EDITORIAL
Transformation | Derwin Gray
Dear pastors and ministry leaders, it’s time to heal. You’ve waited long enough. So many of us in ministry are the walking wounded. Eventually our wounds will make us toxic, and we will start to bleed and hurt those we love, lead and serve. We all have soul wounds. Maybe yours is the childhood trauma of your parents’ divorce, or being sexual abused by your babysitter, or maybe you had to parent your parents as substance abuse robbed you of your childhood.
Often, ministry is a good place to hide from the healing we need because we busy ourselves trying to help others in hopes we do have think about our own trauma. This is the lie we believe: Ministry for Jesus can heal us; when the truth is that only Jesus’ ministry of grace to us can heal us.
Wouldn’t it be tragic to be used by the Holy Spirit to heal others yet remain deeply hurt? If we have ministry “success,” we can hide our wounds better than most—for a while anyway. But eventually, our injuries will injure others. I had an older pastor tell me that most pastoral and ministry moral failings can be traced back to an unhealed wound that was left untreated. You are going to try and find healing somewhere. If it’s not in Jesus, the devil will destroy you and your family and your ministry. Our lives are not in isolation. If we blow up, shrapnel hits the people in our sphere of influence.
The world of a pastor is one of unrealistic expectations, high criticism and low-to-no support system. That is a volatile formula. Studies have shown that high stress increases the risk of PTSD, anxiety, depression and mood and sleep disturbances.
I want to share with you how for the past 20 years I have learned to heal by using the following acronym:
Be Honest About What Happened.
I had to be honest about what happened to me. Like me, you too have experienced trauma. If we are not honest about our pain, self-loathing will lead to ugly behaviors. In my journey toward healing, Jesus’ words, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matt. 5:4) are a healing balm. As I mourn my soul wounds, I discover the comforting grace of a God who suffered with me and who leads me out of the valley of the shadow of death, and chases me with mercy and goodness.
Expect Turbulence.
From ages 42–46, I experienced a dark night of the soul. The Holy Spirit gave me the courage to revisit some traumatic parts of my childhood. As I bore my soul to my wife, the elders at Transformation Church, my mentors and a therapist, I experienced the pain of healing, and it was so worth it. The powers of darkness want you to bury yourself in your work, to hide behind your gifting, to live a fragmented, inauthentic life. Jesus will take the things that were meant to break you and use to them remake you in his image.
Accept What Happened to You.
You were created for the shepherd’s green pastures of grace and to drink from his living waters of mercy. The sooner you accept what happened to you, the sooner you can accept what Christ has done for you. Those who are “poor in spirit” are those who accept that they have been harmed. Being poor in spirit means you’ve come to a place where you are free to cry out, Jesus, I can’t fight anymore. Will you fight for me? And he says yes. Jesus, I can’t hide anymore. Can I hide in you? And he says yes. Jesus, I have no more strength. Can I have yours? And he says yes.
By faith, accept that what Jesus has done for you is greater than what was done to you.
Live From the Love of Jesus.
Ministry leaders with unhealed hurts will seesaw between isolation and people pleasing. Isolation is seen as protection from being hurt again. But, instead of protection and healing, our wounds become infected and begin to inflect others.
People pleasing is a spiritual opiate that creates leaders with poor boundaries and a lack of moral clarity. People pleasers try to please everyone, this in turn deforms them into manipulators and liars. People pleasers try to rescue everyone but lose themselves instead. People pleasers are deflated by criticism and inflated by praise.
A healthy leader understands that they can’t please everyone and will not be liked by everyone. Healthy leaders embrace their union life in Christ and live from the safety of God’s love in Christ, not for the love of people. Ministry leader, in Christ, you are the Father’s beloved, adopted child, whom he will never leave, nor forsake. You are his, and nothing can snatch you from the Son’s loving, bloody nail-pierced hands of grace.
It’s time to heal. Jesus is your healer. Let him do it. We are counting on you.
“He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed” (Isa. 53:5).