When the church becomes your "ex"

A week ago I was down.

REALLY down.

I mean devastatingly, how-will-I-make-it-through-the day, eyeing up the prescription meds and sharp knives depressed.  But why?
 
In order to continue, you probably need to know that I and my husband poured ten of the best years of our lives into building a ministry at a local church only to have a new pastor come in and fire us. We lost our support group and everything we had built for ten years on a Monday morning almost three years ago.  My husband was the pastor of worship as well as one of the elders, and preached there on a regular basis, I was a close to full time volunteer worship leader/arts director/programming person/whatever-other-crisis-comes-up person,  This church was our life, we thought we would be there forever.  But this blog is NOT about that church.  This is about how to survive when you either need to leave, or get kicked out of, an entity that has become your main support system. 
     For those who think I am overdramatizing, it is clear you have NOT been through this, so move along to some cute blog about making pumpkin soup out of used Jack-O-Lanterns. For those of you who know EXACTLY the kind of loss I am talking about, and have been rejected to the point where you're looking for high bridges to jump from, press on; I have walked through this valley and think I may have hit upon something helpful....
        Have any of you ever made the connection between the loss of a church family and a divorce?  As I walked through the valley of the shadow of an elder board I could not please, I conversed with close friends who stuck with me.

Friends who have been divorced.

And I discovered that; though few could relate to what was killing me inside, my divorced friends seemed to know EXACTLY what I was going through!  They had been through the unbelievable rejection, the loss of a major part of their lives and the daily habits familiar to them, having to rebuild their lives, the discomfort level when you have to be in the "ex's" house or deal with relatives who think your "ex" is the best thing since sliced bread, not wanting to even drive by their house, the obnoxiously lengthy recovery time; SO MANY things were parallel.....that when I found myself face to the ground feeling utterly useless and rejected once again because of an encounter that evoked a flood of memories last week, I tried searching for divorce help.  I found an article that helped me pull out of the latest round of depression over the loss of such a large part of my life, and would like to share it with you. If you have the tenacity to still be reading this, here it is:

MONICA'S TEN POINT SURVIVAL GUIDE TO YOUR CHURCH DIVORCE
* I will put the original info from www.thedailymind.com in quotations. And they will look like this.

Whether you left a church, were forced out, or just came home one day to find all of your stuff sitting on the curb and the door locked, here is my adaptation of ten tips that were originally written for the breakup of a marriage....

1. "See your ex as little as possible."
This was one I wish I would have learned sooner.  I had some really close friends that are still at the former church; as well as a few I was VERY close to who are very much in the inner circle of that church-still.  I tried to maintain those relationships at first, but it was just too painful to hear about all of the "great" things that were going on in a leadership that had soundly rejected me.  I had to stop spending time with ALL of these people, not easy when that was a church of 350 and I live in a town of 5000, but I did succeed in developing an entirely new support group. "Every time you see your ex you get a flood of emotions.You might realize you still love them.....or see how happy they are and feel angry and hurt. You don't need that at this time. You need to get over it and to get over it you need a clear head."  So true. I avoid contact whenever possible, it just throws me into a 'what if' spiral.  "Many people try to be friends with their ex because they do not want to admit that it is over. It is hard to be friends when you are grieving over a lost marriage. Don't do it while you are hurting." um, yeah. In the church world, this can seem insensitive, but you are on your own; they still have an entire church body to lean on. Don't sacrifice your sanity out of feeling sorry for them.  They are choosing to stay there.

2. "Remind yourself constantly of the positives"
You know, it's funny. The "old" place haunts my life, and yet if I visited there now and didn't know anybody there? I would be totally uninterested in that church. When you are free from a church you may have been overinvolved with, you get your life back. There are SO many positives for me-- I went from a place with rather conservative views about women and a hierarchical  view of the pastors and elders to an egalitarian church where I can be ordained, if I so desire. My husband, formerly under the thumb of said leadership, is enjoying his life as a recording engineer/professional world-class musician IMMENSELY. There is always something you can find that is positive about your "out", even if it's just not being around people who didn't want you anyways.

