How To Deal With Church Hurt | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign. Hello everybody. It's Ron and Hope. Unfiltered, real, raw, relevant. And we are so glad that you are here today. Today we are sitting here. We had our presidential elections this week and we won't talk about it. I know there's a lot of feelings going around, a lot of hur, a lot of mad, a lot of happy. You know, everybody stands somewhere different. But, you know, here's my two cents worth. @ the end of the day, Jesus is king. These people are temporary, temporarily elected officials. They don't hold the future, my future, in their hand. Jesus is on the throne.

Those that may implement things for the kingdom are used by God. And those that have implemented things that are against kingdom values are used by God. God used many. God used many, righteous and unrighteous to bring about purposes. So no matter what your views are, we still believe as a people. The Bible says God holds the hearts of kings in his hands. And so we got to somehow believe that no matter what it is, that God is somehow. Many are the plans of men, but it's the purpose of the Lord that prevails. And so above all human, vain, selfish, ambitious agendas, whatever they are, I just have to believe the word of God, that somehow the purpose of the Lord prevails. I want to come back. We talked about it.

And at the end of the day, I'm responsible for nobody but me. You know what I'm responsible for my heart and my attitude and my love and my kindness and my gentleness and my response.

You and I are in a very. Most pastors don't understand you and my life. The Bible says a seed produces after its own kind. And so most pastors pastor people that are like them.

True.

So you look out across their congregation and they draw people that listen to the same generation of music. They like the same genres a lot of times, even the same colors from the same culture, the same ways, the same age demographic. And then every once in a while you have these people and it's not better than. It's just different than who God is called to be. An all nations type church. And it's just a different thing for us. It's just a different thing because when you invite. When you invite all nations into your church, especially like our west coast congregation, now, our east coast is very diverse, but the west coast is just. I've actually told people we may have every nation in the world represented. It may be the most diverse church I have ever walked into in my life.

Traditions, yes.

They bring in their culture, they bring in what they've been through, what they've experienced, false religions, and they bring all that in here. And so you have to carry people along on a biblical journey that will eventually play out in their other values and political views. But it's got to be Bible. And so we pastor a variety of people with different mindsets, thoughts, upbringings, and cultural relevances and have fierce passion behind it. And most people have never been in an atmosphere like that. They can say whatever they want because they know who's in the building and they know what kind of response they're going to get.

They still preach truth.

That's what I'm talking about. It has to start with Bible, and then they get to carry it and let it play out.

Bible infiltrates into their.

Exactly right.

And their backgrounds, in their upbringing.

But we don't try to shift things politically. I try to shift things biblically. Then when you, when the Bible becomes your core value system, then you get to make every decision outside of church that aligns with that.

We would hope to know us well enough after 34 years to know that that's our attempt. It's our attempt.

So we said that to say this. We want to circle back. And I do have some thoughts on the role of the church in the earth as salt and light. And I have some thoughts on how unity is preserved. And I want to talk about those things. But, you know, the day after, you got a lot of raw emotion. And what I've always taught in our marriage conference, where emotion abounds, rationalism goes out the door. Yeah. So let everybody, you know, blow out steam. Blow out all the steam. They got to calm down. And later on, I want to really open the Bible, the word of God, and I want to chart some things of what I believe the role of the church, not just an individual Christian, but the role of the church is to be salt and light to a nation, to the nations and to a generation. But we want to take a few minutes, if this is possible, in a few minutes. And we've never dealt with this topic. Church hurt.

Church hurt.

So text somebody, call somebody. You got to listen to this one. Whatever. Subscribe, like share, do whatever you got to do, whatever the platform you use and whatever mechanism puts it out there. Because there's a lot of people that used to go to church. I'll go further. There's a lot of people that used to serve God that do not any longer because of church hurt. I'm going to hit that on several different levels. Some things I'll take responsibility for as church and some things, I'm going to put responsibility back on the person.

It's inevitable, Ron. It's just inevitable.

Let me start with this. I just had a meeting. We have a wonderful young lady. We've been through a restructuring and had a lot of transitional moves that we made. Those transitions opened up some spaces where we need to bring on some new team members. I just had a meeting this morning with a young new team member that's in our first impressions. Kind of. That for us is kind of like our culture bearer. You know, the feeling that we try to produce the volunteer staff that would be a part of that. But everything that has to go kind of toward our first impressions. We just hired a wonderful young lady, South African lady and 20s. They probably not 30 yet.

