Today I'm sharing a past experience as it appears in my book, “The Heart of Domestic Abuse: Gospel Solutions for Men Who Use Control and Violence in the Home."
Early one Sunday morning I arrived at our newly formed church plant’s location to find an acquaintance of ours obviously troubled and waiting nervously at the door for someone, perhaps anyone, to arrive. Once inside she collapsed in my arms sobbing and speaking incoherently. After some time I was able to calm her down and she told me her story. After several months of heated encounters with her husband, the morning had erupted into violence. She described an altercation that included yelling, screaming, pushing, shoving, and threats ending with a shotgun in her face. I was shocked by what I was hearing, and even more shocked now as I recount my advice to her and the attitude under which I was operating at the time. Most disturbing was what my heart attitude revealed: “I can’t deal with this right now,” I thought to myself, “I’m just not qualified to handle this. I’m trying to plant a church and this is not the kind of trouble we need.” To my great shame, I told this hurting woman that I had no expertise in this area, which at the time was accurate, and advised her to contact the police. We calmly talked about something or other for the next ten minutes while she composed herself. I made her promise me she would call the authorities and then showed her to the door. After all, I had a church service to perform and a young church plant to grow.
That morning, I preached to a small group of people about the power of the gospel to heal the brokenhearted, but nothing I could say would speak with greater authority or conviction than the hypocrisy I had just committed hours before. As I spoke of being the hands and feet of Jesus to our community, a broken, battered person filled out paperwork against the man she loved, alone in a police station.
I mention this story not to emphasize the ways in which I poorly responded to this woman’s needs, and they are numerous, but rather to illustrate how ill-prepared I was to address the problem. They do not cover this in most Bible colleges. Prior to my education in domestic violence intervention and prevention, I rarely thought of this incident. I believed I handled the situation as well as I could, and it never occurred to me how pervasive this problem really was in our community and churches. Domestic violence and the church has since become a common conversation I have with Christians and pastors across the country, and I find that many of the ways we have viewed and responded to domestic violence fall short.
"Domestic violence is a very complex, destructive reality in many Christian homes. Clergy have not always responded in helpful ways to domestic violence in the past, but this can change. Clergy have tremendous influence for healing and protection. If they educate themselves, have the courage to condemn domestic violence from the pulpit, and develop ministries for abuse victims and even for perpetrators, then the cycle of violence can be broken and the body of Christ can be a place of safety and divine healing."[1]
[1] Steven Tracy, Clergy Responses to Domestic Violence; Priscilla Papers Vol.21,No.2, Spring 2007
Taken from, "The Heart of Domestic Abuse; Gospel Solutions for Men Who Use Violence and Control in the Home."
