190: Grace, Bullies, & Boundaries: How To Stay In The Conversation

If you listened to Episode 189, you know we tackled the hard truth about what happens when grace gets twisted into protecting bullies in the church. 

This episode stands on its own — but it’s also a continuation of that conversation.

We’re getting real about how to handle church conflict in a healthy, biblical way … and why the space between ignoring bad behavior and asking someone to leave matters so much.

Here’s what’s inside:

1. The “in-between” - why it matters and how to live there without losing your mind.
2. How to deal with bullies in church - with empathy, truth, and boundaries.
3. Speaking softly, holding your ground, and still loving people well.
4. The behavior that’s never okay in church (and how to call it out with kindness).
5. When to keep working toward repair … and when to walk away in peace.

Because healthy churches aren’t built by people who avoid hard conversations. They’re built by people who love deeply, speak truth gently, and trust that God still has more for His church.

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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. Hey friend, welcome back to the small church ministry podcast. So here's the truth. I was not planning on doing a part two on when Grace protects bullies. Honestly, I thought I'd said my piece, but then you started to write me. So if you're just coming in for the first time, last week, episode 189 we did an episode called when Grace protects bullies, and talking about how grace in churches is sometimes equal to avoiding like when we are avoiding hard conversations, difficult people, difficult behavior, because it's just easier to ignore it. But as I mentioned, you started writing me. I got comments, I got emails, I got DMS, I heard stories that you've been holding onto for years, and the more I read, the more I realized we're not done talking about this, and we won't be done today either. But I did feel the need to do a little bit of a part two here. So if you want to go back and listen to 189 Feel free. But this is a standalone episode also, so you're not missing anything if you start here. So anyway, so with some of these comments and emails, some of you told me about mediations between staff and pastors that could have been avoided if somebody had stepped in earlier, I heard stories about bullies being protected in the church under the reason that they had been hurt in the past, and we need to be compassionate. Bullying behavior from fellow volunteers or even by church leaders, even a few really sad stories of adults in positions over kids that was just really unhealthy or modeling bullying behavior themselves, like yelling, and also a great response about a conversation that you finally had after years of silence, and how this hard conversation that everyone had been avoiding really opened the door to some real healing. One of my favorite comments, though, came in by email. So thank you for this one. She said, Thank you for this podcast. It came at a perfect time. We could have saved a lot of money by listening to you, rather than having a mediator yesterday, like literally just yesterday, to try to resolve some differences in our church. She said, I got the same information from you as I did with the mediator in a shorter amount of time, as well as easier to understand. So thank you for that comment. You know what I love about this is we're small church. People here speaking to small churches, we speak in a in a plain way, like, let's get rid of the fluff and just go there and and get to some solutions, right. There were also a lot of comments like, it's about time. Like people need to be held accountable. Sometimes we need to ask people to leave. Those are the comments that is kind of the reason I'm doing this part too. Like, when, when we have that thing rise up in our hearts, yeah, we need to say the hard stuff, and we get kind of fierce. And all of this just left me thinking, like, we need to talk about that hard middle ground, that gap between the behavior and the outcome that we feel like we can get to, because too often we jump to extremes, right? We either sweep the whole thing under the rug, or we skip straight to this person needs to be out like this person shouldn't be here anymore, or labeling that person with the difficult behavior as toxic. And yes, I want to say, before we jump into this episode, and please do not miss this. There are times when asking somebody to leave the church community is the right call, but I want to say this is the exception. This is the extreme, and truly this should be really rare. I'm talking cases where there's actual assault, where there's sexual abuse, where there's extreme psychological manipulation. Sometimes the graceful thing is saying you can't be here anymore. But what we're going to talk about today, we're not going to talk about those things. We've talked about them in other episodes. We will talk about them in the future. What I'm talking about today is, sadly, the garden variety power issues, the typical bullying behavior that we see the times in church, where we have these awkward silences when someone is using power or