The Flame Within

It’s truly a shame how people in the church turn their faces to misuse of power and mishandling of sexual abuse in the church. Sadly, I’ve witnessed it and the evilness is occurring right under their noses. They try their hardest to keep their distance from victims, all because it upsets their happy little sense of community. Even when it happens to their own children, they’ve swept it under the rug and allowed the abusive clergy to mishandle their abused child. Sadly, many congregants refuse to take a stand for other members facing this type of abuse in the church and even parents refuse to take a stand for their own children against abuse from perpetrators and against the clergy who mishandle abuse in the church. It’s evilness at its core. If it happens to one person in the church, it will happen to more and more until the congregation takes a stand!

Taking a stand “sadly” means a potential loss of community, so they tolerate and end up losing peace, joy, and their very own souls. When will more of God’s people arise to this issue of abuse in the church and take a stand like Jesus, David, Moses, Esther, and Ruth. Christianity was never meant to be easy, it’s always been about standing up for God’s righteousness with love, truth, and justice!

I am thankful for Dr. Diane Langberg who followed God and not the clergy and people in leadership attempting to lead her astray. These are the individuals of faith who positively impact God’s kingdom and who are most respected in the community of true believers! I’ve heard her speak many times and she reports that clergy are the least in attendance at all her speeches. Hmmm???

Follow God or follow the system? I will choose to follow God and not the system. Because God sacrificed his very own son for me and gives me earthly and eternal hope. The system sacrifices their own members to selfishly protect themselves. God is unconditionally loving, stands up for the abused, refuses to tolerate evil, and will never fail. The “system” protects the system and the leadership at the top of the system. It’s a sad situation, that breaks the heart of God!

Protecting ministries, destroying souls! Ouch!

What an truth bomb this is… Let it sink in! Who are you “really” serving? A system or God of Heaven and Earth? One day we will stand before our amazing and loving Heavenly Father, and we will give an account. He’s not only loving and full of mercy, but he is also a God of justice. Never forget this! We will face our maker one day… “How will you respond?”

Although, it feels I walk this path alone…. I am not alone! God is on the side of the righteous! Thankful there are amazing and truly God-fearing people, like Dr. Langberg, who are taking a stand against this atrocious evilness so deeply rooted in too many of our churches. There are truly God-fearing people in our churches, I pray they listen to the “still small voice” of God and take a stand against this evilness and support those impacted by the system. The system they follow who is acting in evilness and sadly destroying souls, all in the name of “ministry”. This is NOT God’s plan for ”The Bride of Christ”

• The Church belongs to God.

There is no greater pain on Earth, than being victimized in the church and the church denying, abusing, harassing, ignoring, assaulting, stonewalling, and allowing the perpetrator to walk free and placing the victim in the place of the perpetrator.

In a world filled with “false news” there is truth coming through about the mishandling of sexual abuse in the church, and those in the church are turning their heads. All while the church dwindles away and we wonder why people of all ages are leaving the church. Because “sadly” the church all too often doesn’t look or act like Jesus! I can’t blame them, I refuse to follow hypocrites too. Too many pharisees in the church, make it extremely hard to find the true love, acceptance, righteousness, and love of God. It’s there, but in the face of this kind of evilness, the victims have an extremely difficult time finding the true Christ-followers. The people they thought were true Christ-followers disappear in the face of their greatest pain.

All the while, church attendance world-wide continues to drop. The church is too busy scratching their heads in shock, to seek God’s face to show us “why” and to humbly fall on our knees in repentance and ask God to show us how to remedy the situation. Instead, we are dumb sheep wandering around, following anything and everything but the shepherd “Lord, Jesus” himself. “We like sheep have gone astray!” Yet, our Savior lived and died for us! He left the 99 in search of the 1 lost sheep. I am truly grateful!

I’m reminded of a young girl who was being lead astray to a very evil and abusive group. I asked her “What does this group have to offer, that your church doesn’t?” She quickly responded with tears in her eyes “They accept me! I feel like I belong! My church rejects me, judges me, and I feel like an outcast!”
I sat with tears in my eyes; The lost girl spoke profound truth and I couldn’t dispute her words, because I too have felt judged, rejected, abandoned, unwanted, and unprotected by the church. I sat there and responded “I know! It’s so hard! I’m sorry, it’s not the way God intended it to be!”

This evilness that has taken root in our church’s breaks God’s heart and “It’s not the way God intended!”

Will we take a stand against the mishandling of abuse in our churches? Or will we turn our heads to the pain and evilness and pay for it later, by God himself?

We are not here for ourselves! We are not on this earth for ourself! We are not in our churches for ourselves. We are here for God and to do His will and to be His vessels. Will we live for Jesus? I will!

“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Galatians 1:10

Joshua 24:14 & 15 “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Friends, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!”

Blessings, Crystal Ridlon, LMHC, LPC