How to Reframe and Recover From an Abusive Sermon [273]

Flying Free

Natalie Hoffman

Emotional, Spiritual, Narcissism, Self-improvement, Marriage, Abuse, Religion & Spirituality, Christian, Divorce, Christianity, Education

5.0 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2024

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Once upon a time, I dared to write a letter to the pastor of a church I was attending at the time (after having been excommunicated from another church for telling the truth about my life, requesting help, and then acquiring a divorce to protect myself). In my letter, I wrote that his sermon that morning did not take into account abuse survivors' experiences—survivors who were probably sitting in the pews that morning confused and scared about what he was preaching at them. I wanted him to hear his own words from a different perspective—a survivor’s perspective. Surely this letter wouldn’t fall on deaf ears. He was a shepherd representing Jesus, right? He loved his flock and would want to care for their hearts, right?

Wrong.

Let me read you the letter I sent him, and then let me read you his letter back. It may shock you that a “shepherd” would respond this way. It shocked me then, too, but it doesn’t shock me anymore. I’ll tell you why in today’s episode.

Read the show notes and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources:

My newest book, All the Scary Little Gods, is a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming.
Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote another book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.
Flying Free is my online membership program designed for Christian women in emotionally abusive marriages. Whether you want to stay well in your marriage or leave, we want to equip and support you through this program.
Flying Higher is my online membership program for divorced Christian women. Come rebuild your life after divorce with women just like you!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Natalie Hoffman of Flying Free Now.com and you're listening to the
0:09.3	Flying Free Podcast, a support resource for women of faith, looking for hope and healing from hidden
0:16.4	emotional and spiritual abuse. Welcome to episode 273 of the Flying Free Podcast.
0:27.0	Six years ago at the time of this recording, I attended a large Baptist church in my area and I was shocked by what I heard
0:36.7	in the sermon that morning. Shocked enough that I took good notes and then I wrote a
0:41.8	letter to the pastor in his team and then I wrote a letter to the pastor in his team and then I posted that
0:45.5	letter on my website and now I'm going to share that letter with you because it is
0:50.1	still as relevant today as it was back then and my is that many of you have heard similar messages preached from similar
0:57.7	messages preached from similar pulpit and maybe you sat in the pew feeling oppressed and gross but you didn't know why.
1:08.0	And you didn't know what you could do about it anyway.
1:11.0	Well I hope that this letter will help you see why a sermon like this
1:15.9	would have made you feel so terrible. So here's my letter. I came to worship within your walls this morning. I came to worship and I
1:27.2	left with 100 other women every single one bleeding. I began my worship journey within the walls of another smaller church when I was seven years old.
1:39.3	I fell in love with Jesus that day. I wanted to be a missionary. I wanted to be a pastor's wife. I was
1:46.4	aware that girls couldn't be pastors. I wanted to be like Corey Tenboom and Elizabeth
1:51.7	Elliot and Anne Kimel my heroes. I wanted to share
1:55.6	Jesus with everyone I knew. I wanted to live and breathe and die for him. I loved
2:01.0	him as much as a girl possibly could.
2:03.0	By the way, if you want to hear my story, I'm just going to take a break from the letter here and just say,
2:08.0	at the time that I wrote this letter I had not written my story yet, but I have now and I wrote a memoir called All the Scary Little Gods.
2:16.7	You can get it on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and audible formats.
2:22.8	In the audible I read it and my little parts, help me out.
	...

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