189: When “Grace” Protects Bullies: How We Confuse Avoidance With Christlikeness

Sometimes “just be gracious” is really code for “don’t rock the boat.” But when grace gets twisted into silence, avoidance, or fear, it stops looking like Jesus. 

In this episode, we’re talking about the quiet damage that happens when harmful behavior is tolerated in the name of patience or peace. 

What do you do when you’re not in charge but can’t ignore the dysfunction? Let’s get real about boundaries, truth, and the courage to speak up in love.

What You’ll Hear:

• Why avoidance often gets mislabeled as grace in small church culture
• The difference between strong personalities and destructive behavior
• What it looks like to protect others without overstepping leadership
• Simple language and actions that help you draw healthy lines
• Encouragement to stay spiritually healthy—even when your church isn’t

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Transcript

Laurie Graham: 0:01

Hey, welcome to the small church ministry podcast, where we help volunteers and ministry leaders experience less stress, more joy and greater impact as we share strategies that actually do work in smaller churches. I'm your host. Laurie Graham, let's dive in. You. Laurie, hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of the small church ministry podcast, where we don't measure health by how many people are in the room, but by how we love the ones who are. That is a phrase that I've said before, and I love it, and I think I need to start saying it more often. I'm Laurie, and this episode, well, I've been sitting on this one for a little while. It started with a comment I saw in a Facebook thread that was responding to somebody who was in a pretty harsh kind of church meeting situation with a person who was regularly or routinely kind of harsh. And the comment in the thread said, just love them like Jesus, be gentle and patient, let God deal with it. Now this sounds like an encouraging comment, love them like Jesus, be gentle and patient, let God deal with it. And I think it can do so much damage. We're gonna talk about why and how. So in this little mini series, if you've been hanging out with me for the last couple weeks, a couple weeks ago, I started off by talking about the tsunami of death that was mentioned online, that if your church did not have a youth program, it was going to be dying like it like that was just a done deal. So we talked about that. And by the way, I don't believe that. So if you haven't heard that episode, go back to episode. I think it was 187 maybe, um, and next we talked about the church pay, like ministry pay, debate whether we should be paid for ministry or not, which I realize is often a larger church question, but it definitely filters into the small church culture and community, and there's a lot of judgmental feelings around that, and today we're going to talk about loving people like Jesus when maybe they aren't so kind. The title of this episode is when Grace protects bullies, and how we confuse avoidance with Christ likeness. Sit with that title a little bit because it's it's everywhere. I don't know how else to say it. Like the last two episodes. Maybe you've dealt with small church pay debate. Maybe you haven't. You know the episode before that, your church is dying. Maybe you've never dealt with anything like that. Maybe you've never been part of that. Maybe you've never even hinged on people who are close to that, which is hard. It involves a lot of grief and change and shifting and rest. But today's topic, when Grace protects bullies, how we confuse avoidance with Christ likeness, I believe, is in every single church, I've seen it, churches of all sizes. We don't always recognize it. Sometimes we believe we are being godly by taking the long suffering martyrdom, you know, just dealing with it internally. But we're going to talk about it now, when this person said, Love them like Jesus, be gentle and patient. Let God deal with it, we can see a lot of truth in there. I'm not saying those things are not true in and of themselves, but I don't believe they are whole or complete. And that's where I have an issue. Is when we say, this is the answer, as though that is enough, because often it is not enough. Now, listen, I believe in gentleness, I believe in love, but sometimes that kind of advice, sometimes it's fear dressed up like in a Bible costume, like we're supposed to be. You know, Christians that that don't have these feelings or whatever, and we're scared, we're going to avoid things, and so we're going to say, hey, let's just be the bigger person. We're the more mature Christian. We should be able to handle it. But what happens when gentleness means don't speak up? What happens when be patient turns into letting a bully run the show. If you don't like the term bully, let's just talk about a person who is, is is engaging in damaging behavior. I don't like to talk about people being toxic. I don't believe people are toxic. I believe relationships can be toxic. People in themselves. I don't believe we're created toxic, but I do believe some people can't have characteristics and