shame or blame or even silence, to manipulate or again, silence other people or to get their way, because between that behavior, between here and there, there's like 18 steps, as I mentioned, we tend to go to extremes, which is either ignoring or. Or, you know, I've seen so many people call in the Matthew passage on holding people accountable, calling them in front of people, all this stuff, and it is honestly not usually really done in love. We'll talk about that in a minute. But this is where we live. We live in the middle, and let's figure out how to go through it and not around it. The hard middle ground is not about avoiding. It's not hiding, it's not ignoring. It's doing the harder thing, usually the slower thing, the thing that actually leads to and allows repair and restoration to happen. Because even if we don't end up there, I think that should be our goal, repair, restoration. Now I've been in the room when the hard middle ground gets skipped entirely. And I'm going to tell you about one instance. This is not the only instance. It's it's gonna sound really extreme, but I want to say when I've shared this story, I know a lot of people who've been through really similar things. I remember years back, sitting around a big table with church leadership, calmly, with elders, a couple pastors, a church moderator, a counselor who had been brought in as almost a consultant. There were big things happening, some real problems in the church, and in the middle of that meeting, the big, tall associate male pastor stood up, pounded his fist on the table like literally in this calm setting, stands up, pounds his fist at the table and points his finger at me and said, She's a liar. And I was really shocked. I jolted a bit. It was scary. Everybody around the table sat up a little straighter. Eyes widened like it was completely unexpected. It was, it was very misplaced. And I waited. I waited for one person, just one person, to say, Wow, that's not okay. Like this is clear intimidation, harshness, lack of control, power, assertion. And you know what happened? Nothing. No one even responded, not the other pastor, not the elders, not the moderator, not the counselor who had been brought in, the meeting just continued. And honestly, this behavior wasn't addressed to my knowledge because I asked even after the fact, it literally was never mentioned again. And I remember walking away thinking, wow, if this is how the leadership handles hard situations or really doesn't handle it, how can we expect anybody else in the church to feel safe. I literally was sitting shoulder to shoulder with the exact people I thought were the protectors and the leaders and the tone setters. And you know, that's what eldership is, right? And when we skip this hard middle ground because it's hard, I'm not saying that would have been easy to address, right? But when we skip the hard middle ground, we communicate to the whole church that power wins, that aggression wins, that silence is safer than truth. Okay, now here's the thing this conversation isn't about those people who need to do better. It's about us. It's about all of us. We are all human, every single one of us. And we don't just bring our best selves to church every single day. We also bring our wounds. We bring our childhood stuff. We bring church hurt. We bring our experiences, all the little things in life that have shaped us. And if we're honest, like, let's just be honest for a second. We have all been on both sides of this issue, on all sides. We have been the one who hurt someone I have. We have been the one who's also helped someone heal. I have. I really, really hate the phrase, hurt people, hurt people. Have you heard the phrase like it's a meme, it goes around. It's really trendy. Hurt people, hurt people. And that is meant to say, we need to have compassion, right? If somebody's hurting you, they're a hurt person, okay? But can I also say hurt people can also heal people. And I also want to say healed people, heal people. Sure, hurt people, hurt people, healed people, heal people. But I also want to say that healed people also hurt people. We don't get to sit on one side and pretend we're the good guys and they're not. And here's where empathy matters. Why empathy matters, and I want to be clear, empathy is not letting people get away with whatever they want. That is not what empathy is. Here's a great way to think about empathy. Empathy is this. Yes, I see the pain behind this behavior, and I also see the impact it's having on others, and because I care about you and the people around you, I am going to address it. Can we look at empathy like that? I see the pain behind the behavior. I also see the impact. Because I care about you and the people around us, I'm going to address it for me. Speaking the truth in love with empathy in mind means that I do not speak until I can speak softly, if my voice is going to be sharp, if I'm not going to be able to maintain control of my own peace, P, E, A, C, E, my own peace, then I am not ready. It means I actually have to feel love for a person. Speaking the truth in love isn't just choosing I'm going to love them because God tells me to. It's actually feeling love for a person, but