I'm not sure.

Like 20s. Just so giddy about being here. Like, she just landed her dream job. I mean, the whole time she's sitting there just like that. And I'm thinking to myself, why? Because now she gets to come behind the curtain and Sam.

It's not in the dining room anymore.

Exactly. Exactly. Sam Chan writing that book.

He's in the kitchen.

Sam Chan. This is such a great analogy. I forget which book it is. He's written so many books now. But he has this analogy, for those who hadn't heard it, that he said, church is like a restaurant. He said, you've got candlelight, you've got jazz music playing. You've got fine wine and fine dancing, and you've got decadence around you, and the shades are pulled perfectly and the light is dim.

You're being served.

You're being served at your every whim. And then he said, but there's these two doors. He said, and as soon as these doors open and you go to the other side, it's dishes clanging, it's get this out. It's this order ain't right. It's somebody tripping, it's glass breaking. He said, it's chaos. He says, like. And then over here is like a bomb going off. That is a great analogy to church because I'm sitting here looking at her zeal. I'm sitting here saying, wow, this is the kind of person, really. She's so infectious. You and I handpicked her. We saw her from a distance and we. Like, that's the kind of person we want representing us. And she was presented with it and she took it. But my only thing is me and you've been doing this a long time.

We got a little thick skin.

And when you Start when you get on church staff. Then all of our flaws are no longer hidden. If you attend and sit on row seven and come to a worship service on Sunday morning, I got about a 90% chance of you leaving thinking Ron's.

A pretty good dude because that's 45 minutes. Getting our best.

But when you come here and you spend 40, 50 hours a week with me or with your peers, it is impossible, hope, impossible to hide flaws. And so you're going to see immediately when you spend time around people, you start to see everything they don't do well.

Right?

It's like a date versus marriage. You know, I told you we're dating you. I was sending out my representative. I never smelled bad. I smell like cologne every day.

You don't smell bad now.

Well, you might be a little biased. I didn't have a lot of good clothes, but you was going to catch my best. I was always going to have a bad. I was always going to have my teeth brushed. I was always going to have fresh mint. You're going to catch my bet. Bess, we've been dating a year. Okay, you're going to hug me a few times. Sweaty. You're going to hug me. You need to take a bath. You know, it just changes. And church hurt isn't just people who went from the pew to a staff. It's when expectations have been set. Myles Monroe taught me this. You've heard me say it a thousand times. It's not original with me, but I can't give somebody credit every time I say it. But Myles Monroe, false disappointment is the child. A false expectation, a false expectations. You cannot get disillusioned and disappointed unless your expectation was unrealistic.

Yeah, that's one way to get hurt. Another way, I mean, it's just people. People are just people.

And then I had a guy. I'm going somewhere with this, but I'm giving two stories. Her story that I was so excited about her tenure, but just like, ugh, she's going to see everything we don't do. Right? And aggravated with this and aggravated with people in our systems that aren't run well. You know, she gets to see all of it. Another thing is I had a guy, I told a funny story. He cussed every two words. I mean, this guy was making up cuss words and came up at the gym. Yeah, the guy at the gym, blah, blah. And I don't go to church and I see too many people. Don't live it. But man, I love you and I watch you and my Mama loves you, but I don't go to church, you know, and just so many people that I don't know that. I totally understand that. I've seen tons of her. I was raised in a parsonage that was right beside the church. Here's the church and walk 30 yards. And here's the parsonage.

You saw your.

I've seen every. Oh, my gosh. Seen them fuss and cuss and get wore out and done wrong and betrayed. And I was raised in it. Then I became it, which is a miracle. If everybody goes to hell tomorrow, I'm not going to quit serving God. I don't know that I've ever understood. I'm not going to go to church because somebody. Yeah, because you don't live what you say.

Mm.

What?

Right.

What does that have to do here if you're over here?

And I just think that's a low level, immature way of thinking. Yeah, a lot. Yeah. But, Ron, I've been hurt. You've been hurt?