act in bullying ways, and it happens too often in the church. Are under the guise of being patient and letting God deal with them. Today we're talking about how Grace gets misused. Grace, the word grace, G, R, A, C, E, gets misused as an excuse for avoidance, and how small churches, especially, can confuse peace making with passivity. Now I'm not talking about being harsh at all, but I am talking about being honest. So this episode is going to be real, and hopefully it's also going to be deeply freeing. So stick with me. Let's start here. Grace is not the same as avoidance. In a lot of small churches, when someone an individual, has a history of being harsh or manipulative or dismissive or sometimes even downright cool. We don't say anything to them, but to each other. We may say things like this. That's just how she is, or he means well, or you have to show grace. Have you heard those conversations? Have you said those things? Have you been part of hearing those things? There was an incredible hurt, cause, a disruption, harm to someone emotionally. And we say, oh, that's just how she is. Or we say, he means well, and again, you have to show grace, because that's what mature Christians do no actually, that's not the whole of it. When we avoid confrontation and we avoid setting healthy loving boundaries and we avoid accountability, we're saying we do it in the name of spiritual maturity, but that's not maturity. Do you know maturity in a relationship is being able to have a conflict, being able to have confrontation, and growing deeper in your relationship? That is the definition of an emotionally mature relationship between anybody, not just in the church. Emotionally Mature relationships have boundaries, emotionally mature relationships, have accountability. Now, before you get too stuck on accountability, I am not talking the Matthew passage where we're going to hold people accountable and bring them in front of the church or in front of it. I believe that scripture gets misused like crazy. I don't think I've done a dedicated episode on that yet, but I will someday. But that's not quite what I'm talking about. But I am talking about the fact that ignoring harmful behavior is not spiritual maturity. It's often fear dressed up as faith. We don't want to have the hard conversation, we don't want to have the awkward conversation. We're scared it's not going to it's not going to go well, or we're actually scared of that person in their reaction. But Grace just isn't the absence of consequences. It's not grace and truth. Can you picture this? Grace and truth are friends, not enemies? Grace and Truth exist in the same place. Grace and Truth, they're not counter each other. They're friends. In fact, they're intertwined, grace and truth. Now, most of us were taught that being a good Christian means being nice. Have you heard that? Did you grow up like that? Being a good Christian means being nice and being quiet and being the bigger person. So when someone dominates a meeting or bullies a volunteer or drives off, you know, a nursery worker in six months with their harshness, we freeze, we rationalize it, we over spiritualize it, or we bury it, we hide it. But that pattern, even if it's allowed by one person, right, even if it's not that person creating the pattern over and over again, it creates a pattern in our church because other people see it and experience it, and we actually create something toxic. We create a culture where the most aggressive person in the room has the most control or the most influence, and the Kinder people quietly disappear. Now maybe they stay at your church, but they're not going to serve on that board or that team. Have you seen this happen. I see it. I have seen this in every single church I have served in, and it doesn't happen because they don't care, the quiet people, the kind people. Disappear because nobody cared enough to protect them or and, let's just say, and they weren't taught that they should be protected or that they should have their own boundaries. We're actually teaching something that is toxic. So let's name it clearly. There's a difference between a strong personality and a harmful behavior. It's one thing to be blunt, it's another thing to belittle people. It's one thing to have opinions, and we can all learn to share opinions in gentler, kinder ways, but it's one thing to have an opinion. It's another thing to dominate every room you walk into. Do you see the difference between a behavior or a response and a pattern. It's not spiritual to make others feel small, and it's not leadership to allow that culture to continue. I'm going to say that again, it is not spiritual to make others feel small, and it is not good leadership to allow that culture to continue in small churches. When this happens, it often gets dismissed as personality quirks. I've shared this before. One of the differences in small churches and big churches is in small churches, everyone is known. Everybody's voice is heard. In large churches, quirky people or just people who are a little different or have different like strong personalities, they kind of can fit in with the crowd. In small