Pain from the Pulpit: Understanding, Overcoming, and Healing After Suffering Spiritual Abuse

By Russell Lamendola

Have you been the victim of spiritual abuse from someone in a church leadership position? Are you ready for God to heal you from this hurt? In Pain from the Pulpit Understanding: Overcoming, and Healing after Suffering Spiritual Abuse, Russell J. Lamendola will show you how to recognize spiritual abuse, and then share with you some scriptures and biblical principles to help you begin a healing journey from any pain you may be experiencing or have experienced. By using simple and easy to understand steps, this book will take you on a biblical path toward healing from any hurt that may have been caused by church leadership. You will be shown that God can heal you no matter how deep the hurt is, what role you had in the church, or how close you were to those who caused you the pain. Each chapter has questions that you can ask yourself or others to work through some of the issues that can come with being the victim of spiritual abuse. As you read through this book, you will be prepared to overcome the pain from the pulpit!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644164358

Book preview

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Pain from the Pulpit

Understanding, Overcoming, and Healing After Suffering Spiritual Abuse

Russell J. Lamendola

ISBN 978-1-64416-434-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64416-435-8 (Digital)

Copyright © 2019 by Russell J. Lamendola

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

To those of you who have been hurt by church leadership in some way, your pain may seem as though it will never end, and you are probably asking yourself why this happened in a place where grace , mercy, and forgiveness should reign over selfishness, abuse of authority, and man’s own desires. Know that God loves you, and it was not God who hurt you, but it was man, in his sin nature, that caused you the hurt and pain that you are feeling. It is my prayer that, through the writing in this book, I can give you some encouragement in your healing process.

Introduction

"He heals the brokenhearted

And binds up their wounds" (Psalm 147:3).

Over the past few years I have written much. God has blessed me with the opportunity to go to Bible college and seminary, and write what seems like a million papers. He also blessed me when Slaying the Marriage Dragons was accepted by Christian Faith Publishing in 2016. I thought I might be a one and done for authoring a book, but when I was praying about whether or not God wanted me to write another one, God put this title on my heart.

I want to say that of all the writings I have undertaken, this one has been the most difficult and painful to put onto paper. There are a few reasons for this struggle and I want to share some of the reasons why this book was such a difficult undertaking.

First and most importantly, I want to glorify God in all that I do. As a saint who sins, I fail Him on a regular basis, but I always try to make sure He is glorified even when I fail. Writing a book on those that God has called to lead and have caused hurt to others, or those who man has put into a church leadership position and have caused hurt to others, is not an easy task. I have often said that we are all broken, and that includes the leaders of the church. The problems occur when the leaders refuse to accept that they have sinned and when they fail to bend their knee and ask for forgiveness after they have hurt and caused damage to another. The problems also occur when the congregation knows that the leaders are causing hurt and they are not addressing it with these leaders. By ignoring the problem, the congregants are giving the leaders permission to continue to hurt people who have trusted them to lead. The absolute worst situation is when a congregant, or the congregation, approaches one of these leaders and explains their concerns and the leader(s) ignores the concern. This is one of the scenarios that concerns me the most.

Writing about these people and situations is not an easy task. There is a very fine line between educating you, the reader, and sounding like I am an angry person who wants to go on an offensive attack. I can tell you that I am not attacking or trying to cause any hurt and suffering, I am trying to help. I am trying to educate you, the reader, so that if this happens, you will have an idea what to do. I also do not carry a victim mentality into this book. At the time of this writing, my situation occurred almost three years ago, and the God that I serve has healed me from the hurt I experienced. My hope is that those who will read this book will not accuse me of attacking the leaders I am writing about. This book is nothing more than trying to help others who are hurting.

Think of this topic in a more personal way. If there was someone who was hurting a family member or a very good friend, would you not want to help them by letting others know that someone is hurting them? Would you not want to warn others that there are people who have hurt them and they should be cautious around them? The answer should be yes. All I am doing with this book is warning people that there are some churches that have leaders that have hurt people and that caution should be taken. It’s horrible that a book like this even has to be written.

If you are a leader reading this book and are somewhat anxious by what I have written, the Holy Spirit may be convicting you of your sin. If so, it is your responsibility to make it right with God and those who you have hurt. Maybe this book will also cause you the desire through conviction to look at your life and see if you have caused hurt to another. If you are a leader who has caused someone pain, please make it right today. In Psalm 139:23–24, David asks God to search for any hurtful ways in him. We should be doing the same. By doing so, we can see if there is anything we need to deal with in our lives. This is especially true of a church leader who has caused someone hurt and pain through spiritual abuse.

Second, whenever someone speaks of the church, one usually speaks of the positive aspects of the church. This book takes an opposite approach and shows that there are some people in the church today trying to destroy the name of Jesus Christ, damage the testimony of the church, and cause hurt to people. I have said that Satan attends church, too, and those who try to damage the church are acting like Satan. This book tackles the subject of the hurt and pain that the leaders of a church have caused. My first prayer is that I do not damage the church by this book. My second prayer is that it will help those who are hurting and those who have hurt others, and that everyone will grow spiritually from any damage that was caused or any hurt that was received.

The third struggle with writing this book is that not every church has hurt people in their congregation. There are solid biblical leaders out there who treat their flocks with love, kindness, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. As you read this book, you can make a decision whether or not your church leadership has caused you or some of your fellow congregants any hurt. This decision must be based on scripture, true experiences with spiritual abuse, and not your personal emotions or perceptions. Our own emotions and perceptions can be as damaging as those who have caused spiritual abuse, so be very careful with this. Hopefully, there has not been any spiritual abuse in your life, and you can use this book to help someone who has been hurt. I will also say that if you have only heard one side of the story that you should find a way to hear the story from all parties involved. A church leader who has caused spiritual abuse will probably only tell their side of the situation. A person who has been hurt by church leadership will probably only tell their side of the story. It is important to gain knowledge from both sides before judging anyone involved.

Fourth, as I have already mentioned, every person in every church is broken. As we are all broken, the church is also broken. As we are all broken, we are all going to sin at one time or another. Spiritual abuse is one of these sins, and it comes from broken leaders and it is very difficult to address and discuss. This difficulty comes from possible retribution from the leaders or possible retribution from some of the congregants. This can be a lose-lose situation for many.

Only One has ever been perfect and none of us will ever reach that goal of perfection. Yes, we will be perfected in our resurrection, but we will never be as sinless as Jesus. There is a difference, as we have lived as sinners first. Jesus has always been sinless and He is now glorified, sitting at the right hand of God. As we are all broken sinners, there is a high probability we will hurt someone at some time in our life. It is when this hurt