Oh, yeah.

It makes you.

But I'm still here.

I am still here. But I understand it, too. I understand. I remember one of the most painful things I ever felt was probably six years ago. And just the comments toward me. People who knew me, Ron, people who really did know me for years and years and years.

That was painful.

And they would say such horrible hurt things.

We sat in a room and cried. Me and you both sat in a room and cried.

And I was like, really? Is that all it took? But, you know, I've learned since then, going through healing myself a lot, that it's sometimes not even what you say or you do or sometimes it's not even about you. It's just they were triggered in their own pain and they reacted out of their own pain. And you're the one who just gets the lashing, you know, you're the one who gets the beating. And it does hurt. But God's helped us to understand and look through the eyes of compassion at the nature of people.

That was a very, very, very hurtful time. When you live out something in front of somebody so long and you're good and bad, you still have a track record of doing your best to do the right thing. And then it takes something so trivial and so small for them to turn on you in such a fierce and ferocious way. That was very hurtful. My family was so nervous and thrown by what was going on. It was so fierce that I remember getting my family together and taking them out to eat that night. And we came out and our Cars had been keyed, you know, and, and.

But you know what? Again, that, that wasn't on me. That wasn't because of what I did or said. It was a post that I had made it. It showed what was in their heart.

Right. But I'm talking about the fact that that was hurtful to us.

It was very hurtful.

And then a lot of this came from church people. And then I had to get into pulpit Sunday and preach, encourage, love and be totally and completely unfazed, having just been called. Well, in that moment, I can't be when I'm in the pulpit.

We had to put on the Lord.

Yes, right. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, put on the full armor of God. You had to put it on, be renewed in the attitude of your mind. You had to do all that to make it through. So a lot of people think church hurt by leadership, but sometimes don't know how much leaders get hurt. Get hurt. And we come in there battered, bloody and bruised and still have to do what we do and love people in spite of it. Remember that time we went on that little retreat that our dad sent us home? We didn't have a lick of money after we'd first been married and we starting church and daddy knew we needed a break because it was going slow. No, it was that pastor's thing they did at the beach. And we were around all those retired ministers.

Yes, yes.

So me and you're in our 20s and bright eyed and the world before us and we're going to save the world. The world just don't know it yet. And we got around all those elderly ministers because it was a mix. And they were the most bitter, cynical, pessimistic. And I was so disillusioned. I listened to him talk and I went back to my room and I'm like, I don't know what happened. How did it get like that? Well, I'm 56, I know how that happened. And so you got to work to keep your heart right. Here's what you do. The Bible. Excuse me, I got a cough drop cult. Right?

Get it?

There we go, right there. Real raw and unrelevant. I wasn't going to try to fake my way through it. It was stuck up here in my lips. Now let's talk about, we can go through all day how it happens.

Oh goodness.

In other words, you're disillusioned and disappointed by your leadership. You know, your leadership had a moral failure. They took the church in a direction you didn't believe in. I'm not being funny here, a new generation came and tore down the benches that you bought in honor of your grandmother. It's amazing.

Started something new.

It's amazing.

Yeah.

Sometimes it's just changed the carpet up. Sometimes it's just change.

I like that carpet. Why'd they take the carpet up?

And, you know, we gave $100,000 toward that steeple and this pastor come and toward the steeple down. I mean, you know, I've heard it all. I've heard it all. And.

And even just the internal. Just friends in church, it's all kind of stuff.

You know, I served the pastor 20 years, and he told me he's going to give church to me. And then when he done, he gave it somebody else. And here I was 20 years, gave my life to. I've seen all kind of scenarios. Yep, I've seen it all. Now here's what you got to do. Number one, your relationship with God has to be highly personal between you and him. I didn't say you're unaffected by people.

Right. That's unrealistic.

I said your relationship with God is unaffected by people. And I think we get up here and tell everybody all the dumb things we've done and bad mistakes we've made. I think one thing God has helped me do is when I got hurt by people, I ran to God. And I see people, when they get hurt by a Christian, they run away from God because they almost think like, what that person did came in Jesus name. Yeah, like I hurt you in the name of Jesus. You know, and the fact is, every time I've been dealt a blow by people I cared about, I ran to God. And this became stronger when this hurt me. And so the first thing I would tell people in church, Hurt. You can't let external relational factors, good or bad, move you when it comes to your relationship with God.

