Stop beating the kids! Spiritual abuse of Christians

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Ariel82

Guest
#41
Yep. Something most of us do with many parts of our lives.
Yeah because we are in a spiritual war and the Enemy,would whether us Be fighting among our brethren, depressed and isolated or self righteous and condemning of others than learning to live in peace and love and work together as one United Body of Christ.
 
Feb 7, 2015
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#42
Yes, pity parties.
I agree with you completely
Yes, I tend to call them "Pity Parties" too. But they really are honest justification tactics and practices that enable many people to cope with situations they can't seem to understand or otherwise handle.
 
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Demi777

Senior Member
Oct 13, 2014
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#43
I cant stand pity parties. I used to be a regular on that and it made healing so much harder. Now it makes me sick when I get anywhere close to it. It doesnt justify anything, it just makes ppl show as stupid and immature as they are at that time.



Yes, I tend to call them "Pity Parties" too. But they really are honest justification tactics and practices that enable many people to cope with situations they can't seem to understand or otherwise handle.
 
Feb 7, 2015
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#44
I cant stand pity parties. I used to be a regular on that and it made healing so much harder. Now it makes me sick when I get anywhere close to it. It doesnt justify anything, it just makes ppl show as stupid and immature as they are at that time.
All the more reason that you are now at the stage of moving on to the next level where you will help other people get beyond that hurdle.
 
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Ariel82

Guest
#45
I don't think anyone likes them, not even the person going through the pity party.

However, sometimes we show God's love by just listening. Then showing them their current reality and help them count their blessings.

I witness a kid throw a temper tantrum because they were asked to do something and they didn't think it was fair. Others got to have "fun" and she had to work. I saw a living adult show her that perception of the situation was wrong. Others had different tasks they needed to do and then they were allowed to have fun. When she finished her work, or even worked on it hard for 10 minutes, she could do something fun afterwards.it helped her to focus on a goal and time limit to move past where she was to where she needed to be.

Sometimes tantrums and pity parties is because the person really believes that their life has no hope.

God calls us to remind them of His hope and love. Sometimes it might help to get them to set a goal and start being encouraged by small successes.
 
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BeyondET

Guest
#46
All the more reason that you are now at the stage of moving on to the next level where you will help other people get beyond that hurdle.
Indeed we can help those in need when we are willing to stand among them...
 

Demi777

Senior Member
Oct 13, 2014
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#47
Yep and I try my best.. I may not do my best but I try my best lol!! God bless!

All the more reason that you are now at the stage of moving on to the next level where you will help other people get beyond that hurdle.
 
Feb 24, 2015
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#48
Are you referring to cults?
I am actually referring to my experience in strongly evangelical movements which are
dedicated to evangelism at any cost.

You end up looking at relationships as just being a means to an end.
People become saved, encourage to witness, not saved, an evangelism target.
Some actually burn out, and some get so polarised, they cannot culturally relate
anymore. People are not allowed to be people, it is just reduced to a machine
operation. All social activity is around the church, and nothing in the outside
world matters. So everything is in the argument and destroying the others position.
 
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Ariel82

Guest
#49
Still sounds like a cult Peter.

Almost like the Borg..."You will be assimilated, resistence is futile."

(sorry for those who hate jokes, it popped into my head)
 
Nov 22, 2015
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#50
We need to realize CAN overplay it, though. I think the "White Horse" story may enter into it here. It is what it is/was, and there may not be much more to it than just realizing that, and accepting it.
I agree...my own personal view of Christian counselling is that if it is not based on the finished work of Christ - we can waste a lot of time and never really be transformed by the Holy Spirit and have our minds renewed to the truth of the realities that are in Christ.

I know people that have been in "Christian counselling" for years and there is really no exchange of the life of Christ being manifested in them. ( I'm talking about the patients - not the counsellors although it may apply to them too )

Our past is not our identity. We are who we really are because of what our Father says we are because we are in Christ.

To not bring this truth into the counseling to me is just "playing with the thoughts and trying to rationalize them all out emotionally" to create a different mind frame by our own abilities.