churches, every single one of us stands out, and it often gets dismissed as a personality quirk, or worse, it gets protected under a false cover of grace. And here's where the real damage happens. The people who leave are usually the healthiest ones, the kindest ones, the ones who tried to stay, the ones who showed up anyway, until they couldn't anymore. I just want to say it again, the people who usually leave are often the healthiest ones, the kindest ones, the ones who tried to stay. And I'm talking about when there is an ongoing pattern where bullying behavior has been allowed to exist. This is when I'm talking the healthier people often leave when this has been allowed. And it is a pattern where it is dismissed as Grace, the kind ones, the ones who tried to stay long enough, the ones who kept showing up. They showed up until they couldn't anymore. And I also want to just say, if that was you way to go for being a steward of your own health, emotional, physical, relational, spiritual, we've got to be responsible for ourselves. So here's a big question, right? Like, where's the line? When do we keep the peace? If being quiet is keeping the peace, when do we make peace? When is it peace and grace to stay silent? When it when is it grace to speak up? If you're a lay leader, a volunteer, if you're not the person in charge, you might be wondering, well, what can I even do? This is the leader of the ministry. They're the ones doing harm. Or what if the pastor won't step in? What if, I know we need to be saying something, and the pastor will not. I've asked them too, what if I'm just a volunteer and I see it, but everyone else seems scared or like they think it's no big deal. So let's pause again and take a big, big deep breath, because these questions are holy ground. They aren't black and white, as I've talked in this whole mini series, as I've unpacked these tough questions, there isn't always one right answer for every person in every church, in every ministry area. The reason it's holy ground us, because this is the invitation of of God into the discussion. But the simple framework is Grace without truth. Is not grace. If we're not acknowledging the truth, if the truth is not in the light, it's not grace. If behind closed doors, we're saying, well, that's how he is. Oh, that's just the way her personality is. That's what she does. But we're saying it behind closed doors because we're dismissing it right? Grace without truth isn't grace, and truth without love isn't truth. Truth. Truth without love isn't truth. Now, once again, I am not talking about the phrase speak the truth in love as you have seen it modeled, because most of us have seen that modeled terribly, poorly, awfully. We have not really seen much love modeled when it comes to people, holding people accountable. We haven't seen it in businesses. We have definitely not seen it in the church. I have seen the phrase speaking the truth in love, in so many abusive, awful situations, whether it's in parenting, it's in church leadership, so many ways so like this is that holy ground conversation. Don't just take what you've seen modeled. Let's go a little deeper. But Jesus didn't avoid hard things. He told the truth with love and he protected people who were vulnerable. That's what Jesus did consistently. He protected people who were vulnerable. Sometimes protecting people means having hard conversations. Now this is a conversation I am starting. We're not going to have it all done today. This is something to dig in deep if you're in that situation, to do some research, to to really look at what is out there, as far as healthy relationships and healthy people, to understand that most of the time when people are acting in in damaging ways, that is usually, if not always, an outpouring of unhealed trauma in them. It doesn't mean it should be allowed, but there has got to be some empathy, or in a healthy way, there would be empathy and compassion on all edges. But But when we're truthful and we're honest and we're really getting real, when we look at these situations, circumstances, oftentimes, patterns, you can see the dysfunction. You can feel the damage, and as many of us have experienced in different settings, sometimes the person in charge isn't doing anything. Maybe they're conflict avoidant, maybe they are scared, maybe they have never seen this modeled. Maybe they don't know what to do. Maybe they don't know what's healthiest. What do you do if you're not the one in charge? Now, if you are the one in charge, same thing here, okay, but what do you do if you're not the one in charge? Here are a few things that can protect our own integrity without overstepping leadership. So we get to draw our own lines. We get to set our own boundaries with someone who bulldozes us, or in our presence, we get to calmly say, I'm not okay with being talked to that way. If you speak to me that way, I'm going to leave the room. I'm happy to come back at some point, but I'm not okay being taught being being talked to that way, that's a boundary, right? A boundary is not saying I'm not okay being talked to that way. You cannot do that, or I need your respect. We