I mean, you know, that's the goal. That's the enemy's goal, is to stir up such division and such hurt and such pain that. That you quit running, your race throws you off. Yeah, that is the goal. And so therefore, he wins.

Another thing is, number two, this is unscripted. I'm not preaching a sermon. This next thing comes to my mind is this is hard. I've always said this is probably one of the hardest top two scriptures I've read in the whole Bible. Second Corinthians 5, 17. I judge thus. If Christ died, all died, then it goes. If he died, he died in the flesh. But then the next verse, get up. Verse 18 and verse 19 says, I now no longer regard any man according to the flesh. According to the flesh.

That is so hard.

That's almost the impossible commandments.

That's how I know.

If I'm reading that scripture right in its context. And I've studied it and preached it many times. Everything I don't like about you, everything, I'm not talking about you, I'm giving it. Vain, ambitious, you know, fleshy, dirty, messed up, twisted. Okay. If Christ died, then that died. Then that died when he died.

If you're in him.

Yep. Then that died when he died. And I no longer regard you after anything you did in your flesh. And it is hard for people to overlook the flesh of another. We have this earthen vessel. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. And I told we failed to capture the treasure because we're so repelled by the vessel. I used to remember. I talked Sunday about him. Benny Hinn. I hope Benny's watching. Benny's a friend of mine. Seen him in a while. But Benny's very eccentric. And if Benny was sitting in this chair right here, I'd say, benny, you're the most eccentric man I've ever met.

He'd go, I know Ron.

I know Ron Hope. We have been next to him. And when I couldn't get within a radius and I couldn't hardly stand up.

Right.

My experiences with him. Oh, my gosh, there was just something on the man. Like, well, what gift is that? I don't know what gift it was. I'm just telling you.

We know it was from God.

I'm not no flake.

Yeah.

He pointed at me and I airlifted and went back, what, 12, 15ft?

Yes. And landed on my.

Levitated and landed on my back when he pointed at me.

And they never touched you?

They never. Nothing. And then people picked me up and said, was it real? And I couldn't even talk because it hurt. Oh, yeah. You know, I knocked the breath out of me. So I don't really care what people think about it. I've been sitting next to him and couldn't hardly stand having said that. I know so many people that could not receive from him anything that he had because they didn't like the white suit.

Yeah.

They didn't like the loafers. They didn't like a dove on his lapel. You know, they didn't like.

They regarded him after his flesh.

Exactly. So they regarded him. His flesh so got in the way. They may have died with their disease that he could. That he had the anointing to heal but they regarded him after the suit and the loafers and the eccentricities and they missed the treasure of the fact that he has healing gifts in his hands. That's what I'm talking about, understanding that when someone disappoints you, God has commanded the mature, the mature to understand that if you're going to get the best of somebody, the worst is a part of the process.

That's what I said earlier. It's an immature response. It's an immature response to regard the hurt with God. I mean that don't even make sense that you hurt me so I'm mad at God. That's an immature response. That's, that's not being able to have a rationale and children don't. So it takes maturity to understand. Like I said, after years and years of being hurt and going through things, I now understand it really wasn't about me. And when you've been hurt, it really hadn't been about you. It is about something going on on the inside of them that has not been worked out yet. It's, it's a. You know, we say in healing the heart, where there's a tone, there's a stone. So when you have a tone and you have a reaction, there's something in there that needs to be healed. And that's a mature perspective.

You remember my. I taught a lot to leaders taught years ago. I don't say use it much anymore. Just come to my mind just now. You know when I used to talk about scaffolding versus the building. I think another major part of church heard is people don't understand the comings and goings of people. Yeah, ordained by God. It's ordained.

Yeah. Everybody's not meant to.

All people are not meant to go distance. And we get so tore up when we place a long journey expectation on somebody that was supposed to be there for a short season. And scaffolding you erect seasonally to get the building to a certain place. Then you tear it down and go build it up in another place where you start building. Some people are a part of the brick and mortar I found in my life.

Very small.

