When God's People Let You Down: How to Rise Above Hurts That Often Occur Within the Church

In the wake of rejection, abuse, gossip or betrayal, "Forgive and forget" or "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven" doesn't make the hurt go away.

No one expects the church to be perfect. But we do think that God's family should treat us with more kindness and compassion than the rest of the world does. Because our hopes for the church are great, the disappointment we feel when the church fails to live up to its promise is devastating.

Wounds caused by strangers are painful enough. Injuries inflicted by people we count as friends are crushing. Yet the wounds we receive at the hands of fellow Christians cause a wasting sickness of the soul. Left unchecked and unhealed, they affect how we view ourselves, how we relate to other Christians even how we relate to God.

Drawing from the volumes of letters he and co-author David Johnson received in response to their book The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, Jeff VanVonderen looks at:

why hurts in the church are so debilitating.

what a welcoming, healing church should look like.

how anyone who feels let down by God's people can move past the pain and establish biblical relationships in a healthy church.

Has a fellow Christian let you down? You can rise above the disappointment.

As author Jeff VanVonderen was growing up in a small farming community in northeastern Wisconsin, he learned well the lessons of how to "make it" in his family, in his community, and in his church.

He became president of his church youth group. He ministered in a nearby nursing home. He memorized Scripture. He had perfect attendance in Sunday School. He worked hard at being "the best, most positive person I could be."

But no matter how much he achieved, inwardly he couldn't shake the sense that God was disappointed in him. By his early 20's, his misdirected desire to please people led him to a full-blown addiction to drugs and alcohol, which resulted in physical, social, and spiritual burnout.

But after facing his deep-down sense of defectiveness, which he now identifies as a sense of shame, he came to realize that there is a significant difference between shame and guilt.

Defining shame as "the belief or mindset that something is wrong with you," VanVonderen has written Tired of Trying to Measure Up out of the depth of his own experience in breaking free from the demands, expectations, and intimidations of well-meaning people. The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, co-authored with David Johnson, is written to show how to recognize and escape spiritual manipulation and false spiritual authority within the church. Jeff has also written Good News for the Chemically Dependant (and Those Who Love Them). His book, Families Where Grace Is in Place, shows how to build a graceful marriage and family without legalism or manipulation.

Jeff VanVonderen, who is pastor of counseling at Church of the Open Door in a northwestern suburb of Minneapolis, has earned the M.Div. degree from Bethel Theological Seminary, and is a licensed chemical dependency counselor. He has served on the staffs of several churches and was founder and director of Passages Counseling Center.

Jeff, his wife Holly, and their four daughters make their home in Minnesota.

size : 5.3 x 8.2