Why the Church Continues to Neglect Those in Need

I assisted in running Christian camps for some of the most dysfunctional children you can think of before I ever worked in large churches.

The majority of them had experienced sexual assault, addiction, violence, and years of moving between foster homes—things that no adolescent should ever have to go through. They would arrive defensive, irate, and withdrawn. Others hardly spoke at all. Others, as if they didn't give a damn, swore and swaggered through the first day.

Nevertheless, something appeared to open up toward the end of the week, following the games, the worship sessions, and the emotional altar calls.

After one of those last-night services, I can still picture myself sitting in the back of the tent and watching things happen. As they said "yes" to Jesus, dozens of children lowered their heads, put their arms around one another, and shed tears.

We believed that we were seeing miracles. The changes appeared so obvious and dramatic.

As leaders, we would stand together and compliment one another on their differences. Their faces were so gentle now. How their entire stance had altered. "This is what the love of God can do," we would say. We would take pictures to display at the upcoming fundraising event.

We'd refer to it as revival.

The phone calls would then begin to come in two weeks later.

Resuming drug use.

Back in prison.

For a few short days, they were back in the same nightmare they had left behind.

Initially, we attributed it to Satan, the world, or the children themselves. We declared that the seed had been sown and would eventually bring fruit. We told them everything, with the exception of the thing we were too scared to say: that the Christianity we gave them wasn't robust enough to support their tales.

We provided them with memory passages and summit experiences. They weren't taught how to live in the valley by us. Perhaps worst of all, we returned them to churches that were unsure of how to handle them. since these children didn't meet the stereotype. The tunes were unknown to them. They lacked the appropriate attire, familial histories, and polished testimony. They were unable to "play church."

To be honest, most churches aren't designed for individuals who are still in pain when they enter. They are designed for folks who are already tidy. For those who are already adept at concealing the mess.

Not Just a Second

We had moments of faith. We thought a child could be saved, healed, and changed in a week.

To be honest, there was a true event that took place at those camps. They were amazing in their own right. I don't question the authenticity of it when I recall those evenings beneath the tent, when children who had been tough and quiet all week eventually broke down and sobbed in each other's arms. The light was actually crackling through.

However, true healing—the sort that transforms a life—does not take place in a tent. It doesn't occur at the conclusion of a worship session. At an altar call, it doesn't happen because someone sobs sufficiently.

True healing takes time.

It's cruel.

It requires more than just a rush of feeling.

We persuaded them that an encounter on a mountainside may transform their lives. However, the moment we gave them was insufficient to hold them when they returned home to the same dysfunctional families, the same internal scars, and the same streets that had molded their nightmares.

We promised them a miracle, but we were unable to fulfill it.

The Church Culture's Deeper Failure

The churches to which we returned those children did not intentionally let them down. Instead, it was that underlying presumptions molded the prevailing culture within most of Western Christianity, particularly evangelicalism, making genuine, gradual, and agonizing change nearly difficult.

The core of the issue was a conception of God known as "MoralisticTherapeutic Deism," as defined by sociologist Christian Smith. The premise behind that term may seem complex, but it is straightforward and terrible. Unbeknownst to them, God was portrayed in many churches less as the Living God of Scripture and more like a cosmic psychiatrist, whose primary objective was to help you feel good, act appropriately, and achieve in life. Generally speaking, sin was presented as something that caused unhappiness, but holiness was presented as the route to both social respectability and personal fulfillment.

Personal development rather than profound interior change was the aim of this interpretation of Christianity. You were expected to feel, look, and recover better. Not only was it uncomfortable, but it was also confusing if you didn't. This message subtly crushed children who were dealing with actual trauma, such as depression, addiction, anger, or suicidal despair. Not only had they fallen short of religious standards. They had fallen short of the implicit guarantee of the entire system, which was that faith would quickly heal you. They felt more than just a need for grace as sinners. In a society that only knew how to recognize outward accomplishment, they felt like outcasts.

An event-driven model of salvation was layered on top of this. With the altar call, the prayer, and the testimony, transformation was anticipated to occur quickly. A new life was meant to begin with a single, heartfelt encounter with God. It was rare to repeatedly hear the Christian path described as a gradual, frequently agonizing process of dying and rising again. Few systems were in place to support the children as their lives gradually recovered following their "conversion moment," when they faltered and reverted to their old habits. Too frequently, instead of being viewed as the necessary process of recovering from severe trauma, their struggle was misinterpreted as disobedience or a lack of faith.

There was something more profound going on in the churches' own culture than just the doctrine. Churches were intended to be secure, cheerful, and well-organized spaces where people might go to find inspiration and encouragement. However, that type of setting allowed little space for the kind of intense, unfiltered grief that is difficult to neatly package or swiftly clean up.