The people that are going to go a 50 year distance in ministry with Ron Carpenter, that's a small circle. But I've had a whole lot of this. And when you understand how this is supposed to work, you don't take every coming and going as a personal offense. You understand that that is the plan of God. Write the vision down that they who read it may run with it. There are people that Are going to take this season and they're going to run with it. We had 5,700 the day before COVID shut down. We had 300 the day we opened up where there's 5,400 people. And a lot of them never, ever came back. And I saw them again.

They moved out of California.

I never saw them again. You know, and I mean, 5,400 people that I was investing in at a high level, giving our life disrupted my life at a high level to come. And. Yeah, like, it was nothing. Like it meant nothing even.

Even yesterday. I mean, this is real raw, relevant. We were, you know, just petitioning God, you, me and you yesterday about an issue about the finances in the church. And then we pull a few tithing records and get very hurt and disappointed at people who are running close with us, who are not even.

Yeah. Who don't. Who don't give it all. Yeah. Who don't give it all. And so it makes you. Okay, now you're talking about. It's not on the perfect. It makes you feel like they don't believe in you because money is always a matter of buy in. They buy into the vision. Yeah. But they got to buy into you, too. And so when you see people not participating on that level and so on, have never given anything and that hurt you.

I saw that on your face yesterday.

I was hurt yesterday.

Very hurt.

So when people come and take everything that you serve but reciprocate nothing.

Right.

You know, and so what I had to do, what I always tell you I got to do, I got to go flush it. I got to flush it. So you give me a little bit of time, I get some time to be with God, I can usually get rid of it. But the fact is I have to go back to this and not let this bother me and not let it affect and poison the way I minister and true people. Why? Because there's something great inside of something not so great. And if you know how to not regard the not so great, something great will normally arise. And that has come after many hurts, many pains, and a lot of years in your rearview mirror. But it's not the way most people start. You got to understand every God did not bring everybody in your life to go the distance. And if you place those expectations on people, you're going to always be in a funeral.

But I think, you know, the title of it is church hurt. I think people go into church thinking that everybody in church glows in the dark and that's why they're so Devastated is because they never expected to be hurt in church. But people. It's not really even church hurt. It's. You just happen to be in that circle of people. You're going to get hurt by people anywhere you are. At the mall, at Google, at Michelin, at church, at college, because you are.

It's inevitable with people who are flawed.

Not perfect, trying to become more like Jesus, who have been hurt themselves. And you know the saying, hurt people, hurt people.

So let me take this into another area. Honor is the culture of the kingdom. I can't help you if you don't respect me.

Right.

If I'm up here preaching and you have no honor or respect for me whatsoever.

Yeah, you're not going to receive anything.

You're really wasting time. I can't help you. If I respect and honor you, then I'm going to take. I'm going to take what you say with great weight. If I have no respect for you, I'll pay what you say no attention. So I need the honor and the respect of the people to have any positive impact on their life. Okay. The generation of millennials is trying to change that by being. Coming down so much. They come down so much to where there's almost no honor and respect. And so people will never follow you to a place of faith or supernatural because you're just like them. My generation, they separated themselves from people. Let me tell you why they did that. We get a bad rap because, you know, we kind of kept lines of separation between us and the crowd. The reason we did that is because you receive as you perceive. The woman at the whale couldn't get anything out of Jesus as long as he was just a man who was a Jew.

That's true.

But when she saw him as a prophet, she received him as a prophet. If you receive a prophet in the name of a prophet, you receive a prophet's reward. If you receive a righteous man in the name of a righteous man. So I can get the anointing that's on your life if I view you properly.

Right.

We knew that we knew those scriptures and we could quote them and tell you about them in the Greek. So we would keep people purposely at arm's length. Why? Because the moment you get close to me, you find out what I don't do well. And the honor meter. The honor meter begins to diminish and familiarity sets in. And you can't receive familiarity as an honor killer. Just look at marriage.

Yeah.

What happens in a marriage. Familiar. There's no sense of adventure. I know Everything about her. Oh, he don't ever surprise. Nothing surprises me no more. So all the sense of adventure is gone. Familiarity is set in. And when familiarity sets in, Jesus could do no mighty miracle. Yep.

Period.