don't get to tell other people what to do. We get to draw our lines, choose our actions. So it's okay to say I'm not okay being talked to in that way, or maybe they're not talking to you, and you see it happen at a meeting, you can say, I am not okay. When these kind of comments get made, like in this team, I don't want to be a part of a team where this is okay. So if that's going to be allowed, I would love to serve, but I'm gonna find another another place to serve, because I'm not okay with that. So do you see how that's a boundary, and it is also in love? Okay? You're not saying I can't stand to be in your presence. I don't like you. I'm Xing you out of my life. You're saying I am not okay with that action, with that word, with that tone of voice, with the constant interruptions with, you know, you standing up at a table and and like, almost like, I don't know, when you say, people like posture, you get you don't have to stay there. You can do something different. Okay? So you can draw your own line. The other thing you can do is you can document. Patterns. Now I am not saying we're going to keep, like a lawsuit file or anything like that, but I do think it's really healthy to keep some journals. And it's a really good to be able to document patterns, to be able to say to a leadership someday, because this could come up in different ways. To say yeah, this has been happening over and over again. And to say, Yeah, last June, this is specifically what happened. This is what happened in this meeting, or yeah, when I was at this meeting, this is what happened. So keep keeping like a journal or a log or documenting patterns. It's not only something that is great to bring up or to like to have when these tough conversations come up, right? But for me, it also creates some clarity as I look, you know, look at the journal go, I'm not crazy like that situation happened, and what did I do with my emotions? It it leads me to more growth, because I'm looking at this objectively and saying, Well, this happened, wow. If that happened to anybody else, I'd be like, Wow, that's not okay, either. Because sometimes when you're around people who are kind of bullying, or if you know the term gaslighting, it can make you feel a little crazy. Like, well, maybe this didn't really happen, like I thought. So I really, I'm, I'm a big journaler, and so when I think about the thought of documenting patterns, I could just go back to my journals. It wasn't like I was trying to keep a, you know, a document so that I could build a case against someone. I don't think that's necessarily healthy, okay, but these are things you can do to protect your integrity without overstepping leadership. If there is leadership involved that are not acting right to protect you or whoever the vulnerable person is, so you can draw your line. You can document patterns, and this is one of my favorite things you can do. You can create a safer micro culture, a micro culture within a culture. Have you ever worked at a at like, an organization, or some of you who have, like, corporate jobs, like, there's the corporate culture, but then, like, your department has like, its own little culture. Or my daughter's a school teacher, and you know, the school has its own culture, but then the third grade team has a different little micro culture. This happens in churches a lot, and you don't have to default to the negative just because there's some negative culture happening around you, within your team or your class or your group, you can foster emotional safety and be the one who protects others. I've often done that on teams, and honestly, I think people are so much more attracted to your team because you created this safer micro culture. It's what we do in creative solutions for small churches. Facebook community, just putting this together right here. But in general, social media is not that safe. There's tons and tons of groups that do anonymous posting, and people get snarky and people get judgmental and people get critical, what we have done at creative solutions for small churches is we have created a safer micro culture thanks to the community members themselves who help keep the culture safe and positive looking at creative solutions instead of judging. Thank you to Becky Sargent. Thank you to Sherry koholic. Thank you to Sandy Smith. Thank you to Krista French. Thank you to Edna. Thank you I could, I could list just tons and tons of people who are in there just being that positive culture in our Facebook community. So draw your lines, your own lines for you document patterns, create a safer micro culture. The other thing you can do is just in order to broach into this healthy emotional place and help even bring the awareness of is using something called layered language instead of like, calling out that person is a bully, or she's a narcissist, or, like, instead of using names, right? Or even sometimes people even use like, you know, psychological more more clinical terms, like you're gaslighting me, or things like that. Try using softer language. Like, I'm concerned that this behavior is hurting the team. I'm concerned that that person's tone of voice