Believers,
Are we focusing too much energy on the who’s and what’s and missing the main point?
The main point for me is that regardless of Bishop Long’s guilt or innocence there is a larger problem that needs to be addressed. Perhaps this is not about did or didn’t do, but a movement of God. Perhaps the accusations are all a part of God’s plan to say that Christian’s are not handling sexual misconduct in the proper way.
It seems like as long as the perpetrators were catholic, we have been able to turn a blind eye to a problem we all know exists. But now, he is someone with whom a good deal of us can relate. He’s not a distant person that we have never heard of we have watched him on TV in our homes.We might have even gone to his church. Now it is too close to ignore.
Ponder this, what if this is just a wake up call for us as a the Body of Christ? Perhaps we needed it to be someone with whom we are familiar so that we would become more action oriented in establishing an environment where sins of sexual misconduct are dealt with and handled in a Christ Like manner. In Christ’s house.
If you have college women in your church, a recent study showed that one in four college aged women have or will be raped. How many of those women might be sitting in the same pew as you? Broken and hurt, crying on the inside because she feels there will be shame or rebuke if she tells you about her burden? Or that she will not be supported. All the while knowing you were once the same girl.
For those who have a Children’s ministry. How many children indicate that there is something wrong? What do you do about it?
Oh that’s right, give them a crayon and a picture of Jesus and send them on their way.
In your Men’s Ministry, can a man who was molested, and now molests, come to you as a broken and scared child and confess to you what happened in his childhood and how it affects him now? Where he can confess his sins and ask for help? Or does he have to be macho, a strong man of God all the time?
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The truth of the matter is, I don’t know why God made sex so powerful that people would abuse it in such awful ways. However it is so prevalent that the norm is you know someone who has been abused and rare if you don’t.
I understand that dealing with this issue and opening up these ugly wounds is hard work. It might mean crying and running our mascara, or getting our freshly dry cleaned suits wrinkled or dirty. Yet and still the family of Christ is not going to be healed if we don’t. We will have a conference about keeping the family together and being strong women and men in a heart beat. But at the end of the day, if we don’t learn how to effectively resolve this issue, families are destined to fail.
Why? This is why. How do I learn to be a good father, if the father who provided for me also abused me? In my mind as a child, how am I supposed to know this was wrong? How do I not equate this with fatherhood?
How can I serve God effectively when his messenger is asking me to perform sexual acts that cities were destroyed for in Biblical times. How can I be a good wife to my husband when my first love violated my trust and now I have intimacy issues.
I get that we all like to come to church and hear a message that makes us feel good. But that is not doing Christ’s work. Only wanting to feel “Good” is like going to a job, not wanting to do any work and get a check. No we have to roll up our sleeves and stop these atrocities from happening.
See the bigger picture isn’t the guilt or innocence of one man, God has that. The bigger issue is how are we failing one another and what can we do to fix it. This might have been the wake up call we needed. So will you get up or hit snooze?
When we are doing God’s work we should be healing these wounds not making people feel like they have to handle them on their own or outside the Body. They should be running to the church not running away from us.
What ya’ thinking?
As always, be Blessed!
RiverAngel42
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