By Laura Stephens Reed
Although I hope your church never has to go through it, sometimes congregations find themselves in soul-wrenching pain. Maybe it’s because a conflict has escalated to the point that there seems to be no way forward. It could be that a trusted leader has been accused of misconduct, and members feel both shock and a profound lack of safety. Or it might even be that the extreme political divisiveness of the past decade has become so entrenched that there are two distinct congregations sitting in the same sanctuary on Sunday mornings.
These situations can be profound disruptions to our individual and collective spiritual lives, prompting us to ask hard questions of God and stretching our abilities to love our fellow (all-too-human) brothers and sisters as reflections of God’s image. When this is the case, something more than conflict resolution or a call to reconciliation is required. What we need is soul repair.
Soul repair is a process by which those involved in deeply wounding circumstances can look at the hard truths of what happened and helpfully weave these experiences into their personal and congregational narratives. This is spiritual work that allows people to reconnect with self, others and God and to move ahead together with purpose and hope.
Over the past year, I have been researching soul repair and interviewing a lot of church people about how they have attained it or are working toward it. Here is some of what I have learned:
The first step is naming the issue – including our own part in it – that has prompted the need for soul repair. There’s not much that can be done until we are willing to get a bit introspective and then honestly share both our understanding of the situation and the ways we might have, even if our intentions were good, contributed to the problem. While this step requires vulnerability, it takes away some of the power that the issue has over us.
The biblical example of lamentation provides a pattern for expressing grief but not staying stuck in it. It is heavy to give voice to all we are going through. It’s essential that then we take the next actions of calling on God’s help and expressing our fervent conviction that God is with us, even in our hardest moments.
Somatic and contemplative exercises can be very useful. When we reconnect to our bodies through our breath or through intentional movement and when we tap into our souls through silence and active waiting in God’s presence, we can move beyond trauma. Rituals can also be useful tools for giving our hurt its due space, laying it down, and looking toward a new normal.
Once we have taken the actions above, we can think about the issue from different angles and consider the negative impacts that will need to be addressed. Our hearts and minds are now opened up to curiosity and creativity, both of which were inaccessible to us when we were mired in confusion, blame and woundedness. Just know that by this point, though, some people might be tired of talking about whatever brought about the need for soul repair. There will be the temptation to think that the situation has been resolved enough. Resist it, or else the remnants will bubble up later in unexpected places.
In moving forward, we must ask ourselves, how will we be now with God? And how will we be with one another? These two questions come from theologian Walter Brueggemann. When a congregation goes through an extremely difficult experience, relationships among the people and between people and God are changed. For those connections to be different but healthy, great care must be exercised. The church might want to create a covenant around the behaviors and attitudes and means of accountability of members when people operate outside of those mutually-held expectations. There could be training around nonviolent communication or other means of interacting with one another that might head off future heartaches at the pass. For the congregation’s relationship with God, new structures for discernment could be built into regular meetings so that God’s wisdom is always a first thought rather than (as it sometimes is, unfortunately) an afterthought.
We must remember to go back and bring along those who are getting left behind. People move through hurt at differing speeds, and it’s easy for those of us going faster to get impatient with those who need more time. Also, hopefully new people will be joining us along the journey, and they will not automatically be privy to what the church has just gone through. They need to know that they are an essential part of the congregation’s future, even if they aren’t part of its past.
Part of intentionally being with God and one another is having something tangible to work toward together. We gather as church for a reason, partly for spiritual sustenance, but also for being equipped to go into the world as Christ’s hands, feet and heart. What specifically is God calling us to partner on toward those ends? A well-defined mission can move a congregation emerging from soul hurt and newly tuned-in to the vulnerabilities in the world toward big impacts in Jesus’ name.
Soul repair isn’t easy or fast; but it is holy work. It is the recognition that the Church is more about people and God and less about the institution itself. It is an investment in the future good that the Church will do because of the time taken to seek healing, understanding and reconnection. If your congregation ever has need of soul repair, I pray blessings on your process and every person involved. And I give thanks that you are taking this needed time in order to show up as God’s people to one another and to all the world.