if I feel the love for a person I'm about to confront or have a hard conversation with, it comes off differently. This isn't about faking it. It's not about choosing to be nice or to be in self control. It's about being able to look at an offender and see the good that Jesus sees in them, to want the best for them, not just for me. So it's not just about protecting a person who's been offended. It's wanting the best for everyone. Now again, please don't take this to extreme assault situations. Okay, because there are definite boundaries that need to happen, and sometimes conversations cannot happen with narcissists, with psychopathic personalities, with pedophiles, like there's there's an extreme situation here where Grace looks different in those situations. Please keep in mind today for this episode, I'm addressing garden variety, bullying, power, assertion type things that happen in churches that should not be garden variety. Okay, they shouldn't be. But when I can look at somebody with love, seeing the good as Jesus sees, then I can walk into even the hardest conversation, believing that just maybe we can move toward the kind of community that God has in mind. This is what I'm talking about. So again, empathy does not mean anything goes. There are certain behaviors that have no place in a healthy church community, and I'm just going to list them, and some of them might feel very common to you. And in my opinion, they don't belong in a church community. The first one is yelling or raising your voice at someone in a meeting, at a rehearsal, at a practice, in a small group at a leadership meeting, yelling or raising your voice that's not passion, that's aggression in some churches, it's very, very common. Okay? Another thing that doesn't belong in a healthy church community is talking over people so their voice never makes it into the room where somebody's opinion is silenced and we're going to talk over them. Another thing that doesn't belong in a healthy church community, are personal attacks, calling someone a liar or lazy or unspiritual or immature. Personal attacks, public shaming, pointing out somebody's mistake in front of the whole group to make them look small. This is common in some leadership situations in churches or in just regular community. Another thing that doesn't belong in a in a healthy church community is passive aggressive digs or sarcasm that is not personality. Passive aggressive digs and sarcasm that belittles people. No, it's not funny, and it shouldn't be allowed. Other things that shouldn't be part, that are not part of a healthy church community are using size or posture to intimidate. When people stand up at a meeting, when somebody looms over, someone, pounds a table, points a finger, it doesn't belong in healthy community, retaliation, freezing somebody out or punishing them because they disagreed, or not inviting them, excluding certain people from meetings to send a message that's that doesn't belong in healthy church community, gossip, rumor spreading, damaging someone's reputation conversations with about them where they're not involved. Stonewalling should not happen in healthy church communities. Stonewalling is simply refusing to have a conversation or withholding information in order to control a situation. Oh, yeah, we're not going to talk about that. Okay? Yeah, that's stonewalling, dismissing somebody's contribution without listening to it. It kind of talked about that, like with talking over people, but this is a little bit different when you're asking for input and you just dismiss that. You know, another thing that shouldn't happen in healthy church community is over spiritualizing in order to avoid accountability. When we hide behind God told me or a Bible verse in order to shut down a discussion or and this one is this one happens a lot blaming past hurt or illness, so you don't have to take responsibility when we say that person is damaged, that person is hurt, we all are that does not excuse a behavior to continue over and over again. The fact is, we can all learn and grow. Whether we have been hurt in the past, whether we have, you know, need a, I don't know, a knee replacement, whether we have a shoulder injury, it doesn't excuse damaging behavior that's tearing down the church. Now if you're hearing this, that list that I just said, these don't belong in a church community, and if you've done one or two of these, welcome to The Club. I have two. Once again, this isn't about us and them. This is about all of us, and just so we're clear, if you're in a situation where someone is yelling at you, raising their voice or personally devaluing you, I'm also not saying you take their you stand there and take it. Not at all. That's not the time for a hard middle ground conversation. That's when we step back and saying, Okay, I don't need to take your verbal abuse and I'm going to leave the room. Protecting your own peace is not unbiblical. When someone is yelling at you, raising their voice, maybe blaming you, shaming you, or labeling you as something, devaluing you, and you the it's it's not right to stand there and take it. That's when we set a boundary and we say, Hey, I won't stay here if you continue