On the Frontlines of Abuse: Strategies for the Faith Community

By Stacey Womack

Have you been confused about what constitutes domestic abuse? Do you have questions about how domestic violence relates to the faith community? Have you felt lost in how to deal with this issue in your church, your family or your community?

 

Abuse Recovery Ministry & Services has over twenty-seven years of working with both victims and offenders of abuse. Learn from first-hand exposure and vast knowledge base of direct experience. You will read how to better recognize abusive relationships, how abusers and victims present, how to determine who is the primary aggressor, how to keep victims safer, how to hold abusive people accountable, how God desires a church or community to respond, and what God would want you to do and not do when trying to help others. 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stacey Womack
• Release date: Apr 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798320909752

Stacey Womack

Stacey Womack is the founder and executive director of Abuse Recovery Ministry Services. She wrote their recovery curriculum, which has been translated into four languages. She is a 2020 Cascade Award Winner and has been published in various magazines. Stacey is married to Jerry Womack and has six children.

Book preview

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Chapter 1

Perception is Everything

For now [in this time of imperfections] we see in a mirror dimly [a blurred reflection, a riddle, and enigma]. 1 Corinthians 13:12 AMP

There are so many things that influence our worldview, the lens we see life through, but many of the things we believe to be true come from the culture we were raised in and may not truly align with God’s truth—even if we were raised in the church. As we become adults, our earlier beliefs tend to shift. That’s not a terrible thing. We should all be continually growing and learning. We don’t know it all, only God does. In fact, God tells us we see dimly as in a mirror and that human wisdom is as foolishness to Him (1 Corinthians 1:25).

The way we see things, or what we believe to be true, affects every action we take. If we didn’t believe a chair would hold our weight, we wouldn’t sit on it. As another example, some of our clients, even those who profess to be Christians, believe that everyone swears and see that as normal. They picked up this belief from their culture.

A strong influence from modern culture is the media or entertainment. If a story is spun a certain way and enough people believe it, it can sway a whole country into changing its behavior.

If we do not have enough accurate information to show otherwise, we will assume that what we currently believe is true. Once we receive new information, we may realize that what we once thought to be true was actually a lie. This causes a shift in both our beliefs and how we respond to things.

Our beliefs of what domestic violence is or is not greatly affects how it is handled for both victims/survivors and offenders.

Domestic violence is one of those topics that many of us know very little about and would prefer to not discuss. As Christians, we especially prefer to turn a blind eye to this issue. In fact, many people of faith would rather assume that domestic violence happens only outside the church. Yet, domestic violence and abuse is as prevalent in the church as it is in the secular community. ¹ Since 1997, I have worked in this field, trying to help the faith community understand domestic violence and abuse, but it has been an uphill battle.

Here is the crazy thing. Clergy are historically the ones those abused seek help from first. Unfortunately, the faith community has historically been the least helpful for those suffering abuse, not because people are uncaring and unkind, but because they lack knowledge. Fear is also a strong driving factor for the faith community, especially the fear of the relationship ending. One local pastor told us recently that pastors shouldn’t risk going there, because then they would have to deal with it, and what if they handle it wrong? Pastors are accountable to God for shepherding their people, and because marriage is so important, they don’t dare shepherd in a way that might encourage a relationship to separate, even if one party is in danger.

We received a call last year from a pastor begging for training. He had sent a woman home to her abuser to try and work things out. Her abuser ended her life that night. The pastor, of course, was heartbroken and determined to learn better responses.

I was born into a Christian family. My father was a pastor. I can’t remember a time I didn’t believe in God. Fortunately, I was raised in a loving home that felt safe. I met and married my husband young, moving out of my parent’s house directly into marriage. We quickly began a family. Six kids later, I was a stay-at-home mom, homeschooling our children. I was comfortable with my safe, little family, my safe friends, and safe church. I didn’t know anything more about domestic violence than the average person.

Domestic violence wasn’t anything I gave any thought to, making my perception on this issue very narrow. Yet God sees it all and cares about those being oppressed. God interrupted my safe, little life, the one I felt I had some control over. Even with my false perceptions, He began calling me to ministry. I had no idea what He wanted me to do. It was as if God divided my contentment. I still loved being a stay-at-mom, but I felt a constant stirring within me that I didn’t understand, so I prayed.

A year and a half later, I still had no clear direction, only broad strokes of God’s plans for my future. I finally spoke with a pastor, who questioned why I hadn’t moved on this call. I wondered too, so I asked God. He quietly told me, Not yet. It wasn’t until six months later that God gave me clear direction. I was to help people experiencing domestic violence. What?

I’m not a survivor of abuse. My only glimpse of abuse was a few years prior when my sister, who had married a pastor, told me she was planning on fleeing the relationship because of his abuse. What did I do at that time? I shared with her some typical unhelpful, unsupportive Christian comments. Kind of like Job’s friends in the Bible. Remember how some of their arguments sounded really reasonable? Yet God was not happy with them and later told them to have Job pray for them.

My sister did what most churches expect of a good Christian wife. She never shared with anyone about the abuse. It wasn’t until she considered suicide that she decided to make the scary and courageous move to escape from her abuser without the help of her family. I’m sorry to say that of the 40,000+ women we have served, most women of faith do not receive the support they need from their family or church.

My struggle to understand abuse was born out of my limited perception of domestic violence. In my mind, domestic violence was about a spouse hitting or physically harming the other. My sister did share one event of that kind of sounded like physical abuse, but I still wasn’t sure what to believe.

Most people hold a perception that domestic violence only involves overt physical abuse. While physical abuse is illegal, dangerous, and scary, it is one of the least forms of abuse used. This is really mind-blowing when you learn that one in three women have experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. ² Men also experience abuse. Still, physical abuse is the number one cause of injury to women in the US—actually in the world.

This misperception that abuse is only physical is also carried by victims. When they meet with their pastor or counselor, they don’t know a name for what they are experiencing. They do not see themselves as victims, especially if they never experienced physical assault. Even if it was physical, they are likely to excuse it away, since abusers are incredibly good at convincing their partners that the abuse was their fault. Our experience shows that women want to save their relationships. They don’t want their relationship to end, they just want the abuse to end. So, they keep trying and trying to make it work.

1. Merrimack ScholarWorks 2018

2. National Coalition Against Domestic Violence https://ncavd.org/statistics

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Chapter 2

Uninformed

Apply your heart to discipline and your ears to words of knowledge. Proverbs 23:12 AMP

For the sake of the flow, I will be primarily referring to the abuser as male and the victim as female, but we do understand abuse is used by both genders. We work with both men and women with abusive behaviors and will talk more about this later in this book.

There is not only a lack of information but also a lot of misinformation about domestic abuse. We don’t know what we don’t know. When I stepped out in obedience to God’s call