Aug. 1, 2025

Will You Move On After Church Hurt? Healing and Forgiveness (Minisode)

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Betrayal cuts deeper when it comes from people who share your faith.

So how do you move forward in a healthy way when the hurt comes from within the church?

In this minisode, I reflect on the difficult reality of church hurt and the challenging journey toward healing and forgiveness.

But what if you don’t want to move on—or feel like you shouldn’t have to?

If this is something you’ve wrestled with, I encourage you to listen to my conversation with Pastor Markus as well. After a devastating lie from someone in his congregation turned his life upside down, Markus faced the painful process of choosing healing and forgiveness.

Listen to the CHURCH HURT episode from season one

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00:00 - Welcome and Marcus Watson's Story

00:48 - God Never Fails Despite Church Hurt

01:36 - Forgiving Unjust Accusations

03:23 - Healing Through God's Love

05:15 - Call to Prayer and Book Giveaway

WEBVTT

00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:06.274
Hey friends, welcome back to the last mini-sode of the Tribute to Masculinity.

00:00:06.274 --> 00:00:11.913
What did you think of this final episode with Pastor Marcus Watson?

00:00:11.913 --> 00:00:12.641
Man?

00:00:12.641 --> 00:00:16.312
Does he have a doozy of a story, am I right?

00:00:16.312 --> 00:00:22.527
If you haven't listened to that episode, go back and listen to that first before you listen to this mini-sode.

00:00:22.768 --> 00:00:33.088
It's a very powerful story, and I'm encouraged to know that, even in the face of extreme church hurt, we can still cling to God.

00:00:33.088 --> 00:00:43.890
We can still stay focused on Him and trust in Him, and that is so important, because God's people are going to fail us day in and day out.

00:00:43.890 --> 00:00:45.012
We are human beings.

00:00:45.012 --> 00:00:52.572
We make mistakes, but God never fails, and we have to be able to disassociate those two things.

00:00:52.572 --> 00:00:58.573
When we go through a season of church hurt, we cannot blame God for that.

00:00:58.573 --> 00:01:07.292
He is in the middle of it, he is working, he is doing something through it, and you just need to continue to trust him and hold on to him tightly.

00:01:07.292 --> 00:01:20.393
Back in season one, I did do an episode where I talked about church hurt a little bit, so if you want to listen to that, I will link it in the show notes so you can go back and listen to it.

00:01:20.393 --> 00:01:29.525
Today, though, I really want to focus on the importance of forgiving those who have accused us of things we haven't done.

00:01:29.525 --> 00:01:36.543
It's very important that we realize, like I said, fellow believers are going to fail us.

00:01:36.543 --> 00:01:37.867
It's a matter of time.

00:01:37.867 --> 00:01:38.768
We're all human.

00:01:38.768 --> 00:01:45.640
We make mistakes, but we are called to forgive and to love our brothers and sisters in Christ.

00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:56.855
So how do you move on from being accused or being unjustly taken advantage of by somebody in the church body?

00:01:56.855 --> 00:02:04.474
That is a real question that we need to tackle and it's not going to be an easy thing to do.

00:02:05.081 --> 00:02:06.927
I have been hurt by church people.

00:02:06.927 --> 00:02:16.105
I remember one time my family really wanted to go on a five-year mission trip to Brazil and we sold all our things.

00:02:16.105 --> 00:02:17.429
We thought we were ready.

00:02:17.429 --> 00:02:19.133
We had a heart that wanted to go.

00:02:19.133 --> 00:02:20.962
Our church wouldn't let us go.

00:02:20.962 --> 00:02:34.044
They wouldn't let us raise any funds because they didn't feel we were ready, and that wrecked me as a young Christian and young teenager and that upset my parents as well, because we sold things.

00:02:34.044 --> 00:02:40.145
We were ready to go, we were ready to do it, but somebody told us we weren't and we believed in that.

00:02:40.344 --> 00:02:43.692
How do you recover from something like that?

00:02:43.692 --> 00:02:47.300
How do you recover from what Pastor Marcus went through.

00:02:47.300 --> 00:02:55.986
How do you recover from church hurt from people who have lied to you, taken advantage of you, deceived you?

00:02:55.986 --> 00:03:07.550
Only God, only God can truly help us forgive those people and to pray through the negative feelings and to move forward into healing.

00:03:07.550 --> 00:03:11.687
So if you have not taken your grievance to God, you need to.

00:03:12.027 --> 00:03:30.588
It is an important thing that we stay close to God, especially in the midst of trials that involve fellow believers, because I think that's one of the things that Satan really likes is when fellow believers are against each other, because it hurts God's heart.

00:03:30.588 --> 00:03:36.366
It makes the church as a whole look terrible, and why wouldn't Satan want that?

00:03:36.366 --> 00:03:51.064
So it is important as a believer, to love those that are difficult to love, whether they're believers or not, but especially if they call themselves Christians, then we should love them the way Christ loves them.

00:03:51.064 --> 00:03:59.248
And if that's something that you can't do, then you need to reflect on that and you need to talk with God about that and find out why.

00:03:59.248 --> 00:04:13.159
And if you're waiting for an apology, you could be waiting a while, because there's sometimes you're not going to get that apology that you're waiting for and you have to accept that and you have to be willing to forgive.

00:04:13.159 --> 00:04:24.399
Anyways, this is what I want you to do for the rest of this week Pray, ask God to help you figure out what it is that he wants you to forgive.

00:04:24.740 --> 00:04:36.778
Or, if you are the one who wronged somebody, suck up your pride and go apologize and make things right with your fellow believers, because our words can either uplift or tear down.

00:04:36.778 --> 00:04:38.822
What do you want to do with your words?

00:04:38.822 --> 00:04:40.995
What do you want to do with your actions?

00:04:40.995 --> 00:04:42.819
Actions speak louder than words.

00:04:42.819 --> 00:04:49.096
What are you doing, as a believer, to bring people to Christ rather than taking them away from him?

00:04:49.096 --> 00:05:06.884
We need to make sure that we stay focused on what is right and true, and the only way to do that is to stay close to our Heavenly Father and to do what he asks us to do, and he asks us to be at harmony as best as it is possible for us to be at harmony with each other.

00:05:06.884 --> 00:05:12.158
We are the hands and feet of Christ people, so we need to act like it.

00:05:12.538 --> 00:05:14.262
That's today's episode.

00:05:14.262 --> 00:05:15.745
I hope I encouraged.

00:05:15.745 --> 00:05:20.821
I hope I poked a little bit at the bear that may have needed to be poked at.

00:05:20.821 --> 00:05:27.370
I hope that you heal your wounds through the love of Jesus and through doing what he calls you to do.

00:05:27.370 --> 00:05:37.336
Be in communion with God today for the rest of this time, until our next mini sewed together, and just allow him to heal those wounds.

00:05:37.336 --> 00:05:39.480
God bless, don't forget.

00:05:39.480 --> 00:05:44.976
If you haven't done it yet, listen to the book giveaway episode.

00:05:44.976 --> 00:05:56.375
It's only the first three weeks in August that you can qualify for the book giveaway, so listen to that so that you can get an idea of what it is that you're supposed to do in order to be qualified.

00:05:56.375 --> 00:05:57.737
Talk to you guys later.

00:05:57.737 --> 00:05:58.319
Bye.

Will You Move On After Church Hurt? Healing and Forgiveness (Minisode)

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