This within itself has no power to bring about life - Christ alone and what He has already done is our true life.

 
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Feb 24, 2015
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#51
Still sounds like a cult Peter.
In some degrees you are right.
A cult is normally focused around a charismatic figure who drives everything.
Churches can become organisations that work like this.
A member on another thread felt abused by his organisation and after leaving
is now seriously fed up with the hypocracy and abuse, and sees this as destructive
of his christian life and experience.

Was the methodist church and wesley a cult?
 
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Ariel82

Guest
#52
I am sure you have some spin offs that are and some people who make it so.

Can't really blanket statement everyone because most are at different walks in their lives.

The first few years of Wesly teachings was very legalistic, but he made a method that established a church with some checks and balances.

I like the balance of accepting that the Holy Spirit still works in this world (experience) AND that GOD wants us to use our minds to comprehend the gospel and the world around us.

Every 5 years the book of discipline is reviewed and changes are made to address concerns facing the modern church. Its a long tedious process but it's good to have thousands come together in prayer and study to discuss our world and what Christ wants us to do.

Wesley as a man was far from perfect and I don't follow his example of waking up at 4 am to pray or make all my guest and family join me.

Someone once said there are three versions of an event: yours, theirs and the truth.

So we have heard your version of your church experience. Probably never hear theirs, but God knows the truth.

He can heal us if we are willing to let our versions go and learn how He sees the events that so harmed us.
 
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Grandpa

Senior Member
Jun 24, 2011
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#53
In my view, and I'm no professional, everyone has been hurt in one way or another. Especially as children when we are most vulnerable.

Why don't we grow from it? Be stronger because of it? And then it can be part of our witness to others. Because we understand a little bit about what they are going through.

Most people have unhealthy ways of dealing with their hurts. Pushing it down and ignoring it or "self-medicating" or just acting out.

I think the first step in healing from this hurt is coming to Christ, of course. And then trying to discern and ask the Lord what you will be like in Heaven.

What will you be like in Heaven? All tears will be wiped away. Look at the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Peace, Love, Joy. That is the real you.

Not this you that was broken and hurt and probably hiding in some way. We will overcome this, by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.
 
Feb 24, 2015
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#54
I am sure you have some spin offs that are and some people who make it so.
What I have learnt is anything can be turned into something that hurts or is a problem.
What is illuminating to me is if within a group you are allowed to get a revelation from the Lord,
or only approved of revelations.

I got excited about something I saw in a subject that was being preached on. I shared it with
the preacher, but he was not happy, because it was not his revelation.

It is hard to accept we are servants to one another, and if anything helps amen.

For some being within a group matters more than the Lord. At this point things have gone
wrong. But most churches have this subculture. It is very human. I mean we would only
belong to the "right" church. Funnily one "spiritual" lady in our church did not approve of
a lot of things and was on her mobile while people where praying, with the sound on so
you could hear each tap. So many things going on inside people over a 1.5 hr service.
 
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Ariel82

Guest
#55
Grandpa, Asking God how He sees us and others is always wise. How will we be in Heaven?

I was listening to a sermon and the pastor defined speaking a prophetic word into another's life is to tell them how God see them: beloved and clean and to encourage them to do the work God created them to accomplish.
 
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Ariel82

Guest
#56
Peter, the preacher may have been disappointed or insecure about his ability to convey a message. Sometimes it's hard to see what our expressions and actions convey. Often people read into what we say and do things we don't mean to communicate.

As for the lady...it's easy to critcize and be part of the problem..only by prayer and walking with the HOLY Spirit do we learn to be part of the solution.
 
Feb 24, 2015
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#57
Peter, the preacher may have been disappointed or insecure about his ability to convey a message. Sometimes it's hard to see what our expressions and actions convey. Often people read into what we say and do things we don't mean to communicate.

As for the lady...it's easy to critcize and be part of the problem..only by prayer and walking with the HOLY Spirit do we learn to be part of the solution.
I agree. I was just observing variation, sparking off each other, is a blessed thing.
Walking in the Lord if anything it is unpredictable and you do not know what "works"
you just walk with enthusiasm and love.