Many churches unintentionally turned into what sociologists refer to as "moral communities"—groups where appearing to be doing well was a secret requirement for belonging. You would fit right in if you arrived grinning, appeared to be improving, and had a life that was a success story in progress. However, you were uneasy for others to be around if you were still bleeding in public—if you kept relapsing into previous habits, if your mental health issues surfaced, or if you didn't have a polished testimony ready to give.

No one said you didn't belong in any announcements. There were no rules posted at the door. Even yet, the message was clear: "If you don't recover quickly, we don't know what to do with you."

It wasn't deliberate cruelty. It was an inability to imagine a church that could tolerate protracted, unresolved, messy suffering without attempting to conceal or cure it.

Finally, the gradual, challenging process of true healing was nearly impossible to prioritize due to the structure of church leadership. Generally speaking, pastors are decent individuals. However, the structures in which they operate often evaluate them based on outwardly observable outcomes, like as baptism rates, small group enrollments, and donation levels. Success entails quantifiable growth.

And that system wasn't designed for the slow labor of walking with wounded people, like standing with someone whose trauma didn't go away after prayer or sitting with a relapsing teen for months. A youngster who was still coming up high on some Sundays and was holding on to hope by his fingernails couldn't be the subject of a report. "She's still not healed, but she's not giving up," is not something you could proudly declare at a vision conference.

Such commitment was not reflected in the numbers. Therefore, churches unintentionally encouraged pastors to focus on the initiatives that appeared to be successful and the obvious victories rather than the unseen spaces where true love must exist.

The churches had good intentions. However, they were designed with efficiency, speed, and attractiveness in mind. And because of those deeper logics, they were essentially unable to support the children who required love, presence, and patience that wasn't dependent on advancement.

Developing into a Church Able to Bear Suffering

A few better sermons about grace won't solve the church model we inherited if it can't heal hurting people. It will require an entirely new manner of being.

The first step would be for churches to shed their fixation with speed. Healing takes time. Change isn't a straight line. Churches would need to rethink their schedules in terms of decades rather than altar call minutes or baptism Sundays. Real love would entail putting in the time and effort to prove God's existence rather than looking for quick fixes.

Secondly, it would necessitate that churches acknowledge that genuine change occurs when individuals are allowed to share their stories—not just their polished testimonies, but their unvarnished, painful tales—and know that they will be heard without being pressured to reach a conclusion, without being judged for where they are, and loved whether or not the conclusion has come.

Third, churches would need to shrink, or at the very least, create smaller areas within of them where genuine presence is feasible. Crowds are not the place for healing. When you're just one name among hundreds, it doesn't happen. It takes place over extended periods of time in small groups where trust may develop and narratives can develop at their own speed. The church needs to cultivate smallness, the kind of intimacy where no one's anguish is drowned out in the din, instead of striving for bigness, if it hopes to carry genuine human suffering.

Lastly, churches would need to foster imaginations large enough to contain incomplete tales. When the tale is neat, when the addict is clean, when the marriage is salvaged, or when the depression is conquered, most churches only know how to celebrate. However, it isn't how most true stories end. We must learn to appreciate presence itself, not just the results we wish we could control, if we are to be a people truly changed by grace.

This would not be simple. Churches would lose their effectiveness, their expansion plans, and possibly even their standing as "successful." However, it might ultimately make them small enough and powerful enough to carry the most vulnerable.

Those Who Are Still Awaiting

Bipolar disorder affects a lovely young acquaintance of mine. He has a deep affection for God. He desires to be a part of the church community. But he no longer fears showing up.

It's not that he lacks faith. It's not that he doesn't give a damn. It's because he has previously experienced repeated hurt. He has been discreetly removed from several churches throughout the years. There were occasionally references to "disruption." Leaders occasionally warned him in private sessions that they just weren't "equipped" to meet his requests. At other instances, nobody spoke at all; he just stopped receiving invitations to return.

People praised him when he was doing well, when his faith sounded strong, and when the signs were concealed. However, the atmosphere around him became chilly when the despair returned, when the mania struck, and when he was unable to maintain the tidy story any more. The invitations stopped coming. The neighborhood went on.

The words were never spoken aloud. However, the message was clear: If you don't recover quickly, we're not sure what to do with you.

It's not animosity. It's not mean. We failed those children at camp all those years ago, and it's a failure of imagination. a lack of faith that love should endure the chaos rather than flee it.

The church will continue to lose the very people it was called to carry until it transforms—becomes smaller, slower, and more courageous. the ones that are still infected. those who are still having difficulties. those who have yet to find a church that is resilient enough to endure.