3."Reconnect with your passions"
Umm yeah, we're both doing what we WANT now instead of what someone else thinks we should do.

4. "Forget about getting back together"
"Don't hold on to some hope that you will get back together because that hope prevents you from finding your own individual happiness and moving on with your life." ummm yeah. The old place was such a big part of my life that it was incredibly hard to let go of some possibility of us going back- a new pastor, a change of heart in the leadership, whatever; it took a LONG time for me to realize that it really was OVER. I had to eventually write the old place off entirely and rebuild my life elsewhere. Tough, but necessary.

5. "Remember you are not the only one"
THANK YOU Free Believers, Bob Adams, Darin Hufford, Ted Haggard, Tamara, Kerry, That's Not My God, and too many others to list; many of whom I know only through Facebook. You have helped me more than you know. Yes, most  definitely find others who have walked this uniquely dark path; the good news is they are becoming much easier to find as more people than ever before are becoming disillusioned with the institutional church.

6. "Reconnect with family and friends"
Suffice it to say that once I was out, I started meeting all of these people I didn't even realize existed in our small community....I had been too much in the 'bubble' to realize they were there. Much more time for family, too.  My relationships are WAY more solid now that they are not based out of an institution, and I am way more involved with my community.

7. "Realize that you are allowed to be sad"
If you have "Christian" friends who tell you you should 'get over it' or that you are bitter, get rid of them. NOW. You need friends who will love you in the hard times. The institutional church trains hurt people to remain silent by labeling those who say they were hurt as "bitter" or "rebellious".  Don't fear the label, that's all it is, a cheap label to make them feel better.  "You have just gone through what is known to be one of the four hardest things a human being can go through. You have gotten a divorce." Don't punish yourself for having emotions about this; the divorced people I know said it took them 3-5 years to start feeling happy again. Give yourself time, space, and people who will listen with an empathetic ear.

8. "Think about impermanence"
"At the moment you are probably feeling like this depression is never going to go away. But it will. All thoughts are impermanent." Let time do its healing work. Every month gets better for me....if today sucks, just hold on for one more day....you never know when things may turn a corner.

9.  "Tell Tom Cruise to get *#$*ed!"
"We have all seen Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire utter the famous line 'You complete me'. In my opinion, that one line in that one movie has done more to damage healthy relationships..." Okay. THIS one is the underpinning concept of a book I am working on that will likely be called something like 'Codependent on the Church'.... You see, I would NEVER have gotten hurt so badly if we had left at the first big red flag, which happened a mere SIX MONTHS into our attendance at this place...ten years later these exact same issues were still there. However, my husband and I are both compliants, and tolerated, and tolerated, and tolerated, and ran interference, and excused, and enabled.... I in particular had a background of abuse, and felt like the church completed me. The church became WAYYY more in my life than it ever should have been.  The feelings of  'this is my life' are lies. No one and nothing completes you. YOU are YOU and you own your own life, a gift from God. Owning my own life was one of the best gifts I received as a result of getting out of this place.

10. "Don't sit around and watch your life fly away"
You have a limited amount of time in this world, time to forget the 'ex' and launch into what you are, who you are, what you want to do! Go forth and make that amazing impact in this world that only YOU can make!

I will add myself
11. Create new habits.
A part of what is so difficult for me at times is that I can remember so clearly.... my friends on the team sitting in the blue chairs, seeing the people I knew so well from the platform, struggling with the things they had to walk through (I genuinely loved these people), getting up at 4:45 every Sunday morning (um never mind don't miss that), rehearsal times, ALL of these are things of habit that need to be replaced with new habits... volunteer, join a band, do SOMETHING that will establish new habits that will replace the old ones. As humans, we are creatures of habit and maintaining habits will at the very least help with your sense of security in a time of turmoil.

So. There it is. I apologize to those of you who have gone through horrifying divorces that may dwarf what I am going through---but divorce is the closest I have been able to come to how I feel about my last church experience.  I hope this helps you in some way, PLEASE message if I can be of any assistance in YOUR church divorce, I am here to help.

You will be ok. I made it, you can too.