Why I Won't Be Answering the "Call to Reconciliation"

At least not on those terms...

On Friday, Mars Hill posted A Call For Reconciliation.  Here is my response:

I am glad that Mars Hill has acknowledged that there are many people out here who have been hurt by their church.   I appreciate their call to reconciliation, however, I won't be answering it on those terms.

Please know that I pray regularly for Mars Hill and its leadership.  It is my greatest desire to see good come out of all of this.  I love many people who are still at Mars Hill, and I am glad that most of them are happy there.  The positive experience of some does not invalidate the very negative experience of others though. For every story I have posted here, there are stories I did not share, because the person shared their story in confidence.

The statement seemed to blur the lines and imply that all of the people speaking out against Mars Hill were under church discipline and are taking those matters public.  To clarify, this is the exception and not the rule, as in our case and most others that have been shared here, we were not, in fact, under church discipline.  And since, in this post as well as the last two responses PR issued, they continue to stand by their stance on church discipline, one which I do not now or will I ever agree with, I am unable to be reconciled in the way that they wish to reconcile me.

Please know, that while I do not wish to be reconciled to Mars Hill in the way they understand it, that I am allowing God to give me a heart of forgiveness.  It is a process but I am daily growing it.  And I know that God is more than capable of healing my heart and helping me to forgive.

What the Mars Hill pastors fail to realize is that those of us that have told our stories about our negative experiences at Mars Hill would attribute the abuses we experienced to our Community Group Leaders, Elders & Pastors.  We trusted them to treat us with love and grace then, and that is not what happened.  Why should we trust them to now?  Forgiveness is not trusting someone who has hurt you.  And forgiveness is not neglecting justice for the oppressed.

I am not comfortable submitting my personal information on their form.  And I am not comfortable sitting down and meeting with Mars Hill elders on their terms.  I did not choose to subject myself to meetings with the CG leader when I left for the same reason I do not want to do it now.  It is not clear in their statement whether they are trying to get me to repent and be reconciled to Mars Hill, or if they wish to repent and be reconciled to me.

The only conditions under which I would ever consider the call to reconciliation are as follows:
1) The meeting was held in a neutral place, with an elder I am comfortable meeting with.
2) I am free to bring someone along, be that a trusted advisor, pastor at my new church, counselor, etc.
3) The meeting will not become a theological debate over "open-handed" or secondary issues that we may disagree on.
4) I am free to write about my experience afterwards.

My email is, and has always been, accessible through this blog.  While I maintain anonymity here, I am confident that my former pastors and CG leader know who I am from the details of my story.  I have never been contacted for apologies, reconciliation or the like.   However, I do not need an apology or reconciliation (as Mars Hill would define it) to forgive.

If any of my readers choose to pursue reconciliation through the website, please know that I will support you and pray for you and assist you in any way that I can.  We all need to handle our situation as the Holy Spirit leads us.

Leaving Grudgeville

I have been daydreaming, thinking about leaving  Grudgeville for a while now.  I have thought about what I will take with me, what I will sell, what I will leave behind without ever looking back.

Where is Grudgeville, you ask?  It is where I have been living, unhappily, for a few months now.  Grudgeville attracts the broken, the angry, the resentful, the abused, the addicted, the victim.  It is not a very nice place to live. The homes are run down, the streets full of trash, abandoned buildings and broken windows.  It is overpopulated. This is not a place to raise kids!

I began asking myself how I would ever move away from this awful place.  What steps did I need to take?  Who did I need to talk to?  Who would I leave behind? What rights would I give up when surrendering my citizenship?  What would I gain by leaving? What would happen if I stayed indefinitely? Would I die here? I don’t know the answers to all these questions.  Some of them I hope never to find out.

Jarrid Wilson, in his Grudgeville post, writes:

"STOP:
I know what you’re thinking.
“But you don’t realize what they did to me.”
“You don’t understand how much they hurt me.”
And to be honest, you’re probably right. But that’s the point of Grace. It’s not earned, but everyone deserves a second chance anyway. Why? Because at one point, it was given to you.
All throughout our lives we will encounter people who will chew us up and spit us out, but that doesn’t mean you get a free ticket to Grudgeville. Grudgeville is the place where leaders fall, families decay, relationships shatter and the population is “Your Choice.” So until you can make peace with your attacker, you’ll always be living as a defender. And to be honest, you don’t want to live a life in defense.
Every grudge dropped is grace given."