And the lady, I say amen to, but I am careful how to approach, because I want to
encourage, but too many unknowns. It is just sometimes awareness and love is all
we can do. As a family with kids, they always do stuff that is annoying but time
and place make a difference for intervention, lol.
 
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Ariel82

Guest
#58
If someone wants to complain to me, I eventually ask them if we can take the problem to God in prayer.

People accept answers they come up with themselves or God places in their heart better than any advice or suggestion we can give.

Sometimes folks just want someone to listen and we can show God's love by just giving others our time and attention.
 
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Depleted

Guest
#59
Knowing just how serious this is, why would you not want to discuss it? You and I have both worked in counseling, and know the layers that have to be peeled back before any real productivity results from the back-and-forth talk.

Why would you want to say "It hurts, so let's not speak of it."?
Because I was once the cause of more pain to a girl who was being abused. I was hired in a job as counselor simply because I had a liberal arts degree, and I suddenly became a counselor. I too thought I could fix it from being fixed myself. The result was a girl went running out of my office in tears, no way to call her or get to her, and for four months, I feared she had killed herself. (The only reason I know she didn't, was because an ex-coworker, who was with me that day, called me back to tell me she had called again. I had quit right after that, and only that other woman understood why, because she felt the same way I did that day.)

Sure, talk about it. But this is "and how do we fix it?"

We don't! It's like discovering someone had a problem with their heart, so let's get out the surgery manual, pull out some cutting tools, and we all get together around the operating table to try and fix it.

There are skills we just don't have. This thread is assuming talking out individual problems and pulling out verses from the Bible will give us all the skills we need.

It doesn't. Matter of fact, if someone was abused -- not just during childhood, but anytime -- and they come across this post, you know what it teaches them? "No way will I ever tell Christians what happened to me, or they'll compare it to a guy who thinks kneeling is the only way to pray."

You're right. You and I were counselors. Doesn't that teach you some things require skill, not a sharing of inadequately trained minds? Were you immersed in training before becoming a counselor, or were you given the 2-7 week crash course too?

Abuse isn't simply something that can be talked out. It goes further than that. The target believes some things about himself that simply aren't true, and yet that's how he has seen himself for so many years that THAT is how he sees the world. And when he finally figures out, "that's not it," then there is a crevice in him of what was taken away, and that has to be replaced with a whole different skill set. (You call it peeling the onion. I get that, but something has to replace the peeled parts. We don't let the oinion turn into a scallion and then push it out in the street. And yet, quite often that's exactly what we did.)

Believe for ten years that you are a doormat, and then discover you can stand. Great! But you don't know what to do after standing. THAT is the stuff often skipped in peer counseling or counseling centers where they hire recent-college graduates who know more about how to write a newspaper article than how to help a person in deep trouble.

Encourage that mentality? Not even. I still remember her expression as she ran out. I had destroyed the one thin fiber keeping her alive and didn't know she needed rope to hold onto until she got her land legs.
 
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Depleted

Guest
#60
The real trigger for x-legalists is righteousness, or law, or being blameless.

If a believer has the same beliefs, 100% same words but mentions these biblical
issues, they are open meat for the picking.

It suggests to me an abused history of either conforming to strict social rules, way
beyond scripture that defined their behaviour and personalities for decades.

And what seems to break the spell, is being rejected from the group through some
family or emotional trauma.

And a wolf never becomes a sheep. A wolf is trained to destroy, to pull apart, to
dismantle another and leave them dead. The key signs are personal attacks, aimed
to hurt or discourage, not make peace or empathise, just destroy.

Whole church movements have had this spirit. One openly declared that if you did
not agree with the approach of the leader, you should leave, loyalty was everything.

This is so different from getting alongside people, sharing your perspectives and seeing
how others view the world. It is not "stop" "wrong" "you cannot say".
It is though showing what scripture says, and being straightforward. The light is a very
bright place, and we need to dwell then, openly and honestly.

I wonder if people can admit their christian community background distorted their
view of life and they still have not recovered?
I wonder how you can compare legalists v. gracers debate into "triggers."