Why? Because they were familiar with him everywhere else. He was cleaning out hospitals, he goes back to his hometown. Nothing.

Yeah, it blows my mind because there.

Was no honor and respect because they were too close.

Yeah, it blows my mind even how social media has opened the door. People don't respect anybody. People are.

Yeah, it concerns me.

Yeah, people are mean and brutal and, oh, just judgmental and unkind and just get out of character and they think it's okay, and it's not okay.

Yep. Yeah. Disrespect runs rampant in our nation, and I hope we can turn that. And I'd like to see the church change it. There's got to be a happy medium between being a guy that's transparent and saying, hey, I'm not all that and I don't have it all together, but at the same place, living at somewhat of a place of distance to where he still carries the honor and the respect of the people. You know, if you know exactly the way my breath smells after I eat ranch. I mean, you know, and you see my dirty socks laying in the corner and you see me when I'm sleepy and tired and aggravated. I remember the first time I was next to a great man of God. I remember it well. First time I was scared. I was, like, shaking. I was nervous. I'm not going to say the name. I mean, like diarrhea nervous. And I picked him up because he was a guest speaker for an anniversary service. And when I picked him up, he got in the car and we went in there five minutes and he said something so off colored it wasn't bad, but it devastated me because I had such. I had such an unrealistic opinion.

Unrealistic opinion.

You thought he glowed. It was me in the dark. He didn't do anything bad, but it was off colored. And I didn't want to hear him say that. Somebody else would say that. It wouldn't have bothered me a bit, but I don't want to hear him say that. And there's got to be a happy medium. And I don't know what it is. I don't know who's hitting it perfect between, hey, I have a lot of humanity here. I'm just a man, but I'm a man of God.

Makes you want to crawl in a hole, honestly, and not have anything to do with anybody. It really does because you're so on blast for any and everything you do and say.

And what you say and do can and will be used against you.

Yes. Always.

And so you live this life because.

The other people are so perfect.

You live this life of, how much do I let them see? How much of me do I do? I lift up my armor and let them see the kink in my armor. And you're scared to do that because you don't know what their response is going to be.

It's a conundrum.

And I've told people, I said, I'm the kind of guy right now it's almost like you either have respect or popularity. Popularity. You got to do a bunch of dumb things. Almost not all of them, but you got to do a lot of foolishness to me to really get clicks and click bait. And I'm a guy that I come from the generation of I want to walk in a room and be respected deeply by the people in the room. And that means more to me than how many numbers I got at the top of my Instagram. And so the fact is, I regard no man after the flesh.

That's a whole chore. That's a daily whole chore.

Yep. So I try, when I have these guys that I receive from and I hear something, I try to look at them and say, that may or may not be true, but to me, I choose to see them as a man of God. It's our responsibility as women of God. So it's not what they are, it's how I see them.

Yeah. So what would you say to Sally out there who's like, I just can't go back to church anymore. I literally am traumatized by relationships in the church.

If it's because of leadership and they disillusioned you and disappointed you, I would say two things. There's a difference between weakness and wickedness. If you surmise that you have leadership that is wicked, you do not need to go back. Wickedness is the. There is no intention of repentance, there's no fruit of repentance, and there's no intention of the change of behavior, only to continue the behavior and do whatever they have to do to cover it up at all costs. You don't need to go back to that church. A weakness and a mistake. Did they repent? Did they own their mistake? And have they taken time to go through a process of change and be healed?

What about just church people?

Exactly. Church people. One with another.

Yes. She says, I just can't go back. I Just stay hurt all the time.

Did you give that person a chance to fix it? Or did you just get hurt and leave? Okay. And that goes back to leadership, too. I'll tell you, that goes all the way. I had a woman two weeks ago on the east coast, came up to me during the offering or fellowship time, I can't remember what. And I turned around and I went. Hadn't seen her in a while, and a person very valuable to me. And she hugged me. She had tears in her eyes. She said, I am so mad at you. I didn't know. Give me a chance to fix it. Don't disappear hurt.

Matthew 18.

At least now we might come to the place we disagree, but I can fix the hurt. I might not be able to fix the disagreement. We might just be on two different pages.

And sometimes we are.

But you don't have to be hurt.

Yeah.

