Why do we need to heal to help others, especially pastors? While we can point each other to Christ as wounded people, the problem is one of identity. If we haven’t processed/gotten healing from our stories, then our identity will be in the shame of our brokenness and not in Jesus

We’ll use Jesus as a platform for our stories and hurt/abuse people in the way we’ve been hurt since we’re still living in shame and fear. That’s why we should never use our power and position as a way to heal. Healing won’t ever come that way.

Only when we have actually healed to a large degree by being vulnerable with God and processing our trauma can we use our stories for good and not as a means of self-pity or manipulation or abuse of power.

I know too many people in high positions of authority that "do theology/ministry" like OCD people vacuum in straight lines or have nervous ticks. It is about control/manipulation to feel safe in a world they cannot control. This is not healthy nor is it what God wants for us.

Our brokenness is the context of showing the love of Jesus. It’s not the end itself. Communing with Jesus to know his love is the point. We shouldn’t share our stories unless we’ve healed from them through the means God has established even in a broken world.

Our healing shouldn't be dependent on our hearers or on our platforms or how many people we minister to or how many pointless historical theology books we write which prove we are "right." We need to stop "oversharing." Our healing should not depend on anyone except God.

I cannot tell you how many stories I have heard of pastors/professors/seminary presidents who are "confessional" but treat women, their families, congregants like garbage but the places of power like them because they are "right."

The sad thing is these men need healing too but aren't getting it. They need serious counseling and therapy but no one is loving enough to let them know that WE ALL need healing and time with God in the "desert" of humility before ministering to anyone.

When we get healing for ourselves to learn vulnerability before God *before* doing so with others, we show that our identity is no longer in our shame or felt guilt (or trying to expiate/atone thru ministry). When we get healing first, our identity is existentially in Jesus’ love

But when we fail to heal or do the hard work of learning to be vulnerable, we end up either over sharing our lives or cutting people off. We’ve made our healing dependent on how people respond to us and they are tools for our manipulation and abuse to "gain control" over life.

How we view ourselves is again wrapped up in our shame and not believing the truth. It’s warped and twisted by fear of our brokenness rather than depending on Jesus’ unconditional love despite our brokenness.

In this way, our identity becomes wrapped up in ourselves in a toxic, narcissistic way rather than in God’s grace. Our ministering to others is based on fear and a narcissistic complex. We act out the very thing Christ came to destroy - the fear of death.

This is why people in power, like pastors, really need to heal to pastor in a healthy, biblical way. If they don’t, they will descend into an abyss of anger & self-loathing. I’ve seen this too many times in churches that “know” the “truth" and are 100% confessional Truly Reformed

Only by being vulnerable & healing before God can we be freed and then show others how to be freed from that same shame/guilt of our stories. This is the path of healing that Jesus teaches us. This is what grace actually does to our hearts when we are truly vulnerable before God.

Pastors & people in power can’t be a safe place for the hurting if their own stories of hurt & shame dominate the horizon. This is when scandal and all kinds of things happen. B/c pastors look for healing in all the wrong places.

Only when Jesus’ absolving presence can be felt and seen by ministers are people safe to bring their wounds and painful stories and themselves learn to heal.

I know how most people in the Gospel-centered world will respond. They think this means pastors need to be "perfect". But that is simply a cop-out. God simply wants tools that he can use that are able and willing to put the spotlight on Jesus' grace and not their narcissism.

I think we are in part seeing a crisis in the ministries around us b/c pastors/leaders aren’t being taught this in seminaries & aren’t even being formed to think in these categories. This wasn’t on the radar when I was in seminary & I know it’s similar elsewhere.

People in power, please heal. Please get help. You are hurting your family, your students, your parishioners, your employees. You are not helping people be "Valiant for Truth" or be like Machen-Warrior Children or Christ-centered or biblical or confessional.

Sadly, what our children see and what the world sees is that religion and "truth" is a mental health crutch for the narcissists and a tool for power and oppression like Foucault and many post-modern critics think we are doing. This is not the way. This is not of Jesus.

On another note, I think this is why our preaching is so sterile and rote and fails to connect with people. We have not learned in our hearts how grace changes us and connects to our own healing and therefore we cannot do that for others in teaching/preaching.