On the night of May 16th, London, Kentucky experienced an EF4 tornado with winds of 170 mph. Nineteen people were killed. The cleanup is massive. Homes were leveled. London is about 2 1/2 hours from us and the weather was forecasted to be bad in our area so I watched the news coverage live as it happened. This could have been our neighborhood that night. Somehow, our area was spared.
God has often used creation and things in nature to speak to me about situations or trials I’m walking through. I have been in the process of detangling from an organization I have been part of for my entire adult life due to leadership mishandling of clergy sexual abuse/misconduct and the systematic cover-up, deflection, and lies for over 20 years. It has been incredibly painful, triggering because of my own story (you can read that HERE and HERE), and disillusioning to watch people I once respected refuse to listen with eyes to see and ears to hear.
This situation has made it difficult for me to cross the threshold of a church. When I do, my body instantly feels unsafe. Knowing that there are people in pastoral positions who do not believe survivors when they come forward is the trigger. How do I know which ones will or won’t? So much of my own story was framed by the way the Church spoke about this issue of sexual abuse. It took me twenty years to fully understand that what happened to me was rape because I blamed myself. I was an equal participant in that “sin.” I was equally at fault for various reasons. I believed this because of the theology coming from the pulpit. I knew I couldn’t talk to anyone in the church about it at the time. And it still wouldn’t go over well today in many churches. Hence, the physical response of anxiety when I walk into a church.
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As a side note, if you are in ministry and you doubt a survivor for any of the following reasons:
- They waited years before coming forward
- Others are telling their story
- They have an agenda against this favored minister
- They are offended or have unforgiveness
- They are on a witch hunt
- They need inner healing
I implore you to get some training and education in this area. You have massively missed the mark and caused people to stay away from churches. With the amount of public discourse in this area and the amount of resources available, there is no excuse. You are accountable for choosing not to inform yourself for the betterment of the lives you serve in your community.
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As I watch the news footage on the aftermath of the London tornado, I am baffled by the physics. I don’t understand the physics of how a tornado can cause major damage to a home, ripping apart the roof and structure of a home, but leave a toaster sitting on a kitchen counter, or a bathrobe hanging on a door hook, scenes I saw on the news in the following days since the storm. I don’t understand how one house can be stripped clean off its foundation, and the house next door only has a few missing shingles. This is the reality in some London neighborhoods. You can see it in these pictures:
As I have been processing all that is happening within the community I was part of, the disillusionment with the ministry machine, the lack of trauma-informed anything in many church spaces, and the tension of holding the good experiences with the bad, this tornado damage spoke to me.
The tornado is the ministry machine. It’s the ministers and people who prop them up that roar through the lives of people like a freight train. Onward, they shout! The Gospel at any cost, they loudly proclaim as they “lead the charge.” All the while, never looking back to see the trail of destruction, the ground scarring, and shattered lives left in their wake. While some people’s lives are completely destroyed, others who went through the same experience were untouched. The ministry machine often leaves various levels of damage. While my life was not completely destroyed by it like others were, I was definitely hit with some debris. I have some scars from those hits. I’m still healing from wounds I didn’t know existed—internal bleeding, if you will.
Imagine for a moment that you are in this situation. Your neighbor’s home was completely destroyed, but your house was left untouched. Would you help your neighbor pick up the pieces? Or would you deny their reality simply because it wasn’t your own? The answer is obvious, right? I don’t know anyone who would not help their neighbor pick up the pieces, or deny that their home wasn’t destroyed just because their experience with the same tornado was different.
So why, then, do we do this in the church? Someone comes forward with their broken experience, and we deny their reality because it wasn’t our own. The ministry machine and the minister become the only authoritative voice in this space. Why? Because they are bigger? They have EF4 level strength, a mile wide in size? The shattered homes and people are so small. Their voices pale in comparison to the roar of the ministry machine.
As I watch how communities rally around each other, communities helping pay for unexpected funerals of neighbors lost tragically in the storm, the roar of chainsaws echoing as debris is cleared away, I am reminded that in the aftermath of a storm we see the true strength of a people who have been through the unimaginable. The community gets stronger as they rally together to pick up the pieces. It’s beauty for ashes. A collective voice gets stronger and louder with unity. I believe that is what we are seeing.
Cleaning up from a tornado or other natural disaster isn’t pretty. There are tears, anger, survivor’s guilt, anguish, and lots of questions. There is also gratitude, perspective shifts, and new bonds forged throughout the process. Beauty for ashes. It’s not agendas, vendettas, accusers, offense, or unforgiveness. It’s the process of getting healthy and whole again. It’s making things right again and rebuilding an even stronger community. It’s hard. It’s painful. But it’s necessary and it’s time.
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