So I go up, hug her, and I am so mad at you. So you know what I did? I sat back. I repent to you, and I'm sorry to you. I'm not even sure what I did. I really. I'm not even sure what I did. But whatever it is, it hurt her. And so I want to pull that stone out. And now she's back and she's fine. But hopefully I could have done that.

Five years ago, but she didn't do Matthew 18.

Exactly.

You've got all with your brother. Go to your brother, okay? Don't go to somebody else.

Pastor Ron, I just can't. I just can't go back because of what they did me. Okay. Did you give them a chance to fix it? Okay, well, I left that church because when that. Okay. Did you give that pastor a chance to fix it? Because I'm going to tell you what's my motto. Everything is fixable. If you get in a room with me and sit down, I can fix this.

But there's also that type of person, Ron, who. Who stays offended.

There's nobody. That's a whole different thing.

Can do anything right, no matter what church you put them.

You are a brother offended. And you are harder than a walled city, is what the Bible says. When you. When you have a major offense, nobody can do anything wrong. No.

Because you never resolved all of these little offenses in your life. So now you're just a whole person who stays offended at everything.

You walk in the room waiting for them to screw up.

It's a root of rejection on you.

You walk in the room and you're waiting for the moment you can find the thing that you can point against them and use against them. Why? Because you. Not because they're bad, but because you're offended.

Sometimes when every church is bad, you have to come to the conclusion and look in the mirror and say, maybe a common denominator.

When you've been to 11 churches and everybody's a hypocrite.

Right? Maybe you heard the.

Maybe you might need to go and do some self reflection on some things. I hope that you've heard we've laid out about four or five principles that may help you. We don't belittle it. We've lived it.

Yes, we have.

You. You got to have skin like burlap to do what we do. I've. I've had a lot of people that I pastor, but I've lost a whole lot more than I've kept. And you know what? You move on and you don't let it poison your heart. And I sure don't let it poison my time with God. I might go to God and complain, but I don't ever let it harm my relationship with him. So you make sure this right here stays pure. And any hurt from this should drive you to this and make it stronger, man.

It's good.

Amen.

Listen, if this has helped you, share it with a friend, go on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, share it. We want to help you. We know that this is a universal topic and it's not just church hurt, it's hurt in general. We have classes that we offer called Healing the Heart where we dig in there and we figure out where did this start? Where did this hurt start in your life? And how has it grown and become something that's so big that it just clouds your view of everything? We want to help you. Go to MyRedemption, CC, Google, all of our classes. Healing the Heart, Living Waters Ministry in Hidnite, North Carolina. Just pros at digging in there and helping you to heal from your heart. Because we want you to live a life where you are experiencing God's best and you are not trapped in hurt and pain. We love you. Till next time. This is Ron and Hope Unfiltered.

Hey guys, give me just a couple of minutes. I promise you it will be worth your time. You know, one of the things I want to do is I want to leave a legacy of everything that God has shown me in the earth. And I really don't enjoy writing books. I may write some more, but I don't enjoy it. And so I want what I've said and what God showed me to last longer than me. So you start thinking legacy. And so I got something I want to show you. Roll with me here. Just a moment. This is called the Ron Carpenter Advanced Archives app. Let's call it. This is Pastor Ron Carpenter. How can I help? Yeah, Pastor Carpenter, I was. I have a. I need a healing in my body. I was wondering if you could pray for me. Hey, there. I hear you. And I want you to know that I'm standing with you in faith for your healing. Let's take a moment to pray together. Father, I thank you that you are the healer. I thank you that your word says, by your stripes we are healed. Right. This is Pastor Ron Carpenter. How can I help? Yeah, Pastor, I've been studying today in Galatians Chapter four. You got any insights? Hey, there. Galatians Chapter four is a powerful passage. It talks about the transition from being under the law to becoming heirs through Christ. You want to know more about it? We're rolling this thing out the first of the year. Everything I've ever said, everything I've ever preached, every prayer I've ever prayed, packaged to be a personal pastor right here for you. As far as we know, this is the only one like it that any pastor has in the world, and I'd love for you to have it. And I'll be letting you know more about it in the next couple of months. And the first of the year, we'll make it available. God bless you. Ron Carpenter Advanced Archives.