to yell at me, I'm gonna leave the room. We can come back later, if you're willing to. And I know that's not always easy to say in the moment if you've never said it before, but if you practice it, it gets really easy. It gets really easy. Just to say, Yeah, I don't have this kind of conversation. I won't be here for that. So I'm going to leave if you want to come back calmly and talk about it. We totally can. And I'm saying you can do that, whether it is a volunteer, a ministry leader or even a pastor. You You can do that. That's not wrong. It's not not being submissive. It's protecting your peace, which is your first primary responsibility. What I'm talking about today is what to do when it's safe to move toward healthier conversations, when we pull ourselves back from that and we can invite people into a space that is kind we can invite people into growth. We can invite people, all of us, into a healthier way of relating. Now, people don't always accept that invitation. They don't always come. And that's not on us. It's not on you. Here's the thing, if we can agree that these behaviors that I listed earlier, you know, yelling, raising a voice, devaluing, Beli, belittling, cutting, sarcasm, all those kind of things. If we agree that these don't belong in healthy communities, then the next question is, what do we do instead? How can we actually call this stuff out, call people higher without becoming the bullies ourselves? Because I do believe that's what happens often in the Matthew type of conversations where we are going through the biblical way of speaking the truth in love. When I have seen that happen, it is often the person who's who's deciding to speak the truth in love, the leadership, the person who's holding somebody accountable, literally, kind of becomes the bully, because that's not really always done in love. So we love to throw around that term, speaking the truth in love, but oftentimes it's either watered down till there's nothing left, because we lean toward the left side. Are we going so hard with truth that we literally could scorch the earth? Right? I'm saying this in love with a scowl, harshness or even disgust. When we see somebody's upper lip curl just a little bit and we can tell we are not being loved, right? You know what I mean? That's not speaking the truth in love. Anybody can tell when somebody's approaching them as a judge versus as a friend. And honestly, I think we can do this as friends. I think we can have hard middle ground conversations as friends. I know it because I've I've done it. I've been part of it. I've had friends who've called me out, called me higher, called me into other, and they do it as friends. So here's what actually helps when you're in the hard middle ground. A couple things to keep in mind for those types of conversations. The first one is one of my favorites. Listen like you're not the smartest person in the room. Like you already you don't already know the answer. Ask questions. Let the person finish. If somebody says to you, you don't understand. Instead of saying, I do understand, you can say, well, help me understand. Now this is difficult, because you got to remain your P you got to keep your peace at the same time, right? Like you have to be peaceful. Be in a place where you really can stay in love with that person. Don't be loading your comeback while they're still talking. Yeah, we can do a little bit of repeating back what you heard to make sure you got it right. So is this what you're saying? People feel safer when they know that you actually heard them. When you're dealing with a person having a conversation with a person who's been in a position of, you know, having some difficult behaviors, yelling. I think it's really important to understand that they don't feel safe either. That's why that's coming out that way. That's why it's it's coming out that way. I really believe that most people want to be good people. I don't think most people wake up in the morning and say, I'm gonna yell when I'm at the store today, I'm gonna go to the church meeting and look like a terrible, angry person so everybody's mad at me. I don't think we wake up in the morning wanting to be that person. Another great thing to do when you're in these kind of conversations is talk about you, not them, instead of, you know, pointing the finger at them saying you ignored me, or you yelled, or your behavior isn't okay, can we talk about I felt overlooked, I felt sad. Now I know that puts you in a vulnerable position. That's what we're practicing, but when we say I felt overlooked, it kind of opens the door a little. When we say, you always ignore me, it builds a wall. I know it's a little bit of semantics, but it's actually really important. Our words are important. This is a little bit about naming the bruise, not the not just the punch. Okay, name the bruise, not just the punch. I love this phrase. Here's what I mean by it. The punch is the thing they did. The bruise is the effect it has. It's the lasting effect. If we focus on the bruise, that's real, it's observable, it's the impact, instead of assuming that we know why they threw the punch, naming the bruise, not the punch, sounds like this. When this happened, I