To be in a relationship with someone is to be vulnerable. Any friendship or romance without vulnerability is no relationship at all but a simple contractual understanding more akin to being coworkers. While there is safety in self-protection, there is also loneliness, and we were not created to be alone. (Gen 2:18)

People are imperfect, however. We lie to each other, we hurt others’ feelings, and we may take advantage of other people. If we include the ingredient of spiritual doctrine, then our imperfect relationships become much more dangerously potent to strike at our vulnerable ideas of value, purpose, and identity. This is the foundation upon which “church hurt” occurs.

For those unfamiliar with the term, “church hurt” is a colloquial short-hand label for a variety of ways someone can be turned off to the idea of attending a church due to some previous bad experiences. At its most benign, church hurt can spring from congregational gossip or some spiritual leader’s condescension of a lifestyle. At its worst, church hurt can be rightfully understood due to physical or mental abuse. The thought of willingly attending a church, forming relationships, and potentially experiencing these past hurts again can trigger the sufferer enough to avoid church altogether.

As scandals have rocked all denominations, more Western Christians are forsaking the “church” while attempting to maintain their Christian beliefs on their own. Socially, this allows believers to defend their faith without answering for the baggage of whichever group they would have otherwise been associated with. This removes the individual from blame for any perceived cultural offenses while resting on their freedom of faith. 

However, such a view of personal faith is severely limited. Faith, by a popular biblical definition, is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1, NKJV) More simply, faith is something we hope to be true but cannot prove within our scientific constructs. Whether it is a spiritual doctrine, trust in another person, or the performance of global stock markets, if we do not think something to be true before it proves to be, we never had faith in it to begin with. My point is that faith requires us to take seriously something we cannot satisfy our flesh-laden concerns with; if we wait until something is proven, there is no room left for faith to exist. Therefore, we must act and decide upon the pre-validated trust, or the faith is dead.

For Christians, the Bible is the source of much of our faith. There are other sources of our faith, like cultural upbringing, prayer, and miraculous experiences, but the Bible is the most readily available resource. From it, we learn of our theological history, the desires of God’s will, and the testimonies of heroes and villains of the faith. We place our confidence in its accuracy.

Therefore, if a Christian claims to have faith in the Bible, they must also take its claims of continual supernatural activity seriously. Creation began supernaturally. God changes nature—stopping the sun (Joshua 10), swallowing a man for three days (Jonah), flooding the entire earth (Noah), and raising the dead (Jesus)—to reveal His power. The miraculous power of the Holy Spirit cannot be naturally proven.

Evil, then, is also supernatural. A speaking snake entices man and woman to sin. Demons possess creation (men, pigs, and more) at their first opportunity. Satan tempts Jesus with visions and instantaneous transportation. If we have faith in the accuracy of the good, we must also acknowledge the accurate descriptions of the bad. Therefore, when we read that evil prowls like a lion while looking for victims to devour in sin (1 Peter 5), we must take that as seriously as we believe in Christ’s power to overcome that evil. 

The lion metaphor is handy. Lions hunt by singling out their prey from the herd. Lions only hunt herding animals because—presumably—any appropriate food source that did not band together in a pack was easily hunted and consumed to natural extinction. The strength and intelligence of the lion outmatch its prey, but the gazelle’s or zebra’s strength comes in numbers. The lions hunt in particularly small numbers. Their group—or “pride”—limits their deadliness (yes, the pride pun is intended); however, their strength and speed make up for the strategic disadvantage.

To be clear, Christians are the prey in this metaphor. Our enemy is supernatural and cunning. Temptations befall us unexpectedly. Doubts creep in quietly. Selfishness grows silently until it controls our every decision. Addiction begins manageably until it isn’t anymore. If we—the weaker, tasty targets—feel we can manage our spiritual health independently, we become easy prey. 

Without accountability, our decisions become murky. Without corporate worship, our voice quiets. Our faith, effectiveness, and purpose are slowly eaten away by the enemy that has separated us from our herd.

There is an Old Testament story in Exodus 17 where Joshua leads a wandering Israel into battle against the Amalekites. While Joshua led the army, Moses stood on the mountaintop, lifting his powerful staff as a banner declaring the power of God. If Moses let that staff sag, Joshua and his army began to lose the battle. When the staff raised high, Israel would win.

No matter how strong Joshua expected his army to be, their fate was tied to the symbol of faith in Moses’ hand. Even in great numbers, their victory came from the encouragement and power of the public presentation of God’s reign rather than their supposed tactics, weapons, or strength. Their banner, their corporate identity, propelled the day to victory.

What of Moses; did he single-handedly decide the outcome? As the battle raged on for hours, Moses’ arms grew tired. He, too, needed help from his brother Aaron and brother-in-law, Hur, to help carry the load as they propped his arms high when his strength failed. As dependent as Joshua’s army was on Moses, Moses equally depended on Aaron and Hur. 

This shared strength is vital for our spiritual warfare, too. This world is not easy to commute through on our way to Heaven. We need the help and encouragement of others. Whether we are the infantrymen in the middle of the battle or the spiritual leaders encouraging others, we all need a community of believers to support us. Our strength is in our numbers.

Hebrews 10:25 warns us against forsaking the assembly of believers. Why should we persist? So that we can exhort, support, and encourage each other to run our race well. Like a family, associating ourselves with a church imputes a part of its identity—good or bad—onto us; however, we then have the chance to influence its identity with our own. The vulnerability we share with a church community can be scary, especially if it has been abused before. However, the risk of pain from our fellow believers still pales in comparison to the eternal consequences of a consumed faith by a hungry enemy.

Leave the pride for the lions. Instead, serve one another with love. Encourage each other in the faith, as Paul proclaims in Phillippians. If the world will only know us by our love for each other (John 13:35), then we must first have others to love publicly. That is the church.

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