kind of caused this riff, so just use softer, layered language. We're not about calling people out or bringing anyone down. This is about becoming healthier as a church. So let's stay less aggressive. Okay, and the last thing I'll just mention is just to stay grounded. This just just goes for taking care of your soul, being a good steward of the biggest gift God has given you, the biggest tool, the biggest gift, and that's you like, take care of your soul, of your body, of your mind, of your relationships, of your connection with Jesus. Take care of it. That's time, that's money, that's energy, talk to a counselor, talk to a coach, talk to a spiritual director. Find some like, I don't know, spiritual friends, don't carry this alone. Take care of you. And again, this isn't just spiritually, because our minds and our bodies and our relationships, where it's all intertwined, your literal your literal, sleep is important, your health, staying hydrated. These things really do affect every single part of us, but you don't have to lead the church or your ministry area to influence a healthier culture. I really think this is so key. As I look at our audience and who follows us and who's pouring their hearts and their souls into small churches, there are many more volunteers than there are pastors. There are many more core leaders who serve like crazy, who are a huge influence, like you in your church. Then there are specific ministry team leaders. The culture is not just the leader. You totally can influence a healthier culture without having to be the leader or with a title. I'm just going to go over those five things again, really quick, in case you missed them. Also, every podcast we have has a transcript, just so you know, if you do find our podcast. I know most people are listening on Apple podcasts, another group of people listen on Spotify or the Amazon platform, but every podcast is actually listed on our website. It's hosted on its own page, and you can always get a transcript, which is great for accessibility as well, of each and every podcast. But I'm just going to hit those five things again, the things that you can do to protect your integrity, even if the larger culture around you or the leaders are not moving in the direction you wish they were, to protect people who are vulnerable. So number one, you can draw your own lines. This is when you set up boundaries. And I also want to say, as you do that people are watching you and you're actually subtly giving them permission to take care of themselves. So draw your own lines. Document patterns, again, a journal kind of thing is great. The third thing is, create safer micro cultures, right? Not gossipy ones, not negative ones, safer positive ones, using more layered language, softer language, without labeling people, but really talking about their behavior. And the fifth thing is just staying grounded and taking care of yourself. Now maybe you're thinking, if you've ever been in one of these situations, and maybe you've thought this before, it's not worth it, I'm just going to quit ministry. Shouldn't be that hard. That hard and listen, if that's what you need to actually stay healthy, that's okay. It's okay. But maybe just maybe, you're being invited into something deeper, a deeper understanding of what church is meant to be, a deeper practice of your own integrity and spiritual courage, a deeper awareness of how Jesus confronted harm or how Jesus protected the vulnerable, a deeper understanding of your own influence. The Church needs more people like you, the person who actually listened to this whole podcast, the person who's considering what we're talking about, people who are kind and brave, people who don't confuse peace keeping with peace making, people who know that Christ likeness really is not passive. If this hits home for you in any way, you are not alone. If your church has allowed harmful behavior to slide, to cover it with grace, to excuse patterns of bullying with personality quirks, it doesn't mean you have to continue that. You can protect your peace. You can protect your people and your friends. You can have influence with those around you. You can still walk in love. You can be spiritually healthy, even if your church culture is struggling in a certain spot, if you need support, we are here like, Come hang out with us at small church ministry.com you can find out all the places we are on social in our Free Facebook community, because we strive. Now I'm not saying we are perfect, but it is part of our values. We strive to be emotionally honest, spiritually grounded. We are all about practical tools and real talk. You. We are all about elevating the influence. And I don't mean we're elevating it. I mean we're elevating the the conscious consciousness of understanding that every human who follows Jesus, volunteer ministry leader, no position at all, is an incredible influence, and you just you can influence and change your church culture. It's quite a beautiful thing. So I'm Laurie. This is the small church ministry podcast. Small isn't less, it's just different and quite beautiful. All right, talk to you next week. Be a light you