felt shut out. When this happened, I felt minimized. Instead of just You're being mean, you did the wrong thing, focus on the impact, not just our assumption about their intent. Again, I don't believe most people are trying to cause pain. I know when I have overstepped, when I have raised my voice at somebody, when I have said something that even borders on possibly being mean, I totally beat myself up later, like you don't even have to tell me. I'm like, Oh my gosh. I can't believe I said that. I can't believe I did that. That's how a lot of people leave. God created us really good and really beautiful. God created us wanting to be connected, every one of us, all of us humans. Okay, another thing I want to suggest when you're in the hard conversations is when you're in the hard middle ground. Let's even go beyond just one conversation. Please make an actual plan, not a churchy wish. Like, let's skip the phrase of, hey, let's just pray about it and do better. Okay, let's get to an actual plan. Like, let's check in after two Sundays and see if this is getting better. Let's look back after the meeting and see how it felt for you and how it felt for me. So again, I'm just going to kind of recap this. Listen like you're not the smartest person in the room. Come in with a learner posture when you have a hard conversation, listen to understand that person. Talk about you more than you talk about them. Name the bruise, not the punch. This is about the impact, versus what was, versus the action that caused the impact. Make an actual plan, not a church you wish. And I also want to encourage you to hold your line without swinging a bat, which means, mentioned this earlier. I can't stay in this Converse. I won't stay in this conversation if you're raising your voice like that, but I do want to figure this out. Do you see how that's holding the line without swinging the bat, without punching back, without becoming the aggressor, because you're protecting yourself. We can hold our line. We can step away and make a plan to come back. A conversation as long as they are willing. And just the last thing I'm going to say, don't bail when it gets awkward. So if you try to have this conversation, it's going to be weird because most people aren't used to it. Most people don't know what to do with it. Most people have never experienced healthy resolution, healthy working toward repair. But don't bail when it gets awkward. Some of the best breakthroughs come two minutes after everybody wants to end the conversation. It is so easy to walk away from these conversations when it gets weird, but if we can take a breath and sit in it, I want to say God is not scared of our awkward. God is often working in our awkward now these things that I mentioned, listen like you don't already know the answer. Talk about you, not them. Name the bruise, not the punch. Make an actual plan, not a churchy wish. Hold your line without swinging a bat. Don't bail when it gets awkward. These things are not just soft skills, they're discipleship skills. This is how we actually build amazing community, instead of just stepping on church shaped land mines or something. This is part of going deeper and healthier. Now, I know you are probably not the decision maker, very likely you're a volunteer. You may be a woman in male led spaces. That is just how our audience kind of has developed. You may be a faithful member who doesn't even have a title. You may be the pastor listening right now. And here's the hard truth, sometimes we can do everything right, and the people around us, or the people in authority, if you are not, they still won't act. This happens in workplaces. It happens in schools, and yes, it also happens in churches. When this happens, your first responsibility, believe it or not, is not to point out where your leadership is failing, like we want to do that right? You're not doing what you're supposed to do. When this happens, your first responsibility is really to protect your own heart, to hold your own peace, to stay connected with with God, to stay healthy, that's our first responsibility. What do we need to be healthy? Again, I'm not saying bail and not have hard conversations, but it is first sometimes keeping ourselves safe or healthy means protecting ourselves in the moment. I've given this example, stepping out of a room, ending a conversation, putting a space between you and that person. We only stay engaged if it's safe to do so Okay, and that's not always just a blame on their fault. Sometimes I need to collect myself like I feel my emotions raising, and I'm like, I need to go to be where I can be in a place where I can come back and have a soft voice. So sometimes it means stepping out of the room. We can invite people toward a healthier conversation, toward repair, toward growth. And again, they may or may not be willing to go there. That's their choice. Our part is to invite and to hold our own peace. And if this is invitation, is reviews refused, we can try again in a week, in a month, in a different season, we can repeat this. This is how we change a church culture. And in the meantime, sometimes it's more than stepping out of the room. It might mean stepping off a committee