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Healing Your Church Hurt: What to Do When You Still Love God but Have Been Wounded by His People
Copyright © 2010 by Stephen Mansfield. All rights reserved.
Previously published as ReChurch: Healing Your Way Back to the People of God under ISBN 978-1-4143-3328-1.
Healing Your Church Hurt first published in 2012.
Cover photograph of bandages copyright © by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cover image of church copyright © by iStockphoto. All rights reserved.
Author photo copyright © 2008 by Ben Pearson. All rights reserved.
Designed by Beth Sparkman
Published in association with the literary agency of Esther Fedorkevich, Fedd and Company, Inc., PO Box 341973, Austin, TX 78734.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.
Scripture verses marked Phillips are taken from The New Testament in Modern English by
J. B. Phillips, copyright © J. B. Phillips, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1972. All rights reserved.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition as follows:
Mansfield, Stephen, date.
ReChurch : healing your way back to the people of God / Stephen Mansfield.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-4143-3328-1 (hc)
1. Church membership. 2. Ex-church members. I. Title.
BV820.M22 2010
248.8'6—dc22 2009052959
ISBN 978-1-4143-6560-2
To
Bill Ruff
who wept with me
and stayed true
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Image of Our Folly
Chapter 2: The Sea Breeze of the Centuries
Chapter 3: Man: The Greatness and the Grief
Chapter 4: Lessons from a Season in Hell
Chapter 5: The Throne Room of Your Mind
Chapter 6: Truths for Getting Whole
Foreword
The United States is a huge, populous nation. As such, it is home to numerous epidemics. One of them is the dreaded, but widespread ecclesia exitus disease—the Latin term for church dropout. Perhaps you’ve experienced it—the decision to permanently withdraw from a congregation you had considered to be your “church home.” The symptoms are many, but the outcome is unambiguous: pain, disappointment, and spiritual anomie.
Personally, I’ve had several bouts of ecclesia exitus over the years. In one case, it was caused when our pastor disagreed theologically with something that I wrote in a book. Rather than confronting me personally—the practice he taught from the pulpit, based on Matthew 18—he chose to avoid me and instead go public with his disenchantment. And he didn’t do it by just bad-mouthing me to a few of the faithful: he wrote an entire book on the subject, using ...
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About Healing Your Church Hurt: What To Do When You Still Love God But Have Been Wounded by His PeopleIf you’ve been part of a church, you have probably suffered a “church hurt”—or know someone who has. Maybe the pastor had an affair or the congregation fought over money or the leaders were disguising gossip as “prayer.” Stephen Mansfield knows how it feels. Though he is now a New York Times bestselling author, he was a pastor for more than 20 years, and he loved it—until he learned how much a church can hurt. Yet he also learned how to dig out of that hurt, break through the bitterness and anger, stop making excuses, and get back to where he ought to be with God and his people. If you’re ready to choose the tough path to healing, Mansfield will walk you through it with brotherly love, showing you how you can be better than ever on the other side of this mess—if you’re willing to start Healing Your Church Hurt. Previously published as ReChurch. |
| Support Info | 9781414370118 |