When the Church Hurts—And No One Talks About It

Lately, I’ve been learning that sharing the real, unpolished parts of my journey—while I’m still in them—feels risky, especially when it involves spaces I love. Vulnerability is harder when it challenges the picture I’ve painted of myself as strong, resilient, and “already through it.” But sometimes, telling the truth in the middle of the process is the only way to honor what God is teaching me. This is one of those times.

“Church hurt” is a phrase I never really used to describe my feelings toward the church. Although I have attended church since I was a small child and was baptized as an early teen, the phrase never felt like it explained my disposition toward church.

Maybe it’s because, up until recently, I had never been very involved in the church. I wasn’t the child who spent all Sunday in services. If we attended, it was usually just one service. I grew up going to Vacation Bible School and Bible study, but I don’t feel like I spent an overwhelming amount of time in church as a child. While this doesn’t mean I never experienced things that were hard to digest in a church setting, my involvement was never deep enough to feel hurt—until it was.

In law school, I started serving in the children’s ministry at my church at the time (before moving to LA). From there, I also led a small group that met over food in the Fondren Arts District of Jackson, Mississippi. Even then, my involvement was still limited, and I was never so deep in the church that I felt truly wounded by it—until I stepped into a place where I was more invested.

Most recently, I began serving in my current church. I felt like I was in the place God had called me to be—physically and spiritually—but I experienced more than my fair share of resistance, gaslighting, and politicking. In some moments, it felt less like ministry and more like an industry—complete with the same maneuvering, gatekeeping, and unspoken hierarchies I’ve seen in my own professional field. While I took some of those situations as opportunities for personal growth, others were downright disturbing.

I often feel like I have a hard time expressing myself in this space because when I do, I am met with toxic positivity. While I understand the need to extend grace to brothers and sisters alike, I sometimes feel the institution and organization of the church can overshadow the body of the church.

Here’s a truth I know: the building or institution of the church itself cannot hurt people. But the body of the church—the people who make it up—can. And if we’re not careful, we can reframe situations in a way that makes people second-guess their own experiences, when in reality, some things do need to be addressed.

It’s like choosing to focus only on the positives while a pile of negatives quietly grows. Ironically, I believe the body is actually the place to address issues—when done in an orderly way. (It’s in the Bible. Read the whole thing, lol.)

For me, what helps is remembering that I am imperfect, and I am there. If I’m there, imperfect, why would I expect not to encounter other imperfect people who also need to grow? The danger comes when toxic behaviors within the body are left unchecked. And I don’t believe many institutions do a good job of addressing harmful behavior that can hurt members of the body.

There is no one-size-fits-all explanation for the ways people have been hurt in churches that should be safe spaces. History shows us that the church has, at times, been a place of deep pain and turmoil. When there’s an overwhelming need to protect the institution of the church, it can leave the body—the people—vulnerable. And in some ways, this mirrors the “industry-like” dynamics I mentioned earlier: systems and structures designed to protect the organization can unintentionally prioritize the institution over the people, leaving real harm unaddressed. Often, that leads people to attribute the harm they’ve experienced in the church to God Himself.

Personally, my hurt hasn’t been physical but emotional—and I’ve had to check myself in my emotions often, because they can sometimes be misleading. I don’t always feel safe expressing genuine concerns within the body of the church, and that’s confusing, because this same church has also been a place where I’ve grown and felt supported through some of my hardest seasons. Yet, I can’t ignore that in the same space, I’ve begun to second-guess myself. People—sometimes with good intentions—have tried to reframe situations that happened to me personally in an effort to look at them more “positively.” I’ve also had people dismiss concerns as unimportant, and as someone still learning the lay of the land, it has sometimes made me question myself. In the same vein, I’ve seen people overlook harmful acts and bad attitudes of leaders in this space and simply say, “That’s just how they are.” While I understand the need to think the highest thought concerning my neighbor, I also know that some of the experiences I’ve had were intentional, hurtful, dismissive, and showed a lack of care and consideration.

I’m not writing this to harshly criticize my church. I’m writing to shed light on the fact that in the modern church, we need to consider more carefully how the body can cause harm, and how the drive to protect the institution over individuals has created imbalance—sometimes mirroring the very “industry-like” politicking and hierarchy that can make people feel small or silenced.

This post is for anyone who has ever felt hurt in a place they believed should have been a covering and a refuge. You are seen. You are fully loved. The actions of individuals pale in comparison to the love of the True and Living God. I pray that you remain open to love again—but I also acknowledge that whatever happened to you sucks—and it’s okay to admit that you have been hurt and are still navigating the effects of that hurt.

@juss.shayla (IG) / thebakinglawyer (tiktok)