But I am ready.  I am selling my place here in Grudgeville.  Do I have a "right" to be here?  Some would say so.

But the truth is, I REALLY DON'T.  The truth is, I don't deserve Grace.  Neither do any of the citizens of Grudgeville or any neighboring towns.  But, I have been given Grace nonetheless.  Do those who have hurt me deserve Grace? No.  But, I feel compelled to extend Grace because it was extended to me.

Grace is the very essence of who Jesus is.  He extended grace to his rugged bunch of disciples, to Peter when he denied him, to the Samaritan woman at the well, to the woman who touched the hem of his garment, to Roman soldiers, tax collectors, the thief hanging on the cross next to him, to Judas, even to those who crucified Him.  I mean, he was God after all, and he could have done anything he chose in those situations.

I hope you will walk with me as I make my journey out of Grudgeville.  I am not sure how long it will take, how windy the road will be, and what pitfalls will happen along the way. I may need help moving the big pieces of furniture, I may need to be reminded of why I wanted to leave Grudgeville in the first place.

But leaving Grudgeville and embracing Grace equates to FREEDOM.

NOTE: If you haven't checked out PEOPLE OF THE SECOND CHANCE please take some time to do so!

Kaelee's Story ~ A Follow Up

It’s been a crazy few weeks for me. After sharing my story on this blog I was asked to do an interview with a local news station about my experience at Mars Hill. I also finally made the decision to talk to the wife of the couple I spoke of in my story. After telling Sophia about my conversation with this woman she asked me to write a follow up post.

This is a poem I wrote after my experience at Mars Hill. I wrote it during the hardest part of recovery from my eating disorder:

I wish I could reach across the void between us,

I would fill it with all of the things we won’t say,

“You’ve changed,”

“You are judging me,”

“I envy you,”

Each tightly caged word, if spoken, could create a bridge,

We would meet in the middle.

But I am selfish and cowardly,

I hope you will do all the work.

So the void grows bigger,

Hope of crossing diminishes.

After reading the stories on this blog and choosing to share my own story, I began to find myself often thinking about healing, and what that would look like for me. Once again this brought up painful emotions, so I ignored them. I found it much easier to remain in an us-vs-them mindset regarding Mars Hill, and to simplify a very complicated problem down to Mars Hill and it’s mindsets.

After gentle encouragement from my therapist I finally decided to face my fears and speak with the wife of the couple who had hurt me. As displayed by the poem I wrote above, part of me always knew this is what needed to happen for my own healing. When I imagined this meeting I feared judgement, condemnation, and believed she would try and convert me or guilt me back into attending Mars Hill.

I am pleased to say how very wrong I was. Our meeting went wonderfully. We were both honest and open with each other about the events that had transpired and how they made us feel. She opened up to me about the religious pride she and her husband had struggled with. The flakey actions I discussed in my story had hurt her more than I realized. I also discovered that my own feelings towards Mars Hill turned out to be just as much to blame as their desire for my husband and I to attend. While she did say that Mars Hill preached the truth, and it was hard for her to see me rejecting the truth, she allowed me to disagree with her. For the first time she demonstrated that our relationship was more important to her than the matter of what church I attended. I don’t know if this attitude has always been there, or is more recent, but either way it is enough for me.

Virginia Woolf writes, “I have lost friends, some by death…others by sheer inability to cross the street.”

We have all been hurt. Some of those people who have hurt us will be unwilling to try and right their wrongs, they might try and shift the blame to you. If you risk it and try to talk to them you may leave even more wounded than you were before, but for me it was worth it for any amount of healing and clarification it could bring to my life. I can’t give anyone a formula to find forgiveness, I wouldn’t dare to be that presumptuous. Crossing the street happened to be the best decision I made during this process. My anger is gone and by pursuing my own healing I was finally able to forgive her in an honest fashion.

After my experience, I really just want to encourage everyone to be honest and open with themselves about what they need for healing and to trust that their own healing will lead to forgiveness. Don’t allow others to give you a formula for this process, and try to be realistic and understanding in your expectations of the people who have hurt you. There is always hope.