ark of God sits under curtains. That discomfort is love in action.

1 Chronicles 29:3 NIV Besides, in my devotion to the temple of my God I now give my personal treasures of gold and silver for the temple of my God, over and above everything I have provided for this holy temple.

This is King David speaking of his large personal gift for the building of God’s house

Nehemiah 10:39 ESV  For the people of Israel and the sons of Levi shall bring the contribution of grain, wine, and oil to the chambers, where the vessels of the sanctuary are, as well as the priests who minister, and the gatekeepers and the singers. We will not neglect the house of our God.”

Psalm 23:6 NKJV Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  

The ultimate counter-cultural soul longs is to dwell in God’s house eternally.

Psalm 26:8 NIV Lord, I love the house where you live, the place where your glory dwells.

The psalmist declares his love for the place of God’s glory which also happens to be His house. In this case, properly the Temple.

Psalm 27:4 NKJV One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.

The psalmist has a strong desire to live in God’s presence.

Psalm 69:9 ESV For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.

This scripture is quoted in John 2:15 – 17 proving that zeal for God’s house is not an Old Testament relic, but, is rather, the very character of the Son of God.

Haggai 1:8 ESV Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord.

This comes from God’s own rebuke of a people who had let the temple lie in ruins while building their own homes — making the case that neglecting God’s house is a spiritual symptom, not merely a practical failure.

John 2:15-17 ESV And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” (from Psalm 69:9)

1 Corinthians 3:16–17  ESV Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Strong words reveal how seriously God regards love and care for His church.

Hebrews 10:21–25 ESV “Not giving up meeting together” attending church is not optional fellowship — it is an act of love for what God has built.

Revelation 3:12 ESV The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.

It’s hard to imagine. The one who overcomes does so through the strength and grace of God. Yet his (or her) reward for God’s to triumph through them is to be made a pillar, whatever that means, in God’s temple. I take it that pillar is a poetic reference to a permanent place in God’s house.

Love for God’s house finds its ultimate reward in dwelling there forever.

Hallelujah!

Kimberly

What about you, what or where are your “happy places?”

What, if anything, has been your “church hurt” experienced?