or leaving a ministry team. It can be sad. It has been sad for me in the past, and sometimes it is the only way to be healthy. It doesn't mean you're leaving forever. You may come back. But if protecting ourselves isn't just for a moment, sometimes we need to do that, and yes, sometimes it might mean leaving your church. Now again, please know there's dozens of steps in between that and that, in between an action and this outcome. I'm not telling you to do any of these things quickly, except in the moment. If you're feeling threatened, abused, devalued, yes, I would do that quickly. Say, Hey, this is not okay. I'm not going to be in this space right now. Okay. But if you've stood in the hard middle ground for a long time, or for as long as you're able, and no one joins you, and you can't stay in the middle ground anymore and still maintain your own peace, your own health, it's okay to step away. That's when a relationship or a situation is more than just difficult. That's when it's becoming destructive, right? If you do step away, you don't have to step away in bitterness or God. Gossip. You can step away in peace if you've stood in the hard middle ground as long as you were able, and practiced some steps and learned some of your own skills and taken care of yourself and learn more about who you are and really try to understand who they are. That's when we can step away in peace knowing we did what we could, instead of in bitterness or regret, because healthy churches are not built by people who stayed and got crushed. Can we? I gotta say that again, healthy churches are not built by people who stay and get crushed. Healthy churches are built by people who love deeply, who speak truth gently and yes, sometimes no, when it's time to let go, and here is the hope. God loves His church more than we ever could. God is not wringing his hands, wondering how this is going to turn out. God is faithful. God is working. God has more for us. God has more for them. God has more for all of us than we could ever see right now. So even if this season feels messy or heavy, we can rest knowing the story isn't over. Oftentimes, I need to tell myself, there's not a rush here. This isn't an emergency again, unless it is. You know, something has been building up for a long time. This behavior has been here for a while. What do I do to maintain my peace? But we can know that God is still writing good things. Hold your peace. I love that phrase, hold your peace. I think Charmaine is the one who taught me that I'm like. What does that mean? Hold your peace. It means we can hold carefully our peace, P, E, A, C, E, in open hands. We can hold our peace. We've got to maintain that. That's our job. This is an active, sometimes challenging job, but it is our job. Our own peace is our responsibility. That's nobody else's. We can hold our peace in all sorts of situations. Now, if this conversation hits home for you, you are not alone. As I said, I've got just tons and tons of comments after our last podcast. If you have not listened to podcast number 189, the one before this, I do encourage you to go back and listen to that. But if this conversation hits home for you, like, I would ask you to consider who else might need to hear it in your life. It could be the spark of a new conversation with somebody, even in your church. Like, what do you think of this? You know? Like, listen to the podcast and just say, What did you think of that? What did you get out of it? Not don't share the podcast in a way of I need you to hear this, because we need to do this. Don't do that again. Let's, let's approach everyone like we're not the smartest person in the room, myself included. I'm constantly learning. I'd love to hear back from you. I'd love to know what you know that I don't know. I'd love to hear your stories. But if this conversation hits home for you, like who else in your life needs to hear it, share this episode. Forward the link, send a quick text, post it on your social, share it. That's how we grow together. That's how we build the kind of communities that we know can exist. That's how we maintain our hope that something can be different. Because we start hearing stories like the one that was shared with me last week about a hard conversation they put him, put off for years, and they had this conversation, and something changed. Let's open the conversation. Let's learn some new skills. Let's share them. Let's see who else we can bring along with us as we build some healthier spaces. Next week, we're going to wrap up this little series, not about grace and bullies, but I started a little series last month just of random things that drive me crazy, things I was seeing on social media, you know, being talked about in church culture. Next week, we're gonna be talking about how we need to stop saying people aren't committed. So if you've ever said, I really hate right now that nobody signs up, nobody's committed to church, nobody's committed to God anymore. We're going to talk about why we need to quit saying it because it's hurting our ministry. It's hurting us. Another great conversation that we all need to be part of. So all right, until next week. Be Light. You.

Unknown: 34:51

You.